Long Rob Poems

Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by...

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English translations of Arabic poems by Fadwa Tuqan aka "The Poet of Palestine"

Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink...

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Like Hannibal we crossed the pass and crossed 
   the Alps (okay, the Brynderwyn Hills) 
and a bridge too far on north-west passage.
   From out of the Valley of Mizpah 
to...

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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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~His Love Is Divine~
 ( The Bell )


 Lord
 Can really save
 His  Love is divine
 With Lord nothing to fear
 Life can be so hard
 But with him soul safe
 With Lord we...

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Many of us have a favorite possession from when we were young, and this 
93-year old gentleman is no exception.

               ...

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Says Csikszentmihalyi,
"Social scientists
(Abraham Maslow, Lawrence Kohlberg, Jane Loevinger, [Ken Wilber, Edward Podvoll, Julian Jaynes, Jack Kornfield, Richard Dawkins, Clare Graves, Carl Jung] and James Fowler)
describe a dialectical motion
between [Yang-ego-form] differentiation
and [Yin-eco-logical function] integration,
between turning attention...

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As I woke up this morning I was thinking of what should I do through COVID-19 pandemic.
I said to myself, “I want to go for a walk.”
While walking along the street, people were passing with...

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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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Prizes for Ultimate Sacrifices


    prizes for the abstemious  for abstinence  chastity ?
                 the countless...

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Dear neighbors,

I realize we have not met,
other than the guy next door
but that doesn't really count
cause that was just to put up a fence between us,
and I have met Marvelously Mad Max,
behind me, on the...

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A perfect world
From A-Z…

Actually addicted attitude apologetic they assume while I'm angst in my room
Bold not blameless but blame shooting out like bullets
Critics just quit it, calculated moves, claim to have your back until you...

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I'm sure it was Rob Brezsny, again,
who first pointed out to me
that Western psychoanalysts give priority to pathologies within family relationships,
while Eastern analysts, more embedded in philosophies of interdependence,
begin with what nurturing health dynamics we...

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.                          NOW

Well, GI Jack is welcome back, he left his...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems II - Bertolt Brecht



The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned, 
teams of dull oxen hauled...

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Children are Fundamentalists

Children are literalists,
fundamentalists.

When they hear
“You’re filthy and you stink!”
the younger they are,
the less likely to hear as a mature adult might,
“You have a sour smell on you.
Please go bathe,
and use some soap and...

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Its been over 27 years coming
 this missive or letter,
 maybe poem ? 

I HATE Mother’s day !!
 with a passion ... I've said it ...
 The sheer relief is palpitating
 a load of my...

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1st Half - because of Poetry Soup's file size limitations -

                      How My Sister...

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Listen the drums are rumbling and the pots are bubbling
Listen, the drums are rolling and pretty girls are dancing
Listen the drums are speaking and my heart is singing
Listen the drums are beating and I am...

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A piece of me has been torn apart
All of you have broken my heart
The tears are still coming and going
And I can still feel my heart burning
I know that this was coming
But I pretended and...

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Oppressor and the oppressed.

Who is the oppressed and who is the oppressor?
Who has the right to beat a random person on the street?
Who has the right when to pronounce a person guilty or to see...

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Self help addict needles unsuspecting reader 

Expounded late today April 27th, 2023
since being written
countless years ago
maybe a baker's dozen
as thee doodling cock doth crow 
scouting about for carrion 
scavenging for dead animals 
and rooting about...

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Throughout 2016 I have been reading Rob Brezsny's Pronoia
Is The Antidote For Paranoia
now ending before I reach 2017.

This postmillennial bible of multiculturalism
ends with several questions or statements
with space to write in my responses.

I am about...

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Moods oscillate in cadences of peaks and valleys
Music to fractious emotions on greasy dance floors
Mistimed cues of flares smouldering relationships

Angst of redundancy seethes from within as lava
Anger is camouflaged with the cloak of reticence
Ardour suffocated...

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Blocks View of His Feet

Trump not only is total loss but also complete;
Speaks same words several times and will repeat;
Ignorant sign off;
Retarded slightly above,
And big belly does block view of his both feet.

James Thesarious Hilarious...

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