Long Riddle Poems

I have been trying to find the right words to pen this verse, but since I came to this country my words are suppressed and my voice is oppressed. The wind is blowing furiously, and...

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Unique: I need someone to hold me and tell
me it's alright.
I need someone to hold my hands and feel
my pain.
I need someone to kiss away my pain.
I need someone to look into my eyes and...

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Rejection
a roundel by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has...

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Medieval Poem V

A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, and dies alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds,...

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

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain...

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Oasis
by Michael R. Burch 
 
for Beth
 
I want tears to form again
in the shriveled glands of these eyes
dried all these long years
by too much heated knowing.
 
I want tears to course down
these parched cheeks,...

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As to the this and the that and the how and the why,
    I pass no judgement on the tale at hand.
And leave it to scribes to much later decide
  ...

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Please take this time to steer your thoughts
To a wretched land of lochs and glens.
Where a village was tasked and the people fraught
At the woe and sadness life could send.

With the Dragons gone and the...

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Prose Poems

Something
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost?lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight, vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars immeasurable and void. Something uncapturable is...

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Translations of the Oldest English Rhyming Poems

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem aka The Riming Poem
Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

(excerpt)
He who granted me life...

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Piles of poetry yet to come falling in the fingers of the readers
Scroll through my lines as much as your heart and mind eagers
Remorse and anguish is what I feed on when I sin senselessly
Did...

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February 29th, 2024

Alternately titled: 111th leap year since 1582
the year Pope Gregory XIII world leader
(i.e. essentially paterfamilias among
Roman Catholic flock)
timely maneuvered around calendrical rock
and hard space implementing
viable system tracking years ad hoc
out of sync and...

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How one twenty first century married mortal male (me - Matthew Scott Harris)...
found himself bewitched about Circe,
particularly after reading book title by the same name.

An enchantress and a minor goddess
in ancient Greek mythology and religion
depicted...

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“The External World of the Internal”

when the Internal 
finally woke up,

it was like all the words 
in that book, flew at It 
like flaming arrows, 
an external barage, a tale, 
of trading 10 for 50,
a...

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Soon, the sun was lying low, a bright full moon was now on show
Santa switched on Walnut’s glow… “Ho Ho Ho and away we go.”
Walnut played along and led the team of reindeer and their...

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Unquotable quotes: Poets, Poetasters and Platos – XXXVI

     For James McAuley – in remembrance of a memorable week in Cardiff 1965 

The greatest poet ever is NOT Homer, Lao Tse, Ovid,...

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A wince doth lurk wearing which wicked gaze,
Of conniving cast shadows ‘tween my windowpanes.

Gazing through the window’s diaphanous gelid glass, 
I see a flushing fluorescent misty haze of frothy brass.

It floats aloft the frost of...

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After a hard day at work I come home
Hear my boy rapping the words to his headphones
Every bleep comes another bleep
As he keeps dancing to the beat
Come upstairs and barge through the door
Say to him,...

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The three enigmas of Turandot

The well of souls run deep in fabled lands of old.
Of China's ancient dynasty and the lost Great Tartary, 
a ballad of love and loss that must be told.

The Emperor's daughter,...

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The old man stood;elbows resting on the old stone wall
Wistfully he gazed over the snow laden field,
Watching the sheep nibble on bales of hay,
He thought back remembering his working day.

In his leather like work hardened...

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THIS IS ANDERSON WALKINGSHOES... 
VERSE 1:
Not a Ballpoint To Sleep
I dare blame them for any detriment,
As I care more to rubbish these bait flip men.
So simple having their downfall predistined,
Can sense struggles thrown from their...

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Once upon this time
I was listening to the Christian Fathers
retell traditional stories
of God's election and predestination.

Predestination
is like being born into royalty,
power,
privileges of humane Earth's regenerative grace.

Election is more democratic.
Selection based on God's vote for mercy,
apparently,
because...

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Amanda's Challenge
My name is Amanda; I am pleased to meet you.
I must tell you my story I swear it is all-true.
It happened one day I was feeling quite low.
I had run out of answers I...

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Joyful music filled the village
when mother’s barren womb gave birth. 
Born to end Philistine pillage, 
and fill sad, anxious hearts with mirth.

No wine or product of the vine,
should pass your palate when you dine.
No razor...

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