Long Plaque Poems

Come, You
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the...

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Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within,...

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The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand...

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Reveren’ Carlton Whitney was the pastor of our church, and someone I looked up to as a child. 
Six foot six, with piercing eyes, a booming voice, and yet…his disposition, thankfully - was mild.

The very...

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This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on...

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Oppressor and the oppressed.

Who is the oppressed and who is the oppressor?
Who has the right to beat a random person on the street?
Who has the right when to pronounce a person guilty or to see...

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“I’m sorry that it’s been so long,” the old man told the tombstones, scanning them that brisk fall day, in 1969.
“It’s not that I’ve forgotten you.    It’s not that I’m not proud...

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Note: this is the 2nd HALF of this piece, a little too long to post as one poem, sorry. If you enjoy story-poems, it's definitely worth the read, believe me. (Or the "listen".)


“We learned of...

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Communities are built on pioneer toil and generational links,
with building, road and railway, applied to how a council thinks.
There’s sporting ties and country hall, to form the social hub,
and of course a meeting place -...

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Communities are built on pioneer toil and generational links,
with building, road and railway, applied to how a council thinks.
There’s sporting ties and country hall, to form the social hub,
and of course a meeting place -...

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Part I:  My mother’s Voice. 
  
“There’s something not quite right.” 
My mother’s doctor said.
The murmur in your heart.
I think we’ll  make a start, 
to take a look, and book a bed...

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      An Enigma Alan Turing 


My secret has been finally revealed,
Which so pained my rainbow heart,
It was an illegal love I had concealed, 
My life was over before it could...

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The embers glow mysteriously as the breezes pass
In Whitby where the terraced houses fell on mass
Two new friends sit and chat about the devastating storms
And as they sit and talk an old legend is reborn.

T'was...

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Secrets are anxiously being kept with a behavioral struggle, as one of the special few enters the room; obviously preoccupied with his thoughts. Bottom teeth are nipping his upper lip tucked tight, rope acting as...

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IMPRINTS
(Part 1 of Trilogy for My Father)

His shoes by the front door make me cry,
like his glasses resting atop an
unfinished crossword
and his toothbrush in its holder
the bristles still damp.
And I wonder...

Did he brush his teeth...

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*letters and numbers tearing at my mind,
Words decending upon my curled body.
Sentences wrap around my neck.
Paragraphs drown my lungs
withering, and wailing, laying upon the floor. 
Music pounding in my ears,
I cant hear.
But they still speak.
HELP...

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Then I Cried and Cried Horn Haiku

Before never cried;
Until one day my dad died
And I cried and cried.

My dad was killed on the Aircraft Carrier Intrepid.
It is in New York Harbor with my dad's name...

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Choosing"

Everyday we are chosen to see a brand new day
We walk alot of places But fear to walk in Faith
We've become such an asset to this world
What are we doing, we're feening for a pot...

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In Soup Creek saloon behind Jenna’s bar
Milt’s holsters and belt and a posthumous star
Are fixed to a plaque to remember him best
There’s a custom made bracket where Milton’s guns rest

The gun barrels cross over Milt’s...

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Paris then was a place
Where new ideas were
Brewing in the intellectual 
And art communities
And new ones were
Emerging everyday
Some brilliant some not 
Time will make it clear 
What is what
But then it was an exciting
Paris of...

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Hall Of Blank Portraits 

To my father, 
I paint you as the sea, 
Ebbing and flowing 
In my memory.
Drifting in the doldrums 
Immortal and serene, 
Sleeping forever 
In blues and green,
I sit on the shore...

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Baneful brickbats begat grievous barrier

Tell tale indelible woe y'all
privy to learn yours truly harbors
traces of the masterful
impregnable prepubescent wall
still extant scads of decades since
complex edifice erected to force tall
adolescence - permanently leaving me, 
(a poor...

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( Song of Solomon 4: 16 )



We Walked In The Garden At Midnight
We Walked Thru The Garden In Moonlight

Among Azealeas & Verbenas & Blue Jonquils
Sweet Honeysuckle, Yellow Primroses & Daffodils
Among White Phlox & Orchids &...

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It was the day after the new year and there wasn't a peep
The folks of Soup Creek were hungover and in a deep sleep
The mayors annual meeting was to be held that afternoon
And the venue...

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A story to remind our soldiers on this Veteran’s Day…may you never feel misbegotten…
for all of you who have fought and fight for our freedom…shall never be forgotten:

He wore a black shirt into the bookstore…and...

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