Long Palely Poems

Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter hoar
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers—nude, forlorn.

Published...

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You Never Listened
by Michael R. Burch
 
You never listened,
though each night the rain
wove its patterns again
and trembled and glistened...
 
You were not watching,
though each night the stars
shone, brightening the tears
in her eyes palely fetching...
 
You...

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For All That I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the burnished weight...

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Sonnet LXXXI-LXXXIX

Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew...

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Sonnets XVII-XXIV

Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten...

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THIS WORLD OF DEW

This world? 
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane's bill.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last? 
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dewdrops beading grass-blades
die before...

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LOVE POEMS I by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, sex, a first date and dating, a first crush, a first girlfriend and...

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Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,
Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;
come dwell again,
happy child among men—
men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger’s cool
sweet light scent...

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FREE VERSE VI

Reason Without Rhyme
by Michael R. Burch

I used to be averse
to free verse,
but now I admit
YOUR rhyming is WORSE!

But alas, in the end,
it’s all the same:
all verse is unpaid
and a crying shame.



What the Poet...

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CHAPTER 6 (continued, c)

Several of the primate children 
Sat together in the branches 
Of a tree; they did not notice 
Danger silently approaching 
 
Through the leaves a brown and yellow 
Shiny scaly serpent slithered
Closer to the young gorillas 
Eyes unblinking glimmered...

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The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous. 
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather...

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At six o’clock in the morning
Upon the sixth of June
Came Michael-Paul O’Higgins
Into this bustling world.

At school he was but middling,
He never cut much ice
In English, Maths, Geography,
In Scripture, Sport or Art.

In early adolescence
On the back...

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The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to...

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In his songbook,
are raving songs of beauty,
which thrushes around the phrases of my mind

and embroiders my soul on an errand 
into a white night of a white Christmas, 
in a white dreamland, 
and having sleepless...

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Fair Spring, a lady, palely loitering,
    Whose brow is decked with flowers and with dew,
Whose bosom births youth’s essence which does bring
    Unto the barren glades, a glory, new,
...

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The Persistence of a Memory of Apricot Shampoo
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the...

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Anastasia was all too eager because the dream she dared not speak of in fear of jinxing it was finally coming true.

Back in the princess's quarters, Anastasia was adorned in Princess Layla's former wedding attire....

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The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous.
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather to...

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"I have built my foundation with life's bricks;
I exist. I am me. And that has been enough. "

                ...

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"I have built my foundation with life's bricks;
I exist. I am me. And that has been enough. "

                ...

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*Notting else tastes so good
when 
the elegant daylight is still at spree
When
the bloomingblossoms are yet to yield
When
 the earth yawns 'may we live

  ..left to grin.
The hibiscus now smiles in sane,
the boozy sky and...

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Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew us...

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That phobia shall never turn on someone's innocence suicidally
So continually identify our so unaware eternity
And his mountain should torment my venom 
So you kill Satan's fate — I am apparent
But her unwanted venom should fear...

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Who is he that can show light its dwelling place?
Or carve destiny in to the hands of man or stud it in the sky?
Who is he that makes Earths foundation tear and shake?
And instructs the...

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Ignore this afraid temple
Heartlessly hurt the oh so unwanted razor
Fear their mountain
Someone else's dark resting place could hate God's soul until the end of time
Slowly hate her quite star-crossed hell
Your mortal creature...

Palely they imagine your...

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