Long Falcon Poems

Various Heresies 3

Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now...

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At Tintagel
by Michael R. Burch

That night, 
at Tintagel, 
there was darkness such as man had never seen...
darkness and treachery, 
and the unholy thundering of the sea...

In his arms, 
who is to say how much she...

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Like Hannibal we crossed the pass and crossed 
   the Alps (okay, the Brynderwyn Hills) 
and a bridge too far on north-west passage.
   From out of the Valley of Mizpah 
to...

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“Here the fierce with the thin pointed tail,
Who passes mountains and breaks arms and walls!
Here who with stench can the world assail!”

So my duke started to talk with his calls;
And hinted then it to get...

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I’m A “Street Fighter” 
You see the “Wings” CHUN 
LI
“BRUCE WAYNE”
 “LEROY”
“LU”
KAME
“THE LAST DRAGON BREATHS”
You don’t want “NUN”-CHUCK
NORE IS ANY ENTITY
Check my IP MAN
my Impulse 
 “Ki”
I’m the “1ONE” Fearless 
Jackie’s First Strike “Unleashed”
In a...

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Prelude to what…..

I see you,  /  you / yes, come into my…… 
laboratory of alchemist mystical languaging.
where arsenic spills into the whirlpool of thought 
and savage syntax shatter like glass on concrete.

Where Titans...

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My baby don't cry
My baby don’t cry
Baby, I feel you weeping in grief at home
Told you I can be outside and freely roam 

My baby don’t cry
My baby don’t cry
Even if life goes awry
Don’t you...

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“The Seance” 

It was macabre you see,
we were all summoned,
and therefore found ourselves
in the front parlour of Ballylee;

In our dreams
we thought we were poets
of fabulous notoreity, 
the head ghoul set us straight on that.

The planchette...

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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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(continued previous part 1)

The duke then: “Tell now: of others indeed
Some Latin among sinners do you know 
Behind pitch?”. And he “I  had to secede,

It’s not much, from one who near had to stow.
I...

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"a long walk to reach my destination. 
                           ...

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Lockheed, is a fictional Marvel Comic character.  An alien dragon.  He is the
size of a large cat with purple skin, yellow eyes, sharp claws and teeth, curved
horns on his head and wings so...

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I was charged one morning with the task to consider,
That certain notions of who I was,
Had merely become a pretext for avoiding
Becoming someone else. 

In the world I faced a new coordinate system was needed.

I...

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My thoughts drift...back 
...to days-long ago...
like faded photographs...
the sun is
bright... 
the day is brilliant and crisp...

I stand among the forest of lost moments
like, dear, that run and play...forgotten...memories
...the hunting grounds of my
youth...

Images of love vanished
...victories...

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I walked a long path today. Off in the woods nearby.

My dogs walked with me, and took side trails on the
sly.
 
A little trail becomes a deer trail, though the
eucalyptus and pine

The oxalis grows wild...

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"betwixt the pulse of our heartbeat
simply present, head-heart linking
dwelling in time stretched blissful peace
awareness became unblinking" ~Unseeking Seeker

I feel the surging bloom of bewitching butterflies,
fluttering in sync to cosmic sage and
saffron sparks~
sailing amidst waves of...

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The art of love is largely the art of persistence.
The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart.
A single rose can be my garden.a single friend, my world.
Beauty without virtue...

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The Corpus Christi Carol
anonymous Middle English poem
translation by Michael R. Burch

He bore him up, he bore him down,
He bore him into an orchard brown.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

In that orchard...

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These are English translations/modernizations of Medieval poems written in Old English and Middle English.

Exeter Book Gnomic Verses or Maxims
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dragon dwells under the dolmen,
wizened-wise, hoarding his treasure;
the fishes bring forth...

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These are the best sports poems by Michael R. Burch, Part II

The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

All the dull hollow clamor has died
and what was contained,
removed,
reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness
as remembered as the sudden...

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Siddhartha (The Buddha) 
by Hermann Hesse
translation by Michael R. Burch

In the house-shade,
by the sunlit riverbank beyond the bobbing boats,
in the Salwood forest’s deep shade,
beneath the shade of the fig tree,
that’s where Siddhartha grew up.

Siddhartha, the...

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Note: the "dd" in Welsh names is pronounced "th."

Merlyn's Birth
by Michael R. Burch

I was born in Gwynedd,
or not born, as some men claim,
and the Zephyr of Caer Myrrdin
gave me my name.

My father was Madog Morfeyn
but...

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Hermann Hesse English Translations

Secretly We Thirst…
by Hermann Hesse
from The Glass Bead Game
translation by Michael R. Burch

Charismatic, spiritual, with the gracefulness of arabesques,
our lives resemble fairies’ pirouettes,
spinning gently through the nothingness
to which we sacrifice our beings...

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O to be the humble horizon
that slumbers in restlessness,
I grieve not for the magnolias
that withered amidst
cruel claws of chaotic cravings.
I weep for the serene 
   wildflower whispers
that once upon a blood moon
were lost...

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These are English translations of Medieval poems written in Old English.



The Battle of Maldon
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 991 AD or later
translation by Michael R. Burch
 
…would be broken.

Then he bade each warrior unbridle his...

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