Long Gifts Poems

The night Before Christmas Eve
By Franklin Price
12/17/2016


Prologue

The Night Before Christmas
A most famous of  poems
Read  to children aloud
By their parents in homes

To children who gather
'Round the brightly lit tree
To hear Santa is coming
Presents for...

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On an early morning just before school
My tummy is churning my head hurts too
My feet are cold my forehead is hot
I have a runny nose and a tongue with blue dots

“Mom come quick!” I helplessly...

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The First Valentine Poem

Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465) has been credited with writing the first Valentine poem for his wife in 1415. Charles wrote the first Valentine poem in the first year of his captivity while being...

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Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There...

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You Never Listened
by Michael R. Burch
 
You never listened,
though each night the rain
wove its patterns again
and trembled and glistened...
 
You were not watching,
though each night the stars
shone, brightening the tears
in her eyes palely fetching...
 
You...

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~  How Can I Not Love You? ~ 
( Free Verse ) 
 


~O~



Even before 
I met you the way I do now 
I always 
knew about You, perhaps not 
in the sense and...

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Various Heresies 4

I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch

I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse?a thing cold, dead, apart.

But then I thought I heard?a Voice,
a Voice that called me from...

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The Moon as a Metaphor for Your Mouth
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a...

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Tell me,
Father Time,
if you would share this space
it would mean everything to me
to us, so kind,
which forms of integrative diversity
incarnate your highest priority,
most comprehensive,
social-political-economic-cultural issues:

1. Domestic economy flat-line trends,

2. International peace intent and praxis,

3. Universally...

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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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Let me speak clearly with you
dear religious and atheist Trumpians,

A fool in executive office
is a leader
only in foolish directions.

A rich thief
is the worst thief
as survival motives
are absent,
so self-thrival motives
remain piratically rampant.

An intellectual prostitute
to feel-good AmericaFirst...

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Millie's Christmas Wish
Winter Vacation was coming
The kids were all set
They were thinking of Christmas
And the gifts they would get

But, Millie sat waiting
Thinking of nothing but snow
Watching the class clock
That was moving so slow


They did arts...

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Stepped inside Bucky's Universal Credit Union today
to ask what could I invest in
with least risk
and greatest potential for self-optimizing return?

He invited me to sit down
to consider cooperative transactions
as our intentional understory
camouflaged within our ecotherapeutic relationships,
like...

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Medieval Poem V

A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, and dies alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds,...

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

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain...

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Once upon a weedy lawn
At Cedar Oaks Retirement Home
There sat my mother, weak and old
On an afghan knit to block the cold.

It was summer, but in mom's grey eyes
Was winter, when all around us dies.
I...

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Conditions were harsh out in Kansas,
For the children and Sarah and Paul.
Neighbors and friends packed up and were gone;
Headed west they could hear fortune's call.
Never sure year to year of the harvest,
So their talents were...

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Veronica Franco translations

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose.

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I) 
by Veronica Franco
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of...

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Damian was on the tele-video 
conference with various Prestigious 
Proper people of distinction. The US
Vice president was on Skype along
With Secretary of State. He spoke 
With Russia's top diplomat, Valeiry
Sergei Shonikov, South African president 
Holu...

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History’s Greatest Miracle Play

Let me tell you a story - Prologue

Actors gather to play their parts
To set the stage – backdrops and props –
In history’s greatest miracle play
Called to speak their lines
On redemption’s stage
In a...

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Winter Awakens My Care
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything...

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~ May  God  ~
 ( Anaphora  )



~O~


May God always care for you in everything 
May God keep you standing strong and tall 
May God whisper in your ears words of wisdom 
May...

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Evening came and the Harvest Moon was about to rise,
little did Johnny know this night would bring him a surprise…

Johnny lived in a mushroom village with many folks just like him. He carried an over...

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WHO AM I 

                          I am a woman of abundance,
...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VIII

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school and college student. 

Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that...

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