Long Nam Poems

See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn’t seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are...

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ALBERT EINSTEIN POEMS

These are "poems" I created from Albert Einstein quotes, changing a word here and there for the sake of meter and rhyme...



A question that sometimes drives me hazy: 
am I or are the...

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First they came for the Muslims

after Martin Niemoller

First they came for the Muslims
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Muslim.

Then they came for the homosexuals
and I did not speak out
because I was...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems (I)

These are poems about World War II and the Holocaust, which is also called the Shoah in Hebrew. 



Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust
by Michael R. Burch

I...

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.                          NOW

Well, GI Jack is welcome back, he left his...

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_ a symphonic, folk rock, blues song
1.
I'm an old man looking
For the lost, best parts of me.
I'm an old man looking
For the lost, best parts of me.
I'm looking in the places
Where the people say love...

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a force for good
(for john coltrane and ahmed obafemi
based on ‘trane’s treatment of ‘nature boy’)

“…I wanna be a force for good…”
		-John Coltrane
 
…there was a man…
a very brave, enchanted man…
and he spoke of many things…
peace...

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The Job

I got a plane to catch in the morning.  8:15 AM out of Austin, destination Orange County, CA.  Never cared much for California and I don’t think anything about this trip is...

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AND MANY THOUGHT WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE

Tell me child, what it was like so many years ago?
When as a young person you grew
In what we considered was times of uncertainty...

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Memories of a Green Beret

“Where have all the soldiers gone, Long time passing,
Where have all the soldiers gone, Long long time ago,
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Gone to graveyards, every one.
When will they ever learn?
When...

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I never got to dance with Mary Jane
although I heard she sure knows how to swing!
She has a twin, and he is masculine;
he doesn’t have his sister’s magic powers,
her mystic way of calming people down
or...

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We were a generation free of super-technology.
Yes, we had our records and tv
and the airlines for speedy travel. And yes, 
there had been wars throughout history,
but we had never lived ourselves through wars’ horrors.
WWI, WWII,...

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       CLOSING TIME AT THE PUB


The joy, the camaraderie, the smoke.
The great ale, my great friends in Chicago.
Old Town, North Avenue, twas Chicago,1967.
O' Rourke's Pub, where else?
Smoky, filled with...

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There’s a universe in my library
Where I often rest within,
Beginning with cosmology 
Where the mystery of life begins...

In space and time in books you’ll find  
On a shelf upon a wall,
Near biology and chemistry...

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Memory of Lost Innocence 

We were just kids running down the hillside, with youthful spontaneity marking the passage of time. No beaten path, we just flowed where our little hearts took us, wedging our way...

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April my Bangle cat hates my Lap Top                           ...

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“…Let the sunshine (and let the sun shine on in)
Let the sunshine in (You got to open up your heart)…"
-- From Aquarius, by The 5th Dimension


The times they were a-changing,
an age of great unrest.
A Ball...

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Only God can see perfectly what is ahead four years up the road.                      ...

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HERO

“As a boy you’ll go away to that far off distant war
 And you’ll come back a man
 Of which my son I’m so proud.”
 
So off to this war I went
To a place that...

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Life flashes by in a moment of time.
Late twilight’s rose fades, the sweet songbirds leave.
Though we strive to remain in reasoned rhyme
All living will die, the joyful will grieve.
What vision can guide us? What blinding...

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THE BOW LEG-GED GIRL
I took all of your tank tops and your hose and your sox,
and I put them all together in a little brown box.
I put all of your dresses and your shoes in...

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are you free, humanity, by power of love 
or in chain by love of power or by lack of it? 

a student of The School of Resentment asks…

back in time,
at such dominant spaces  
called...

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THE BOW LEGGED GIRL
I took all of your tank tops and your hose and your sox,
and I put them all together in a little brown box.
I put all of your dresses and your shoes in...

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I am beggar 
I am thief 
I am Eve 

Buried by belief 

I am leader 
I am breeder 
I am Adam 

Narcissistic feeder 

I lie inside the doorway 
Unable now to die 
I see the...

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       CLOSING TIME AT THE PUB


The joy, the camaraderie, the smoke.
The great ale, my great friends in Chicago.
Old Town, North Avenue, twas Chicago,1967.
O' Rourke's Pub, where else?
Smoky, filled with...

Read More