Long Ezra Poems

Come Down
by Michael R. Burch

for Harold Bloom

Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour ...

and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be...

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Yosa Buson haiku translations

On the temple’s great bronze gong
a butterfly
snoozes.
?Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hard to describe:
this light sensation of being pinched
by a butterfly!
?Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not to worry...

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Doggerel II: Doggerel about Doggerel, or, More Nonsense Verse

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood:
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Walter Mitties, woo the...

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Reveren’ Carlton Whitney was the pastor of our church, and someone I looked up to as a child. 
Six foot six, with piercing eyes, a booming voice, and yet…his disposition, thankfully - was mild.

The very...

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Poetic Encryption Like Ancient Egyptian

This terror and threat to poetic clarity,
Becomes a pet rock for some poets.

Words do count for sure, but so does
Clarity unless poets put a mask on.

Encryption can be used to mask...

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This is an unfinished Heroic Crown of Sonnets dedicated to a friend's grandchild who was born with serious lower body issues 3 years ago...but he is so perfect and beautiful in every other way that...

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"Laureate"



Laureate 
speak now lofty phantom
to my mind

guide my hand 
I write I write I write

receptor of communication
things that are not mortal
Luminiferous aether 

sublime 
not normal writ
medium calculating in the script

In that other time
there you hold...

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Translation of Eric Mottram’s TWENTYEIGHTH LEGAL (Part One) by T. Wignesan
 
N.B. If any one is interested in reading the continuation of the extracts of letters that Eric Mottram wrote from America during 1965-66 to...

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It's sometimes interesting what you learn about someone you thought you knew quite well when you visit with their family members, or their other, much better friends, particularly at that person's funeral! 



Remember Ezra Whitney…from...

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1.    John Desmond Patrick Keegan
2.    Alfred, Lord Tennyson 
3.    Sally Aline Mae Beller
4.    Charles Edward A. Berry
5.    Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce...

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Those wonderful stories of God
My grand ma used to set me at the kitchen table
And tell me bible stories
Some bout Cane and Able
One present gifts and praises to God
The other was jealous killed his brother...

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I got a story 'bout a boy from the hood
Stayed out of trouble tried as hard as he could
Initiated when he was 12 years old  
They gave him a bandana and he did what...

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Poems for Poets VI



Caveat
by Michael R. Burch

If only we were not so eloquent,
we might sing, and only sing, not to impress,
but only to enjoy, to be enjoyed.

We might inundate the earth with thankfulness
for light, although...

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POEMS FOR POETS IV

PROFESSOR POETS

These are poems about professor poets and other wanna-be “intellectuals” who miss the main point of real poetry, which is to connect with readers via pleasing sounds and the communication of...

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POEMS ABOUT POETS VIII

PROFESSOR POETS

These are poems about professor poets and other wanna-be “intellectuals” who miss the main point of real poetry, which is to connect with readers via pleasing sounds and the communication of...

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Grow old along with me:
The best is yet to be!

1
See! Ben Ezra stares Rubaiyat in the eye,
	In a debate so hot and ever fresh;
Their porters seem in the semels to lie!
	Are they also gone or...

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Happily Never After (the Second Curse of the Horny Toad)
by Michael R. Burch

He did not think of love of Her at all
frog-plangent nights, as moons engoldened roads
through crumbling stonewalled provinces, where toads
(nee princes) ruled in...

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Happily Never After: the Second Curse of the Horny Toad
by Michael R. Burch
 
He did not think of love of Her at all
frog-plangent nights, as moons engoldened roads
through crumbling stonewalled provinces, where toads
(nee princes) ruled...

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Pinkerton's mortician is the richest man in town...despite the fact, the story goes, despite the day he'd came
Ridin' in from Badger Holler - dressed in filthy rags - lookin' for a meal without a penny...

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UPROOTED


“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.”--------------------Rumi
listen not to the vagrant zephyr
seeking only sustenance of its kind
idol thinkers lolling in innocence
swayed by every whispering sigh
unaware – that secrets lie.

“We put the urn aboard...

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the roots – i.e. genealogy of words long held me 
   (no pun intended) held spell bound
e'en upon fertilization of ova and sperm viz – conception, 
   an acute sensory means...

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April 29 Relationship to God Bible Meditations Based on Ezra 1-4

Key Verse – Ezra 1: Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of...

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Louise Imogen Guiney – Poetess and Writer

Louise Imogen Guiney sought a certain poetry of 
perfection that rang true with a real radiance in her
poetry, that also bespoke a passion and feeling for
its lyrical nature as...

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Confusion, disillusion, intrusion, conclusion,
Such is life’s ever-changing, smiling face
Ferocity, atrocity, generosity, velocity,
A whirlwind of emotions, a fate you can't erase.

Alienation, fascination, cancellation, race-relation,
Seeking understanding, longing for a deeper connection.
Enduring, procuring, assuring, alluring,
In this journey of...

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I do not like your perfect rhyme,
I find it boring all the time.
It wasn't good in Shakespeare's hands,
No rhyming poet understands,
No Keats or Shelly, Byron, Pope,
Could find the poetry to cope
With wonders of the universe,
For...

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