Long Rivulets Poems

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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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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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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Everything here is true
Just as stated
because it's already happened
or - it has yet to occur - 
but it's very soon to occur
and I have such strong feeling
that the future will be as I see it
as...

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The strong gust of wind was cut off from its source; a frigid early spring blast that swept across a lofty mountain range, high above British Columbia.

It then encircled one of the lesser peaks and...

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yeah, right ...
do you really think I believe that?
that I'll swallow that pill?
look at the damn lines on this brow ...
do you think they were etched
by happenstance??
not even CLOSE, sweetheart
I earned those ragged rivulets one-by-one
and...

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VIII

In the minds fixed eye I see five newly discovered graves,              
Headless lions sat atop an impregnable "Triumphal Gate";   ...

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Dear promising poet,

for me, modern poetry provides a peek into a poet’s inner world. Through this artistic medium, a poet speaks in expressive language of imagery and metaphor conveying varied textures of emotions and observations...

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Sonnets V-IX



Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse... warm, palpable and slow...

once...

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"Seeds"



Blue reaches reflections
touching ripples 
tears in time ephemeral
caresses fragrant Green my canopy

opens the light
inside me 

cracked eggshell 
golden-yoked sunshine
pale turquoise kintsugi
splintered paths inside my mind

in the smallness
of me 
something 
quietly blooms 

ragged yet refined
a gecko...

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BREAKING THE SILENCE : NO MORE

Sponsored by Ink Empress 

Glass shattered a
Saturday afternoon tea ~

Silence holds steady
black fleeced momentum 
for its own ripping
when lightning as whipping 
fire from Heartbeat of
Sun slashes its Void
loudness to tumble...

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A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch
 
Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the...

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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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O August, I feel subtle scents
of dandelion days melting,
like spring falls of delirious diamonds,
while memories of sentimental sapphires
flow amidst clouds of colorblind cruelty,
revealing how butterflies
from the temple of fragmented armors
abandoned my spirit
at the altar of...

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A mirror never reveals  
fallen secrets sewn with soulful sequins;  
time unmutes raven melodies within,  
tawny tunes of truth~
   I once spoke in colorful dialects.  
Now, I trust just...

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Oh come, dear, sit on this bench with me. 
We don’t like all people,
Now do we? 
But yet we watch, indubitably!
With spring trees so evergreen, 
Dandelions pristine.

Annie, can you see?
There’s a cardinal in that tree.
Oh,...

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Can blackwater lilies 
sing forth sonnets 
of daylight and 
unsung those 
cacophonous notes 
of omen, which 
rhymed with 
sombre elixir 
of spruce rivulets and 
veiled your crimson 
touch of life, 
in eons of unforgivable 
death?...

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I've always 
wandered in 
venus' orbs, 
searching for
the star-seed 
of my spirit that
has forsaken
it spiritual 
sanguinary and 
caged every 
fluorescent flicker 
in a sculptured
sanctuary of 
materialistic
metamorphosis. 

Wondering - 
what am I, 
in the camouflaging
shades of...

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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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"Paying homage to ancestral kyanites, 
      which once vibrated with indigo streams
  in sparks of salient storms ~
   I soar across melancholic mangroves, 
   ...

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A battle rages within,
Silent thoughts behind a hidden veil,
an ice prince some say,
lacking emotions, a player some term
he is an enigma the world doesn't understand
awkward,anti-social, a fly in the wall,
one who is rarely missed,
a friend...

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An ancient river, centuries-old shops and restaurants steeped in a 2000-year history and 
culture set the scene. The ambiance seemed divinely contrived to facilitate the purposes of 
our meeting and the very fodder from which...

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T’was dry the spring with thunderstorms that rumbled across dry;
most every day was under sun or star filled sky,
the grass had burnt off early; hay mowed this year was scarce,
closed paddocks saved the milkers where...

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sweet bundles of joy
symbols of forthright candor~
blooms in God's garden

As we traverse through the bends and curves of weary life, how we wish to retrace our steps to the childhood days when we were so...

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