Long Irretrievably Poems

Medieval Poems IV



IN LIBRARIOS
by Thomas Campion
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their whores for exotic positions.



Brut (circa 1100 AD, written by Layamon, an excerpt)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R....

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The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch 
 
for T. M.
 
The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;
 
the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;
 
each interstate’s bleak white bar
that vanishes under...

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“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
–“He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” by W.B. Yeats 

“I love you...

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"The Call of the Grimoire" 


when Exalibur was retrieved 

from the rock, then foolishly 
and irretrievably lost 
in that dreadful battle most worthless

the imps encouraged 
the once good Poesie folk 
to jeer and throw pebbles

the...

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And I begin my own steep climb into 
The Chalkland Downs                        ...

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Do not vainly look in those remote
Places,
That, once, were acquainted with a 
Small part of me;                   ...

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Poems about Poets



Long Division
by Michael R. Burch

for Laura Riding Jackson

All things become one
Through death’s long division
And perfect precision.



Nod to the Master
by Michael R. Burch

If every witty thing that’s said were true,
Oscar Wilde, the world would...

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I'm always within striking distance, so...

                   Reach out to me, if you find that
   ...

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Mine Mean Mien, Hence Deserved Cross To Bare

Upon reflection of fatherhood,
onset of hands-on schooling 
fraught with narcissism
a role I lept in unaware 
with slim success
unknowingly portending how fatuous

frolics spelled ultimate doom
with theoretical strings attached,
when snagged,...

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I write my thoughts 
on paper,
 let  ink of my soul
      glow, amidst the grief
     I carry in echoing stillness, 
   for it...

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Pretty like the crystalline canyon rocks -
   Fair like a deer wandering in the morn' -
With the Great Spirit as a faithful witness
   A baby girl named Red Feather was born...

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Cuz while ya steel got
moxie, don't nix chance if only a dot
before death finds 
     flesh rotting alot.

A self-actualized fringe benefit
     as I racked up
  ...

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What's new with me...Matthew?

Well for starters Nationwide
road service emergency
one man cutting crew
with battery charger in tow knew
exactly why no juice (think electricity),
his hunch found trunk light kept lit,
an innocent looking (to me or you)
lady's handbag...

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A rhetorical question finds me ask
king (to no one in particular) why I bask
with recollection the names of blank
exclamatory staid grade school crank

key teachers approximately
     42,0480,000 breaths aye drank
fifty years ago...

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A rhetorical question finds me ask
king (to no one in particular) why I bask
with recollection the names of blank
exclamatory staid grade school crank

key teachers approximately
     42,0480,000 breaths aye drank
fifty years ago...

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Panegyric praising phantasmagoric, albeit...
unseen prophets providing perspicuity...,

Who commune with yours truly
within state of mind between
sleep and wakefulness
methinks disembodied spirits
infiltrate mine consciousness
while suspended within trance.

Meditation invokes light hypnosis
gently beckoning me to surrender self
fearlessness disappears relinquishing
clutched grip...

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now we come to the taboo part of our presentation
in which the secret of all time will be revealed
to those who wish to understand understanding
characters arranged in uncharacteristic sequence
a nice little codification on toasted bagel
hitched...

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Before they silence my voice
Under jackboots and bone crushing dogs
I must set fort before dusk
As I am shielded 
By his gore
And crafted like Daniel
In the lions den
And Jonah in the whales gut

I must scurry to...

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Wicked memories haunt my dreams at night and stalk me during the daylight, denying me any measure of peace and tranquility. Please, take me to the river Lethe and rebirth me, so that I may...

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Do you know what it’s like
To have your freedom back at last,
To be able to choose new colours
Once pinned out of reach to the mast,
To find tho’ you’ve lost your employment,
You can still retain all...

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My heart breaks so readily nowadays--
at hearing of the sudden death of a friend
or witnessing the slow death of another.
My heart is wrenched to see dementia
in my lovely neighbor with her lovely 
English accent, and...

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I recall writing checks in my spidery crawl.
The TV then was a humming spaceship
with glowing innards that deep-scanned 
all who glued their flickering, bug-eyed minds to it;
it abducted whole families at a time.
That same television
materialized...

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What becomes of a lost glory?
When it vanishes, does it take hope along?
Does it explode....
Like dynamite and smell like smoke?
Does it sink irretrievably deep
Into the depths of a stygian abyss?
Or does it float away hopelessly
Out...

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Your need lingered over me, 
Demanding and squalling, 
Drowning me in your 
Chaotic desperation, 
And suffocating the memories 
We might have made. 

Though you heard, 
You would not listen 
To the pleadings 
Of long lost...

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A shrouded moon hides my nightmares
not really of my own making,
but they persist to cling to me,
the memories a mirage lost like flotsam
bobbing and tossing in mid-sea.

His Pan-like charm lured me like a siren
giving me...

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