Long Overturned Poems

World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - VI - Chaim Nachman Bialik, Erich Fried

After My Death
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
translation by Michael R. Burch

Say this when you eulogize me: 
Here was a man—now, poof, he's...

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My love is light (a fairy kiss?)          
               Like the pressure of...

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"Backhand"



You have turned me
inside out, cut open
like a tennis ball
I used to beat backhand
along with the racket
hard against the garage wall

To make sense of it all
as a child, the grief stolen
all too swiftly and replaced...

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Pellucid pachyderms wade across
the purpling River Manjees
and Tozzath watches from the bank, 
the seat of his maroon pantaloons soaked with mud,
his nostrils flaring with the fragrance of ombadalias,
whose lacey petals flutter
like the wings of long-dead...

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It was Christmas Eve and I was at the airport,
Not a soul in sight, almost deserted, it was 10.00 pm,
Only two hours before Christmas day,
Perhaps if I got on a plane, I would see Santa...

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I woke up this morning with courage over my back and wisdom in my hat
I was determined to put an end to the sneaky kangaroo rats
No one had done me anything but I was reeling...

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Here's the deal, folks...
   This is, as indicated, the 2nd HALF of this fairly lengthy poem. Due to Poetry Soup's file-size limitations, this piece had to be posted in 2 parts. 
 ...

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What would the rich do without the poor?
If there was no poor to clean the floor
What would the rich do without the poor?
If there was no one to guard the door
What would the rich do...

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Far beyond the horizon we gazed at sunlit skies 
glowing from gigantic mountains, thick blue clouds
hang peacefully over our heads, painting hopes and 
aspirations as we journey relentlessly to recapture
our dreams.

We have been climbing this...

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“Blue Angels, Black Sheep, Monitors and The House of Random Penguins” 

The womb
is scooped like 
an over ripe melon
Time is the incorrigible felon,
the forgotten lost garden explored 
overturned and raked, 
neatly messed, 
in more ways...

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Thomas was walking through his favorite part of the forest,
where the overturned giant oak tree has been a sitting spot
for him since childhood, the part of the forest that is lit
a little bit thanks to...

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If you don't love dogs, you probably won't like this poem...my wife and I DO!


Can’t believe I used to think - when I was very young - that dogs made poorer pets than cats and...

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"Tell Me Something Beautiful"



You could write me 
something beautiful
to leave me 
when you are not here

Someone told me 
the dead don’t speak 
they just listen 
I am reading you

I am always 
Here

I am front and...

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Darkness swells from the depth of the sea,
waves crashes against waves,
the mad sea roars and vomits vengeance, 
it belches and yawns at the sound of her name.

They have been drifting for many days,
entranced with panic,...

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The sun is shining in the east with petals opening bright, spreading its fragrance into the light and an epiphany of hope resting on the branches swinging from limb to limb while my heart entertains...

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When young, in playing out one day
a swinging stick got in my way,
it crushed my eye into my head
another inch and I’d be dead.

Back in 1952
there wasn’t much that they could do,
so when eye surgery...

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They left their lovely home to fulfill a promise that was not found, one big happy family board up their house pack their luggage in the back of a truck and went in search of...

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“They took the whole Cherokee nation
Put us on this reservation
Took away our ways of life
The tomahawk and the bow and knife”
        From “Indian Reservation” by Paul Revere and...

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He blew the instrument twice,
Ululations were heard from all corners of the palace,
He started to sing,
The drums and other instruments were heard beating hard
As the group of ten girls from Chiungwa village entered the palace,
Wearing...

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the

 

art of                                ...

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It was a sight that I could not forsee
Ambushed by my own men at morning hour
Hands tight with cord and naked from the waist
A mean air on the Bounty blew unkind
It was the troubled wind...

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Marvellous things did He in the sight
of their fathers, in the land of Egypt,
in the field of Zoan ...
How He had wrought His signs in
Egypt, and His wonders 
in the field of Zoan ...
For, lo,...

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THE RUIN 
an Old English poem about fate & destiny
modern English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

well-hewn was this wall-stone, till Wyrdes wrecked it
and the Colossus sagged inward...

broad battlements broken;
the Builders' work battered;

the high ramparts toppled;
tall...

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To Crush Mar a Lago Estate, and lower the Economic debt ceiling...

Now that DACA docked amidst 
marshy tidal outskirts of Poker flats 
(readied to be sunk) off shore 
(beach combing divers – ectoplasmic flotsam 
glorying...

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Awaiting the descent of light,
Darkness befalls
Intimate shadows emerge,
Within a silvery...eerie mist.

His dark...predatory presence,
Atop her pallid...shiny skin
Entwined...silhouettes
Unrestrained...immortal love
His muscles burst with definition.
As he positions his masculine intuition,
He sinks his pearl teeth into the bite.

Seduced by his...

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