Long Guesses Poems

- 2016 -

- JANUARY -

A freezing cold evening

Where the stars shining bright

With frost blade flanks

From mouth and nose steam

In the clear silence

White untrodden snows

Nature's frozen pulse

Sleep like a little baby

One gracious moon

After the night the...

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Charles d'Orleans: a Medieval Marvel


Spring
by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab...

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Medieval Poems

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern...

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Spring
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can...

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Oasis
by Michael R. Burch 
 
for Beth
 
I want tears to form again
in the shriveled glands of these eyes
dried all these long years
by too much heated knowing.
 
I want tears to course down
these parched cheeks,...

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Oft in My Thought
by Charles D'Orleans
translation by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
To give my lady dear;
But that sweet...

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Self destructive wickedness arrested, convicted, and gaoled...

with kidnapping little boy 
ordered to suffer
life sentence without parole.

The deadly scourge of  
one obsessive/compulsive disorder
nearly left me starving to death.

Anorexia nervosa absent bulimia 
nadir of onset 
diagnoses...

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POEMS ABOUT EROS AND CUPID

These are translations of ancient Greek poems about Eros. Eros was the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Cupid. While today we tend to think of Cupid as an angelic cherub...

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The problem with trying to prove clairaudience, clairsentince, out-of-body, and Near Death Experiences to a Mudblood is not as simple
as it could have been.
Is it because Para-science is totally unsubstantiated?
Not in MY family.
Scientifically un-sound?
Sure, by...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk
Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted,
nor linkedin with potential livingsocial folk,
thus...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk

Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted,
nor linkedin with potential livingsocial folk,
thus...

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Madison's defense of the establishment clause to the Virginia legislature:
"Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the...

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Through Their Eyes

The Poetry Murders Part 3 in the series

Murder She Wrote

It was a dark night with a full moon
The alley narrow, my hopes high
My footsteps echoed in the ears of the invisible
I quicken my...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk - haint no joke

Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted
nor linkedin...

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I've decided to write a letter
To everyone who ever told me that I wasn't good enough.
It could start off like “dear humanity,”
Because sometimes I feel like the whole world is against me
Or it could start...

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Awaking blithe each morning,
with eyes upon the World,
I wonder, are we mourning
with ebon flags unfurled –
or are they but a warning,
some draped like snakes and curled,
stray stars and stripes adorning,
sent from the netherworld.

I wander through...

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An image of the netherworld envisioned by a misanthrope

Mein kampf fraught re: 
emotionally/psychologically challenged 
impossible mission to cope
compared to classmates, I felt like a dope
and entertained escapist fantasies,
whereby Miss Rainbow 
(sixth grade student teacher),
though robbing...

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TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS


I’ve an important story that I need to share today
There are several endings, you’ll have the final say
It’s about a young man born without his sight
Living every moment...

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3:15 a.m. 
 It was a crappy, wet, rainy dog-hiding drizzly morning.
Anthony woke up in a bad mood, with a sore throat, that got worse when he looked out the window.
Of course, the obstinate dog...

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I would deny its existence and favor the second place
prediction of Tuesday; 
For the beginning is never subtle, and it tends to hunt
my off-beat verse. 
Such a consistent verse, as it never sits on time...

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Late night summons madmen, 
madams, bold streetwalkers, 
picking pennies from the gutters 
as the merchants close their shutters 
and the homeless crouch in doorways 
in their rags, against the cold. 
Black or white, no compromise,...

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Deep within the bowels of the Earth
(dark visceral centre)
immensely distant from the sheltering sky
amidst a thick fog enveloped landscape
with here and there a projected
craggy, derelict chasm
precipitously crooked 
rocky claws pointing toward

an infinitely wide yawning abyss
dwelt...

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THE BLACK MEN IN YOU 

Have you ever dreamt about the black men in you
You may have not , as about him you never get a single clue
I open to you today , about the...

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The Stop & Shop strike v. Game of Thrones. 
In Game what’s not made plain
is the condition of the people
compared with warriors and queens.
There’s no mention of land-clearance, tree-felling, 
pruning, chopping, digging, hoeing, 
weeding, branding,...

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Late night summons madmen, 
madams, bold streetwalkers, 
picking pennies from the gutters 
as the merchants close their shutters 
and the homeless crouch in doorways 
in their rags, against the cold. 
Black or white, no compromise,...

Read More