Long Sensible Poems

WOMEN ...

Truly amaze me ... they possess the super-human
strength to birth a child - one of the most painful
and demanding physical and emotional feats of end-
urance known to our species - yet they have the
self-confidence...

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Come Down
by Michael R. Burch

for Harold Bloom

Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour ...

and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be...

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What Good Are Our Tears?
by Michael R. Burch

What good are our tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is our concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm benevolence...

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A cool February evening Damian was
Asleep. He felt somebody rubbing 
His chest. "Leave me girl." Polly
Rolled out of bed and announced 
"Damian, you should move in with me!
I want you to move in! Wake up...

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Veronica Franco translations

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose.

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I) 
by Veronica Franco
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of...

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I sung all the night with the Devil,
It seemed harmony had found itself spooning with dissonance
Not indeed needing to be one or the same
Yes—the light indeed could sustain itself in the midst
Of what then was...

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HEROES

Near somber guards, units of children heap 
dead leaves, naive to any else fallen.
Friend, you chuckle, but your posture speaks
of duty on this day of contradictions.

Firefighters bow heads in silent paean, 
while polished trucks stand...

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"Years” and “Distance”, phantoms of the dark that do their evil
in the quietude of the everyday, coming and going without so
much as a footprint or a whisper, and taking the most valuable
possessions of the heart,...

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My dreams were of the dire Queen
I had allowed her reign over me, callousing my heart,
She was inside me, laughing
Having crawled in
My walls closing, as she filled my soul
We were one, yes for a time,...

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Limericks IV - Donald Trump

The Hair Flap
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

The hair flap was truly a scare:
Trump’s bald as a billiard back there!
The whole nation laughed
At the state of his graft;
Now the...

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uncomfortableness, and hesitation arose that you might reassess a possibility for friendship or.... whatever with me.

A disappointment set in place in the event that based on some facet of my being (inexplicable flaws within this...

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It was a strange and unexpected experience.  

Suddenly, I found myself in a place called Happy Valley. A man was on a park bench gazing upon the trees as if listening to a particular...

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Damian stayed awake half the night
Contemplating, brainstorming 
And roving over it 
Repeatedly. He knew it would be
Desperately Dynamic diligent and
Definitely undeniably necessary,
 but if he Didn't force great effort he knew
It would spell sure doom...

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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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Though no political pundit, nevertheless...

I trumpet the withdrawal
of democratic contender from out the presidential race.

Breaking headline news story
courtesy rumor monger premieres
showcasing emphatic groundswell
against feeble minded incumbent.

Extraordinary turn of current events
immediately enlivens the United States populace
injecting...

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After the creation of things
They where all created
But in the world of imagination
Many live as creators
Existing in weird


The created creator,
The poet, I've never imagine 
As a child
I've ever thought of treasure
Never discover the new world


The...

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THE INCUMBENT
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS

I am sick and tired of hearing the same old line
My elected representative says every things fine
He just does not represent the people I know
He’s been there forever its time for him...

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What You Are, What You Mean To Me...

Oh Wife! You are my life, 
around which I spin my daily axis -
My work, dealings, obligations, routine is as a nexus,
Interacting connecting life with gratified emotional plexus...
You...

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Translation of Marcel Moreau's " A Paris " by T. Wignesan

IN PARIS

Paris bores me no end without you
My heart weighted down with melancholia
The spleen given over to asthenia
Empties its own sense of loss on to...

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"Truth are not from the valley of the shadow of death ... Lilith, like all mythological entities, are humanity's creation, to explain--what they cannot," ... by The Poet

Hawaii Nei, bidst Aloha, inoa Pelekane ke'o ke'o,...

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Roman à clef tragicomedy...
overlaid with façade of fiction = Mein Kampf

in summer re:
typed out during winter of my discontent,
when yours truly no spring chicken
stirred ruse to expatiate poetically
regarding following rhyming reason,
hence mine lovely bones 
into...

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I notice everyone is focussed on what they’re doing
Doing, doing, doing, oh yeah…where you going, going?
I wanted you to stay around, but you’re gone away
Sick of the drama and the tears and anxiety my way

My...

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I'm not crazy about political poetry
Because politics feel a bit ... soiled to me
But as a requirement for the contest
I will say the following, as a humble opinion ONLY ...

I do not know the man
I...

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1.


In the slow, dead hours that hang attendant
Upon the birth of the dawn,
When all things pure lie safe abed,
Nested in sleep's safe oblivion,
The rituals take place, unseen, unfelt
In woods or alleys
In the dry, dusty corners...

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Dearest sister-in law, 
 
Today, I met the person,  
you tried in your match-making effort for me. 
He was quite a nice one! 
Although, it did not offer  
stemming much of other thoughts,...

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