Long Nettles Poems

Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.


The...

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Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow...

leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed...
such are the things we are unable to know

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us...

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Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter hoar
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers—nude, forlorn.

Published...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers I

I translated the first six Native American poems for my father when he chose to enter hospice and end his life by not taking dialysis …


Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation...

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These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation...

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Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
—Yamaguchi Seishi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow...

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Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch
											
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred...

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Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch Sr.)

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long...

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Poems about Children IV

Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the...

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Sonnets X-XVI


Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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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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The greatest performance of my life.  
Howard’s proud piece de resistance award  on Poetry Nook for my magnum opus “Rush Amid The Rapids” in their daily member section.
After endless hours of toil, tribulation,...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XII

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly,...

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LOVE POEMS IV by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about love, passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, romance, relationships and marriage. 



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (III)

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot...

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"Burnt Aqua"



I can taste the sun
on my tongue
it spills down 
my throat
like burnt aqua
healing the beating frisson

I am ebony inside
shading in my shadow world
some somnolent soul
waking from slumber’s dream dance 
a small death in life...

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My First poem posted here May 2007 was  an enigmatic Lanterne

Viduage

Tall
nettles-
the dutch hoe
rusting in the
shed.

My First ekphrasis (poem no 2 here ) BELLA

Bella

He
opened
the window-
in streamed his first
love
with
flowers,
dressed
in white-
she haunted his
art.

An Ekphrasis in lanterne  sequence on Marc Chagall

MY FIRST POEM I EVER WROTE poem no 3 here. a favoured form  AN ALLITERATION

Connections
Confront,clash,collide
COMBAT !
Cold shoulder,chill,cool
CUT-OFF !
Cry,crave,collect
CALL-ON !
Constant,compassion,consider
CHARITY !
Confer,commune,converse
COMMUNICATE !
Convene,concert,consensus
CONCORD !
COVENANT ! CHRIST ! CHURCH !

MY FIRST IMAGIST POEM -REFLECTIONS

Reflections

Deep into the pool
A blue moon,ephemeral,
Below white-coated peaks,
Bleak and surreal,
The transient image too soon
Dissolves,and ripples into space,
As water though my grasp.

MY FIRST CINQUAIN (after Adelaide Crapsey)

Long days
Of August sun
Where nature blinks and shrinks
The dying grass,yellowed in sleep-
Held fast

MY FIRST HIKU 

On the wind,a bell
Muffled from across the square
Raindrops fill the air
why hiku ?

HAIKU means  the ' phonetical&cultural original 'in Japanese'

whereas HIKU

is the English language version(including translations)with similar economy of words without "telling all" thereby to ' show ' (conforming to the key to...

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Timothy had always been a man of laughing joy and conversation	


               -Friendship dialogue communication -


But now there was silence but for...

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Kissing For Beginners.

Do you recall your first kiss
That was supposed to fill you with heavenly bliss
But filled you with nervous anticipation
It looked simple enough on telly
But I had butterflies in my belly

I hated girls when...

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As a youngster he had dreamt of moving to a potato farm in Ireland

To escape from the brown rot of German post-world war II contamination

Just another plot on the map to sufficient existence and to...

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These are poems about recollection, poems about remembrance, poems about memories, poems about time and things we forget as well as remember...

Lady's Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May 
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal 
nettles
and may
May
cry...

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as if Monet had planted water lilies in Babylon

          hanging gardens at the heart of a canvas of joy

       ...

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It stood there
looking empty and old,
neglected and sad
with windows shuttered,
covered in shadow 
both day and night,
hovered over 
by trees whose branches
disguised the house
and made it seem 
a part of the 
overgrown landscape, 
completely surrounding it,
keeping...

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I only learned one thing in school
And that was how to fight
The teachers were always so good at it
And they were always right.

One teacher was nicknamed spitfire
Because she'd spit as she spoke
All the teachers wore...

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