Long Marshalled Poems

A Stolen Memory
A Mirthful Chorus
By Sy Roth 


We surrounded him 
Asked to let go.
She stared at the misshapen face,
Unshaven sandpapery skin 
Eyelids a tabula rasa
Fluttery sere skin
And we could see the humor blossoming in his...

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                                  ...

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Unsolved criminal mystery...modest prevarication

Found yours truly
a grateful dead head
convenient scapegoat dejure
Norristown police officers
fingerprinted me for 
casual postal employment
linked to vicious brutal crime
someone else who shared 
identical name and fingerprints as mine
the latter of corpse far...

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These are English translations/modernizations of Medieval poems written in Old English and Middle English.

Exeter Book Gnomic Verses or Maxims
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dragon dwells under the dolmen,
wizened-wise, hoarding his treasure;
the fishes bring forth...

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Emotional guillotine clefts
     irredeemable psychological umbilical accord
witnessing heart breaking,
     woe-begotten inhumane rip cord
gut wrenching shuffle board
     (indiscriminately sporting)
     most...

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These are English translations of Medieval poems written in Old English.



The Battle of Maldon
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 991 AD or later
translation by Michael R. Burch
 
…would be broken.

Then he bade each warrior unbridle his...

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T'was the week before Christmas, as I watched the live stream
I could hardly believe what I could see on my screen.
With Manchester losing to Norwich two one,
We could keep our top spot if we held...

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THE   DESTINY.


This is not a country for living souls
Recoiled the heart lives under the enshades
Of vampire ridden nature and all its pards
On beggarly sums amassed by the pauper
Of bleakness and cold hunger and...

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This is not a country for living souls
Recoiled the heart lives under the enshades
Of vampire ridden nature and all its pards
On beggarly sums amassed by the pauper
Of bleakness and cold hunger and mort
Here existing we...

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This is not a country for living souls
Recoiled the heart lives under the enshades
Of vampire ridden nature and all its pards
On beggarly sums amassed by the pauper
Of bleakness and cold hunger and mort
Here existing we...

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my granite face with deeply creviced grief
sees dungeons buried beyond naked eyes;
to traitor's gate where victims sought relief
yet spiked as trophies for all to despise. 

The artist Turner was by me inspired 
to compose a...

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Japan, land of rising SUN

Faced Natures devastation
Tsunami, earthquake obliterated cities
Lost all but not hope, maturity, sanity

Collective harmony, community first attitude
No honking, no mad overtaking; only understanding on jammed roads
No shoplifting when lights fused in malls

Mature...

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In the sea of  swirling dust that is our infinity
Held together by the breath of Divinity
Infinitesimal microdots are we
Yet megalomania rules our see.

Do ants blindly view themselves as lords of their world
In their intricately...

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Across the valley the gentle meadows lay
The lush grass would grow and then become hay
But for now on guard the poppies stood
Their masses formed lakes of deep red blood. 

Battalions of olive trees standing still
Stretch...

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For those that got left behind,we chase distant shadows of those long gone,we sit and in wait 
for dreams that will probably never return. Holding vigils and keeping sacred rituals for 
stoned hearts,dessulute and barren,...

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For those that got left behind,we chase distant shadows of those long gone,we sit and in wait 
for dreams that will probably never return. Holding vigils and keeping sacred rituals for 
stoned hearts,dessulute and barren,...

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What, then, is a spirit?
Whence the wafting wisp?
And is a thing ethereal really real?

How concrete the conscious?
Does sentience have substance?
Tell me, really, truly, what’s the deal?

“Long ago, immortal ages past,
Eons yet lay heavy on his...

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If old men fought the wars
Would there be quite so many?
Maybe we’d reach a stage
Where we’d not fight any.
Life becomes more precious
With the passing of years 
The realisation of mortality
Bringing its own fears.

Let the young...

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