Long Explorations Poems

Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by...

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English translations of Arabic poems by Fadwa Tuqan aka "The Poet of Palestine"

Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink...

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Thoughts can be thin fractures in the order of things.
Sometimes my dorm room seems a sterile sarcophagus, like an accusation, or an interrogation about my romantic choices, with nothing warm or inviting there. Sometimes I’ve...

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Precious priceless progeny 

     Hands down the most dramatic change ever needed to make the most profound impact awoke from helping beget the first offspring. An internal paradigm shift reshuffled priorities...

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Regenerating light
reiterating bright as dual dark
fertile shadowing sighted polypathic light
when notnot night.

Healthy sight
as notnot dissonating blight.

Languaged cognition, thought, beliefs, ideas,
a LeftBrain Yang capacity
to extend internal emotional life,
evolving shared eisegetical stretch across a range
of empathic-trust to...

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I finally finished retiring four years ago,
a process that started in my mid-fifties
due to late adopting kids with special needs,
including needs for me to be home
to personally walk them on,
harness them in,
and wheel them back...

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I remember my mindbody would tense
sometimes
then relax into confusion
while non-consiliently reading Bucky Fuller's "Synergetics 2."

I also remember,
and too often reweave,
Fuller's stream of thought ecoconsciousness
as I read  Beck and Cowan on the well-timed subject 
of...

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Rebuilding bipartisan explorations,
at least two-sided appositions,
like generously inclusive
and conservatively exclusive
worldviews of MotherEarth

Sacred polytheistic strains
and peak experiences felt
through love of life 
resilient win/win relationships
weightless

Freeing secular monopolistic brains
deeply thoughtful glad
LeftBrain speaking minds
no longer stuck
in win/lose  sad
bad
mad...

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Date:   August  2045

Amadeus rose from his dreams
At 10 morning time. He prepared 
For his for his birthday. He was thinking 
Of the day ahead as he Showered.
"Yeaah, I'm sixteen today!"
Afterwards Amadeus dressed...

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(A recent virtual chat with thine youngest daughter
awakened poignant memories adjusting to 
fatherhood for first time).
     
December 22nd 1996 Bundle of Edenic Joy
Twenty one plus years ago 
   faux...

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Skinned shins on tree skins,
Space-viewed landscapes of rust and paint 
Showing mirrored continents imagined; 
Worlds within worlds at every turn, 
Outlines of Octopi on Oil slicked streets;
Every post and pole or stone a step:
Sat on,...

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Otto`s life is not
their British
sickular motto
Grue is his banner
left by his
blue-eyed Brit mom
left long by one of
those hated South
African Paki
His guilty pleasures
in Green Street have
no recognition like
many such Aussies in
mulberry bushes
Yet he shovels the
stake of...

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God bless little angels brought unto me,
Watch over them beneath heavens grace.
My first of seven blessings most precious gift,
Treasures hearts keepsakes.
Number one the oldest, my rocker baby,
Dancing away with musics sweet lullaby.
The lyrical light of...

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If I became a paranoid schizophrenic
I would begin channeling Jesus of Nazareth
but, instead, dealing with my real world dysfunctional family,
with co-messianically depressing delusions
refracting illusions of gift-it-forward co-redemptive grandeur
leading pilgrim explorations into remembering embryonic hopes
of and...

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crushed at rock bottom he gathered the fragments of descent

slow motion agony that started at a plateau of deluded deceit

free falling sadness spiraling out of control beyond fast repair


the black dog on his shoulder had...

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I see, in the colourful waves of the night sky
Love, as it slithers all over the universe,
Spreading its bolts of firework
All over, seeking solely to please the lot
Of Life as, in the very end,
Love remains...

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Once in a blue moon, in the circuit of the cryptic sky appears the transcendental fusion,
when the acquiescence of the sky emerges to display two heavenly bodies most exotic phases of union.

On those, mesmerizing venerated...

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Steps ***

Remember standing barefoot
In a stream or lake or ocean as the current of water
 ran cool and fast over the ankles?
That liquid, which made our planet
a home for life, beckoning us and so delightfully.

Think...

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“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts”. Rachel Carson 


Mother Earth! In love and awe, we salute you!
Though you are just a...

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I was a soul born in chaos
my beginnings and consciousness infinitesimal
I have been blasted by forces
outside of my own natures call
and yet I can see the raw beginning
of a mind fluid
with the elements of the...

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NOVELTIES
by Thomas Campion
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their whores for exotic positions.

This is my translation of a Latin epigram by the English poet Thomas Campion. In Campion’s...

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I am....
An Ashanti warrior A Bantu dancer 
I am a Yoruba royal clothed in my Asooke 
Dancing Adowa and kpalogo to tunes from wulomei and masekela  

I am proud Masai 
Standing around manyattas, 
Jumping...

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Space Sonnets

Sonnet 5
    Time Machine
I ever wonder of this machine
If it be invented with sheen
If done who will own Gosh
Keeping it plush and posh
Will it take to systems afar
Is its door locked...

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The first
close-up of Mars      was 1996  since then-
a flotilla of  fly-bys   orbiters     landers     and rovers

fourth planet from the...

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Is quest a sudden phenomenon,                              ...

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