Long Floods Poems

Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



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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Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and...

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I Know The Truth
by Marina Tsvetaeva
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I know the truth?abandon lesser truths!
There's no need for anyone living to struggle!
See? Evening falls, night quickly descends!
So why the useless disputes?generals, poets, lovers?

The wind...

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Dear Donald John
and GoodFaith Followers,
CoInvestors,
ProActive Prayers for Rapturous Redemption
from Eternal Hellish
paranoid
Left EgoVoices anger and fear
Right SpiritFeelings ecodarkly terrified
from and of dying death.

Your LeftBrain does not lack
for paranoid Win/Lose conviction
We must live in a dog eat...

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Let's start with a fundamental flaw of fundamentalist Christianity,
a literary flaw within literal non-interpretation of historical creation
and sacred development.

This is true of radical jihadist Muslims as well,
although we both know you think you're more special...

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Charles d'Orleans: a Medieval Marvel


Spring
by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab...

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Medieval Poems

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern...

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Spring
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can...

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Turkish Poetry Translations II

Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war??
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a...

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Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux

These are poetic forms similar to villanelles, with refrains (repeated lines) and sometimes double refrains.



Rondel: Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot...

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Oasis
by Michael R. Burch 
 
for Beth
 
I want tears to form again
in the shriveled glands of these eyes
dried all these long years
by too much heated knowing.
 
I want tears to course down
these parched cheeks,...

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Oft in My Thought
by Charles D'Orleans
translation by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
To give my lady dear;
But that sweet...

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~ Come  To  The  Lord ~ 
( Christina's  Trinity ) 


~O~


Come to the Lord, He's Mighty, Good
Find Him always in all mood
With Him you'll be strong
With Him you'll belong
Today, all life...

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I shall resolve to leave this
Place now...
And steadfastly search out,
Nestling between ridge and bluff
Amidst the folds of a foreign 
Land,
Several acres of unkempt ground
Fallow and rough;
Upon which stands...
Crumbled stone walls
With an exposed slate roof in
Some...

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Unquotable quotes: Tale-Carriers, Gossip-Mongers, Courrier-Pigeon Caretakers, Smoke-Signal Puffers and Tom-Tom Thumpers – XXVI

Could there be such things as political shenanigans or inter-continental warfares, even catastrophes, natural disasters, tsunamis, irruptions, conflagrations, inundations, landslides, typhoons, tornadoes, hurricanes,...

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LOVE POEMS II

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, sex, dating and marriage. On an amusing note, my steamy Baudelaire translations have become popular with the...

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I take a four-fold spin
through Bill Plotkin's wheel
of bilateral identities,
iconic developmental faces,
ironic personalities.


FIRST comes Eastern-born
dawn of human infancy,
Innocent Sage infants
so WiseElder
in our LeftBrain emergent
wrinkling unfolding 
sacred RightBrain ways.

Searching for care giving eyes
to be sure we...

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'Continental Drift' - The Metaphor

In the seventies (1), few people dreamed ‘it’ was true,
guessed by scientists first when rough coastlines compared (2)
matched like parts of a puzzle (a jigsaw), found place
that joined ‘drop-offs’ waves hid...

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America First
speaks a RightWing monocultural intention
currently championed by Trumpians
and Republican Aristocracy of Evangelism 
Tea Partiers,
by xenophobic paranoids
and sociopathic pharisee fascists,
by economically blind
deaf
and angry 
bigoted
terrified shouters;
just the opposite of dumb,
yet not cooperatively mindful either
of our global...

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Those who get,
get more.
Those who want,
want more.

Evolution is not survival of the fittest species,
but thrival of the greatest fit with least endosymbiotic change required
within,
whether we speak of polycultural enrichment
or meta-paradigmatic revolutions in understanding multicultural enrichment.

Evolution...

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Oh Hanna. 

The sinking of the USS Stefan wood. 

Oh Hanna 
I want to take you to Montana. 
We can camp out by the springs we will go and see the way oil is founding...

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Tasting Africa (One L****ick at a Time) Part 1
(Though the title's a joke, my limericks are not!)

1. Life's Always an Adventure (Morogoro)
Can one's life be that safe when all live in a zoo -
Friend on...

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"The discrepancies are many, the dalliances are few,
both pitched against one dynamic, lifelong achievement"

Poking through the woods of the Mill Grove Audubon Estate,
suddenly came upon an ivy-covered studio shed
tucked away amongst foliage near Perkiomen Creek,
apparently...

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Greetings to each of you my dearly beloved brothers and sisters. Please read these seventeen blessings rendered for you in God's grace:

I. May God’s love for the new year grant you joy and inspiration overcoming...

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