Long Epitaphs Poems

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.



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally...

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Athenian Epitaphs

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls
in their...

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Athenian Epitaphs II

These are ancient Greek epitaphs for lost family and friends, including dogs and other animals ...

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night: 
his owner's faithful Maltese... 
but will...

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Raid versus woe

Black flag(s) show up
on social media platforms
when potential homicidal maniac(s)
communicate(s) intent to strike
with ambush and ready
read - able, eager, and willing
to embark upon murderous rampage.

Prospective killer armed to the teeth
usually a young bucking...

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The Story of History  

Beyond those beaten days’ depleted daylight
Beyond the bathos of a pandemic bondage
With  the resurrected  sashay’s charmed night
Down in the dumps   at the pretentious  proscenium
A ...

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I killed my friend,
I never wanted,
Do not see me cruel,
I did it for love.
We both ran naked
Under this influential shower.
No one uncoupled his lips
Against this faint madness,
We were indebted,
Either had to earn the prize.


It was...

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Femme Fatale By A Wishing Well 
  (In The Wastelands Of War)

Warm as breath on placid skin,
Soft as gentle summer rains,
Loud as natures angry clouds
That gather in ambushed lanes,
To confer with the wounded boys
Whose...

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her life had been a rollercoaster of moody upheaval

          manic fervor from sheer in-exhaustible passion

           ...

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The long and short of it is . . . forever

                        ...

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A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime,

to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.

He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,

his bane is firm, the canker...

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Epigrams/Epitaphs

Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.

***

Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch 

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.
Because death...

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This poem is a special devotion for my mother, who has always been a healing sun for these wintry eyes. Mumma, you're my hope, my strength, my magic and my heartbeat. I'll always find my...

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Ancient Greek and Roman Epigrams

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

Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath...

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In Simple words
The devil has no horns
She wears smaug balm, Oh, Lord of the Rings 
She sleeps in El Dorado Street, the Hotels of Svengali
She lives on Babbit lane, and reads Currer Bell
She loves Billy...

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PLATO EPIGRAM TRANSLATIONS

These epitaphs and other epigrams have been ascribed to Plato...

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato

We left...

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Wrapped into a cocoon of impenetrable meaning and faith he followed the light

Doom and gloom had once shadowed his library of dreams and contentment

Scattered in his loony resemblance of a rational mind words rearranged reason

Analyses...

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Gun owners indiscriminately brandish
loaded firearms toward innocent victims,
and concomitantly excite
purported in accordance
with first amendment, relish
yet proliferation allowing
free ranging banshee dervish
sans weapons of mass destruction
(mainly innocent lives)
inures citizens to appear off fish
U.S., and self-important
becoming comfortably numb
at...

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Ancient Greek and Roman Epigrams

Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms;
hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches;
then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain;
for this is welcome shade from the burning...

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Beneath the dome of an unforgiving sky, a spring with a leaden heart warms up,
Around it, whole worlds gather, with stiffened breaths and glassy stares,
Herds move, languidly inside a landscape torn from an apocalypse painting,
And...

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That afternoon at Highgate
When my life had paused awhile, 
Old graves and headstones greeted 
With their sad and forlorn smile.

Smirched epitaphs stared at me
My call they wanted to know, 
Though vowed in pensive silence
With the...

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Beneath the fathom’s deep, in wreckage’s graveyard
Of the forgotten, here the broken bones of ships lie still,
Covered in a forest of seaweeds greenery.
Corrosion steel hauls ripped wide open, lay against ancient
Wooden beams from vessels voyages,...

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Ancient Greek and Roman Epigrams I

Wall, we're astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
Ancient Roman graffiti, translation by Michael R. Burch

You begrudge men your virginity?
Why? To what purpose?
You will find no...

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Dark and the Light- or- The Goose and the Bride


Act  1
Sunlit promenade juts majestically into the musical pond, spying a Hen Goose appearing to 
be sitting on her nest at the end of the...

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exclamation, which does nothing to stem dead locked high tide   
     proliferation of high-powered assault bazookas 
     manned by berserk cruel death eaters, 
 ...

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  As heartrose epitaphs
swathe earthly echoes
   with swelled up  w a v e s
  of spiritual sirens,
sea-fairies collide
  with honeysuckle footprints,
traced by mint-green manta rays
  along aquatic vessel...

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