Long Gongs Poems

THE CHIMNEY
The once fine air, refreshens with dust
Between the village horizon and crest
Since the sailing of a death chemical chimney.

Young green plants seedlings growing on slope
Are left to sip these  carcinogenic dusts, sapling
And entwined...

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Unquotable quotes: Addictions: Smokes, Drugs, Sex, Films and Sleep – XL

Where the hand leads, the eyes close.
When the eyes shut, imagination is on fire.
What you don’t really see is what you feel.
When you feel at...

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THE  WHALE:
Confused and blind
Numb in rhyme  
Your light sublime
Running I fell
Into an ocean wide
Reaching my hands grasp 
out of time
Spinning in circles 
In the ocean see it spinning
Grabbing for the moon
Grasping at the...

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These are villanelles by Michael R. Burch and and villanelle-like poems...


Villanelle: Trump’s Retribution Resolution
by Michael R. Burch

My New Year’s resolution?
I require your money and votes,
for *you* are *my* retribution.

May I offer you dark-skinned scapegoats
and bigger...

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The rain---sounds like catapults fired on our roof 
drops like palm kernels---splash on the back cover
 of our black pots, Stamping the roof like horse 
galloping on a...

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I lie, 
on my large comfort bed.. 
counting seconds,
syncing my heartbeat,
with the tick of the great white clock,
above my head. 
What I'm thinking, 
even I do not know..
Clouds have formed on my thoughts...
Fogs have scathed...

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Each time my Auntie Rosa went to shop in the High Street,
She’d bring us back a pink-iced bun; it was our special treat.
We’d take them up to Grandad’s (we preferred to eat them there)
We’d scoff...

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Oh MSU-IIT, a campus so grand
A university that's known throughout the land
A place of learning, where knowledge abounds
A community of scholars, that truly astounds

From the towering buildings, that reach for the sky
To the green fields,...

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Dear Home:

Please forgive my departure, silent and without warning, like the simmering 
warmth of mountain springs that bubble, unexpected, in the pale tropic light of 
morning. I am now straddling the equator, my toes naked...

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[A poem written in a dying language]

Sa tuktok ng Bontok

Ang tuktok ng Bontok, himpapawid ng mga pangarap, Kalikasan'y humahalimuyak, biyaya sa bawat hakbang,
Mga kabundukan, kay lawak ng inyong kagandahan, Taglay ninyo ang sigla't tapang ng...

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I.
Religion and his spiteful visions,
Race and her unholy irrations,
Madness the first lady of Death the Destroyer,
Sadness the Arch-enemy of Peace and Bliss,
Oh! His breathe just ceased,
To whom,To what shall we plead,
On what mountains shall Volcanoes...

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With a surreptitious quiver on a dark and gloomy night
There lies a place of shadows hidden far away from sight
The hissing of the steamy pipes, the rattle of the iron
Send shivers down your waken spine...

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HAVE YOU HEAR FROM MY FATHER?
Have you hear from my father, okadigbo?
He was among those captured in the oil well
Around the black river of delta in the south.
Days ago they had gone with their hungry...

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I bow down before the break of day...
 
Where the feeling of melancholy apprehension
fades by the emblazoning and dilating skies
Yet the stillness behold a sensation
even amid the hues and cries.
 
I concieve of a deity...

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He did his hash slinger training
Then with a couple of his mates
Set up this high class restaurant 
Where they didn’t bother with plates,
Just bits of brickkies rubble,
Guttering and such,
Jam jars and slabs of wood
Stuff not...

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-
Montezuma Golden on earth he lived upon his land
Cortes his rival metalled horse and soldier Spanish grand 
Aztec warrior a noble race to them a god should come 
From far beyond their skeleton homes and...

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 Continued from Part 2 


Some kid is spraying Clearasil,
He wants to make his pimples nil;
He paints his breath with chlorophyll;
I’m in the dream of someone ill

I’m fleeing but I feel a goose,
Behind me grins...

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Mama Africa,
How long shall you suffer and cry?
How long shall your heart bleed in anguish, struggle and try?
Forged with the brilliancy of a well-cut jewel,
Today, you rust, your tears overflowing and can't even be wiped...

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A WALK IN THE DARK

The cold wind stung my ego
As my feet darted down the corridor of nowhere
The bitter push whipped through my skin
I slithered through the arrogant open gate
I elbowed my way into the...

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I know that I am
(This soul)
By Michelle Morris
21/10/2023

I look at this image
The mirror reflects her to me
I see inside the beauty
The soul I'd like to be

As this shell becomes weathered
Like a lighthouse in the storms
I...

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MOST BEAUTIFUL LOVE

Barren rice fields, hungry heart; heels cracking dry ¬ thirsty soul part.
Face awaiting, every season, knotted aching old ~ new reasons...
Love! Oh Love! Written by God, crawl on us strengthen our grit.

Clanging cymbals,...

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The final kismet of three hundred sixty five days
Which charmed me in time’s remembering jaunts ,
As radiant eyes winked , 
and lacy veils blew
Beyond late dusk as old tower gongs pealed,
When hymn of joy was...

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The Circus gongs excite the Throngs in nighttime Never Land –
They swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
While Acrobats step pitapat above the shifting sands
And Lady Fat sits down to chat and...

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Listening to a poem recited
in your head as you read it 
can become a monotonal drone,
lacking verve, color, context and texture.
So much better to hear it read aloud to you
especially by the author themselves
who can...

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Watch the way he danced 
He raised his hands up and 
Swept the sand of the ground very elated.
He measured his dancing steps with his joy and laughter
Then the crowed cheered and lifted him up
High...

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