Long Flitting Poems

The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

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Dusk-gliding swallow, 
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers! 
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,...

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Imagine,
said Yin to distraught Yang,
never able to get quite enough of himself,
never enough time to fully become his ego-potentiality,
imagine this day opens a new rhetorical event,
a new day of conversation between you,
as Ego,
and those you...

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Increase In Head Size

impossible mission to encapsulate notion 
flitting hither and yon, to and fro
within cranium attached to mine body,
whereby irrefutable proof prevails
predicated when yours truly
scrutinizes other people visibly aware,
I a modest married male 
blessed,...

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I saw how martyrs longed for love, and so began the play of my flitting heart
A strange girl had I become, with airs of fickle dream,
My heart an embodiment of wonder to all that dared...

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I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(the reasons why you’ll never know),
whisked away in winter’s winds, your sleeping sighs remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close...

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In It,  I Saw Prometheus Chained And Bound


I was reading Salinger's, "Catcher In The Rye" 
A follow up from Leo Tolsty's,  "War and Peace"
I heard a voice say, "seek wisdom before you die"
Remember...

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yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #1
by michael r. burch

plagued by the Plague
i plague the goldfish
with my verse



yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #2
by michael r. burch

sunflowers
hang their heads
embarrassed by their coronas

I wrote this poem after having...

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Matsuo Basho New Haiku Translations

Air ballet:
twin butterflies, twice white,
meet, match & mate
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Denied transformation
into a butterfly,
autumn worsens for the worm
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Dusk-gliding...

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Gloriously luxuriating in eternal sleep

Forlorn; bereft of golden
(slippered) opportunities I weep;
Three score and four years
replete with mailer daemons,
hence mindset adrip
with self denouncing expletive filled bleep
unwritten expressed recriminations
wielded upon figurative head of wimpy blip;
decades elapsed at...

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In the May-time of my life
time bloomed each day a prickly boll –
but I, like the softest cotton within such a sharp seed  
swaddled in the purity of security 
for what seemed like eternity...

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Walking past each other and just by chance
My heart skips a beat and my knees turn weak
Your eyes lock with mine in a fleeting glance
In a ricochet of emotion I just cannot speak 

Our time...

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Inextricably rooted with hair fixation

As a lad in grade school,
yours truly, (a diminutive, intuitive,
oversensitive, and vegetative potato head kid,
whose voice exhibited
a severe nasal twang)
felt envious at other boys,
especially those young bucks
who sported budding antlers
plus thick...

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Inevitable death defines afterlife - deux

Flinty stones figuratively rolling inside
whooping out that primal 
binaural beat of your drum
ma mind haphazardly 
ricocheting axon to neuron
inducing inxs of chaos 
wreaking entropy beheld 
by beauty and the beast
enveloping...

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I often sit for long periods of time
hoping the perfect beginning will come to me.
To write a poem that starts with a pristine Capital
leaving readers with great expectations.

But after much torment, with not a fleck...

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PTSD

Like rabbit in the headlight caught
I want to move, i know I ought
But quicksand stuck, I’m petrified 
My body still, arms laid by side
Stretched out on mattress, naked, soaked
From sweat in which my body’s cloaked
My eyes...

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Those kittens bounded through the flap and started to play
Raisin said the flowers look so pretty today
She went to sniff a daisy but an insect flew out
And so she hollered, “Watch out, Rum, there’s waspies...

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I met you on the road of Longing,
As you took me hand in hand,
My heart burst with love wide open,
And so our journey began.-

My Kings, my life is yours,
I have lived to this moment for...

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Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania circa early 1970'S

(just in time for end of summer reading...
recounting emotionally disastrous campy turbulence)
intended food for thought indulgence. 

A boys' life aborted
miscarried golden opportunity
for adolescent romance to be courted.

Amidst a raft of fellow...

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       ...

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Argh...fresh out of reading material!

Hence... what better opportunity, I aver with zeal
presented to one local everyman token schlemiel
keystone state (Pennsylvania) three score lifelong
trumpeting resident in United States commonweal
experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms I feel

plenti linkedin with...

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 Continued from Part 1 

The forgery of Multitudes between the Silhouettes
(and discarded cigarettes,
neath the haunted parapets)
mock my lonely echoed steps
         – mock my lonely echoed steps...

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The 42 Inch Hallway

We’re stepping along the musty hallway now.
I am taking us on a fast-moving memory ride;
A mind-bending groovy slide to 1965,
When Dylan music was seeping loudly like a germ,
Down the green-carpeted hallway of...

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I was a vibrant, portrait painter, bringing cherished profiles to eternal life,
Like undying life of balmy springtime, recurring in shades of green so rife.

I had long been fascinated with new faces, for it is seldom,...

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Vasava – 
An untold story                              ...

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