Long Sextant Poems

Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers I

I translated the first six Native American poems for my father when he chose to enter hospice and end his life by not taking dialysis …


Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation...

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**Trigger Warning**



"I Knew Anne Silently - My Ravenous Poe" 

I knew Anne.
you’d think 
with a name like hers
she’d be able to find her way 
out of unchartered waters.

it didn’t come as a suprise, 
then, on...

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Children's Poems VII

These are poems for children and poems about children and their mothers, fathers, grandmother, grandfathers and extended families. 



Sailing to My Grandfather, for George Hurt
by Michael R. Burch

This distance between us
—this vast sea
of...

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wish! wish! wish for the sun!

       there, once ...
       in port on Captiva, slumbering
       the bottlenoses sang...

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Chapter 12d (The Fireflower cont.)

As they held their breath and waited 
For a flame to catch the fire flowers 
Finally a smoky ribbon
Drifted upwards from the petals
 
Gradually the flowers smouldered
And a filmy smoke ascended
With an aromatic odour
As...

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Odyssey from Africa, Chapter 11e, The Island Kingdom (continued)

Matto, Lisa and their parents 
Contemplated now a journey 
On the ocean that was longer 
Far than any in their memory 

One whole week upon the ocean...

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Listen and you can hear the wind whisper 
the name of a lost ship and its skipper.
The wind’s name is Favonius, winged god
His sotto voce is but a whimper.

Gentle breeze doth tell of China Clipper...

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A poem I shall attempt to write of heavenly delight,
About all the wonders that shine deep in the night.

There is so much more than the Moon and stars above,
From the earliest navigators that fell heavily...

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Yesterday I awoke excited…filled with anticipation…knowing the day was going to be fun
because, in Florida, I was going to witness a partial eclipse of the sun.

I was working in the bookstore during the peak of...

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Pardon my condor sensitivity,
	but can I be 
dead serious candid with you
Everybody look down on me,
and talk mean about me
But, in the future, they’re gonna need me 
even nuclear more
I’m nature’s finest,
best garbage collector
My critter...

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Airship

How far I’ve flown I neither know nor care.
Much as this open deck my plans are bare.
Of star or compass I have nary need,
But follow as these downy cloud tops lead.

The chilly breezes toying through...

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she was a sassy little mermaid
with only one ardent wish
to wreak havoc on mankind
for introducing chips to fish
she’d sit upon that lorelei rock
and keep her constant check
and in the cold weather wore
a cardi zipped up...

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A daunting press of gifted dreams
          The boyish boasts and sculpted schemes
              ...

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We've sought our sextant, fair and free,
          Thus bound with dreams, this starlit sea -
           ...

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We've sought our sextant, fair and free,
          Thus bound with dreams, this starlit sea -
           ...

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^

Moonlight and Plankton in the Aegean



Near a beach in Amorgos
Kycladic moonlight
	lilting off
Aegean 
	waters illuminate 
the breasts of two young girls and
Plankton playing off back-lit silhouettes...

Our ketch undulates according to
The laws of Poseidon
While youthful want-to-be mermaids
Frolic...

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Superhero strobe lighthouse helm hexagonal 
        Sixty degree angle glass captain bridge
        Watchtower for Diminutive Town message
    ...

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The Blue Plant 
In a clearing in the woods there is a blue plant
that is illuminated from the inside and shines
long after dark, but if you stop and stare its
four petals curl, that light is...

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With compass and sextant, paper and ink,
Bungaree, Nanbaree, Matthew and George
and a cat and a crew were at sea.
They went sailing and sailing, around and around
in Eighteen Hundred and Three.

The Investigator’s navigator calculated space
by meridians...

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the gods …

awoke early that day
for the sun had swallowed the moon
and left a ragged, gaping wound in the sky …
it bled darkness like cold oil
threatening to stain
all that they had labored to create
not the...

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They're masterpieces
woven from miracle and stardust...
a couple of decades to raise them up
just to send 'm down goblins' road...
a locket of prayers-their silky shields
facing an iron fanged society 
brimming with rabid muzzled souls.

You were once...

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                  Black flower 
sprouting from the rocky soil of the slums
powering through the cool concrete tombs.
Sweeping the devil...

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The Map

In life we choose the direction of our feet, 
often by the way those around us expect us to go. 
Shockingly, striking out on a new road, 
or moving beyond the comfort zone of...

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Let us make ready and set sail
This mighty frigate will prevail
We will see what we will see
Mother Sea is calling me

The Mainsail, Lanteen and Jib are set
First Mate, Boatswain and crew are the best yet
Captain...

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“To die … will be an awfully big adventure.”
       - J.M. Barrie
      
           ~

grown...

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