Long Oxen Poems

Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm that wells within?
How can the ocean not be blue,
not buck with the clapboard slap of tide,
the clockwork shock of wave on rock,
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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State of the Art (IV)

These are my "ars poetica" poems about the art and craft of writing poetry. 



Hearthside
by Michael R. Burch

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...”  — W. ...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (I)

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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Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
written August 30, 1944
translated by Michael R. Burch
 
Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons...

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Once upon a time, there were two little villages, Rowling and Tolkien, that lived in peace with each other.  Rowling and Tolkien had many, many children, some very young, others young, and a few...

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February 27th, 2018 literary tinkering rejiggered October 11th, 2024

I believed fortune cookie maxim 
cryptic message couched
Apple Macbook Pro update process
alternately titled “markedly 
a Luke warm welcome Matt unfurled
courtesy Jimmy John,
who embarked on 
imp apostle bull...

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The Dance of Salome
Herod bellowed out the night's festive orders..
"Bring the torches, bring the tables..
more wine, that we may rejoice,  
for tonight we revel in kindred friendship."
Herod strolled onto the terrace, nearly stumbled in...

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Our lusty voice was in the tramp of narrow, winding,
     Scree-littered, deep-rutted roads;     
 Ravens, uttering guttural croaks, slow-wheeling above      
 ...

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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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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems II - Bertolt Brecht



The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned, 
teams of dull oxen hauled...

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That soft-spoken Sovereign commands a big stick, 
runs the world into ruins, once our bailiwick.
If asked why, He grins grimly, pale lips slightly pursed:
"Vindication? Straightforward: It's Me and Me First" 

(To mesmerise people He needed...

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Their rending cries, when all is still, reecho in the moonlight;
They lie about in fitful slumber on the ground at noonlight,
Their virgin hair spread in the dust; for nothing really matters:
Who then will see their...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - III - Miklos Radnoti

Miklos Radnoti was one of the greatest of the Jewish Holocaust poets. He died on a Nazi death march, shot to death in cold...

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Masalembo
2016 © Fleetwood


Blue-green ocean tipped with whitecaps rolling toward the shore
Plane is humming with the pilot talking about life and your ride is there parked on the hill for easy starting next to the palm...

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Shallow-pitched tiled rooftops sparkle vividly
 When lavishly sprinkled with needle-shaped grains  
Of shattered mutton-fat nephrite; 
    There, clinging forlornly against the hanging grey   
  Smoke, tinged with barely...

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Coronavirus microbe (COVID-19) begat...
heebie jeebies couple months before March 15th, 2020

More'n three hundred and sixty six days ago,
a pandemic did devastatingly blow
across the webbed wide world
dark shadows spelled glow
bull horror seeds of hell show
did terrify...

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Coronavirus microbe (COVID-19)

(alternately titled: yours truly doth mutter
asthma bowled dug gutter 
pin yon hated chap strikingly and gently weeps, 
whereby melts milquetoast like butter.)

Aye reckon eyes aforementioned 
entitled microscopic organism
doth strain credulity threatening 
Homo sapiens...

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Brief Mane n' Tail shampoo tall (tell) tale

Living social amidst 
crime infested urban jungle 
bumping uglies cheek to jowl 
analogous fate being housed in jail
escape room of great outdoors 
spurred subject matter in question
to journey...

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Yours truly (me) just got acclimated to writing 2024...
whenever I needed to append the date to a document

Though the situation infrequently arose
for me to incorporate the year (2024 in this case)
or listen to a well...

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Written: February 14, 2025 for Contest by Edward Ibeh

“Quote: Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!
Edgar Allan Poe”

             ...

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after dark April 26th, 2022

Prometheus bound out the heavens
to strike fear in the hearts of men and women
reminding us mortals how like oxen yoked
(together via a wooden beam forced
to undergo strenuous labor)
unlike most elderly residents...

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These are English translations/modernizations of Medieval poems written in Old English and Middle English.

Exeter Book Gnomic Verses or Maxims
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dragon dwells under the dolmen,
wizened-wise, hoarding his treasure;
the fishes bring forth...

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Finally to Burn: Icarus, Resurrected
by Michael R. Burch

Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
upon awaking

is: to Love sometimes
is...

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agonizingly dutifully didst wait
to distract anticipatory anxiety,
(analogous to an expectant father)
while protracted procedure promised
nothing short of a millennium

whereby echoing thru the corridors of time
olly olly gluten free ranging NON GMO, oxen
oiled lubricated cloven hoof
nsync cup...

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