Long Refrains Poems

Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux

These are poetic forms similar to villanelles, with refrains (repeated lines) and sometimes double refrains.



Rondel: Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot...

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This page shows my writing process and is part of Poetrysoup's first workshop.  The workshop's intent is to reveal how revision strengthens a poem. Constructive feedback can be a gift.  Should any journal...

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The Good Girl

Penny has always been a good girl, now she is a good wife. She lives in a good neighborhood, drives a nice car, has two perfect children. Her husband is a doctor and...

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1 Intent

Assigning no meaning to grace imbibed,
we watch how we are breath by breath transformed,
drenched in bliss mists that cannot be described,
trouncing ego, last bastions of mind stormed.

With God-search the aim, our journey began,
brought about...

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I dread the United States presidential 2024 outcome...

Whereby yours truly presages and doth abhor
nothing short of an imminent civil war
dwarfing insurrection on January 6, 2021
oddly enough even reducing
ordinary decibels to a mute whisper
madding crowd trumpeting...

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By Stanley Collymore

Never speak ill of the dead we’re constantly and solemnly
exhorted regardless of who they are or the life that
they freely chose to live, as they’re no longer
around, is the lame and unconvincing excuse
that’s...

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Back in our preverbal day
of healthy regenerating time,
indigenous wisdom
pursued peak experiences
of cooperative pleasure,
deep co-empathic embrace.

Sometimes,
especially when this pleasure was sustained,
euphoric,
ejaculatory
and reverberating in resonant cycles
of deep wombed ecstasy,
procreation happened,
preferably in the spring
when new life is more...

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life is an     inconsistent choreographer
   shielded  in stainless symphonies
          composed with erratic patterns
curating colors seized    ...

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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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Brackish-gurgling days that
Unobtrusively slid along
Past tussock grass and curled up 
Balls of Fern...
Glued tightly onto structured vanes
Of outstretched frond.
Venerable Mosses reciting epic tales,
Measured throughout Metronomical 
Strains,
Chanting methodically in harmonious
Downturn - 
Wherein contained: 
Foreboding dialects delivered...

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Mascara smudged – through the tears
I see the rumbling truth being preached
By silent prayers, gentling peace…

Doubting the whispers of yesterday’s dream,
I fall to my knees, murmuring – tender
Feelings bleeding through veins filled with 
Temptations, exposing...

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Poet who exhibits panache - meant...

to tickle your fancy dear reader rabbit,
perchance European G-man double agent
regarding the following poem
with kick a$$, je ne sais quois
ingenious, humorous bent
even though reasonable rhyme
mebbe worth no mo' than ten...

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“Psychotic hallucinations, whether they are visual or vocal, they address you. They accuse you. They seduce you. They humiliate you.
They jeer at you. You interact with them.”
Oliver Sacks  

This is not an illusive myth,
this...

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Elegy to Child Lost


                               ...

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“being mistook we burnt the book
thoughts rest, we dwell in our heart’s nest
touched by spirit, our body shook
by God’s light blest as we undressed” ~ Unseeking Seeker

As the sky dissolves remnants
 of scripted dogma,
to uncloak...

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To my life that betrayed the butterflies~
          within my chrysalis mind, 
forgive my flawed dialect, 
I no longer look upon sakura skies,
awaiting a ray of fluffy...

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“as we passed her she did wilt
which caused in us sense of guilt
since our stance perhaps did cause
to put her heart’s joy on pause
 
though we’re gentle, not hostile
we diminished her soul’s smile
since our aura as...

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To shivering seas 
   mirroring cracked crystals,
I am searching for a righteous rhyme,
to orchestrate eclipsed realms 
with blue orchids 
      and plum blossoms,
singing sunflower symphonies 
of blooming poetry,...

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Journey Journal Page
INTERLUDE
By Leon Enriquez


By light of grace
Soul knows sure place
In time and space
Where echoes trace


Here for a while
Learn then to style
Poise that thus smiles
As grief greets wiles

~~~~~~~~


Show up with poise
As inner voice
Leaps above noise
Beyond...

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The 42 Inch Hallway

We’re stepping along the musty hallway now.
I am taking us on a fast-moving memory ride;
A mind-bending groovy slide to 1965,
When Dylan music was seeping loudly like a germ,
Down the green-carpeted hallway of...

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Have you ever pondered
shadows are made of 
softness, they are not 
hard surfaced like 
those of us existing 
outside of the white noise

unable to grasp -

the invisible, 
that speak meaning to us, 
whispering their sagacious...

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When heinous fangs
of life drain
the amethyst glow
flowing above 
infected ripples of time,
I question the 
chaos that claims
serenity through 
saline serenade 
of sirens, composed 
with midnight ink
across a mazed face 
of a starless canvas,
What if these...

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Listen to the shifting winds 
carrying musical meteors,
there soars floating
letters between 
lyrical lines,
emanating runes
that reflect 
revolving rhymes
of faith within
and beyond.
For we are more than
just spectators or actors, 
in this theatrical life,
we are the assigned 
maestros...

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Dear me, 
  I breathe you
in the pulse of erased promises ~ 
I'm a shadow in your space 
and not any voice which can be heard
    above restless mists, 
so, when...

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Matsuo Basho: English translations of haiku about summer, life, sun, sunshine, sunlight, melons, willows, rain, rivers, hats, shade, sad, sadness.

Such coolness
when shouldered:
the summer’s first melon.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A wicker basket
shields the coolness
of...

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