Long Memento Poems

Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

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"How Do I Feel Today"
written out of depravity of sleep, of self assurance of happiness
written out of love and vulnerability
I was so sure, aware; I had a plan!
but as the case with all my well...

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(alternately titled: idolizing childhood's end
today April 25th, 2021
generates elusive warm treasured memories).

Akin to significance my eldest sister
felt toward her “Willies” –
(totally tubular fuzzy bendable contrivances
analogous to an outsize pipe cleaner)
until she became a tweener
my Matty...

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The din awakens me
Hall smoke alarm screaming like a banshee
Smoke everywhere, though I see no flames
I reach up through the thick black fumes and yank the battery
Silencing the banshee, but I hear sirens approaching

Thank god...

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I'm not addicted, so this will be easy
It's a hard truth to hear so I just tune it out 
and I’m arguing with walls 
but I end up letting them fall on me 
“But it...

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David Jones, the best rat catcher Shropshire has ever had
must take some criticism for young Molly turning bad.
Even though his daughter found rich co-incidentals,
no credit could be taken by rat catching Dad's credentials.

At nineteen she's...

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                         "Running away from pitch of battlefield
    ...

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I went cruising to Norway with my wife across the North Sea
We travelled the route the Vikings took but with added luxury
Our first port of call was Stavanger, it was nice to be on dry...

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When silver waves of crystalline crescent
     emanate rhapsodies glazed in
        Jupiter light.. reflections
       of bejeweled June comes 
...

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There are wrinkles
Now, lines erasing a past
Where the fine contours of her face
Were drawn, in color
Crisp, clean lineages from 
Time echoing hope,
Soothing away the fragments
Reality connecting the dots,
Gentling the descent
From her youth to the present
Moment,...

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In the twilight of life, when the sun weeps its rays on the reddened sky of memories,
I feel how autumn weaves its golden and rusty web over the garden of my weary soul,
Each falling leaf...

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Thru a paroxysm of tears...

I inconsolably wept a river of sorrow
starkly aware alienated daughter(s)
implacable woe sundered fatherhood
yesterday, today and tomorrow.

A series of unfortunate events
(move over Lemony Snicket)
set in motion since my birth
unleashed impotent scrawny infant
registering...

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THE ur POEMS


& GAUD said, “Let there be LIGHT VERSE
to illuminate the ‘nature’ of my Curse!”
—michael r. burch


grave request
by michael r. burch

come to ur doom
in Tombstone;

the stars stark and chill
over Boot Hill

care nothing for ur...

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FROM THE ur POEMS



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by Michael R. Burch 
 
... u were borne orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification; u
would love to...

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FREE VERSE VI

Reason Without Rhyme
by Michael R. Burch

I used to be averse
to free verse,
but now I admit
YOUR rhyming is WORSE!

But alas, in the end,
it’s all the same:
all verse is unpaid
and a crying shame.



What the Poet...

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ALLAMA IQBAL TRANSLATIONS INTO MODERN ENGLISH



Ehad-e-Tifli (“The Age of Infancy”)
by Allama Iqbal aka Muhammad Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The earth and the heavens remained unknown to me,
My mother's bosom was my only world.

Her embraces...

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ALLAMA IQBAL TRANSLATIONS INTO MODERN ENGLISH



Excerpt from Rumuz-e bikhudi (“The Mysteries of Selflessness”)
by Allama Iqbal aka Muhammad Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like a candle fending off the night,
I consumed myself, melting into tears.
I spent...

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Slowly with unstable steps, she approaches.
The room is dank a foreboding intensity permits the air.
She is shaking as the memories wrap their inky hands around her throat.
The terror starts to build as the anguish she'd...

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Fifty years of bustin’ ass, I never had a dime,
If I had any balls at all, I’d’ve chose a life of crime;

I never owned a brand new truck, a flat TV or yacht,
I figured I...

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Excerpts from "The Tulip of Sinai"
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Withered Roses
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What shall I call you,
but the nightingale's desire?

The morning breeze was your nativity,
an afternoon garden,...

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(Piece is intended to be the most complex vocabulary gothic ever)

Grandiloquence,
mellifluous pulchritudinous,
gaiety of quintessential moistening serendipity,
bile deluge if you show the sanguinary breath,
crimson waterfall sizzling on lava rock hellscape.

Yclept necrophelia maestra,
macabre tableau,
dips douse abyssal incarnate,
now...

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In the shadows of a lost cause, I lingered,
Yearning for moments that slipped away,
Selfishly trying to grasp one more second with you,
Knowing well the folly of such desires.
Now alone, the world takes on a sinister...

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Infallible 

I fall into the rain, beneath me;
My sky a glittery dust to thee,
Calling the joy I hath not met,
Thou cometh sweetly, but late. 

I fall into the cold, and just me;
Only I understand the clouds,
Oh!...

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Excerpts from "Cordoba"
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Withered Roses
by Allama Iqbal
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What shall I call you,
but the nightingale's desire?

The morning breeze was your nativity,
an afternoon garden, your sepulchre.

My tears...

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Far as the (ease) 
severely myopic eyes can see,
nothing but polluted atmosphere
where skull and crossbones
memento mori betokens beware,

especially with increasing chronology
mortality becomes crystal clear
existential crisis yours truly didst despair
not so much death itself, but failure
(inadequacy)...

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