Long Reeking Poems

These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems ...






Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

“... what rough beast ... slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”?W. B. Yeats

Brutality is a cross
wooden, blood-stained,
gas hissing, sibilant,
lungs gilled, deveined,
red flecks on a...

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Various Heresies 5

Tonight, Let's Remember
by Michael R. Burch

July 7,2007 (7-7-7)

Tonight, let's remember the fond ways
our fingers engendered new methods to praise
the gray at my temples, your thinning hair.
Tonight, let's remember, and let us draw near...

Tonight,...

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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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I heard two distinct voices in the night,
Conversing amongst themselves most eagerly
They whispered like children in excitement
Their sardonic mouths sung many savvy tunes
It was Death I could perceive, defending me,
And he, a strange, distant friend
Seemed...

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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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These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems about the earth, climate change, global warming, extinction events, and mankind's role on an endangered world ...



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons?
the ones you trim to...

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The Company was set and all were prepared
    for a journey that was true cause for alarm.
But their spirits were high and as much as they dared
    still hoped...

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Here's the deal, folks...
   This is, as indicated, the 2nd HALF of this fairly lengthy poem. Due to Poetry Soup's file-size limitations, this piece had to be posted in 2 parts. 
 ...

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Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.



Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation...

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Chief garbage taster as fifth grade Halloween gag
at Henry Kline Boyer Elementary School
interestingly enough landed me a grubhub grab bag.

I rooted thru poetry anthology of mine,
and came across an unpublished poem
by one obscure poet (me),...

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Living With A Myth

How dares one to speak of disability and live with it to tell the story narrate 
               ...

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OOOniversal oo

Frightened tepid antisocial ant was football training avidly but failing to attend a fragrant tailor army. Oh dear. That was sure to be put forward to the sacred sanction ship and the sacred sanction...

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	I
Friend, whatever brought your life to end
had no appetite for mouse flesh, nudged your
small gray body on its side with a thorough sniff
and left your corpse exposed on the asphalt path,
then, for reasons of its...

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This is my modern English translation of Paul Valéry's poem “Le cimetière marin” (“The graveyard by the sea”). Valéry was buried in the seaside cemetery evoked in his best-known poem. From the vantage of the...

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[Note: You will see in the work below connections to other poems I have posted here.  Those poems are tangents to this poem that more completely tell the tale of rise, pride, hubris, fall,...

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at Henry Kline Boyer Elementary School

As a Halloween costume, 
one year during early grade school, 
my father got the brilliant idea 
for his sole son to be dressed 
with one of a kind getup.

Missus Shaner...

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The data breach came on quite suddenly 
I saw her standing there dark skinned ashy 
knees she was after my identity strangest 
feeling this crime is the worse because it lingers 

identity fraud could last...

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I know you’re happy,

Guess I’m stuck bein’ me,

Guess I stay missin’ out on chances that I couldn’t see.

But in the meantime,

Keep your head,

And know I’m doin’ just fine.

You know, maybe I’ll get lucky and catch...

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THREE WITCHES A LOVE SONNET


Three ancient, rotten, horrid, witches 
just awoke from their daytime snore,
These evil, reeking, damaged, sisters,
Cursed the land for thirty-five score.

As they hobbled down stairs 
they stammered and coughed,
Till they reached the...

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Pyramus was the handsome young man
Thisbe the fair maiden of Babylon.
The houses of their parents did adjoin 
Neighborhood brought the two in relation.
And the acquaintance ripened into love
And the fire within them burnt with bright...

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"The Boadicea Blood Cup"


Didst thou think? Didst thou?
Didst thou think, at all?
That thou would remain untouched, unchecked, unscathed
Safely locked up away from mine wrath and thee, thy self-made grave?
Imprisoned in your Dark Lost Woods of...

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SHAKEN UP

The vortex sucked
me into the globe.
  shaken, distressed
pounding on the confines
of the glass.
   the snow n-e-v-e-r stops.

Music lifts,
   from the bowels
of this new world —
the humor of “it’s
 ...

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The crying grass 
(for the late Victor Jara,* Pablo Neruda 
and Salvador Allende)
by ‘bro. zayid’

In this stadium
of footlaunched spotted balls
of what should be promising soccer stars…
In this stadium
reeking with the stench of terror
and the numbing...

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...At first he said, “It’s okay, babe.
I work hard, I deserve my play.
For several years he managed it,
played to the masses in the pit.

They lived the high life, best they could,
for a good while it...

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i.
At the centre of the world:
Back in the Roman days of yore--
A voice echoed, that decreed
To a crowd of commons, lost and unsure:

"Our rivers run dried, the Wrath of Gods,
Needs must be pacified
By human blood,...

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