Long Pithy Poems

Epigrams

Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that every leaf must finally fall,
it’s just that we can never catch them all.

Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover...

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The Professor's campaign
although stealthily benign
still co-arose fair hecklers.

How can you reassure me
that our vulnerable children
will not hate me
and you
for stealing from all Earth's tribal presence,
and any possibility of healthy future?

While Yangyinstein stood stunned
with wonder
about all...

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The Anatomy of a Kural: Maxim Number 245 (taken at random) of the Thirukkural, the Tamil Classic on Ethics by Thiruvalluvar 

allal arulaalvaarkku illai valivalangum

mallalmaa naalam kari (K245)

“The teeming earth's vast realm, round which the...

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Sex Hex
by Michael R. Burch

Love’s full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes).



Love
by Michael R. Burch

Love is either wholly folly,
or fully holy.



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

Abbesses'
recesses
are not for excesses!



Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving...

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Speechless at Auschwitz
by Ko Un
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
mountains of shoes ...
returning, we stared out different windows.

Ko Un speaks for all of us, by not knowing what to say about the...

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*Aphorisms/ Idiomatic expressions*
(Short, pithy, instructive sayings passed down through the years)
Composed: by Tom Wright
7/12/2018

The man who coined the aphorism “Seize the Day”
Didn’t always mean “The Ends Justify the Means” but may.
Many have said “Rules Were...

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Sitting in a restaurant, one early Wednesday morning, I overheard a couple guys discussing favorite things
They’d done in their careers concerning shooting wild game, replete with little quips about the pride it always brings.

“Sneaking near...

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Of all old friends, those we have of old are best;
These the souls we travel with by preference,
Theirs the spirits to whom we grant all deference.
Their hopes are ours, and ours their own; 
All victories...

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I
Some poems write themselves
Maureen McGreavey excels in pithy poetry
So I do not love writing them, sometimes

II
When the Holy Spirit showed me a contrast
Luke 1, a priest prayed for a son (Elizabeth & Zechariah)
When Gabriel brought...

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I wrote a great book, part memoir, part novel
Shopped it around, I ain’t too proud to grovel
Got kicked upstairs to a big publishing head
He invited me in, and here's what was said:

This screed you call...

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Tower, buzz and scurry
Oh great resilient city
Ahoy!
Alive.  Scramble bustle earth's
 ethnicities
On lurid quests--
A pendulum of tantric turmoil and
Blessed harmony

Quixotic city--brash,
Sangfroid merotomized and
Chrematistic--metro nonpareil.

See a myriad melange of
Tortured splenetic
Souls and great spirits
Noble and soothfast

Great city,...

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The more I learn, the more
     I realize how little I know…
which insightful, gutsy,
     entrancing, catchy apothegm

     attributed to Socrates by way of...

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While strolling through the graveyard the other day, I was drawn,
To a host of stones with creative and pithy epitaphs etched thereon!
Such flowing poetic verse is deemed worthy of recording for posterity,
Due to its peculiarity,...

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Calling oneself a poet takes unmitigated gall and guts  
And he or she should be prepared 
To throw oneself off a high cliff
Or under the proverbial bus
Whenever the expression of innermost thoughts,
Emotions, ideas or...

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This was before they were banned
From overhead storage.
Amazing how one Durian can clog
So many confined bobbing heads.

A stomach turning air turbulence
Is yet more desirable than
That choking miasma of emissions
Which waft from their pulpy substance.

In foreign...

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I’m put upon to ponder the problem of poetry
& thus, I proudly or, perhaps, perfunctorily,
Ponderously pronounce with a preponderance,
Even a plethora, of p’s:

Poetry is pithy, prankish and perky,
Pertinent and impertinent, too
It’s prophetic, pathetic, pragmatic and...

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"WHY HE LIED"


there's a young kid next door.
he's the one paying the rent.
he's got a kid, a car, a female 
and a job.
he introduced himself to me the 
other day.
he asked me how I liked...

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I looked off
Into great distance…
Little things
No longer distinguishable-
Those subtle differences
I could never name
Anyway,
Could never paint,
Stubbornly refusing
The prime of my colors,
Shapes and strokes
Of my pithy brush-
My mind a sieve
Of contours
And dripping questions
Muddied
In rivers of endless
Flowing debate…

It...

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The following initially crafted approximately three and a half years ago and presently brought a  much sought after surge of satisfaction while meandering along the information superhighway.

Panglossian Perspective 
Pivoting Poze Pretentiously

Pacific, pacifist pampered papa
parading...

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Alas, never seen along scenic highways and byways anymore,
(Now, tacky billboards clutter roads from shore to shore!)
Are the pithy Burma-Shave signs displayed in red and white,
That provided the traveling public with so much delight!

Signs were...

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after Ho Chi Minh

I
The stone basin holds
still water. The still water

drinks the arid sponge
as rays of pure energy

slake their thirst on
the ebon wings of crows

II
Yangtze flows from widows peak
pooling briefly in the lock

of a tired...

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I found some pithy quotes attributed to the Father of our Nation,
And thought I'd share some with you to further your education.
I've read his "Farewell To The Troops" but this stuff I'd never heard.
Sounds like...

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The clothes that I'll describe, my age I'll surely reveal.
Recalling clothes worn to school back then now seems surreal!
Not to sport the latest fad, you weren't one of the 'ins'.
Your were a social outcast committing...

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Read Between The Lines

It was the point of a meaningless moon,
That being dealt life, its absolute gloom,
Vague stars shone hope to reposed past of Earth,
Dusk hath casts a crazed eve, pure hueless girth,

Joint lives of...

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the cynosure of the crystal night sky,
convergent to your unrivaled beauty
from far on the ground
the beauty I cannot count

I to me- a fresh skeleton of hackneyed ashes
barren field of all love,
grey yard of the cut...

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