Long Rake in Poems

Native American Translations

Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own...

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Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch Sr.)

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long...

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- - Chapter 2: Adult Responsibility (With Some Breaks) - -     

By ten years old, no weekends off, 
Or Saturday cartoons, 
Although I did have cash to spend, 
I felt my...

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The Great Lakes acronym spells homes

I chose titled topic by a fanciful whim,
nevertheless still consider my knowledge 
of aforementioned material slim.

Housing multivarious biomes
register ecological syndromes
whereby constituents of NOAA 
Great Lakes Environmental 
Research Laboratory writ tomes.

Pellucid...

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“He fought often and once bled in the cause of freedom, but his habits of War did not lessen in him the peaceful virtues which adorn his private life.”  Doctor Benjamin Rush, signer of...

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The Earth dry and bare; waiting eagerly for the drops of care;
 


Caught in the hot, steaming summer’s snare;
 


The flowers and creepers decorating window sills; all look desolate and ill;
 


As the nature withers...

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Paradise of passion has dawned upon my mind of my once dusked mindset (desired future of peace that has transformed my mind that was of darkness for the better) 
I'm envious of others' ecstasy for...

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Malnourishment is the song from the pans whose empty hold could offer no more products to be boiled and whirled. They were quite sad having been bought then hung. Hung. Sparkly signalling stale sales. Stale...

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Renee Vivien Translations


Song
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the moon weeps,
illuminating flowers on the graves of the faithful,
my memories creep
back to you, wrapped in flightless wings.

It's getting late; soon we will sleep
(your eyes...

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Our UU ecofeminist minister
was verbally accosted one Sunday morning
after celebrating multicultural peace
and respect 
and integrity
sufficient to restore private ego- and public eco-justice.

This was far too much to take in,
to peacefully and holistically rake in,
for a...

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Sing Broken Beyond Mankind


because I speak


                IN   

          ...

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“The Autumn is old; The sere leaves are flying; He hath gathered up gold, And now he is dying…Old age, begin sighing.”- Thomas Hood


In the amber hues, kissed by scarlet
Soothing whispers in laughing hearts,
Music, trembling...

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The mask of shame has made me the monster…must, like Shrek,
I transform into a handsome man momentarily…but I’m a nervous wreck
Rinse away the blood of the innocent 
From your hands…
Grand lands fight against each other…I...

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Pellucid pearls in northeastern North America since planetary birth
Comprise Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario dearth
Largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth 
Straddle Canadian–United States border tethering partial global girth
Constituting 21% of world's surface...

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I can't sleep.
Or, I can
and did
for three hours
but I continue waking
into a Stephen King nightmare
too real to ignore
because I feel isolated
in this quagmire
of hopeless history.

In this my collective nightmare,
President Trump goes to Saudi Arabia
like Mr....

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*
The heart may fall in love unwillfully
so, in a script will lie my paramour.
Oh manic quest, I've sworn to set you free
to let the ink's imagination soar.
I’ve found a place to court a writer’s muse;
this...

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BULLETS IN THE SOUP POT
I
BEFORE THE MIRROR
Sometimes, I sit on my sofa
Pondering on why war, poverty, hatred
and anguish has become a comforting bliss.
They say life is an unending quest; is it?
They say true love lasts...

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Ooh a scented grape graphic. Now that's wisdom. Contained a logical pattern in a juice cup. Heron haven heaping. Wisdomstic of a Judas flaw. Consealed in Sanskrit. Heavenly heaping cream on a very large bun....

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Pig plop at eighty degrees is a synonym of doubt but double octave sploosh is a great interjection into the bowl. Wow. Flush flashing fakery freely framing frogs fingerspelling forged formats. And a deliberate rake...

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The oldest citizen of Soup Creek, Nopaul E. Ticks, posed to show his support for the town council's ban on politicians.

I hear that nasty Trump feller, wants to stump in Soup Creek.
He wrote to Mayor...

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Spring — a life anew

Prodding rays of warming glow,
sunshine.
Crusted ice and snow
slowly melting into trickling drops. 
First to bloom
a crocus blue, a tulip tries to rise.

How long the wait
and freezing rain
chilled the weary bones.
Heat up...

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Why We Will Never Say Hello or Good-bye
By Ingrid Showalter Swift 
Rake your fine fingers across my tender lips...
waiting with the hunger that years have made.
...Do you still hear me? 
I am off in a...

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Eccentric kook's reasonable rhyme zigzags

Doggone poet laureate
wannabe his index finger wags
nonverbally naysaying those,
who doubt mine posthumous
fame and fortune, which snags
eternal renown within pantheon
of storied writers such foolhardiness nags
yours truly keeps bad company with hags
unemployed day...

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Night 3
It’s still in my garden.
It’s back with a vengeance.
I can it see it there, lurking without pardon,
face black and white; its tail mocking.
Three nights in a row now:
the eyes, the fur, the scraping claws.
I...

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...Emmet just sat down on a bench,
And gratefully took his boots off,
Just stretched himself out there to rest,
for the moment it was enough.

The woman seemed confused by this,
it was clear she expected rape,
but when the...

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