Long Purest Poems

Turkish Poetry Translations II

Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war??
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a...

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THE INNER CHAMBER

Please.  Stop holding back on me.

Like a child standing at the neighborhood ice cream truck, arm outstretched, eyes huge, mouth watering.

I stand here longing to slip underneath your decades of cold-rolled steel...

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Hark and listen well, if those foretoken in the eyes of hungers lust
Trapped in their illusion, trampling the Stars into dust
Forced with the detestation stench by the swamp of absolute disgust
Thou blackest scorpion be accursed,...

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Pellucid pachyderms wade across
the purpling River Manjees
and Tozzath watches from the bank, 
the seat of his maroon pantaloons soaked with mud,
his nostrils flaring with the fragrance of ombadalias,
whose lacey petals flutter
like the wings of long-dead...

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Always respect this combination of fire and wind,
she tentatively said,
after having listened for healthy and pathological winds
regenerating and degenerating,
investing in and divesting of,
yeasty flames of fertile dopamine.

They, like you,
co-arise of and from the landscapes
in which...

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He awoke to the sound of lightly crunching ice.  As he opened his eyes the boy stood looking at him, then with one fluid motion he stepped forward and stretched out his hand, 
...

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We are the days that we’ve become. 
moments dripping gifted from
the lounging clocks in rolling melted sightings, 
given by the gifted madness of a soulmate’s fightings. 

Our lives wrapped up in phrases coined
in books like,...

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It's been four years since I've seen so much as an insignificant mountain creek. Been overburdened with comfort, now frantic with nature withdrawals, having to settle for photos found on Google Images: emerald pine trees,...

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Almost a month now and the emotions honeymoon-surfaced fast
Plagued by the invasive thoughts of which one of us will prove to last
Anxiously waiting to see if our Jenga game will wobble, fall and crash
We're each...

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It's been four years since I've seen so much as an insignificant mountain creek. I've been overburdened with comfort, now frantic with nature withdrawals and having to settle for photos found on Google Images: emerald...

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Last Night 
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
translation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart
as spring sweeps uninvited through barren gardens
as morning breezes revive dormant deserts
as a patient suddenly feels better for no...

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ask me about my day as a sweeper today..
its hilarious to even tell this to all today..
the supervisor the power abusing man.
have fallen in love with me.. madly..
he cannot even take his eyes off me..
and...

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Because people have made her promises in the past and they’ve broken them. Because no matter how hard she works or how good of a person she is, she doesn’t believe she is worthy of...

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The knight of knights, Sir Lancelot,
From far away in Camelot,
Went by a way that he knew not
And thus, by chance, spied Astolat
With sunset's gleam upon her tow'rs:
T'was there he met the maid Elaine,
With hair as...

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                           Expectations high did not pan out  ...

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Who died
and made God the Father
the Christian Fundamentalist Law of Cooperative Redemption?

Well, dear, that was Jesus of Nazareth,
your CoMessianic Avatar of regenerative health trends,
remember?

Right,
OK, so,
in my heroic ego-narrative,
we are the purest, most right, oldest exegetical...

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Their rending cries, when all is still, reecho in the moonlight;
They lie about in fitful slumber on the ground at noonlight,
Their virgin hair spread in the dust; for nothing really matters:
Who then will see their...

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Reflections

Though our love nurtured well in passion's fire
Aroused now as a lamplight on life's road
This ember's torch burns still from our desire
With gleams of memories from love bestowed
as we journeyed in wondrous enchantment
I've kissed you...

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I'm so tired of waiting for the baby witch I'm destined to bind
In this witchy tradition of old, the young goddess/princess witch is mine
She's the youngest and the most beautiful heiress to the Silken Rose
She's...

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Lilith Waits   



Lilith waits as she surveys, all her brutal yesterdays

She cruelly paved with stepping-stones of broken hearts and human bones.

Her lips turned up at their red corners, she grins at all the...

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It's weird to subscribe to the following:
Heaven
Past lives
Ghosts
Nothing

It depends what suits in the moment, perhaps due to being taught to 'have faith' and not question I got a little carried away and started collecting a...

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I don’t remember my first introduction to the idea of same sex couples. I don’t remember the first time I was told it was a “bad” thing.
All I remember is how it felt each time...

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When In Love's Immense Depths, You Are Truly Cherished
 

Mystical web spun memories of our sweet nights,
love began under stars and brightest of moonlights.
Hold onto that image, its joyous dreaming dreams;
fiery echoes, night trysts and...

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There are photos of our childhood
                          Our long ago sweet...

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In backyards of my history
lies a tidal river
of ebb and flow revolutions.

These revolutions are normally no-news evolutions
back up toward headwaters of crisis and opportunity,
diastatic and polyphonic purest capital boundary roots
for future's river flow investment
out-flowing down
from...

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