Long Gusts Poems

The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!
 
Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
-Michael R. Burch
 
The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
-Michael R. Burch
 
Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
-Michael R. Burch
 
Dry leaf...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers I

I translated the first six Native American poems for my father when he chose to enter hospice and end his life by not taking dialysis …


Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation...

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Chinese Poets: English Translations II

These are modern English translations of poems by the Chinese poets Tzu Yeh, Lin Huiyin, Xu Zhimo and Huang E. These are poems about love, passion and beauty. 


Tzu Yeh (circa...

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I.	  The Settlement

          Hickory bark bluffs
          at the blend of two 
    ...

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The Old Dark House

This tale of “The Old Dark House” is one that’s replete with a
most horrid sense of pure evil and macabre, and is worth being
retold each year during the deep-dark hours of All...

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This tale of “The Old Dark House” is one that’s replete with a
most horrid sense of pure evil and macabre, and is worth being
retold each year during the deep-dark hours of All Hallows’ Eve
before the...

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Here he stands, Edwardian vogue, sometimes with his spats, 
sometimes with his brogues below his dungarees. With rounded collar points and tie, and jacket donned below this flying suit, his waste is tied with simple...

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This tale of “The Old Dark House” is one that’s replete with a
most horrid sense of pure evil and macabre, and is worth being
retold each year during the deep-dark hours of All Hallows’ Eve
before the...

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Wovoka in the Feverland

In the Dying-Grass Moon came another winter to claim the old and sick.
This was when the first messengers came
To the desolation known as Pine Ridge.
They came riding in at the end of...

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A born lioness my untamed heart? ha! 
a mouse, this pulsing token ruled by unruly wants
at times given, traded or stolen - sometimes
thrown down on a dare to be won or lost 
till it became...

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The reading of Villon poems at West Berlin’s Free University, Winter Semester 1957-58
                      ...

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Predator Antiqua Multis Versus Respiciens Tempus


I Watched Midnight Sun Fall Into Dark Shades Of Oblivion

Part I

I watched midnight sun fall into dark shades of oblivion
with its dying light screaming in agonizing moans
upon bloody battlefields of...

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And I begin my own steep climb into 
The Chalkland Downs                        ...

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Booth made famous on April 15th, MDCCCLXV... 
Sic semper tyrannis ad mortem
("Thus always I bring death to tyrants").

Ever since early forerunners 
of twenty first century
mankind (sprinted 
across trackless expanse extant
upon planet Earth), 
modern Homo Sapiens...

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Placed 9th in:
A Brian Strand Premiere  No. 1224 Poetry Contest


                        ...

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Destruction, As Kali Walks Upon Earthen Grounds


Goddess of Destruction that teams with the Lord of Lusts 
As wrathful winds bequeath savage ravaging gusts
Hades match,  that has destroyed many a soul
World and darkness combine to...

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Haiku Variations
by Michael R. Burch

This is a poem composed of haiku-like stanzas:


Variations on the Seasons I
by Michael R. Burch

Lift up your head
dandelion,
hear spring roar!

How will you tidy your hair
this near
summer?

Leave to each still night
your lightest...

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Placed Third In :

Appreciation, Anger, Air, Angelic Poetry Contest

Sponsored by Sotto Poet
                  
     ...

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"Cry for the soul that will not face the body" Dory Previn 

                      ...

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As climate pathology peaks
toward climax conditions

LeftBrain privileged blindness
and deafness,
tastelessness
replacing savoring,

Absence of green
and sea salty blue
fragrance,
bereft of internal robust feelings
and external wellbeing touch
drop unhealthily
unwealthily away
from enabling organic integrity
to know 

Empathy is to spiritual consciousness
as sympathy mirrors...

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On the edge of the leaf, spinning,
Out of control, glistening
Slowly dancing – a waltzlike trembling,
glad to see the hesitation of colors,
graceful as sun’s reflection on the waters,
lakes of melancholic, drifting
soundless and soothed by the twisting,...

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"Life is fragile and temporary. The faces of today quickly become the faces of the past. Sorrow, pain, and anger... it all fades, except love. Love is forever and there after, even when we've fallen...

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Song of Solomon 4:6 (KJV) “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.”


The shadow of a smile,
reflecting hope, joy,...

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Robbie .

Like a snail, out of sea, stuck to Mother Earth.
Never able to see, never able to fly it’s girth 
since a time in youth and at a place 
where currents carried away Hope, created...

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Original poem:  

"a million fairytales tremble at us,
   they know how our love does outshine with flickering light-
sounds of swift ivory doves cry out,
   fleeting into the ebon night; for...

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