Long Moors 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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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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For a few coins Melord, I'll tell a story of two that met in this place, 
and here you can take your rest, and leave sumpter to graze in the tall grass.

I payed the old...

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"Kaleidoscope" 

They say another
wrote the story, not I.
that I, mere I,
having little experience, shy 
and far removed from 
such an alien world,
would not possess the knowledge
of such terrible and ruthless, lusty 
characters of strong will;...

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Mother nature oh! Rose of roses!
Mother of all flowers' and smell,
Ylang Ylang! You don't know what it causes!
An aphrodisiac turns you on like hell!

Sandalwood with its masculine warmth poses,
Rosemary clears the head, you can tell,
Peppermint...

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Matsuo Basho New Haiku Translations

Air ballet:
twin butterflies, twice white,
meet, match & mate
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Denied transformation
into a butterfly,
autumn worsens for the worm
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Dusk-gliding...

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The missus served me high test coffee...

Ah... tis nothing more heavenly 
(to one borne again devout atheist)
then a spring like January 18th, 2023
here at Highland Manor apartments
picturesque green covered landscape,
where intrepid dandelions 
dare to defy...

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'We have a future king to make,'
Said the deep, resounding voice.
'But it is not a proper fit for everyone.
For a king must know first how to obey than to command,
And to abide rather than reign.'

'And...

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The year has finally yawned and turned       
Upon a half-revealed shoulder.
A vibrancy, intrinsic to a reemerging 
Enforcement of the strengthening light, 
In its deliberate and unconcerned   ...

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I  continued down the driveway and then came to a stop, damn, I thought I’ve come down the wrong driveway it must be further up.Then a man appeared from behind some trees with a...

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Lapsed contra dancer rediscovers his happy place

I tip figurative hat to the late Cathy Robertson, longtime (lifetime) Thomas Paine Unitarian Church member, who unwittingly and quite casually made mention of contra dancing, which inopportunely, inextricably,...

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Phoenix and Phoenicia

They had both been victims of their own sad minds stories lost told and untold
narratives to be re-authored livid experience lived in silence meaning smeared in
crusted mud slung in terminal slots shots executed...

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Coming To The Garden

Long-lost secrets at Misselthwaite Manor.
Mistress Mary moves from self-centeredness to
self-awareness, leading to self-healing.
This tale's secret seems simple but not so.
A space to sense one's spiritual serenity,
children seek silence in a stillness place...

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"Like a shooting s t a r,
         plunging from lunar fields of lavenders,
  to touch the aqua a b y s s a l,
  ...

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As the peacock-sage 
waves of whimsical peace
faded in silence's 
pale watercolors, 
I masked my 
eerie eyelashes, 
with drifting 
angel-mist smog. 
For, I sensed the 
wistful wailings of 
ambrosial lilies, 
encased in my 
heart's crystal casket,...

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Are you a figment of my imagination or are you for real
Do you dream like me and feel the things I feel
My head hits the pillow is it your face that I see
I wonder if...

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It was on the night of midsummer's eve, there was a pregnant pause. Not even a leaf was moving,
the sky so starry bright and the moon benevolently shining lighting up the moors.
It was the kind...

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It was in a socially and economically difficult situation that the musical cultures of Jews, Moors and mainly Gypsies began to merge into what would become the basic form of flamenco. The Flemish songs reflect...

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Flies, drawn to their only sustenance, cloud around my head.
In this cloudless desert sky  - blank, deep-arching cavern of thought  - 
Unblinking  sun stares down but this fire-bird will not fly,
Has no...

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ZEN DEATH HAIKU VII

These are my modern English translations of Japanese Zen Death Haiku. 

Stricken ill on a journey, 
in dreams I go wandering
withered moors.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem) by Michael...

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By the time the fever set in,
The leaves had already turned,
Turned that is, into the colors,
Already there beforehand.

—

The bursting verdant stickiness,
Of nipple spring,
June’s coy leafy gaze,
The muscular lust of summer grazing,
When Burgundy picnics,
Turn white, thick...

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My only companions are my dreams
my only friends Who call out for me
their voices a melody for me to fallow
save me my friends from this Dark World

Wolfs teach me to be loyal and to...

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Human tastes vary and so are the desperate cravings to capture the best in human ambition,
A more desperate thirst for fame, riches and for power can be a low, vulgar bitter taste,
I admire the spirit...

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~~oooOOO  The Man In The Mist  OOOooo~~

Going to my cousins house, a long drive in the car
Over the moors with dry stone walls, it was very far
The house in the middle of a...

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Each of us is a special case of music and noise on the ground
So listen, sit down and listen to His rhythmic laughter, scholar.
You are just a hertz of His, a cell, a particle of...

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