Long Goode Poems

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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This is for you, Mystic Rose,
The closest cyber encounter family tree, my spree
Harry Horsman, Sara K, summer's gone, let's haiku and play.
Achoo contest, butterflies, Parise Pariku, and the awesomeness of Michael J. 
Andrea Dietrich, Debbie...

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AmI haveI willI doI as all been some will be with all the helping verbs from Ahman and Ricks in jr high in a timed collective to last a lifetime, I be a  planetary...

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Eve came, her bush brushing through,
figuring fig was sufficient to 
leave that feeling behind, 
(was it even a word, good or evil)
to converse with her landlord
before her in the clearing, clearly annoyed.

"Where have you been...

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The thing that went...

The first thing that went wrong - 
was the buzzing in my left ear,
the one not buried in the pillow,
the one that was open to the world.

The second thing that went wrong
was...

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who knew?

firstoff, i wish to say, but not overdo,
that i never knew, what the new gnu knew
he never really said very much, and i knew
he wouldn't as such, since, being a new gnu
he hadn't much...

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Haiku Chain

Presents wrap by tree
babies first Christmas is here
jet stream follows sleigh ~~by; Royal

jet stream follows sleigh 
Santa's bag floats ocean unknown 
cap is in Spain  ~~by; Goode Guy

cap is in Spain
it blew over...

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Today is the birthday of that
long gone soul. The one spinning
in the centrifuge, even now,
on the counter, as the technician
in the lab coat pulls seven G's
worth of DNA from calcified skull,
in an effort to know...

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Sarah, her two kids in tow
walks in a second-hand shop
for only a second, since she turned
her pocket inside-out yesterday
for a large box of rice crispies
and a half-gallon of 2% milk.
Her old man stopped beating 
her...

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My eyes are not what they once were, but
I can see you clearly whooshing from
your mother's womb, sluiced between thighs
the grunts, shouts and cries reverberating

eyes closed, arms slightly waving hello 
or gesticulating indignation awakened
as life...

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Dear Lee,

It has been a long time since I last wrote to you. 
I am sorry to have procrastinated so. Even though it 
has been a long time, I still think about you often 
and...

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i read and hear online the words 
from the other side of the world, 
the bearded angst and deeply rutted face 
of a soul with far, far too much 
sorrow to carry.

my eyes well, as...

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----paranoid, pornographic, psychotic, pontific, politically aware, rapping, rhyming, right here, right now in River city, rock and roll up the Yazoo, sad, sadistic, sarcastic, sassy, satanic, schizoid, shitting, silly, sexy, smarmy, smelly, smooth, snarky, snarling,...

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the god particle concedes to a universal mass
as predictably, it announces its presence
taking the holy sacrament from under its glass
beliefs from before so consigned obsolescence

we now think we know - no...really, we do
how the universe...

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whittlin' away
- an essay

I went to buy a pocketknife
recently for a preteen I know,
a small boy with wide dreams
and spaces to live in that match

The usual hardware haunt was
quite limited in its selection,
so I went...

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they crossed a wide savannah
and found the water’s edge
lashed wood with vine to find 
that laid beyond the horizon - 
that is what they wanted

they shored upon novel rock
came across new forage
and animals - and...

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they crossed a wide savannah
and found the water’s edge
lashed wood with vine to find 
that laid beyond the horizon - 
that is what they wanted

they shored upon novel rock
came across new forage
and animals - and...

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P.O.E.m 2012

I.
---

Peitro is barely three years old
Eleonora, his great-grandmother, eighty-three
And yet, they are the closest of friends
Carrying on and laughing in the library but
Even the studious patrons don't stare in scold

Over in the children's section...

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for Malala Yousafzai

A mere demigod won't do
to feel the fear that
a young woman, a little girl
can put into a righteous man

Horrific are the thinly educated
some holy book might have related
if thought of by the deity...

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from antiquity of the Peruvian Inca mountains
'til today's unsheathed bladed Java buttons clicking
the numbers add up to incessant discounting counting
to sacrifice our own graven image sown sickening

if she floats - she's a witch and frankly...

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high priority insecurity
gastro-growling, 
a peckish fling
in the food desert - 
not dessert - desert
this lip service 
don't a mouth fill

maybe one of five
on the sleigh's edge 
gazing at the growling wolf 
of slowly going down,
ground...

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insane, lovely, loony, lonely, lonesome, malodorous mean old rotten, mothering, nasty, narcotic, never whatever, never meh, never cold, not approved by the CIA, not approved by DHS, not approved for human consumption by the FDA,...

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Country Inc.

We're not as backward as you may think 
we're citizens of The Country Inc.
the mission statement, our purpose stated
is not that we're all made equated - 
It's more that this quarter's statement's due
filch off...

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let's speak of the unspeakable
the horrid, heartless, maybe headless tale

let's speak of small children, 
gaunt with indifference, both of and for
the sunken eyes, the distended belly
the insects hovering about...waiting

let's speak of hospital corridors
hushed conversations with...

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I.
---

Paulette knew he'd love the present and
Excitedly watched as he carefully took the box
And opened the lid to reveal, her heart inside
Crepe paper surrounded it, gently holding an
Echocardiogram of her love for him

Only last month,...

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