Long Seaward Poems

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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Charles d'Orleans: a Medieval Marvel


Spring
by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab...

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Medieval Poems

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern...

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Spring
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can...

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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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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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"Ground Level Entry"

“She fits the bill”,
they say it 
insouciantly

visions of being 
carried in the beak 
of a bilious pelican 

where it builds
its rudimentary nest, 
it uses sticks and debris

no stones, yet,
from irreverence
thrown at it

no higher...

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Road Trip

The country, people, and the village,
All equal, as if, for the first time, 
All of that gave a fresher image,
Nay, 'tis but a relative vantage.
Save fresh road, to its left bears a sign.

"A few...

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The country, people, and the village,
All equal, as if, for the first time, 
All of that gave a fresher image,
Nay, 'tis but a relative vantage.
Save fresh road, to its left bears a sign.

"A few more...

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margins stimulate and juxtapose
  edges greet with troubled, disturbing friction
  faraway forces exert influence and combine relentlessly
  how the Sun and Moon dance together about the planet Earth
  their grasping hands...

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Do you know what it feels like to be a paperweight
like you're sitting on someone's chest
They can't move nor do you want to
pinning their arms above their head
screaming in their face to look at you...

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The wind came down from the canyon with a quite heat
It was to his back as he faced the crashing waves
He watched the pelicans skimming the rolling surf
The sun warmed sand felt comforting beneath his...

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While sailing out on morning’s tide
A mermaid on a rock I spied
She was a lovely half-fish girl
With a necklace made of whitest pearl

She smiled and blew a kiss to me
Then disappeared into the sea
She surfaced...

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"As a child I maintained a stoic attitude.
I exhibited patience, restraint, resignation, forbearance, and lack of complaint.
The ideal child you might say. As I grew, I realized the error of my ways." 
  ...

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Gather friends if you care to hear, I’ll favor you with a tale
About the fate of a gallant ship that long ago did sail
Built of the finest teak wood in the year sixteen-thirty-nine
A three mast...

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Montauk Point 

Ridge sides slope  amidst  the ancient seas 
grass sown seed from storm winded shores 
lighthouse beacons light the shores 
laden seaweeds on ragged rocks meet the crashing seas 
driftwood grey smoothed...

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MISPLACED


                                  ...

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Writer I am, I unfurl thought
To say I am wordplay and plot.


Draft upon draft, I sculpt fine words;
I sign my craft, my thoughts get heard.


Sculpt now and weave, carve sculptured breath
In mindful drift from life...

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Surfeit of stalagmites barring, hampering my way
Clouds descending from heavenly heights
Obscuring my outlook in the rarified air
Mount Certes challenged all my senses
Aching muscles, pounding heart, gasping intakes of breath
But for all that I felt elated,...

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Custard in trifle is not bull-shark infested
Despite popular myth, ah but so easily tested
Pour jelly and sherry, sponge biscuit for bedding
Add fruits of the tropics from trees that are shedding
A dash of Madeira from slopes...

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The migratory mind 
      indomitable,
of the spirited surfer
      possessed,
waltzes on waves of life,
curled crests climb
      demented,
fling the fractured moon,
dark troughs...

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As river does, towards vast, waste, life flows, 
Where he loses his gains, fame, and his name; 
Birth or growth is a battle, but life grows,
Stumbling he goes, to own that nameless aim.

Fountain falls with...

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I'll tell you a tale
of our own Devil's Island
and the demonic crash
of the waves in the swell.
The smell and the taste
of the ball breaking weather;
the ghosts that deliver 
poor sailors to Hell.

We were out in...

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I could make ring bells from seashells found on seashores
go into retail where these bells get sold on shop floors 
and tell thee tales of Seabells see sales win awards
if Seabells received well we could...

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Aethiopia is a land of exquisite beauty,
Inhabited by a princess worthy of its charms.
And the king her father thought it his duty
To boast of her glamour in spite of envious alarms.
So the lovely Andromeda sitting...

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