Long Refugee Poems

World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - VI - Chaim Nachman Bialik, Erich Fried

After My Death
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
translation by Michael R. Burch

Say this when you eulogize me: 
Here was a man—now, poof, he's...

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Medieval Poems



Deor's Lament (Anglo Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland knew the agony of exile.
That indomitable smith was wracked by grief.
He endured countless troubles:
sorrows were his only companions
in his frozen...

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With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

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 TUAN TATA : Song of Uda - I
by T. Wignesan

(Patrick Noone, a British anthropologist, discovered the Ple-Temiar tribe living isolated in the jungle highlands in the State of Perak on the west coast of...

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Look up in the sky ! It’s a bird ! It’s a plane.
It’s Superman !
More powerful than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. This fearless...

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What Kind of People Are We

In a Shakespearean sense of tragedy and doubt the well-used
“To Be or Not To Be” from Hamlet is not the question I shall
discuss in this narrative. Rather, I shall consider...

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Unquotable quotes: Fat People – XXIX

(I know this piece sounds mean and cruel but as every single parent must have experienced, this is also the expression of utter exasperation, and perhaps there’s also the slightest...

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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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Tim’s father had been a refugee once he put down his fight and his gun

The story is that he embarked on the very last ship leaving East Prussia

Under siege tanks and bombs from above fireworks...

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Femme Fatale By A Wishing Well 
  (In The Wastelands Of War)

Warm as breath on placid skin,
Soft as gentle summer rains,
Loud as natures angry clouds
That gather in ambushed lanes,
To confer with the wounded boys
Whose...

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Driven by the forces around you driven by the forces behind you
Driven by forces above you driven by forces beside you, driven by
Forces all around you. The mouth is moving up and down but half...

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someone always told me this with tears in her eyes...


(for Lata Sethi's late-mother, who was my mother’s ‘sister’ and who took us all into her heart, and for Lata and Ravi Sethi of Defence Colony,...

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Don’t look at me
As though I am an alien or a stranger,
Don’t let the dagger of antipathy
Fly out of your eyes.

I am your neighbor.

Don’t call me a foe, an antagonist, or a rival,
Don’t roll up...

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"The Immigration Officer Asked Me."

I was asked where are you coming from?
I answered I ran away from the war in my
country.?

I was asked how many years the war lasted?
I answered there was war for sixteen...

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(DEDICATED THIS WRITINGS TO THE BIRTHDAY OF SHEIKH HASINA, HONORABLE PRIME MINISTER OF BANGLADESH)

Today is propitious day of Bangladesh
Happy Birthday to You O Great Leader Of Bangla
Sheikh Hasina (Prime Minister of Bangladesh)

In the heart of...

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PRELUDE
There has always been animosity between Greece and Turkey as far back in history as we wish to go.  Greece was occupied by the Turks during the Middle-Ages for almost 500 years.  My...

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The Parrot and the Woodpecker may turn...
    [Sung by TEnicayccal Cellappa]        Translated by T.Wignesan
 
mAnkiliyum marankottiyum         ...

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When at five-thirty
In the rubbed-eye haziness
Of ferreting lonesome night walks
The camera-eye refugee
Asleep in the half wakefulness
Of the hour
Peers out of his high turbanned sockets:
Hyde Park's through road links
London's diurnally estranged couple -
The Arch and Gate.

...

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My LeftYang eye and ear,
and maybe throat
and hand
and probably vocational foot
remain adamantly persuaded

My most successful time for deep ecological listening
and watching
is immediately after inhaling a vast theological lungful
preparing to speak my WiseElderness
into the remaining yin...

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~My True Story 16 Years Of War~

!6 years of living in fear every minute, 16 years living with barely 
any electricity,water, food,hurt from humiliation standing 
in line for hours to maybe obtain a loaf of...

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A tree in love

By the old road, before it meets a widened way
 in a nearby stands two trees close together
 we can see they are related 
yes, mother and daughter
The mother, although taller, leans...

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IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY : LXIV - LXV


NOTE (facts to bear in mind while reading) : Under the French Penal Code, harm done to the infirm, minors and seniors (i.e. over 65) is...

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I’m Patient with Kimmy (1), Have Patience for Paul (2)

Our political differences ring in my ear
with fake “Fire!” calls in theaters marketing fear!
‘Right’ won’t honor opinions of others, hate facts,
they are traumatized truants, Trump’s turncoats’...

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Your devoted adoring Loving hands
Shields the abyss with trance
in utter bewilderment
As every hand is first an apprentice 
That slaves beneath The Temple Of LOVE
Your Loving hands have valor and daring
to weave my sorrow into a...

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They dragged my mother away
kicking and screaming
arms outstretched towards
my little sister
who lay dying on the ground
her lips parched
her eyes sunken
her wasted arms reaching out
“Myreik (Mother), don’t leave me!”
 
My father pulled my mother away 
the...

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