Long Oppressors Poems

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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Turkish Poetry Translations II

Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war??
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a...

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She stood with her back turned to me
Leaning slightly towards where the light tapered off into darkness
Her faced buried deep inside her cupped hands 
Her own shadow towered over her seemingly at odds with her...

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Already was straight up the flame and steady
To speak no more, and yet away it went
Being the sweet poet to let it ready,

When another, which followed in ascent,
Made us to turn our eyes to top...

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Impressive values,
like love,
claim resources that liberally breed
ecological
natural
physically happy health
and conservatively feed
emotional
spiritual
mentally glad wealth.

Oppressive disvalues
like homophobia and racism
and sexism and ageism
and ableism 
and monoculturing disregard
for threats of global anthro-supremacist ecocide,
express what we are against
because these are...

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Feminist ecotherapists,
deeply immersed in polycultural ecology,
a systematic teleology of cooperative nutrition economics,
remain rarely flushed out from their safe spots.

A self-isolating,
often eremitic,
subspecies,
with shamanic nature-as-spirit tendencies,
our most articulate mentors often wander off
to pray for,
breathe and suffer and...

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You spoke of Love in the kingdom to come
Where the works of hatred would be undone
you bid your disciples to follow whats true
to demonstrate its power in the actions they do
 
But I have seen...

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Fr. Time is with us today, again, or still, I guess I should say.

No, you just did.  
That would be redundant, 
to say it again, 
like I just did.

Just a reminder of a contractual...

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Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.



Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation...

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As October 1 approaches, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY……………………
I have enormous tracts of land and vast volumes of water, but cannot feed myself.
So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion on milk.
I produce...

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Test many people are unaware this
 relishing the thought
 Many things have been purchased and bought
 what is a human a thing
 Unless my color is my being
Been birth and born
Shackled dragged and torn
Been a...

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Waiting waitng...... 
For the all-mighty godot 
godot godot.....I ask myself 
Where are you? 

I have searched the 
tempestuous seas 
I have toiled the arid desert 
All to no avail 
I have defiled timidity into the...

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Sing Broken Beyond Mankind


because I speak


                IN   

          ...

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All on a sudden getting awake in the morning, I got stunned seeing, the whole earth had become a great graveyard. Each house was, as it were, a grave. In that grave, all were whispering...

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POEM: Welcome to Palestine. The land of the prophets and the martyrs. 


Let’s show show some respect, and bow down in humility…
Gaza may be small, but their angels are all over and as far as...

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Sacred communion,
said the retiring priest,
feeds and waters my good news vision

Gazing deeply within
and beyond
what is in front of,
and behind,
my bilateral balancing
co-invested eyes

And ears
rehearing a moment apart
from what has gone before
and whom we will sacredly become

More...

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What is freedom?
The brief period of anarchy between the last tyranny and the next?
Are we free if we cannot see the cage?
Or feel the chains?
What if our masters lengthen our leashes?
Only to tighten their hold...

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HOPE BY N3
Slashed at the throat a blow aimed not at the esophagus but at the vocal cords
Paralyzed by something worst than fear,
Speech grows limp even as silent screams are constrained by shame’s chord.
Tethered like...

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Surely Sang A Song

We wanted to know what was wrong,
About wearing a barbed wire thong;
Not too swell;
So she did yell;
Should have heard her sing a song. 

Jim Horn

James 5 New International Version (NIV)
Warning to Rich...

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Under the bridge in Del Rio are stopped, stuck, stationed
Thousands of migrant Haitians, not Ukrainians
Frankly, if they were the latter, they wouldn’t be sanctioned
Detained, abased, mistreated and deported like Haitians
Like herds of cattle to detention...

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Born in the Goshen ghetto,
bound by an Ashkenaz forged umbilical chain
Beloved mother was Jim Crow lynch poor,
adored father was the Uncle Sam same
Third-generation slaves,
pauper freed allegedly
But royal blood their ancestors  
sweaty tears did bleed
From...

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Aftermath of war: onerous task...

to salvage flotsam and jetsam
of human wreckage
amidst a sea where triage
witnessed courtesy scattered corpses
populating the Gaza strip
more'n pound of cold flesh
forced sacrifice appeasing
vengeance usurped quarterage
tendered for countless generations
predominantly innocent victims
hostages held...

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Health of a nation
See the old and young station
Your indication

Breeze moves the tree leaves
But turned to gusts the tree heaves
The wise man perceives

Things are a blessing
Until fury oppressing
Stops your regressing

Pebble, rock, boulder
The size chip on...

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Torn by the lies of the past
Of the future
Of the present 
Shredded by the mocking faces 
But I wanted to love
To be held with such care
But to dare 
To fail once more
To open that door
The...

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Coward, are those
Who are afraid of change
For change might deprive them
Their Freedom, their Democracy
The liberty to choose
The liberty to live
The liberty not to do such duties and obligations
The liberty to stir the law
The liberty to...

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