Long Implacable 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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As a mortal man of threescore and five years...

I bore witness and/or assimilated, gleaned,
and nursed implacable thirst for knowledge
courtesy reading factual narratives,
historical fiction, or biography
that since the advent of Homo sapiens
avast number of civilizations
and their...

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Damn them computer hackers...
nothing but persistent 
pesky sniveling, snot nosed 
beastie boy buggers.

Data breach conundrum with Gmail rectified...
courtesy MacKeeper computer technicians
in tandem with the geek inside me,
who finally resolved elusive quandary
that befuddled and frustrated yours...

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Thru a paroxysm of tears...

I inconsolably wept a river of sorrow
starkly aware alienated daughter(s)
implacable woe sundered fatherhood
yesterday, today and tomorrow.

A series of unfortunate events
(move over Lemony Snicket)
set in motion since my birth
unleashed impotent scrawny infant
registering...

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I was once an idealistic young soldier, who was very new to the occupation,
Trying to preserve freedom, and way of life, like the golden sun, at creation.

Yet, the times were very troubled, because an unhappy...

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Apoplectic curmudgeon fumbles...

Jumpstarting outstanding undertaking...
bringing jouncy, spectacularly crafted,
nuanced, zesty, noteworthy, creatively
spirited enlightened written poem.

This raggedy man doth inconsolably weeps
kept rudely awake whilst disobedient sheep
incur wrath of Little Bo Peep, she lambastes
protesting courtesy rambunctiousness being
future mutton...

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Il pleure dans mon coeur (“It rains in my heart”)
by Paul Verlaine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It rains in my heart
As it rains on the town;
Heavy languor and dark
Drenches my heart.

Oh, the sweet-sounding rain
Cleansing pavements...

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The world today is split in two
… or three... or four... or maybe more,
but nonetheless, one must confess,
all wage their wars as heretofore.

While blunderbusses prey for us
within our world where gods deceive,
atomic war, white phosphorus
and...

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Politesse pleases me...
thank you very much
for letting me clutch
your attention courtesy
sharing following thoughts
thru reading my poem analogous 
to invisible electronic, 
fantastic, kinetic... touch.

Manners work like a charm
equivalent to abracadabra to disarm
truculent nasty shortish brutes
who thrive...

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Baneful brickbats begat grievous barrier

Tell tale indelible woe y'all
privy to learn yours truly harbors
traces of the masterful
impregnable prepubescent wall
still extant scads of decades since
complex edifice erected to force tall
adolescence - permanently leaving me, 
(a poor...

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Metaphorical troubled waters deluge
pitched me to and fro,
analogous to ghosts
that haunted Ebenezer Scrooge,
yours truly violently tossed
impossible mission to experience refuge

except when deeply engrossed
between bound pages
thick and juicy tome one garden variety
generic bookworm doth ravish
escape courtesy...

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When we pleasantly stroll down
the streets or boulevards
of any historical city or town,
we  stops pensively and reflect deeply
by the magnificent monuments erected for the great;
and reading the engraved words,
we are astonished by the accomplishments
of...

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Preface:
Earlier today May 28th, 2021,
the 12-member jury unanimously
found Cristhian Bahena Rivera guilty
of first-degree murder in brutal stabbing death
sentenced to life in prison 
without the possibility of parole
of Mollie Tibbetts remembered as then friendly
20-year-old who was...

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Memory houses soul asylum vestige...
where complex edifice once anchoring
venerated Glen Elm demesne once stood,
now nothing except vinyl city!

I recall breathtaking, expansive, incredible
numerous, tremblingly awe inspiring views
billion miles (slight exaggeration) heavenly
sights comfortably ensconced, while perched
high atop...

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Adumbrated aeration regarding...

crafting reasonable poetic rhyme 
nothing to sneeze... at chew
asthma lingua franca – 
acts as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious glue
inspiring me to skip to my loo,
and ye to play altruist gist
imagining how and why I still rue
cashing...

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3.

Wrapped close, in implacable, bitter embrace,
The winter grips the land and holds it immobile,
A cat upon its mouse.

Stripped bare, glazed with stony ice
Ashudder beneath a slatecloud sky
That drops its snow in a hush of crowding...

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The crossroads of shadows within my mind, where darkness and light intertwine
in an eternal dance, I sit in my own solitude,
feeling nothing but the painful flatness of existence,
consumed by loneliness, why must it be this...

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Another Senseless Killing...

IOWA CITY, Iowa
     (killingly, jarringly inexplicable,
     horribly, gruesomely, and forlornly),
     the found exhumed decayed corpse
     belonging to...

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As rippling horizon
douses fiery orb,
you are at your
most alluring.

Ethereal,
diaphanous limbs
stretch out,
reach for me,
beckon to me.
Barely audible murmurs,
laced with
forbidden promises,
cross the distance
between us.

Whispers become
more insistent,
more urgent,
more pressing.
Begging, cajoling,
pleading, coercing,
demanding that I come to you,
that I give...

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Ancestral Whispers
In the depths of the earth, the roots of time stretch like pulsing veins,
Nourishing the collective memory with the fertile essence of our past,
And I, a poet wandering through forgotten eras, gather crumbs of...

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Wistful Accursed Penniless Fate...God Dime Mitt!
(neither defamation, nor blasphemy meant, sans Title)

Despite ingestion of
     anti anxiety medications
     ferocious hellish onslaught
     pummels me aback
finds...

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I sat in restless chairs
I breathed stilted air
what feeling compares
with feeling squandered?

I’m not sadfishing,
I was bored in a 5-star hotel.
I’d swum the Atlantic - in the underground pool
and I felt like I was marinating in...

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The whips of smoke was thickly spiraled all over my face,
 I stood at the shrine, rather the church,
 The eerie and somber silence within the cave scourged me,
 As the nocturnal owls spoke cabalistic...

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THE MUSE by Anna Akhmatova

This is my English translation of a Russian poem by Anna Akhmatova…

The MUSE
by Anna Akhmatova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My being hangs by a thread tonight
as I await a Muse no...

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STAND WITH A FACE OF HUMILITY

Thou curse a great angel to fall 
from the heavens of glory and power,
though let man build towers for himself alone
letting him gaze on earth down.
Daggers are unknown but 
they...

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