Long Kneeling Poems

Hate the feelings of ew's and ugh's...let's pause before we put our paws on this unmanageable cause with silent applause (quiet interest or hushed enthusiasm)
What's the cause of these negative, gross, worthless flawful laws that...

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"Open Oceans"



Kneeling on pearls
wisdom preys

praying
preying

hungry hearts
count the days 

wasting away
in all that preying 

for prayers 
to be answered

children become
strangers

reading 
strange words

finding 
themselves puzzled

genuflecting to a deity
they do not know, nor wish to

fumbling
mouths closed,

swallowed hole
in the...

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Nemesis, Confrontation And The Rejoined Battle,
Now Completed


(Nemesis) - Part One

O'lord of blight dare thee to now abide
Leaving thy abode to earthen realm ride
As punisher with dark universal might
As grief bearer, humanity to smite!

Dar'est thee enter,...

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Come, You
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the...

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"Azure Vistas"

Azure vistas presented themselves to me
rolling inwards the clouds like tumbleweeds
mercilessly bump fallen angels off the map
like torrents of rain falling petulantly on blunt contracts

I glimpsed the sweet refrain of a resurrection
swift upon a...

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Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within,...

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The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand...

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“Now behind the eyes and secrets of the dreamers in the streets rocked to sleep by the sea, see the titbits and topsyturvies, bobs and buttontops, bags and bones, ash and rind and dandruff and...

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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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~ With All  His  Love  ~
(  First  And  Last )


~O~


 Each day give thanks to God above
 His love He sends us as a dove
 Gives his blessings right...

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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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TITLE:
       Xenophobia

Heed the warning
This isn't for the faint of heart
Verbalizing my deepest yearnings 
They're bound to be a bit tart...

Because where I'm from is called the Bible Belt
Where folks...

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Rosalia - The Evil Black Witch of the Harz, Part Five

The Monseigneur knew that they must be successful in this venture as the “Lord’s Madmen” or face the very real possibility of eternal damnation, if...

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Despite his impatience to show me his hell,
He waited for me in my rest, 
Lying upon the ground, I awoke in prayer,
Thanking God above and asking Him for guidance

“My heart is Yours, always,
From the moment...

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This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on...

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In the greatness of heavens realm there are many chapters of angels
Arch Angel Micheal the great warrior, Arch Angel Gabriel the great
messenger, Angels who tabulate, Angels who sing, Angels who watch
and for Earth the most...

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A young girl who’s lost & wandering in the darkness cries out

“If there’s a God out there please save me!”

The darkness replied with silence

But she kept listening so intently to the nothingness around her,

Clenching and...

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One morning early a Dad and his son Tom went for a walk in the country, they journeyed
through the still mist looking for flowers for the boy's Mom, but they did not see many.
Just then...

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Once a pawn a time within castellated bishopric

We purchased 2020 Hyundai Elantra
at Enterprise Car Rental
1207 West Ridge Pike
Conshohocken, Pennsylvania 19428
April thirteenth two thousand twenty three
witnessed greatest amount of money
I spent at one time.

The following day...

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"Heart"  

Deep fissures formed
in the cracks of 
the nowhere place
where time leeched
bleeding claret 
through the green 
veined blues

protean bit by bit
the flesh disappears
prematurely 6ft under
mulch for rebirth
the subcontinent
conscientious conscience 
inward reaching

the divine central tableau...

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As I ascend the podium, a predator of piquant pontifications, my eyes ravage the assemblage of adversaries, their countenances a canvas of consternation and morbid fascination. The atmosphere is heavy with the miasma of malignant...

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The years have passed quietly,
	Moments poured out in timeless winds,
Falling from my spirit, shadows, 
	Wistful, blurred images, photographs,
Twisting, turning, trembling,
	Black and white, tinted presences
Of those I know, those I’ve known,
Some gone, some old, some broken...

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Word Fantasy in F Sharp Minor  (3 Movements)

1

(Andante con moto)

Hey man. Take this.

I got it last night,
under a fractured street light,
with shattered pieces of clear glass, scattered
at the nexus of an obscure dark freeway...

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When I first awoke in this hospital, they tell me I had stared straight ahead and never uttered a word. I was in shock for a while, but now Dr. Albright, the therapist assigned to...

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In the raw expanse of land where rivers sigh,  
marked by the shadows of cats and dogs,  
with each puddle of yellow reminding us  
of lives once lived, hearts bound to the...

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