Long Nearer Poems

This is for the Contest - 'Titanic - Fare Thee Well' Sponsored by Tom Woody.
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Rejection
a roundel by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has...

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Medieval Poem V

A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, and dies alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds,...

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“Now behind the eyes and secrets of the dreamers in the streets rocked to sleep by the sea, see the titbits and topsyturvies, bobs and buttontops, bags and bones, ash and rind and dandruff and...

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If ever a moment in real life deserved a romantic, melancholy
backing track, it would have been that one ... we'd spent the
entire afternoon at Ferry Beach, sunning and playing frisbee, I
playing guitar, she practicing her...

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"Hey, you philosophysing Hindu. Give me a break, Buddy. I was just pulling your leg. [...] I want the rest of the story. Really, I mean it.” Theson said nothing. [...] “I can see you’re...

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Translations of the Oldest English Rhyming Poems

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem aka The Riming Poem
Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

(excerpt)
He who granted me life...

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The tears well up, and scarce could she not moan
When father, brother, husband, all have died.
She now has no possessions, neither home,
But travels to a distant, unknown land:
Once so secure, yet now compelled to roam;
Once...

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The night sky was dark but for the beam of light that glared through the trees before them as they walked into the woods.  Joulupukki and Lumi were careful not to get to close...

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In the ancient Empire of the Chrysanthemum Throne, horsemen riders from the southern regions, their steel swords close to their sides, clang heavily to their waist as they ride hard to the capital. Before their...

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They had kept me imprisoned there for three full days,
In that sparse, solitary room, of scarce sunshine rays.

Having good food to eat, had never been a problem; 
They brought hot meals, but the problem was...

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"Christmas in the Cathedral of the Forest Deep"




The silent heart is found 
embedded in the 
Cathedral of 
The Forest Deep

The lost jewel
shines in the dark
see the reflection of emerald eyes
endless hazel woods scried

On Christmas Eve
when...

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Two, perhaps three miles out to sea, beyond the reef to Zapatillas,
Bocas’ dual sand-edged footprint jewels with jungle centre trees, 
Francesco’s outboard boat heads out to Caribbean’s deeper blue.

Where sun burns softer gringo skin, but...

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The great Sabbath day descended, though not in my heart and mind
On this new day,
I imagined rays of God’s light shining generously upon the mountains,
Pools of living waters gurgling, and winds gently rustling trees
Wishing for...

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Now as the years passed by everyone became so tired
the heaps of things scattered around became too much to bear
some benevolence was certainly grand but this was too much
the two felt unable to undertake ...

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Galloping hooves broke morn's peace in Soup Creek's Main Street
When Jimmy Smith rode in from Bar 20 his face white as a sheet
He stopped at Sheriff Koplins office and banged heavily on the door 
"What's...

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I’m lunching with my bestie Mylie
She’s upset and no longer smiley
I ask her what’s wrong
She said in my thong
My bottom is no match for Kylie!

I giggled and said stop your moans
You're perfect not like Bridget...

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I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(the reasons why you’ll never know),
whisked away in winter’s winds, your sleeping sighs remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close...

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December 14, 1965           

"Mr. Samuel Cooke. Sam Cooke??
You been in that casket for three days..
You a long way from Chicago, son?"

And Sam said, "What happened
Where...

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Beware of pirates without a ship
like rebels without a transportive WinWin cooperative cause,
like ego-politicians without sacred ecological-economic portfolios.

One of the ways we communicate cooperative values
and choose not to communicate disvalues
is by how and where and...

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"Conceits"



Such conceits
as veils between 
our windowed worlds 
torn torrential incomplete

mayst thou watch and learn 
the one I spawned, 
strength beats weakness
carried soft and harsh

one direction or the other
strength and weakness
both carried soft and harsh
ego and...

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A harrowing drive on the Schuylkill Expressway
(route 76) both heading into
(and a small number of hours later
exiting) center city Philadelphia
to Schwenksville on May 19th, 2024.

Yours truly (a doodling Yankee), and the missus
went to town, NOT...

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Which paradise is not the elusive chimère?
	 	 
…how long does it take to live one life…learn the lessons of a lifetime…find the time to live…find the time to sort things out…know what you did...

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Book 2
“Next we will use and abuse, the wedge of doubt.  To place a misgiving, a slight of hand, an apprehension into the day,  to mold the day thoughts of these apes, these...

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And after had passed the two enraged by
On which I had before pointed my sight,
I turned to others evil-born my eye.

I saw one, who the form of lute have might,
If he the groin in full...

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