Long Enmity Poems

There's consequences in all we say and do 
Go forward and walk your walk and I'll go ahead and talk my talk 
Quite distraught due to the fact that you're too good to be true
I...

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Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.

The common...

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Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There...

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Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

This poem has also been titled "Epitaph for a Child of...

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Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee ...
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus...

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First they came for the Muslims

after Martin Niemoller

First they came for the Muslims
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Muslim.

Then they came for the homosexuals
and I did not speak out
because I was...

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Cleansings
by Michael R. Burch

Walk here among the walking specters. Learn
inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave
to bone this tightly if their hearts believe
that God is good, and never mind the Urn.

A lentil and a bean might...

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Winter Awakens My Care
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything...

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This is a translation from a Poem (Title - Niskriti) by Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel-Laureate philosopher poet (1861 - 1941) from India. The story successfully depicts the status of women in a patriarchal society of nineteenth...

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Various Heresies 6

Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

The mother leopard buries her cub,
then cries three nights for his bones to rise
clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.

Good mother leopard, pensive thought
and fiercest love’s wild insurrection
yield...

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Bharathidasan’s “Pulikku nay enta muulai” (To the Tiger, the Dog knows no safe dwelling!) translated by T. Wignesan 

Bharathidasan (1891-1964) was a self-proclaimed disciple of the eminent Brahmin poet: Cuppiramania Bharathiyar (cf. two poems of...

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 ~ Trust  In  Jesus ~
 ( Linked )



 Trust in Jesus
 T
 Jesus loves you
 R
 You, me, and  all
 U
 All in  this   World 
 S
 World...

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Ali's Song
by Michael R. Burch
for Muhammad Ali

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river,...

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“He fought often and once bled in the cause of freedom, but his habits of War did not lessen in him the peaceful virtues which adorn his private life.”  Doctor Benjamin Rush, signer of...

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The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem
Old English Poem (i.e., Anglo-Saxon Poem) from the Exeter Book, ca. 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and...

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The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem - Part II
anonymous Old English Poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this...

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BUSHFIRE
                                  ...

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What is the meaning of the bold assertion, “There is no God”? 
Commentators rightly maintain that the statement 
Is not a literal denial of the existence of God what!
The “wicked hotly pursue the poor” 
And...

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Without form and void, 
The world gave a lunatic gaze. 
Lack of luminous light love bought,
Darkness did give her a chase. 
Open to no one was her, 
Water beneath and air above. 
Open to someone...

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Jinxed jesting jejune junior jobber...
just jabbering gibberish (A - J)

Again, another awkward ambitious
arduous attempt at alphabetically
arranging atrociously ambiguously
absolutely asinine avoidable alliteration.

Because...? Basically bonafide belching,
bobbing, bumbling, bohemian beastie boy,
bereft bummer, bleeds blasé blues, begetting
bloviated boilerplate bildungsroman,
boasting...

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No matter what you've done
 in the past
I was in Idolatry, greed, covetousness, love of money, 
I was Complaining, not loving God full of gluttony, 
High-mindedness, disobedience, lover of self, 
GOD LOVES ME

I put family,...

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????1 Corinthians 1:22-24 KJV??
[22] For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: [23] but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; [24] but unto...

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A tale told by trees, rooted
in the things that yearn
far from sight and light of day
deep within the earth…
Wisdom, cautious, heeds -
woe befalls one who disturbs
a tale told by trees.

Long ere innocence was lost,
drinking deep...

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Unquotable quotes: The How of Democratic Kill – XXXIX, Part One

Born in 1868, Alexei Maximovich PESHKOV, better known as MAXIM GORKY and hailed as the chief proponent of Soviet literature, the veritable champion of the...

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Rounds
by Michael R. Burch

Solitude surrounds me
though nearby laughter sounds;
around me mingle men who think
to drink their demons down,
in rounds.

Now agony still hounds me
though elsewhere mirth abounds;
hidebound I stand and try to think,
not sink still further...

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