Long Hostage Poems

These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation...

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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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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Lake county music company filled with 
slots carney folk real carny folk the little 
pete's illegal gambling road show throughout 
the  Midwest gaming like your idol Frank Peter 
Balistreiri the mad bomber stops Metropolis...

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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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CRISIS SESSION FBI HUMAN RESOURCE DIVISION NON-REDACTED
FBI: HELLO WHAT IS YOUR EMERGENCY

AGENT BROWN: HELLO THIS IS AGANT BROWN AND THAT DARK PLACE IS RETURNING AGAIN I AM IN CRISIS AGAIN 

FBI: OKAY WE ARE HERE...

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It was 1968 we'd gathered again in the school auditorium my tiny hands sweating only five years old while my name was called in all of this cold  
civil rights riots plagued my little...

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After my traumatic brain injury witnessing a murder I didn’t think the world could even get any worse my children and I survived 4 major hurricanes I decided to move north to his home town...

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The Alaskan Oil Pipeline

Nineteen sixty-eight confirmed the year
Of discovery by ‘Humble Oil’
To North America’s largest oil field,
On the North Slope of the Brooks Range;
A west to east Northern Alaskan mountain chain.
An area forty miles wide...

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He walks around with his nose pointing upward in the air
With calculating eyes that are so fearful, mouth moving from side to side and a tongue that keeps twisting around the things that are profound....

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CRISIS TEAM: HELLO WE ARE HERE TO HELP

AGENT BROWN: HELLO I'M AGENT BROWN IN DIRE NEED OF THE FBI HELP AFTER I CONTACTED THE FBI ABOUT THE ARSON MURDERER OF 9 CIRO GARGANO AND HIS...

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Recluse by dint of circumstance

Proud anonymous troglodytes 
forerunners of mine
confronted threats less horrific
than forty fifth commander in chief
of United States of America.

He/him (matted hair, ratty, scrawny, 
and tetchy ugly villain)   
scurried into dark...

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Within the frame a sepia scene
a dusty porch   a rickety chair   
the fabric of your dusky face creased
with ceaseless sunbaked woes
your old pair of getaway feet gives 
a different walk of...

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It was in the early days of our lives
We met
She was so beautiful 
My eyes could not stop admiring
My heart kept racing 
Every time it sensed
her good-looking approaching
But we were too young 
To give full...

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Playing Batman and Robin is a lot different

When the Riddler is your Stepfather

And simultaneously an alcoholic and pedophile

When your secret mission is to keep him

From bringing heroin and pornography

To Gotham city

 

Your mother wanted to...

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Suicide, euthanasia
I never thought I’d be the one to go down like this
But I wanted to have control in the way I was sent out of this world
Instead of kept barely alive, pointless.
My parents refused...

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Remembering our friendship 
how we'd talk for hours about
any topic family love kids life
how it hurt not to hear from 
one another sending cards 
pictures letters remember that 
I remember so well that achy 
lonely...

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Two of the greatest gifts that God ever gave to mankind                        ...

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There was no easy day going under cover 
with four kids riding along with the FBI supervisor 
I was just a young mother of four actually expecting 
again seven months pregnant the FBI installed wires...

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The Silence In Me
I have been on this road several times, and I have been contemplating 
the movement of the clouds, the direction of the trees, and the depth of the sea. The heart of...

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Coping with Agoraphobia well you are basically pent up 
in your home for me it finally took it's toil my therapist 
came to my home because I was basically limited spending 
hours in a room...

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Oh stone of death, I beg thee, now…relinquish me thy guest. 
Release unto this specter but the soul beneath thy breast 
What waits but to be wakened, and then taken now, to rest.

Mine is thine...

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I shan't try and be witty an engage in the norm 
peeking through such pain my eyes see dim 
as crushing temporal lesion push against 
soft tissue endings pounding my optic nerves 
from my forehead...

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Fretfully aching to feel fit as a fiddle

After experiencing a severe,
albeit violent near lethal bout
of irritable bowel syndrome
(yesterday night August 30th, 2023)
triggered courtesy dulcolax caplets plus 
healthy portion of lentils,
I (a beatle browed, foo fighting,...

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