Long Hb Poems

Precedent setting the stage for kerning and tracking piqued my interest

Just before logging off for the day,
and ready to boogie out of the joint
an email landed squarely in my inbox
cordially inviting me 
into the management...

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These are modern English translations of poems by the German poets Hannah Arendt, Ingeborg Bachmann, Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim and Heinrich Heine.



Heinrich Heine

The Seas Have Their Pearls
by Heinrich Heine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The seas have...

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THE WOMAN WHO COULD EAT WOOD


Who defied science?
The Woman Who Could Eat Wood had. 
How and why at first no doctor could say
to her mom and dad. 

Years later the doctors had discovered that after...

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They knew by instinct what I have known for more than 50 years.
They were being informed by their maker that someone very special            ...

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I had my eye on him since the third grade, but I never told him how I felt
Back then girls were girls, they were never meant to be cheeky or bold 
He sat behind me...

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Collaboration with Hat Bueckert
HB lines 1, 3, stanza 2, 4, lines 21, 23, 25
DD lines 2, 4, stanza 3, 5, lines 22, 24

A plague cursed, until death they dance
Until forever lasts this plight
Moving hypnotic deep...

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I have fallen into a very deep well
Where darkness and despair do dwell.
There's slime and mildew on the wall
How I got here...I don't recall.

Somewhere I hear water trickle
The sky above, no bigger than a nickle.
For...

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I am from the Birch and Pine,
my brothers and I--a single frame.
Some labeled two and others nine,
they call our home an assembly line--

We are clothed in Orange and Blues,
and shaved from end to end,
and used...

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Straight from the human's heart
Charging into the fabrics of every nation
Why stop it from its spark
Melting away its extravagant power of creation

It could be a mustard seed or gigantic rock
Manifesting at the snap of a...

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HB,

Steam stretches and stirs
in the great expanse 
of her pearl opulence

clear succumbs 
and clouds
the mirror mists over

I shower in the remoteness of love
each droplet dancing 
naked 
drowning upon my chest

painted lips cull
echo and envelop
the heartbeats

dripping...

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Collaboration with Hat Bueckert
DD/HB/HB/DD
HB/DD/DD/HB
DD/HB/HB/DD
HB/DD/DD/HB

I see you there beneath the sheen
From high atop my neck I lean
Reflect upon the waters glare
Beneath the sheen, I see you there

Keep me stable, inverted trees
In stillness to just be at...

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Collaboration With Di11y Da11y

I see you there beneath the sheen
From high atop my neck I lean
Reflect upon the waters glare
Beneath the sheen, I see you there

Keep me stable, inverted trees
In stillness to just be at...

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It's a Dixon Ticonderoga HB#2
This pencil, still my favorite, 
Still ties me back to you.

I'm so distant as of late,
In my mind, in my heart,
It seems there's too much on my plate.

I've been selfish in...

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Number 2 HB, Number 2 HB, Number 2 HB,              

I have know you all my life.
  
Your slender ORANGE silhouette, dressed...

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Moss

On Sundays I make myself familiar with 
the moss on 
the oaf of 
rocks adjacent to 
the driveway on 
the west side of 
the house. 
They’re always keen to know if 
I prefer the last...

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