Long Lodged Poems

Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm that wells within?
How can the ocean not be blue,
not buck with the clapboard slap of tide,
the clockwork shock of wave on rock,
the...

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Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee ...
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus...

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Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch

“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.

“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.

“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed...

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I.	  The Settlement

          Hickory bark bluffs
          at the blend of two 
    ...

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Of Ghosts and Fiends in Twilight


The sun sank low on the darkening horizon
Grey mist hung adrift over the land thickening
A cold, brisk autumn wind held and embraced me 
With my horse’s pace and that of...

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MICHELANGELO: Modern English Translations

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is considered by many experts to be the greatest artist and sculptor of all time. These are modern English translations of his poems and epigrams by Michael R. Burch.



SONNET:...

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Soliloquio del Individuo by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan


(Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of the "Cervantes Prize" (the highest literary honour for writers in Spanish), four times nominated for the...

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I write about my ex a lot,
we didn't talk much, but our tongues touched,
we used to have sex a lot and 
it was so hot that it set my soul ablaze, 
and no, it wasn't...

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I wish to
Relay
To all of my people the importance of sticking together as a 
team

And that
Because we have run 
through the preliminary trials as selfish individual, goal seekers
we have barely made it to the finals,...

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5.

                                  ...

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Ink roached infestation didst derive within mice elf

Minor emendations to following
just posted verse
oversight to correct dissatisfaction,
yours truly I do curse
ah... methinks if hands of time 
can be made to go in reverse
a more exemplary version
to...

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Sonnets V-IX



Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse... warm, palpable and slow...

once...

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(alternately titled: Typical daily mindset today – 
July 17th, 2020)

The following words
mostly unredacted, nevertheless finessed
for curbed poetic/prosaic appeal
lock, stock and barrel
codify, and edify (hoopfully not mortify)
any reader unbeknownst and/or familiar
with unsteady state of yours truly,
(an...

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Written 28 April 2024

“Genius begins great works. Labour alone finishes them.”
          Joseph Joubert

             ...

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They are conflicted haunted images from black and white photos of America 1933, when there was no place left to run. 

It was the hunger of people lined up, scraps of food ladled out, the...

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Ink roached infestation didst derive within mice elf

Thus writer of these words
forever mus lee experiencing 
craving to eat cheese,
a milk product 
eternally preserved within 
annals, chronicles, epistles, 
et cetera of human civilization 
and it's discontents...

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The man lay painfully wedged between two large boulders, 
his position an anomaly only the cruelest of fates could bring to a man. 
 In one moment he’d been sure-footed, gingerly climbing  the cliff....

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 [Poem read at Sekoto’s inhumation ceremony at the Neuilly-sur-Marne-93 Cemetery, near Paris. Channel 4 in London recorded the reading as they did the funeral rites in the presence of his close relatives come from...

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Roman à clef tragicomedy...
overlaid with façade of fiction = Mein Kampf

in summer re:
typed out during winter of my discontent,
when yours truly no spring chicken
stirred ruse to expatiate poetically
regarding following rhyming reason,
hence mine lovely bones 
into...

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If I am Syrian, what of it?
Stranger, we all dwell in one world, not its portals.
The same original Chaos gave birth to all mortals.
—Meleager translation by Michael R. Burch

Love, how can I call on you;
does...

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To Crush Mar a Lago Estate, and lower the Economic debt ceiling...

Now that DACA docked amidst 
marshy tidal outskirts of Poker flats 
(readied to be sunk) off shore 
(beach combing divers – ectoplasmic flotsam 
glorying...

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Sargasso
..by D Johnson
Fourteen days adrift time slowly slipped 
on the good ship Cavalier 
Becalmed, morose, no water they sipped 
drank rum to calm their fear 
The fog was thick o'er water and ship 
On the...

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Politesse pleases me...
thank you very much
for letting me clutch
your attention courtesy
sharing following thoughts
thru reading my poem analogous 
to invisible electronic, 
fantastic, kinetic... touch.

Manners work like a charm
equivalent to abracadabra to disarm
truculent nasty shortish brutes
who thrive...

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Francis saw the lights and heard the approaching sound of the Harley.She was at the entrance when Suzanne and Arlis pulled up .He slumped behind Suzanne leaning upon her as she maneuvered the bike to...

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Who is/was Jamie Ashworth?

Written roundabout October 31st 2017,
yet nary a handy dandy blue's clue
Jimmy Neutron Spongebob SquarePants
exists about real or imagined 
gal in question, and presumed results 
regarding the gal in question
acquiring titular role of...

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