Long Gape Poems

Sonnets XVII-XXIV

Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten...

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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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Already I reached the place where heard the sound
Of falling water in the circle next
Suchlike the rumble done by hives around,

When three spirits together changed their treks,
Running, out of  an horde just passing there
Under...

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In sandy Egypt lived three men
In ancient days when pharaohs reigned
The kingdom of the pyramids,
Osiris and that Isis’ den,
Whom everyone worships and heeds,
Or at least doing so they feigned,
And those gods too blessed them and...

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Come post presidential election 2024... 

heil to the Wharton chief firebrand -
more worrisome than an ovarian cyst
every race, religion, nationality, 
gender, creed, et cetera with impunity dissed
brigand able, eager, ready and willing
to punch contenders throwing...

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An Excelente Balade of Charitie (“An Excellent Ballad of Charity”)
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17
modernization/translation by Michael R. Burch

As wroten bie the goode Prieste
Thomas Rowley 1464

In Virgynë the swelt'ring sun grew keen,
Then hot upon the meadows...

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Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.



Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation...

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“I am sorry I slept for so long, Lumi.  I should have relieved you a couple of hours ago,” Joulupukki apologized as his head appeared through the door.  “Can I get anything for...

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I'm writing on the first page.
I love the concord and quiet at my age.
The morning came from a genius mage.
In my spirit, I am searching for the truth stage.
To understand things to resist this upsurge.
It...

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Strong suspicion a 2024 presidential win...

for the trumpeting don
spells loss for democracy
after inauguration day
witnesses his swearing-in
nepotism will run rampant
lawlessness the name of the game
of thrones breaking apart ramparts
of inalienable rightful
freedoms rent sunder, whereby nothin
can stop...

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Are you sitting comfortably, children?
Because it's a long tale.....
Then I shall begin.

Arthur was a Mason, which in case you hadn't known
is a man who sands and chisels, making shapes from out of stone.
From animals to...

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I feel your anxious pivot to create
We flow the same irresolute way,
Often in raging storms
And sometimes in playful gallops
We see ahead 
That path onto the light of laughs
I am in awe of your effort to...

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As scented air aroused my misty mind,
her shadow broke the early morning sun.
Aromas wafting from the morning grind
seduced a thought that she may be the one.
I sensed her very essence from afar,
unnerved, I sought the...

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What a game ...
he was just a jester,
and this a ghastly prospect ...

The ground lay torn open before him,
a wound in the earth that called to his dark heart,
pulled on his better judgement like lead...

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[Capitalized words are titles of some delightful poems by Sam
Kauffman, each followed by a line from that poem]


How Can This Be - a thousand pieces of brokenness, fit perfectly again
Agapanthus - the season's sweet love...

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I was walking on a green field when a cyclone came and picked me up,
He wrapped me in dark whirlwind, so I screamed that no one could ever stop;
When he was annoyed, he dropped me...

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THE RUIN 
an Old English poem about fate & destiny
modern English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

well-hewn was this wall-stone, till Wyrdes wrecked it
and the Colossus sagged inward...

broad battlements broken;
the Builders' work battered;

the high ramparts toppled;
tall...

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Shadowed silence vibrates melancholy
As the darkening clouds spiral overhead 
Open spaces, breathing air of mystery
bloody ink of terror break in...doused in dread 
Shattering the portrait to pieces instantly
A turn to the left & to the...

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Malodorous tavern’s garret, the codger it accommodates, No more,
Fuzzled in brew, his fuzzy lady, her life she lives to abhor.

Randy colleen gape at her with aghast,
Talk around that she has “the dead hands of the...

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The force of my thoughts is a force to report,
Attention, no Deficit, Hyperactive, no Disorder, call it slaughter
when Hyperfocus onslaughts play hocus pocus with my thoughts,
a tornado, a hurricane a monsoon loom and taunt
a brainstorm...

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Listen and you can hear the wind whisper 
the name of a lost ship and its skipper.
The wind’s name is Favonius, winged god
His sotto voce is but a whimper.

Gentle breeze doth tell of China Clipper...

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I can remember passing through
this town as a child,
stopping for a pie
on our way north.
Now it’s bypassed – barely more
than a clot lodged 
in the spidery veins of a map.
Most of the houses are empty,
the...

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And thus began their heroic journey through the fantastical labyrinth of the escape room, where every twist and turn carried the promise of freedom, laughter, and the unforeseen—the perfect remedy for chaos and an unexpected...

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Oh the images we freeze in time

the sweet, sweet scents that bring recall

the sharp and painful longing that belongings bring

for those lost or lingering on sheets of lavender

on shelves of shaving mugs - Old Spice

soap...

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Castaway :-
Long day…longer it gets…
with no hand at a distance,
grey skies, with glimpses of clouds
that traverse together, like a bound existence.

far off, in the sultry fields
a raw sight, of a damsel,
a women…or a helpless maiden
hardly...

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