Long Scholar Poems

Humanity keeps looking forward, toward the coming of a birth,
and we’re all deemed as equals on our first day on this earth,
but as the years go quickly by our lives become our own;
we’re seen as...

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Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and...

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Cosmology + Ontology = Cosmontology 

NEW Cosmontological Principle: Be SO SO humble! 

>>> SEE NOTE BELOW 

A Sufi Dream-Poem--Our purposefully "proto-conscious" UNI-ballish recycling?

By: Moji Agha
Started on Oct. 26, 2020

You know?
Being a microtubular cosmontologically proto-conscious
goofy sufi...

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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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Sharing my translation of a famous poem (Sadharan Meye) written by Rabindranath Tagore, who won Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. It's one of his story-like poems, written in Bengali, which is one of the...

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[This poem 'No God Of  Mine' was seemingly confounding readers as
to its meaning. Ordinarily, if I felt a poem wasn't  cutting it, I'd delete
it, but on this occasion, I've been asked to explain it... so here goes.]


By...

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Translation of Eric Mottram’s Courbet: Elegy 8 by T. Wignesan

Blanches oeuvres ouvertes
résident dans les jours
la surface du banc de travail est noire
les géraniums-lierres
les fougères et les adragans
accumulent leurs oeuvres et jours:
La toile noire de Courbet
un...

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“I don't know anything about that.  I just do what I must.”
Bréagán's smile was sad but understanding.  He knew what it was like to be pushed to do what seemed impossible.  He...

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Grandma died when I was 18 years old, on Christmas day. I never really got to know her well, since the family had pretty much kept their distance from her due to her 'weird religion.'...

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The Spaniel

A Spaniel that uses its head 
Can tell when its owner’s unfed 
So instead of a duck
That is down on its luck 
Will deliver a pizza instead
 
The Afghan Hound

The Afghan’s a dog groomer’s...

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The Roman administrators came for the wealth of our worship
demanding that I crack the church's coffers wide open
for their needs, for the Empire's desperate embellishments,
in place of gold I presented the poor
I told the onery...

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Nelson Mandela, crossed my spirited mind today, a visionary legend of peace, love, equality, and unity of all people.

As a prevailer of great affliction, he was like a Greek God fighting for the—"Common man!”

I had...

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On the extremity of  a tall bank 
Of big broken stones in round circle done
We reached up a more cruel clutter flank;

And there, for the horrible and strong stun
Of rotten stench which the deep...

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I’m not saying my father hated the English, God forbid. If he were still alive, he’d hate to hear me say that. He’d correct me right away and say he didn’t hate the English. Truth...

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Take me to the tombstone 
let me touch the gray stone that stands
where life could not
I will put my face to that touchstone of deaf thunder,
What happened  to your breath baby brother,
what happened in...

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Cement, sand and gravel, blood, body and soul
Eternity bred from hell's darkest hole
Combine gruesome aggregates, hydrate the mix
Mould them and dry them, then stack up the bricks.

Thought in advance and precision laboured
Set automatic, eternity savoured
No...

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I I’m constantly rehearsing 
On my versing 
Never sliding or swerving
My Rhymes play
Like a wordsmith
I’m Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult
Remembering to stay humble
And claim my guilt and my fault
The Wisest Man once said what’s...

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It was in the mists of morning, beneath the rising morning sun,
We had come to conquer Ft. Langley, It was me and Al and John.
We had all teed off quite nicely, on number one I...

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Ech day me cometh tydinges thre
"Each Day Three Tidings Come to Me"
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa the 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my...

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" Damn you, let go my gun! "
The morning hasn't even yawned yet
and a terrible tussle is in my sight,
Drouillard is wrestling his rifle from the hands of this Indian thief
and the Field brothers are...

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THE NOCTURNAL DELIGHT OF MEPHISTOPHELES - PART TWO (CONTINUED):

The stage was now set . . . from nowhere, Mephisto handed me a missive in 
Medieval Latin to read. He said, “Young poet, the hour is...

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THE PEANUT BUTTER STRIKE

In my last year at school I was made a prefect,	
Why I don’t know for I was no model scholar
But thinking back and taking the time to reflect,
I’m happy to have fond...

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Non labor (relations) day September 1st, 2023 poem

Aye dream of Genie (as a lad din)
Schwenksville, Pennsylvania -
keystone state abbreviated as Pea Yay,
this stupid non huge poem
deployed courtesy scholar
really...a boot nuttin
butta an overrated allay
zee good for...

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I'm not good at moon guessing,
but God created many a blessing;
and the moon is just one of them.
I'm neither scholar nor theologian,
but I observed that God made the
heavenly bodies, making no mention
of gender. The words...

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