Long Gusting Poems

I love you only because I love you
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I love you only because I love you;
I am torn between loving and not loving you,
Between apathy and desire.
My heart vacillates...

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I was a public relations specialist, ever promoting positivity to people,
As positivity is promoted afar, by the sight of the towering cathedral.

My work was very interesting, there weren't ever two days the same,
As an exotic...

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I went around the boarder of Canada and London
I found groups of dogs like they were my own

I’ll start with my mother’s pet at home
No other than Jumbo, the finest of all, now alone

Jumbo was...

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It is decidedly so,
That I shall go where you go
And in our journeys
I shall never let my love tire
The stars deem it worthy
Your fire is my truest desire

For this is decidedly so
And nobody will quite...

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Once upon successive times of
economic and political revolutions
slow-grown bionic ecosystemic balance
suddenly emerged
where form with functional health potential 
had been submerged.

When Earth
was Yang gusting wind
and surging surfing yin waters,
light's emergence each Yang sunrise
was daily revolution news
for...

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Headstrong, with an ageless broken heart,
I erased the memories of childhood,
And painted them back in frail colors, blushing pinks,
Pastels like jewels fading from my trembling fingers,
Imagining a dream where there had only been fantasies,
Brilliant fantasies...

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futures cavort below the horizon
  an expectant dawn glows, duly announcing the first born arrival
  tomorrow then forward smiles, feeling good
  half planned momentous moment, ordering fate, shaping survival

  surf wave...

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For long, I had enjoyed solving assorted puzzles, and difficult riddles, too,
For they entertain and stimulate an eager mind, as myriad stars often do.

From years of solving, I'd grown adept, as green river, that knows...

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Messiah’s portent
His advent, descent, ascent
Returns to cement

Apostates conspire
To douse the prophet's hellfire
But reap God's backfire

Curse your weighted scale
Your oppression leaves a trail
God's scale will prevail

Salvation has highs
Persecutions brutalize
Faith to exercise

Human worth erodes
Divine judgment at crossroads
Man's...

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do you hear 
                               ...

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Sappho Translations XV by Michael R. Burch

Gaia, rainbow-crowned, garbs herself in myriad hues. (168c)

We ran like fawns from the symposium: me, Cleis and reckless Gongyla. (168d)

Destiny is from the Muses, / and thus I was...

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T’was dry the spring with thunderstorms that rumbled across dry;
most every day was under sun or star filled sky,
the grass had burnt off early; hay mowed this year was scarce,
closed paddocks saved the milkers where...

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swirling 
            whirling 
         		 gusting 
         ...

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Mary Rose, the mighty sailing sea vessel glided majestically across the waves 
She had robustly and bravely sailed the briny waves for many a night and day
With the ocean's heaving gusting squalls blowing off proud...

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As the dusk approaches, with a fusk grunt on his face,
He realizes he has to do what's right;
To save his people from the treacherous minotaur maze,
To risk his life for people in vain.
As the sail...

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Wonder’s Darkness
             by Odin Roark

He knew wonder well
It could cancel fear
And bestow courage
A nexus for survival

A predawn beginning
His solo-climb of the face
Thought crazy...

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An old lady sat near a window, near a window looking out.
With her radio going she sat there sewing, with an occasional look about.
On her thumb she wore a thimble, as she pulled the thread...

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Extra committed; yet excommunicated. Highly dedicated; yet not facilitated.                          ...

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Long green grasses stir in the gentle breeze
	bright summer sun beats down upon them
cool fragrant scent rises up into the air
	carried across the land in the gentle breeze

bright blossoms of yellow shine in the sun
	gently...

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when the sky breathes poetry
through sepia-streaked silence,
and the earth reclines, listening
to the music of weeping wisterias~
blowing in the pulse of bleeding paradise,
I swallow sizzling stars
within cloaked scars,
comfortably blanketed
in self-woven wounds.
while you, the prisoner of my...

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“Rainy day, dream away
Ah let the sun take a holiday
Flowers bathe an' ah see the children play
Lay back and groove on a rainy day”
Jimi Hendrix 1968

A weep at first
to cure a thirst
becomes a cloud bursts...

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Faith is the substance of things hoped for, 
the evidence of things not seen. 
I feel the wind gusting across my skin, lifting my hair. Unseen but I can feel the evidence of the wind
...

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Part Two

To have written is to leave but a mark
  nothing stands for the proud rhyming syllables
    more than his acquired business acumen
a Vaishya karmic hope

Now we stand aghast before this...

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Imagine your God's Eye view of Earth
blue-green revolving
around sunlight
under vaporous clouds;
dark shadowed nights
of windblown dynamite white silence
gusting and waning

Disturbed by city lights
and siren screams of inhumane terror.

From here
looking down my nose
breathing in and out, such...

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Charlie the chimp lay in the grass and felt a bit displeased
while the rest of his group screeched and climbed and played,
swinging about and chasing one another in the trees
sniffing the bottoms of the friends...

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