Long Landlocked Poems

Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow...

leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed...
such are the things we are unable to know

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us...

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Turkish Poetry Translations II

Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war??
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a...

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LOVE POEMS V

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch, about life, the dream of love, virtue, a first kiss, a first crush, the birth of a first relationship, the joy of a first love...

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"Present!"

It's a lackluster answer (1) to simple life question,
"Hi! How is it going Mom? You feel OK?"
She was lonely for sure, saw no chance of a rescue,
She fought for her kids, though art dreams went...

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How interesting. A contest about Afghanistan.
Afghanistan sits landlocked between Pakistan on the East
and Iran on the West with a population of 39 million. It's enemy          ...

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Yahya Kemal Beyatli translations

Yahya Kemal Beyatli (1884-1958) was a Turkish poet, editor, columnist and historian, as well as a politician and diplomat. Born born Ahmet Âgâh, he wrote under the pen names Agâh Kemal, Esrar,...

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I
A queue to a doorway
No-one knows what´s
On sale there
It could be washing powder
Almonds or diamonds
You think this was some
Yesterday
Look out your
Ghost smeared
Window
This is now

II
Throw stones at the
Motorcade 
The pin pricked
Giant will barely
Pause
At banners & petitions
Faded...

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I have no idea how on earth i got here
I am a prisoner in a phantom prison of fear
I wish to escape and live my life a fugitive
But the warden watches me and i can...

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My man from youth grew
  Your life was full of superiority;
  You dazzled and demarcated, 
  Who does not belong must be sacrifice,
  And laughter were the mystery of your horror...

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The pen is greater than the sword or so it’s often said.
A poet’s word still stirs the heart long after he is dead.
The "Elegy" of Thomas Gray can still provoke a thought.
And Campbell’s "Ullin’s Daughter"...

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I've come a long way,
There's a reason God has me where I am today,
But I can't help looking back,
because across that ocean is what I lack.

That hill I stood on and beheld the water,
It touched...

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Ordinary words cannot express the glimpse, this strange eclipse of wonder
Driving over hills, just north of home, it captures first my curiosity
Amid the landlocked green of rolling hills, trees and rocky tundra
Could it be, perhaps...

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Dressed in green, plants and trees grow
Roads of red clay, joining paved highways
Dry and dusty, wet and muddy 
Walking shops, sleeping vendors
Basket of fruits, bin of vegetables
Mother of foods, server of nations

Flocked Churches, packed Mosques...

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22 June 2010

A Breakaway

 
For mankind has the power to think big
History puts them on the pedestal of their career
Aimless drifting until fatally engaged into a drilling rig
Raised a surface at the heart of the...

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There are three of them, Cinderella siblings:
shapely, deciduous, their leafy green
darkness undulating in the specter wind, 
its silent snare drum emulating heartbeats 
in syncopated symmetry. "Take us, Take us, 
Don't stop!" say the sisters, moving...

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We are not islands
We of the islands of N and Z placed together
There are three of us

If we were islands
We would lie in the sea
Sunbathing
Waves would lap over us
Playfully tickle our sandy shores
Crash against our...

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My people are shipwrecks,
they have faces long crushed by tanks.
Many are landlocked,
a few were too oceanic
they got broken by dry-docked hearts.
Most were blitzed by smokescreens.

The trees and industrial units
are so tightly packed,
that snow can only...

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Redding Poem 4
“Flying Down Interstate 5”

We departed Redding at 3:45, 
In the dead of an October night.
Those tumultuous streets were morgues then,
As we raced to the deserted Interstate 5,
Zooming across the snoozing Sacramento River,
Going at...

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Gypsy of the Railways

I march to a different drummer
My life it is my own
I'm an explorer of experience
That is how I'm known

I've seen snow in South Dakota
I've been on the Vegas strip
Had barbeque in Kansas
My...

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I march to a different drummer
My life it is my own
I'm an explorer of experience
That is how I'm known

I've seen snow in South Dakota
I've been on the Vegas strip
Had barbeque in Kansas
My life has been...

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Genesis: God’s plan unfolding
Father, with the Word, creates;
Spirit on the water hovers
God, how great and wise you are!

          Caterpillar - slow, unwieldy
    ...

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Around The World In One More Day
by Rick Rucker

At the wheel, I see the rollers' foam,
The Ocean's undulating loam.

The race was lost months ago,
When the Hurricane did blow.

My trusty boat was almost dismated,
Not long would...

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He stands upon the salty,slippery deck,
Yelling yaargh matey ,
with a halfhearted pirate drawl.
He's not to impressed with himself,
not an eyepatch or wooden leg,
not even a hooked claw.
The parrot on his shoulder,
is a wannabee,
a sparrow that...

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My one true love is the ocean
I love it's smell and colour
I long to see it just once more
Ages ago i stood there
Out on the sandy shores
The wind blew my hair
Shells and rocks speckled the...

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Let us ride in a hot air balloon,
Drifting along the currents of air
Painting the sky with dashes of color without a single care.

Let the canvas swallow the hot air from the balloon’s flames,
Lifting us higher...

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