Long Redress Poems

Poems about Poems V

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as though she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She...

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Sonnets LXXI-LXXX

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you...

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Imitation! Creative Compliment, Lacking in Originality, or Plagiarism? 

This week takes me back to college days. I was taking a graduate course (as a Physics major)   in 'Modern Poets' at the University of...

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HOW I WOULD DESCRIBE MYSELF

People often say to me 
“What can you tell me about yourself” 
guess it’s my duty to explain to them 
and so I look them in the face and reply 

My...

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Who am I? Am I even human? What is my place in this world?
I am confused, sometimes I do not even feel like a human being.
Like a boat in a stormy sea, I aimlessly drift...

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_______

Well now this is sad and tragic 
For both of us to hear 
You and I at cross purposes 
Ever our fate, my Dear

I just found your correspondence
Last letter that you sent 
It was, I...

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We learn our right from wrongs,
and maybe right from lefts,
as we go along.

Issues come up within developmental windows,
like stealing
emerges from touching your older brother's stuff
and beginning to more wisely discern
what's mine from what's yours,
because when...

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Science can’t save you, neither can religion,
at least Popper and Niebuhr, philosophers and poets,
are entertainers, which is why actors and athletes
are paid so much. Thanks for the summaries.
I was teaching Shakespeare’s 92nd ridiculous sonnet
to my...

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What do I project? Some of what I have
Absorbed. Also, that which I have
Reflected upon and have parts of rejected!
I am aware there is a so-called church of
The Devil – I am cognizant of the...

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Darius was the Medo-Persian king,
Which means he was in charge of everything.
One hundred twenty satraps gave account,
So he would have an up-to-date amount;
All this so that he might not suffer loss.

‘Since that’s a lot of...

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Escapees: Accommodating Adversities

                    The subjective state of those who are well in
    ...

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Drifting on the clouds I lie
With my head pointing
To yonder skies
In a sea of dreams 
 Where mind and spirit 
Igniting natures prize
To feel like you are heaven bound 
But feet standing firmly
 On hallowed...

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When the colonists felt that with the king of Great Britain they could no longer reason,
Their leaders signed the Declaration of Independence, though they knew it was treason.
Because of their belief in the unalienable rights...

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Oceans and Winds

I have an obsequious unnatural inclination
To sustain my external compulsions 
And convert them to a pre-text of a sub-text
Of instantaneous conclusions
Bi-Partisan confusions, melted humans and rheuminations
We seem to be caught up in the...

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FM
“ShallowMan, if you’ve conflictions
owing to your mind’s addictions
to subconscious maledictions,
due to doubt in old convictions;
tell me now of your afflictions.”

SM
“FactoidMan, I must confess
I understand you more or less
though subtleties provoke distress,
and even more your fine...

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The typewriters tap,
with a rat-a-tat-tat,
like a fourth estate rap
to provide us the pap
(that serves as a snack with a rat-a-tat-tat)
in a newspaper scrap
crammed with meaningless crap
from the editor's yap
(spewing flimflamy flak, booming rat-a-tat-tat)
after gashing a...

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His thick-soled hiking shoes
tread too loudly
to celebrate time's homing invitation
to hear and see, 
feel and smell resonantly hidden diversity
within Spirit's wooded ridge.

He stops to break from sacrilegious pounding
plodding echoes
reverberating through ears attuned for inside voices,
languaged...

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I wish I could be clearer too
But when a mirror comes to view
I find reflections blur the tons
Of promises I've yet to keep.
The virtues to which I aspire
Just kindling in God's cleansing fire
A testament to...

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Le Balcon (The Balcony)
Charles Baudelaire
trans. Michael R. Burch

Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress,
source of all pleasure, my only desire;
how can I forget your ecstatic caresses,
the warmth of your breasts by the roaring fire,
paramour of memory, ultimate...

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Poems for Poets VI



Caveat
by Michael R. Burch

If only we were not so eloquent,
we might sing, and only sing, not to impress,
but only to enjoy, to be enjoyed.

We might inundate the earth with thankfulness
for light, although...

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I Loved You
by Alexander Pushkin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I loved you once … perhaps I love you still …
perhaps such erratic flickerings remain.
But please don’t let my feelings trouble you;
I do not wish to...

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Habit is Heaven's tame redress:
it tugs down the skirts of Happiness.
—Alexander Pushkin, translation by Michael R. Burch

Till, conquered by gusts of cold air,
as Winter approaches, I find,
on a branch that is otherwise bare,
trembling, a leaf...

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The poor boy heard Christmas beckoning at the door
He saw every house bright with many a lamp
And streets illumined with colorful lights and stars
But his tiny hut looked dismal n’ dark like a prison camp

With...

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So, I play my game
Yes, play your own too
If mine affects your aim
Change strategy or rather boo
My efforts than trying to clear my path
For redress would fire back my math

My morning is to learn
From the...

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I feel that I have bared the darker moments of my life of late, and it is time to redress the balance 
a little, I am in truth, like most, a complex creature capable of...

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