Long Drone on Poems

My wounded heart drinks deep from the rotting gut of misery,
Humanity vomits its relics onto the oozing tiles of the real.
I see kids chewing syringes like candy canes,
Their innocence smashed, face down on the concrete...

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Malnourishment is the song from the pans whose empty hold could offer no more products to be boiled and whirled. They were quite sad having been bought then hung. Hung. Sparkly signalling stale sales. Stale...

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Sappho Translations II

That country wench bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art’s
hiking her dress
to seduce you with her ankles' nakedness!
Sappho, fragment 57, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 138, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R....

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These are my modern English translations/interpretations of ancient Greek poems by the immortal Sappho of Lesbos…

With my two small arms, how can I
think to encircle the sky?
—Sappho, fragment 35, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mother,...

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INSTEAD OF WAR
HISTORY IS A MYSTERY TO HUMANITY,
SOME KNOWN WITH AN EVIDENCE,
SOME UNKWOWN WITHOUT A TRACE,
PEOPLE EAGER TO KNOW WHY LIFE IS WHAT IT IS NOW?
IN OUR STRUGGLE TO LIVE,
WE GOT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT SENCE...

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Cajole me in the right frame of mind
For I'm vexed not because of
Personal issues but because of the
Morbid, abstract canvas of life
I'm subjected to witness, where 
Groups of so-called righteous men
Drop indiscriminate bombs
On fellow humans...

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they say (whoever the **** “they”
are) that “honesty is the best policy” &
presumably, one assumes (though
we should never assume, so sayeth
the 7th grade math teachers of the world
---because “assuming makes an ass out
of you &...

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That's enough, sadness poems - be gone!
(But we really really want to drone on...)
It's getting tiredsome, the vibe's getting dull
(I suppose it is samey, we have entered a lull)
You're serving no purpose, just driving me...

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Her:

   "I speak...
             these words that bridge the gap between our seats
         ...

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A pillowcase backpack, camping under the kitchen table. 
Lost in imagination, deaf to strife. 
In every way full of wonder of life. 

Holed up in a couch cushion bunker. 
Barefoot and bare chested. 
Taking aim...

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The year had started bravely,
	With assurances anew
	With life and hope anew
O, but the knave – he played me,
	With assurances untrue!
To contemplate it slays me -
	His promises untrue!

Yet years drone on like drumbeats,
	The monotony of years
	The...

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Some people take to Facebook
In an effort to create
A safe and pleasant habitat
Unfriending those who wish debate.
But still rile against a college chum
Who's not lost their winter weight.

We drone on about the weather
Far too often...

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These judging walls.
Ever always must I ignore their calls.
Their hushed whispers and silent screams,
Unendingly poisoning my tormented dreams.
Tossing, turning, then bolting upright...
But merely waking ends not the maddening plight.
Unceasingly the murmurs burn my ears;
Ruthlessly parading...

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Oh, those carefree days of youth
where did they go, where did they go?

He sits quietly in his recliner watching the TV drone on and on...
Handsome in his youth, now his body is gaunt and frail
his...

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Country western songs are for the lonely and the sad
They drone on and on, and some are truly pretty bad.
If you have heard one, you have pretty much heard them all.
Most are about the good...

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Nothings new, I wake up, same hour,
Greet the mirror, same reflection, no power.
Off to school, same tiredness, all days,
Routine repeats, in a monotonous maze.

Nothings new, as the sun rises high,
Same old routine, beneath the same...

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The Home

They stumble around humming silent, mad little tunes to themselves.
Needles of solace pierce their skin, as they recline, watching Lassie.
I look at the shattered pieces of my psyche I just hurled against the wall.
The...

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How did the jungle get here?
Did it come on a train
like an old time circus
          rolling in before dawn
while we splattered mind-nets
    ...

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It’s a Vivaldi winter...snow as far as the eye can see, 
blankets the hardened from sub-zero and sleet.
I hear the violins and cello’s, groaning out forlorn winter notes.

Robins on a white roof are poufy with...

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How did the jungle get here?
Did it come on a train
like an old time circus
          rolling in before dawn
while we splattered safety-nets
    ...

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Not So Precious Moments

They call
these nameless voices
introduced by
insipient rings
droning on
their piercing voices
shattering the moment.

They insist
on speaking breathlessly
running past the
comma’s
hurdling the
periods
racing toward
some distant goal.

Oblivious to
barking dogs
screaming children
whistling tea kettles
beeping smoke detectors
droningonandonandon
in mantric monotony.

Who imposes
such a penance,
demands...

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I wake up in the morning and get ready for school,
I walk into chemistry thinking what a tool,

I look over to meet his glance,
And I ask myself is this my second chance,

Into history I stride,
I...

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As a confessional portrait poet
I see myself through my own lens
Getting really into 'if I feel it, show it'
Risk appearing a right misery to poet friends

If I carefully conducted a survey
Ignoring any anomalous score
What would...

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During one year of my high school (I can’t remember which),
Everything was beautiful in one particular class.
Books were not required.
Only imagination and creativity were
Revered!
An outstanding teacher fresh out of college
Held me enraptured that one entire...

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Anti-Poem — “Nuclear Noah”

i turned the white sidewalk extending to beverly boulevard 
my street teeming with oozing life the stilled human voices
the decades dead coming out of their houses again coming
down the dim sidewalk wearing...

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