Long Kurds Poems

Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me...

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Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out a small national magazine....

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SAD Seasonally Affective Disorder

Some are prone to depression in winter when days get shorter when
less light enters the brain through the eyes and thoughts become darker

I am also affected and when news gets explosive when...

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Exclusive Birth Rights

I am German and guilty as charged by history and evil parental culpability
privileged by life and proxy thus I refuse to forget ancestral perpetration
though I propose without any diminution that systematic genocide is...

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Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

My era's obscuring mirror
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my...

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Trump Poems and Epigrams VI

Poets laud Justice’s
high principles.
Trump just gropes
her raw genitals.
—Michael R. Burch



Dark Shroud, Silver Lining
by Michael R. Burch

Trump cares so little for the silly pests
who rise to swarm his rallies that he jests:
“The...

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Ngo Dinh Diem thought America was a friend
That turned out badly, he met a bloody end
A State Department cabal thought he denied human rights
They pulled the plug and turned off the lights
JFK agreed he had...

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SYRIAN REFUGEES

I'm watching a programme on telly
About the Syrian refugees
Men and women and children
Humanity brought to its knees

I'm watching the desperate faces
The terror and hunger and fear
They're facing their ultimate nightmare
And me? Well I'm just...

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I have always been curious about people from Kurdistan
I wonder why they are called kurds
I wonder when the kurds would become keese
Just like curd becomes cheese
I wonder if birds are called “birds” because they come...

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Depression, suppresion of the Iraqi people
Call for the brave, no longer feeble
Statues down of their once ruler
No longer reigns, no population puller.

Uday, Qusay the tyrants sons
No longer on power, now the weak ones
The search goes...

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An insect,preserved in amber,
Frozen at one point in time,
Never changing,always the same,
Trapped in death
Through an accident of place,
It has its grim beauty,
It pays the price.

A new born baby
Swaddled in its family's clothes,
Comfortable and unquestioning
It grows.

Nature...

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Gloria Dubbins - not much of a name,
but trust me on my judgment, gentle reader;
in terms of Beauty, she was Hall of Fame.

We’re talking – let’s see – nineteen seventy-two,
but I’m the keeper of the...

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Dinner with old friends:
salmon with red cabbage, asparagus, Caesar's salad, penne with
      broccoli, two white wines.
Jane Jacobs could analyze how it all got to our table
or even how their daughter...

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SADDAM'S TRIAL
[HUMOROUS POEM ] 
BY NANDLAL KANJIBHAI PANCHOLI

''Who brought me to this cage?'
Roars the dictator with rage
Then says in a firm voice
'I'm free and have my choice'
So I do not obey this court
Which judicial norms...

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I’m sure I’m quite right,
I cannot be wrong,
I was always so bright.
My memory’s strong.

I well racked my brain,
Considered all facts
And with consummate strain
Followed the tracks. 	

The Kurds were not there
Nowhere in sight,
This I declare
Knowing I’m...

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In my infinite wisdom 
 I tell you this thing,
In this here my kingdom
Will the pendulum swing;

One minute the Kurds
So cute in their garb,
The other the Turks
With their venomous barb.

The former I’m told
Are people to...

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Restore The Princely States
-------------------------

Free the Balochs and Kurds!
Sikhs want Khalistan.
Jammu is culturally separate
And so is Kashmir;
And so Ladakh.
(Their religion is different; they sing and speak different;cook different and clothe different.)
How long can we compress dissimilar...

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The wildly obnoxious things he has done, 
Things Tweeted from the toilet each day,
The bigoted, racist lies of a clown, 
Put on full public display,

Show that he’s got no idea what he barks, 
No idea...

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Mr. President, I want you, to live in my shoes
To do the necessary things that you must do
To work for your money, not speak friendly words
To feel the pain, from YOUR people, not Afghans or...

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