Long Fugue Poems

Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch
											
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred...

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Deep In Newly Disturbed Soil, Lies My True Love

(  “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them” – George Eliot.)

Deep in newly disturbed soil, lies my true love
'neath a canopy...

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Lost
for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable...

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If I can say it,
but not sing it,
or even hum a resonant melody
that feels like it,
then perhaps my greater gift
is silence,
at least for now,
until toxic seeds
ripen into our healthiest
resilient,
harmonious,
fertile wealth.

So, sing to me,
divinely doctrined Missionaries
and...

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Long ago, before she was ever hunted by the beast,
She had only drank from the cool river of freedom.
One fateful day it happened; she was caught
unaware. Her body, suddenly foreign, to move was a struggle.
The...

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Todesfugue ("Death Fugue")
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come dusk;
we drink you come midday, come morning, come night;
we drink you and drink you.
We’re digging a grave like...

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NOT incarnated in an unlight inside this Great Hookworm's duotoroidal traumedy-

NOR feverously skeined 'tween the Void's warp-weft over timeleft psukhai shivering-

NIL latency in thoughtfoam friths or thrice-past-madness witnesses to Tantalus' entelechy.


IT wasn't borne on echoes...

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Musicianship 
(3 May 2014;  For my son Steven, an ACCOMPLISHED guitarist)

Real musicianship can truly drive you nuts—
There really are no “ifs”, “ands”, or “buts”.
Practice, study, memorize, then more practice--
Is this just an obsession or...

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My genealogical family tree
was traced by a relative distant,
thus uncovering ancestral names for me,
of some who had seemed nonexistent.

The past came alive in my fantasy world
with visions of settings dramatic,
as I felt myself in scenario...

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I emerged / born with a silver pen in hand
…and a tempest raging within.
Words writhe, a serpent's coil
…tightening their grip
A soul adrift in a sea of 
…self-made iniquity.

I buried my daddy 
…in the black shoe
…by...

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Deep at heart Tim is a dreamer and longs for 'that' dream

And still and in certain arrest he is a child of gone times

His parents Hans and Ida had told him in misleading terms	

 ...

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HEAVEN'S NATURE WITNESS OUR DREAM

Outstretched maternal skies
bleeding slowly as the sun smiles,
running golden rays 
fugue flux flowed by,
frozen bear-shaped clouds
extend their arms to hug the beams.
Charmingly, the light meets
the earth with a tender embrace...

Escaped warmth...

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"Caim"



Caim 
in time
labyrinthine
tale swallowed
serpentine 

Caim 
in time
heart kept 
secure in the 
central fortress mine

Serpentine
swallowed
labyrinthine tales
cooed her love Basilisk
night terrors and turtledoves

Turtledoves
followed trails 
of diamonds dripping
through hazy windows emerald
reflecting you

precious pearls 
slipping wisdom o’er
rusty halos for...

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The meandering Universe or tightly packed with no edges at all
The Universe huge and pulsing enough to give seed to the life forms is packed rock into a ball
The Universe did it know all along...

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Imagine DNA as architectural color design,
regenerative blueprint,
but written in fugue fractal songs,
no two exactly identical 
except for twins.

Each species shows some shared architectural greyscale function
like staffs holding up a linear musical score
for counting eighth and...

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Time has passed by since I wrote
No awards received, not even a vote
Book shelves are filled with all the best sellers
Libraries kept mine down in their cellars. 

I tossed out the old glass oil lamp
It...

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// This is my tribute to the many blessings that music brings to our
lives. I know many of you share this enthusiasm and gratitude. //

Appreciating an amazing artform: allegro, andante, or adagio -
Bach, Beethoven, Brahms:...

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Some have passion and
Dreams in their hearts
That weave in and out
Beyond the edges
Of small places
Their dreams may be only words to some
But to them they mean everything.

And others, 
Just as young,
Run off 
With no plans
No...

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The guitar pick necklace rested in the hollow of her mottled throat like a chandelier in an old house. A pair of fish net clad legs counted the seconds like a cellulite pocked metronome.
Taking a...

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Written: October 16, 2023
Changed past Poetry Contest               Sponsored by: Fire Bird
          ...

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It’s so difficult, too ungraspable,
poetry can only mimic with deaf words.

The beginning:
our turning earth gently rises 
    from the rim of the unseen.
Notes and tones spellbind 
with intimations and murmurs.

Then a brow-beating...

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CITADEL AND CONSTELLATIONS


The green leaves in rugged moans;
The tall bushes in rumbling groans;
The roofs train creaks-- their fugue
blow cobwebs hugging branches below,
such  are precursors inviting darkness lair

for  stormy   clouds  ...

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He saw several loving what they heard and it bothered him.
They were dancing and having a grand ole
thyme. People clapping, dancing, getting along and singing along with the music.
It bothered him , I mean it...

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Slow drawn, steeping tea bags, in an etched glass pitcher,
Lazily infuse its Oriental musk into the sun warmed brew.
 My ice crackles along with the thunder over the great Mississippi
As the ewers’ spout releases the...

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The Art
         The art of music reveals the soul's effigy
         The overture that eternally imparts its recital
  ...

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