Long Plunges Poems

Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a...

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"The Book of Changes"

Thoughts arrived before words,
1000s of years before
the crossing of curves

always seen to be 
swimming upstream 
against the current

thoughts … and feelings,
in the flow, always arrive 
before words, they are cast 

in the...

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Part 1: FORE SIBERIAN FATE

silk wings wet -
angel on the lake.
starlight glitter
separates from

the golden wheat.
her docile hair,
prophecy of ice.

winter pink,
pinched cheeks.
ice skate scrapes -
flecks of flakes.

the snow queen
before her relentless
reign, a pretty thing.

her smile warms
the...

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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

Archaischer Torso Apollos (“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...

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Sonnets X-XVI


Archaischer Torso Apollos (“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...

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Poems about Things that Break III
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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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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My Daughter

My beautiful Daughter, walks life’s paths alone,
She does so, by design – not of hers – on her own.
She travels heavily !, from place to empty space,
from space to vacant place – in what...

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Archaischer Torso Apollos ("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...

Read More

China Tour Diary Moment #3
SHANGRI-LA, TIBET
--------------------------------


Paradise on earth: Himalayan range;
A phenomenon carved by elements;
Here magic gives birth to ways that seem strange;
A place where lessons of soul mark movement.


Our tour coach winds round the mountain...

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I'm writing on the first page.
I love the concord and quiet at my age.
The morning came from a genius mage.
In my spirit, I am searching for the truth stage.
To understand things to resist this upsurge.
It...

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Beddie bye boo ski time for yours truly and/or the missus

Found us abed thee twelfth day
of December, cuz yours truly 
still felt dehydration, physical 
fatigue and soreness,
which possibly linkedin
to using stationary bicycle.

Our bed (mine and...

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Scrounging for boogers wrought my damn nostrils nearly to bust 

Warning: The following material no worse than getting cooties. I remember them way back in grade school, whereat everyone ran away from me with worse...

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She stirs first..restless..looking longingly over..senses awakened.
Their feet shuffle slowly under warm covers. The moonlight shines thru the window catching her face. .illuminating it…her tousled hair frames her face.
She looks up, hopefully for his eyes to...

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Scrounging for boogers wrought my damn nostrils nearly to bust 

My humblest apology if the following account
doth gross thee out forlorn childhood of mine 
found further ostracization of me tantamount
being shipped off to  a...

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Choking noble light held by the hands of Fate                          ...

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Finally my blood began to coagulate
a graceful gel, gently thickened,
so – whatever I might feel, the settling of the wound,
has begun…

in sensitive silences, the shadows echo the fear,
felt by a heart who knows the starkness,...

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When in a jam, I try to preserve meditative trance

Synonymous with light hypnotic mode
inhaling and exhaling diffusing anger
lest mine noggin would explode
rhythmic breaths flowed
sustained me red nose (think Rudolph) glowed.

Holistic approach to derive peace of...

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with midnight dreams we dance
unyielding, i stir unwilling to awaken
incessantly seeking
You

like virgin wings of the monarch, your shape gently unfolds
i clutch the edges of slumber
aware in my wakening you will be gone
Again

you have come before,...

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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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Beddie bye boo ski time for yours truly and/or the missus

(joining "Wynken, Blynken and Nod"
at figurative drop of hat
even if yours truly immediately
woke from his slumbers).

When zapped of energy the sandman doth knock
no matter readout...

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Dripping darkness, doubt, despair
Melancholy, secrets kept
From the heart who knows only
To breathe and believe, to see
What is good and kind and alive
To give – what is moral, upright, polite
Like the miracle of angels passing by
On...

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A pony pulled his two-wheel cart past guards and through the gate. 
It carried his supplies of art with which he would create. 
He heads for misty ocean cliffs, those rugged, ragged rocks; 
Then, breathing...

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GUARDIAN OF HAUTE-SAVOIE

At Pointe Percee, a dragon's lair:

A hotspot where no tourist stamps their passport.
The roar of dragon’s mating, females laying eggs.
Wings of rushing waterfalls, winds of alcoholic breath.
They yearn to take flight, to frighten...

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Human tastes vary and so are the desperate cravings to capture the best in human ambition,
A more desperate thirst for fame, riches and for power can be a low, vulgar bitter taste,
I admire the spirit...

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