Long Removed Poems

Blue Hunter's Moon of the Festival of Lights.
And the day of Vengeance of our Holy One to comfort all those who mourn.

Isaiah 61:3-11
I Proclaim the acceptable Generation or Year and Day of Yehoshua also known...

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“Forever”



When The Terrors came,
The Uncontrollable Ones,
she closed her eyes
and listened for the notes
her mother had planted
amongst the deep blues,
beds of Forget-Me-Nots,
she followed the 
labyrinthine trail 
and through a gate unhinged,
it would seem destroyed, thrown aside,
she...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers III




Success
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

We need our children to keep us humble
between toast and marmalade;

there is no time for a ticker-tape parade
before bed, no award, no bright statuette

to be delivered...

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It had been a hellish week.

On Monday
my lonely and tired AfricanAmerican husband
told me, as gently as possible,
that what I had hoped was a temporary separation
is to be extended into perpetuity.

This separation had been scheduled to...

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Damian Stood in the morning sun.
The sun felt good on his face.
Delilah was still sleeping. He
Kissed her face and caressed 
Her belly until she awoke.
Hey my Mrs. Me. Come on babe.
We will be leaving today...

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Poems about Children IV

Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of 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...

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Monks and nuns,
ascetics and miscellaneous humble proletariat folks,
were taught custody of the eyes,
to show respect for those older
and/or wiser
and/or more supremely royal,
and/or in other positions of merited or inherited authority,
to avoid appearing too curious
too available
too...

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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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Doggerel II: Doggerel about Doggerel, or, More Nonsense Verse

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood:
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Walter Mitties, woo the...

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If I have this right,
and I almost certainly don't have this Left-Deductively right,
our Environmental Health and Safety Protection Agency
and our Public Health and Safety Education Department
have recently co-invested in BlackWater WinLose EcoPolitical Empowerment
through PublicSector Piracy...

No,...

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"Lizzie Borden took an axe,
gave her mother forty whacks,
when she saw what she had done,
gave her father forty-one,
she washed herself from a watered pail,
she claimed their lies and vicious tales,
she pled not guilty and moaned...

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Joe: "It's 9 a.m., here in Gotham and my partner, Mike and I, have been here since 7 a.m., and we also passed a cow coming over here!"
Mike: "That was no cow sir just a...

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It was 1968 we'd gathered again in the school auditorium my tiny hands sweating only five years old while my name was called in all of this cold  
civil rights riots plagued my little...

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Lumi smiled and reached out to grab his shoulder.  They passed over the ridge where, as Joulupukki had said, a small hamlet clung to the side of the mountain about equal distance to the...

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I remember feeling so empty the abuse had escalated after four hurricanes witnessing a murder horrific traumatic brain injury I was now uprooted leaving my beautiful home in Fort Myers Florida at the behest of...

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A Night On A Wharf

The couple decide to walk. The boardwalk still lit at this late hour guides them. They walk hand in hand,..whispering softly with small talk...solemn.,. lonely , yet together. The walk is...

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Those primeval skies, no man ever knew
Ignited, as one massive boulder burst through
Hollow inside, creatures not unlike mice
Strapped themselves in as they plunged into ice
Instantly boiled then instantly frozen
None were to question the planet they'd...

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After witnessing a murder meant for me after surviving a car bomb igniting my skull crushed my face bruising my brain i received threatening calls from my husbands mistress I'd reported break ins strange behavior...

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My love is light (a fairy kiss?)          
               Like the pressure of...

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"Backhand"



You have turned me
inside out, cut open
like a tennis ball
I used to beat backhand
along with the racket
hard against the garage wall

To make sense of it all
as a child, the grief stolen
all too swiftly and replaced...

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Perhat Tursun

Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Born and raised in Atush, a city in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tursun began writing poetry...

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Thanksgiving, 1971,
a parachute pilgrim approaches Northwest Flight 305
as Dan Cooper, anonymous businessman,  anarchist airborne, 
black suit, black sunglasses, a black tie
and a black briefcase broaching black motives,
Portland to Seattle, prison or criminal pantheon, 
before...

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Those primeval skies, no man ever knew
Ignited, as one massive boulder burst through
Hollow inside, creatures not unlike mice
Strapped themselves in as they plunged into ice
Instantly boiled then instantly frozen
None were to question the planet they'd...

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"The Depths"

From the depths
silence.

Where 
are the voices
of other 
women?

In that other place,
the monsters violate, 
they take and take
bloody all, what they want

the dreams of women
are torched, murdered, 
next to them, 
the sweet dreams of lives...

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Joulupukki awoke early the next morning and hurriedly dressed.  His intention was to catch DynDoeth before the crowds started gathering in the eating hall.  He had but one question for him that he...

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