Long Nun Poems

Dad hit me only once, an upper cut to the solar plexus. It nearly lifted me off my feet. I was 17 then and already fairly tall, 6’1.” He was 48 and of medium height,...

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It may have been the devil himself who prompted the kids in my schoolyard back in 1947 to chant "Patsy Foley's roly-poly from eating too much ravioli."

At first, no one could remember who started the...

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Epigrams by Michael R. Burch

If brevity is the soul of wit
then brevity and levity 
are the whole of it.
—Michael R. Burch

To write an epigram, cram.
If you lack wit, scram!
—Michael R. Burch

Conformists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael...

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The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

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Dusk-gliding swallow, 
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers! 
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (II)

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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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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I was a seventeen year old senior in a coed, catholic high school.  Our gym classes however were still all boys and all girls.  My senior year we had gym every other day...

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I’m A “Street Fighter” 
You see the “Wings” CHUN 
LI
“BRUCE WAYNE”
 “LEROY”
“LU”
KAME
“THE LAST DRAGON BREATHS”
You don’t want “NUN”-CHUCK
NORE IS ANY ENTITY
Check my IP MAN
my Impulse 
 “Ki”
I’m the “1ONE” Fearless 
Jackie’s First Strike “Unleashed”
In a...

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BEG AND UTILIZE
Nzongi Mwero
I strongly air my huge words,
I still call the entire world,
And also I write a message card,
That will heavily guide,
Those who are greedy.

Oh, let me tell you foreign charities,
From various countries,
Along with...

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I Was So Lost

I had been raised in church but a religious church.
They did acknowledge there was a God but
His Son was pictured as dead upon a cross.  This
was the picture that I carried...

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Paddy didn't want to go to his wife's family reunion. He told her that in the same nice way he had told her in years past so as to avoid other reunions over the many...

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Now in my time echoes
  I remember then
  my full days in a life
  when I was ten.
We lived in a shadow 
  much greater 
  at the gates of...

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Many British thermal units* later

Vice linkedin to carnal flesh this writer, 
(a married heterosexual doofus, – 
whose alter egos 
named and highlighted courtesy 
Gallant and Goofus) attones
to heat these lovely bag of bones
amazingly graceful human...

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“Ten Years, Somewhere in their Lost Neighbourhood”

Of course,
he said, like a god,
there is no course,
one must simply go with the flow
the penumbra stands waivering its existence,
a kind of deactivation, fuzzy borderline hanging, 
backing the art...

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	GREEN DAY – revisited
     Although the following poetic/prosaic material written January eighteenth two thousand and eighteen, I came across these encapsulated, enclosed, encoded, and encrusted with barnacle clad body electric of...

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Oi be nowt but an auld country hick,
we a liddle bit of gall, an a lotta stick.
Oi baint niver afeared to speak me mind,
nor critizise folks harshly iffen Oi find
zummit I don’t loik.  Tis...

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The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Chapter L.A.

I like to think of [the habit] as a bonfire or a lighthouse, so that light can shine out into places where there are no resources and there isn’t...

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"Paper Tigers"



eyes mark slow time
spotting leopard rhyme
never changing its spots
black balled
white pops
the want-to-be bees
sting the dripping honey spot

slapping cards down
kitty pots are shuffled
bluffing intelligentsia
between the gaps
flatulent poets floss their teeth
waxing lyrical strings
tied to the weary...

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An Echo Poem

Original: If I Kissed It - Poem by Brian Johnston

If I kissed it, would that make it better? 
Are you needing much more than a friend? 
Would it help if I held you...

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I have an old friend who was told some time ago he had six months to live. We live far apart now and he told me about this in an email shortly after the doctor...

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"Books and Covers"



"Books and Covers"

"Covers and Books"

"Stories and Lovers"

"Lovers and Stories"

"Some Time It Took"

"Spinning Wheels Spinning"

"Needles Pricking Thumbs"

"Agatha and Daphne"

"Danvers is Rebecca's Mum"

"Casting Fishing Hooks and Aspersions"

"Bewitching Hour"

"Drinking Potions of Lovespell's Nasturtiums"

"Lost Love Woods" 

"Hidden...

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You rock me wildly
 To the black rhythms of juju music from the radio;
 Drinking horn in hand.
 Not too drunk to tread
 The course of blue, warmth
 And moaning shadows behind batiste curtain.
 Waves...

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Stained Glass Scarlet, Scarlet Fasinera  . . .  a fictional character
          a vigilante haunting the streets of the Bronx
     ...

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Simulations and Symphonies

Discussing life inside a simulation
Amalgamating strife with signs of humiliation
Confronting life with positive configurations
An enchanting wife that doesn’t need invitations

Caring for what others naturally overlook
A watchful parent, a well written book 
Beauty that...

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