Long Hyenas Poems

Intro/read aloud:
You deserve a bro hug and a friendly pat...
That's the spirit - keep going forward 
You're getting back of track...I'll try to encourage you without acting awkward...
I leave your side
Without a word...
I can't help,...

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Villanelles

The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain. 



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day, 
with the...

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IN THE WILD

Early morning, we go for a drive,
An awesome feeling as we arrive,
At our camp gate which, opens 
At 6 o’clock, 
Now we are in the African bush
Which, will unlock,
Moments that we have missed...

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Turkish Poetry Translations II

Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war??
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a...

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IN THE WILD 
( Re Post)

Early one morning, we begin our drive,
An awesome feeling as we arrive,
At our camp gate which, opens 
At six o’clock, 
Now we are in the African bush
Which, will unlock,
Moments that...

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Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.



Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation...

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Ma,
Why do I need to apostrophize you? Why did you flew away into the celestial regions so earlier? Is it because you are from a land where ‘twenty is plenty’ for women? And hence, ignoring...

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I once walked into my backyard
and found two slugs mating in a bucket
I had just learned how slugs go about mating, 
or trust-I would have been rightly confused

Here hangs a long line of slime, almost...

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The Square Root of Beiruit 
 
Ten men bending while theyre pretending to be near the ending
A capitalist nightmare glares like rotten fruit
The squate root of Beiruit
No it isn’t fair, so they’ll start to loot
 
The soldiers are...

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Two little kittens; he’s Rum and she’s Raisin
Lived in a house near the zoo.
Rum asked his friend, “Would it not be amazing
to go catch a mouse or a shrew?”

Raisin said, “Rum, we should not be...

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MEMORIES OF WAR 


In prison we turmoiled 
packed up cards to fall 
whilst they sucked 
genitals like bonbons 
a quartz on a table
gleamed its knowing

War torn ghettos with 
swollen stomachs 
stretched wide, auras 
shattered, splintered...

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Papa Noël was afraid to pass through on Christmas Day
In the streets of Port-au-Prince. Bullets were being fired in droves
Sporadically, haphazardly. Many people were hiding under beds
Naughty terrorists are like dogs, hyenas in vile forests...

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A short video that I watched this morning said it all.                        ...

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“The Waiting” 

eyes close
the new chapter
picks us up 

we find ourselves
lost in the poetic dream
stranded in a desert 

a lifetime away from home
we are in the waiting place
writing words in the sand

they are blown away...

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The playground I chose to write about,
Is open twenty four seven, night or day,
It is beyond any expectable doubt, dangerous
Paradise to young animals, some human
Children perhaps even envious!
Zippity was a young, playful giraffe,
His mother always...

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I shivered
I quivered
eyes!
cried!
dried!

I puzzled winkled I bled
I muffled tingled I shed

between the greens some shades
beneath the almond tree
I stood I sat  I gazed
I bled shed tears

pale leaves like flames on me
its summer time I...

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The crying grass 
(for the late Victor Jara,* Pablo Neruda 
and Salvador Allende)
by ‘bro. zayid’

In this stadium
of footlaunched spotted balls
of what should be promising soccer stars…
In this stadium
reeking with the stench of terror
and the numbing...

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I was a successful, scientific explorer, traveling to the remote, distant lands,
Bettering noble lives of many, like budding, green spring which understands.

And every day held fruitful discovery, as when the autumn colors are flying,
Or when...

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"Freedom's Lament"

Oh sweet Freedom how quick you have gone from Groom to Widower.
How saddened are those who succumbed and labored so freed we could all be after Freedom had so long toiled and quarried to...

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Continued from Part 1

Hungary hounds harangue the highlands,
howl at skies and desert islands…
Below, unfettered carbon crows conceal the parting path she chose

Lighthouse lamps and lanterns lolling…
Mute abandoned fleets are calling…
The shallow shadowed portholes vaunt dim...

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Alligators, Aardvarks; Arctic fox and hare. Also Armadillos and Asses will be there!

Bobcats, Beavers, Boars; One Blue whale will do! Bovines and a Booby (maybe 2)!

Caribou & Camels; *Cavies & a *Coot; Cottontails, Chipmunks, Chinchillas...

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What is this, what is that, who is this? 
There are words that we don't repeat twice
Especially when we omit the little cedilla
Please, my country is an island, a peninsula
A very pretty country swimming in...

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There's more than meets the Horus Eye, in the recording industry
Too many whispered songs have come like a dream
Have came in the ear like malefecium shot from a midsolstice night ween
Entering in the rear of...

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part 28

at least we know what to avoid in a civilization
hypnotism for one
and angst which merely resembles authenticity
by attempting to dissect the inconsequential
which boils down to the matter of
detecting the inconsequential in the first place
what...

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The Breaking of Dream of the Dream seeker
Chandan Chatterjee


Theft of labor crops is not the most dangerous,
Although the police baton hits the body seriously,
But it can't remember
The greedy vision of the traitor
Not the most dangerous.

Thieves...

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