Long Pond Poems

“Son”...”say goodnight to grandpa”

Spurred by mother dearest 
as well as other politesse
drummed into her second born
fobbing blandishments as incentive
tumbled off fingers of prodigal son
tripped wordsmith to splutter forth
forthwith the following lines.

Back in the day 
quaint...

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I heard you calling my name in an echoing whisper 
I saw a bird take wing in the whirling wind of disaster 
I put my weary head on your broad shoulders
The moment we touched, I...

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The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

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Dusk-gliding swallow, 
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers! 
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (II)

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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These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation...

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Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
—Yamaguchi Seishi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow...

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There is nothing weaker than water
But none is superior to it in overcoming the hard,
For which there is no substitute.
(Laotse, "Nothing Weaker Than Water", Lin Yutang, trans.)

That weakness of mind and body overcomes strength
And uniting...

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Year One -

Tell me Eve,
does this Garden have everything we need,
do you think the walls are too tall,
are the gatekeepers reasonable, tolerable, right about it all,
what did Lilith know, where did she go
far past the...

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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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Yvonne was very, very, very happy.
She loved her mother.
She loved her brother Phillip.
And she loved swans.
Oh, did she ever love swans!

She loved the way they looked
With their smooth, fluffy feathers,
And colorful beaks of orange, yellow...

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Every year In Robin Hood Country Nottingham
There in October, they hold. What is known, as the Goose Fair. It's huge. and goes back centuries, straining the Middle Ages, perhaps even longer.
My pals and I back...

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Prose Poems

Something
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost?lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight, vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars immeasurable and void. Something uncapturable is...

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There was a little wind fairy who lived in a meadow near a small town, her name was Estella. Estella had beautiful blue hair like the sky, so her friends called her the little blue...

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"Oh, indeed she was, young man ... I mean Greg. It IS Greg, if I recall correctly?"
     "Yes. Or you can call me True Friend if you like." I turned to...

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Because the charity of my native place
Obliged me, the broken branches I the picked up
Them giving back him, who was to debase.

Then we finally reached where had to leap
From the second turn to third, and...

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I have a little story to tell you ... it's absolutely true, of course, at least as far as I'm concerned, but you can take it as you wish - as a tale, a fact,...

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(Continuing the trip through Hell of Dante with poet Virgilio)

Pah-peh Sah-tan, Pah-peh Sah-tan al-ept!”,
Started Pluto with his hoarse voice toss
And that gentle wise, who any knowledge kept,

Told to encourage me: “don’t have a loss 
By...

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"You see this here spot on the bench, where it's all worn away?" Clarence asked.
     "Yeah, I've noticed that a few times, and wondered why they didn't paint it again." I...

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Each ego identity,
whether of busy bee
or slacker sloth,
recreates its uniquely sacred eco-Other,
mutually capable of Win-Win intentional experience
and memory
toward appreciating capital investments
in further living, not deadening, artifacts
through each personal life 
both cooperative and competing
so far.

So
every shrinking...

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A a 	big A little a
                   What words start with the letter A
    ...

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Long in the tooth male doth recount, reflect, reimagine...
his woebegone damn dental daze today May 5th, 2021 

No particular rhyme nor reason
garden variety indentured flunky (me)
revisits his salmagundi salad days, 
when oral blight smote 
left...

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Each of the new deer adjusted quickly to the pace of the ones they had been paired with, and the sleigh tracked smooth and true.  The effects of the extra four deer were easily...

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I (a youthsome, wholesome, jokesome, handsome,...
gamesome, chucklesome, bothersome,
and awesome modest fellow)...
does not deliberately court immortalization,
and wonders what criteria confer elevation,
exaltation, glorification, hero worship,
idolization, veneration, or worship.

I go about a daily humdrum routine
me, a twenty first...

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WITHIN THE BRIGHTEST NIGHT (Part 01)

”Life?”

"Are you thinking what I think?" she said, nonchalantly. 
”Is this not the place for it, Young Light?”
"My young light." said I.
"Let's go in, then, Young Light." She had other...

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