Long Journal Poems

I smell like pencils in September.
After they’ve been brought to that…to the machine hanging on the closet wall where our coats, our boots, our bags, and nonsense lived.

You stared me in the eyes, since the...

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Dear people, 
    (Am i?) Mad it’s a conformist state?
A status that perpetuates people to pair, to compare, to prepare, 
to perfect, before performance, …?
    -sure hard to try...

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Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

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R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact, 
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems V

Poetry
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry, I found you
where at last they chained and bound you;
with devices all around you
to torture and confound you,
I found you—shivering, bare.

They had shorn your raven hair
and taken both...

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These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems ...






Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

“... what rough beast ... slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”?W. B. Yeats

Brutality is a cross
wooden, blood-stained,
gas hissing, sibilant,
lungs gilled, deveined,
red flecks on a...

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These are early poems of mine, written as a high school student in the 10th grade. 

as Time walked by
by Michael R. Burch

yesterday i dreamed of us again,
when
the air, like honey,
trickled through cushioning grasses,
softly flowing,...

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Poems about Things that Break II
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter.
 
 
 
Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch
 
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower...

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Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by...

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Could you tell me, please,
how to become polypathically smarter,
economically deep learned and wisely adept 
co-arising ecologically systemic theories
to grow more co-empathic trust 
of and for cooperatively organizing positive 
nutritional slow-growth,
optimally sustainable Continuous Quality Health Improvement?

Try...

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English translations of Arabic poems by Fadwa Tuqan aka "The Poet of Palestine"

Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in)...

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CRISIS SESSION FBI HUMAN RESOURCE DIVISION NON-REDACTED
FBI: HELLO WHAT IS YOUR EMERGENCY

AGENT BROWN: HELLO THIS IS AGANT BROWN AND THAT DARK PLACE IS RETURNING AGAIN I AM IN CRISIS AGAIN 

FBI: OKAY WE ARE HERE...

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It was 1968 we'd gathered again in the school auditorium my tiny hands sweating only five years old while my name was called in all of this cold  
civil rights riots plagued my little...

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Translation of Eric Mottram’s Courbet: Elegy 8 by T. Wignesan

Blanches oeuvres ouvertes
résident dans les jours
la surface du banc de travail est noire
les géraniums-lierres
les fougères et les adragans
accumulent leurs oeuvres et jours:
La toile noire de Courbet
un...

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CRISIS TEAM : HELLO WE ARE HERE TO HELP 

AGENT BROWN: I AWAKEN EVERY NIGHT IN TOTAL FEAR FOR MY SAFETY AFTER WEARING WIRES PREGNANT BUYING WEAPONS AND DRUGS FEARING FOR MINE AND MY CHILDREN...

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As i reported my stalker and identity thief 2002 to the FBI she began climbing into my window for poetry my grandfathers world war 11 medal information this resulted in her arriving with a gunman...

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After my traumatic brain injury witnessing a murder I didn’t think the world could even get any worse my children and I survived 4 major hurricanes I decided to move north to his home town...

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Poems about Children III

Miracle
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

The contrails of galaxies mingle, and the dust of that first day still shines.
Before I conceived you, before your heart beat, you were mine,

and I see

infinity leap in...

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This page shows my writing process and is part of Poetrysoup's first workshop.  The workshop's intent is to reveal how revision strengthens a poem. Constructive feedback can be a gift.  Should any journal...

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Remember when you were very young,                             ...

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Key CapitalistYang/CreolistYin EcoHistoric Concepts

I find a fuzzy irony in this morning’s early search for a new journal notebook, having filled my last from what had been, five years ago, an inconceivably high pile of empty...

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Oh how I want a doggy, 
a bundle of love and fur.                       ...

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We were off,                                ...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to...

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