Long Inflexible Poems

Glib rhetoric concerned with  striking independence may seem frivolous,
nuanced rational quite often a typical traumatic casualty,
the once interminable interdependent passionate zeal disintegrating in rapid spasms,
a longing sated and mutually embraced by two compatible persons...

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THIRUKKURAL: Translation of Canto XXXVIII with notes and commentary

Canto XXXVIII of the Thirukkural on the topic of FATE which I give here in translation (by stages) forms, in itself, a separate "book" in its own...

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Dozing before take-off. Patients etherized and unable,
Evening  spread into the distance
Silly solitaire cards spread on pull-down table. 
I  hate toves with  imagined importance
Giving direction to momeraths who do not need  it....

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The Heights of Machu Picchu, Canto VIII
by Pablo Neruda
translation by Michael R. Burch

Ascend with me, my American love!

Let’s kiss these mysterious stones together!

The Urubamba’s torrential silver
lures pollen to fly from its golden chalice
while above this...

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…And the obscurity ever so profound…
Stuffing a new-born with apprehension…
Nebulous prophecies it recites…
As my prospect begins to diminish…

The ravens soaring high above…
As fatality becomes the conqueror…
And he dwells in the deep murk…
When the wolves discard...

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My House is For Sale

By Elton Camp

I put a sign into the yard.
It shouldn’t be very hard.
My house is just the best,
It is far above all the rest.

For sale by owner sounds so easy
Though strangers...

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Do I trespass if I knock at your door
Would you be frightened to see I also have a full cup
And call the cop because I am black and you are white
You were none of this...

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A family of nine sisters, none named the way the names could have fit.
They started out with three flowers, and thought it wise to continue it. 
Our last name so plain, Daddy argued. Daisy, Fern...

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Imagination is the natural ability with which every human being is endowed.
Therefore, it is conceivable to say that everything will become allowed 
by completely envisioning the unforeseen-yet things, that are going to be wowed, 
while...

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War came. How could it not? Bringing many things especially death. They wanted to knock Turkey out of the war. One ally less for Germany. 
Many events happened. Some were firsts. All included death. It...

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For years and years
I lived the curse of all women

A woman’s work is never done
That is, never finished
The more work I did the more work showed up
The To Do list was never ending
If I made...

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How offensive that must’ve felt!
I’m seated after having said this in bewailment like an ox
Not thinking of the grandeur but of her buttocks
Gloriously, as an ambler, I lift the embargo on this thought
Not letting myself...

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FREE YOURSELF


In the stillness of the night,
when your eyes are closed tight
and the only noise you can hear
is your heart beating softly in your ears.

Empty your mind and picture a butterfly.
A butterfly that is free,...

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Digits can be numbers, and our numbers mean a lot!
But digits I rate highest are the digits that I’ve got:
those literally a part of me; the five upon each hand
comprise my top ten digits, and...

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I will attempt to explain this using the following analogy.
I went For Help to BluePearl Veterinary,
with a feline medical emergency.
BluePearl saw me coming and thought, "That is a hornet nest,
and I'm going to put my...

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Alchemy

What process need there be to make
of broken things – the real?  Great
sorcerers have failed, formed molten
monuments to greed’s glory.  I, poor
peasant that I be, had neither flame
nor Patron, nor desire to be...

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(The rehab of a supervisor)

My eyes!  Saturated
with industrial crap, eventually
to intoxicate what’s left of one’s
bewildered brain.
My sight!  Shackled to the
delusion of corporate inconsistencies,
when leading one’s head through each
enigmatic juncture.
My ears!  Burn with...

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Butter was most gorgeous color of yellow the unicorns had ever seen.
Many suggested she might grow to be Mayflower’s Unicorn Queen.
Giddy mother told too many people who were jealous of her babe.
Father told mother to...

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Steve Rogers wanted to be a soldier,
and after initial failure got selected
for super soldier experiment in US military,
Vita-ray dosing made him muscular.

During WW II he toured the country 
in colorful costumes in fund raising campaigns.
For...

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Is friendship opinionated?
Intolerant of diverse views…
Inflexible, lacking patience…
Do good friends spread another's news?

Is friendship a carrot waved?
Tossed aside when views contend?
Does it allow disagreement?
Does failure to “comply” bring its end?

Is friendship a get-ahead tool?
Or egocentric...

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Samantha feels like spider kill --
horribly alive, but stuck.
Stuck!
Inside the  web
functional furniture
desperate office art.
No windows, so no seasons.
Thank God her mind took protective, evasive
measures long ago.
She's unbudgeable.
She's prehistoric!
And it's a beautiful day in the...

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Fear of God, Translation of Carlos Bousono’s poem, Miedo de Dios

(The second and fourth lines of these quatrains all end in the same rhyme, a feat it’ll be hard to maintain without appearing to be...

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When Chinua Achebe presented you,
we all marvelled at his powerful gut,
we saw an elephant among mortal men;
he planted an iroko tree in our minds,
he made us see through your eyelid.


Your heels barely touch the ground,
The...

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I never wanted to be your mighty mouthpiece
I never asked to be the morning trumpet
in the troubled town
or the prophet clown
that would be scorned from all around,
I just wanted to be a mason
like my forefathers...

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Shameless,
we admit 
living Earth chauvinism.

Our home
and favorite planet,
better, not necessarily bigger,
in our collective opinion,
than all other revolving planets,
stars,
suns, 
satellites,
moons
orbiting through four dimensioned images
flowing maps
expanding frames
dynamic paradigms

More nurturing to us
than all stale constellations combined,
unchanging orthodoxy,
staid stillness
of...

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