Long Infirm Poems

Winter Awakens My Care
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything...

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The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem
Old English Poem (i.e., Anglo-Saxon Poem) from the Exeter Book, ca. 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and...

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The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem - Part II
anonymous Old English Poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this...

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How terribly awkward it so often is when ones relations are faced with seeing to the daily survival of those they most care about - young OR old - 



Sooner or later the day will...

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Spawned from the loins that 
Perpetuated the loyal serfs mongrel
Seed:-
These peoples of a conditioned and
"Resigned-To-it-all" breed.
Born into the enveloping tedium
Of interlocking days...Interwoven
With interlocking days -
Victims of stark circumstance
And vague promises unmade.
Gregariously living out their lives
When...

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IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY : LXIV - LXV


NOTE (facts to bear in mind while reading) : Under the French Penal Code, harm done to the infirm, minors and seniors (i.e. over 65) is...

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Droves who flash 'brand of God' all will die, Faith or not!
Faith's not blood we can paint on the gates of our homes,
wait for Passover's promise as servant's of God -
man's death falls, a cold...

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A listing of the fires 
and all the survivors 
will be provided

Names of the dead 
are written on broken cobblestones 
at the bottom of the river

The sheet music 
is in the morgue - reconstruction 
of...

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Pigeons flutter in the park
eating refuse from the grass.
Noon comes; the hours pass.
Leaves fall; the sky grows dark.
Silence reigns throughout the park.
A crumpled headline, forgotten toy --
and then, -- and then a far-off bark.
In the...

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Scarcely the Dropper-- a roach antennae Felt,

Some Maudling exterminator of nakedly inhuman hands.

Boiled renunciation falling sick With life itself,

For Libido has and Always Will Be…. the most Impersonal of instrument.

Stepping out and through a purple...

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I see riots all across my country on tv-
demonstrations against the death of a black man
at the hands of a merciless killer 
as his partners looked on, doing nothing.
I see people losing control in riots...

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Surah Maryam
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Kaf. Ha. Ya. A'in. Sad. (1) A mention of the mercy of thy Lord unto His servant Zachariah. (2) When he cried unto his Lord a...

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"THE BIRD CANNOT FLY"

No matter how hard he flaps his wings body won’t lift,
is it obesity or small wings?
He shouldn’t devour the food mother 
fed him but do some exercise for flying,

worse yet, 
he pecked...

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The idea of a living constitution
has the same forensic indeterminacy
as a committed dream.

I am content to trust this dream to the end
to have it fill my cup of hope all day and night.
I am content...

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This is where my grief met Jeremiah's lamentations

OUR FATHER
As far as the east is from the west, that’s how far the Lord has removed our transgressions from us?
Why do I feel not far removed from...

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a woman who had been crippled and infirm for eighteen years long
had a chance encounter with Jesus who healed and made her strong
that woman had been in bondage she was bound up in her life
now...

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I


Eyes aglaze in the morning rush,
	suspended in thought,  I stare					
		through the window of the car,			

Adrift in this diffused glare
	of the green traffic light,					
		I am too absorbed to go through.			
									
I have scaled life's stair to...

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I wish I weren't me!

---------------------------

I sometimes wish that I weren't me!

I were who I've always wanted to be!

A loving angel of the seventh heaven!

Chosen from seraphs of all the seven!

For my devotion to all the...

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The structure, or plot, of a poem is, in my opinion, like the melody in music. It's what holds the words together and keeps us reading...

A present's not a gift until someone sends or brings...

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Sitting, I am graceful
Still,
And ever paceful. 
I am waiting.
Waiting for you to die. 
I let loose a slow soft purr
-I am content at the thought -
As I sit and stare,
At your body ageing,
And failing
No longer...

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We were vacationing in the state of
palm trees and seashore in September's
mild loveliness.
Me, a sexagenarian widow,
hobbled by arthritis in my knees.
As my family enjoyed the surf,
I sat contented on a creaking 
wooden pier,
taking in the...

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We stay in this underground fortress
will it be our salvation or our tomb
Can we survive the pending onslaught
is this a heroic suicide
that history will forget
the vanquished are damned to be erased from the pages of...

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God is not a building dedicated to one faith 
that icon of a dead Christ that’s a myth that man makes…

Because men must define the unknown in stone a human façade or by words in...

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Who told you 
             to be afraid
of those who hate justice
 
What has happened 
        ...

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Take away the tinsel and the sugared treats.
Take away the decorations and all those pretty lights
twinkling across our cities and across the globe.
Take away Black Friday and frantic shopping,
tripping over others to catch the perfect...

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