Long Open eyed Poems

Sonnets XXV-XXXII

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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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...

Read More

Come, You
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the...

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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...

Read More

Both of my daughters 
have married and moved on
both now have lives 
and homes of their own 

both their “old” bedrooms
now empty of them
their laughter 
and music  

still harbour their presence
their energy and love
and...

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Tilted nation (the oxymoron of a  leadership)

We have heard great news 
Of a land with pleasant views
Where no stranger will refuse
Now lost like Cinderella's shoes

Its now an Open secret
The  extreme degree of unspoken...

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upon waking from a splendid plunge 
   into the depths of deep dreamy restful sleep
anchors away set adrift this body electric, 
   which succombed instantaneously 
   (without counting sheep)
nor...

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Abhorrent those phizog few,
At times they flood his mind.
He did not even know why them his mind drew,
He has got to get down, reasons to find.
 
His mindly nib, she oozes memories,
Of old and new…...

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awaiting interpersonal subsequent situation 
     aye tend to get ants
see when in the midst awaiting 
     said sub routine involving 

     outcome of...

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I know I've been here in this afternoon
4: 10 P.M.
Like lubricated clockworks in a perpetual machine
My life returns to this brown earth blue sky
Pressed in between the distance
And the silence and the cries of crows
Who...

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I once awoke into a dream
And there I saw a sight.
Adrift, a draft of Daffodils
Breezed on a hard day's night.

Still looking up and at the sky,
A Dandelions nest, 
Shone down like rays of Buttercups
Alighting up...

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All that you are 
All that you see 
Everything about you  
Is reflected in me 
Reverse intentions 
See just who you are 
Into your soul 
To your deepest scar 
They call me the mirror...

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word string you make my heart sing
you make everything groovy
but I wanna know for sure
the slaver's noose is no sower of truth
and its cohort of prediction
open eyed jumping to no order
because invention is the outcome...

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And one day they will perish
With dried, hollow sockets
And there will be no more of them.

No more will the soul scream
From the thorny cage.
One day they will be free
And no more will their hands wipe
Their...

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I can't sleep from light even at early dawn
While winds throw my fringe to the other side,
I lay open-eyed at the starry skies,
Wishing to smell the emptiness while am gone.

I sense my dreams in a...

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Harmony Awaits
                   by Odin Roark

So dissonant the surroundings
A world in disarray
Like but a discordant accompaniment
The clamor of...

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I’m a butterfly with rounded wings
 in a box of glass in a young girl’s dreams
As her heart beat slows
and her sleep sets in
I’m the deepest thoughts she hides within
The darkness closes up the night
and...

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A walk a saunter 
but
No Paradise Garden this

The wells power a procession 
The ghosts of the past
Things come and gone

It is looking back at you
You who have the gift of life 
You who have the...

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standing at the end
of a real life
open-eyed nightmare  
is a group of, broad-day, mind killers   

how many of my kind have you time-warped
into sanity...
who gave you the wights 
to strip away my...

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WHAT IS TIME CAPSULE

I am sixteen stealing my father’s cigarettes.
Learning an independent thought is not valued.

Turn the attention spin. This is a kissing game. 
Pucker up. This is going to be a disaster. 

A smooth...

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"Out to Sea"

In the immediate times 
we rush to consume it all 
before it is all swallowed, and out it all comes salty,
like an Ocean pummelling our crumbling sures 
eating away our solidarity
insouciantly the sandy...

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Faces void all passing by
open eyed yet emptied 
like flashes of a vacancy sign
blank stares like orphans pitied

Caught in time
no plans to sketch
just colored pencils 
with broken tips

Only the artist's see
painting joy on canvas 
as...

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I am not the giver, 
am not a diva.
Can't get you high,
can't even give you a fever.

When you are wet,  I can't get you dry
 When there is heat,  I can't give no...

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I knelt at the river sifting.
Mud, water, rock.
Mud, water, rock.
Mud, water,....
It caught my eye
Woke me from my open-eyed dream.
The glint was possibly just the sun,
Winking from kissing the cold water’s reflection.
I hold my breath give...

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How can you miss someone
Who wasn't even there

What do you say then after the fact
When you've offered the best you could share

Why is the cord left unbroken
A tensile strength of steel

Why can't I let the...

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