Long Shackles Poems

The Amistad Mutiny

Slavery, a dirty word no matter how it’s pronounced:
Abducted and herded to the slave fortress of Lomboko1 for trade.
To be tossed in chains below deck on the Portuguese ship Tecora,2
Sailing the Atlantic Middle...

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I Know The Truth
by Marina Tsvetaeva
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I know the truth?abandon lesser truths!
There's no need for anyone living to struggle!
See? Evening falls, night quickly descends!
So why the useless disputes?generals, poets, lovers?

The wind...

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Part 1: FORE SIBERIAN FATE

silk wings wet -
angel on the lake.
starlight glitter
separates from

the golden wheat.
her docile hair,
prophecy of ice.

winter pink,
pinched cheeks.
ice skate scrapes -
flecks of flakes.

the snow queen
before her relentless
reign, a pretty thing.

her smile warms
the...

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Legacy accompanied with inadequacy DESPAIR RING
uninvited GUESTS linkedin as the themes of mein kampf.

Despite countless factorial permutations
& combinations, this cyber surfer
avails left and right alm
seeking succor Out Of Human Bondage
invisibles shackles bind head,
shoulders, knees and...

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Deliberately recognizing the sun against the moonbeams
I see your eyes gleam and your happiness screams
Into my eager ears over the years and I’m tension-whelmed with the tears I shed
Hanging at the last thread, giving in...

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Written 12 December 2023         
Transmutation Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Unseeking Seeker

                 ...

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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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I suppose
cannibalism
is the logical conclusion
of rabidly overpopulated fascism.

Some cannibals,
perhaps all,
ate their human prey
not for typical nutritional reasons
like other forms of digested nature,
but more specifically
because those dining
hoped their prey's sacred powers
would thereby become their own,
conjoining for...

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Recluse by dint of circumstance

Proud anonymous troglodytes 
forerunners of mine
confronted threats less horrific
than forty fifth commander in chief
of United States of America.

He/him (matted hair, ratty, scrawny, 
and tetchy ugly villain)   
scurried into dark...

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Within the frame a sepia scene
a dusty porch   a rickety chair   
the fabric of your dusky face creased
with ceaseless sunbaked woes
your old pair of getaway feet gives 
a different walk of...

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His words stung me, as the cries from the maelstrom seem to retort
Their scattered, foreign words and wails retching their say
I listened, almost mesmerized,
Pulverized

“Come,” Said he,
With threatening authority

Upwards, higher than the balcony from which we...

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My jubilant latent, nascent poetic tribute to black history month

Which acknowledgement ought to be year round,
similar to altruistic, humanistic, and philanthropic
unconditional acceptance and respect
crafted with the following words 
mostly written January 23rd, 2023,
cuz I, (a...

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Who am I? Am I even human? What is my place in this world?
I am confused, sometimes I do not even feel like a human being.
Like a boat in a stormy sea, I aimlessly drift...

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Nascent poetic tribute to black history month...
crafted before onset when people of color  
got acknowledged for twenty eight or nine days
depending if leap year occurred. 

Though I yam Caucasian,
rightful to honor most bitter
racist genocidal...

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1

The drummer beats slowly, the drummer beats loud
     as he beats of humanity wrapped in a shroud.

Well he beats of the rape and the killing of war
     and the mind mangling sorrow we blithely ignore
          and...

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When I woke the next day,
He was lying beside me, breathing steadily
I was no longer on the hard, monstrous back of the leviathan
My hands were burned from its horns,
I was laid upon his wings,
Burdened by...

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Mechanism 1
Part #1

The things outside of my window dry out my eyes. The egg that I saturated has mold on it. The moon decays when I speak. The stars are all just God’s germs. Lately...

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A Journeyman

Prologue and Epitaph:

I am the fool, the jester, clown, a harlequin, charade, façade of many
shades and colours, mascara over broken fragments, dead and gone

1)	Megalomaniac charlatan, lost in destruction, finding the path, the touch,
the miracle...

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This is a poem (Original Title “Mukti” in Bengali, which means “Freedom”) by India's Nobel-laureate poet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941) - a poet, writer, playwright, composer, social reformer and painter. He was a man...

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My nascent poetic tribute to black history month

more apropos and alternately titled: 
praise to thee people 
of variegated melanin color,
whose immense understated improvements
and enhancement of webbed wide world
worth more than paltry words
of yours truly can...

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Science is Fiction

Sir Popper popped the answer to the question of and whether science
holds truth and where and when for how long facts remain value’s 
         ...

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An Echo Poem

Original: This Much I Know – Poem by Lora Colon of PoemHunter
Reprinted here with permission.

Soon the sun will set in this valley
Where I’ve roamed for many a year, 
So many questions left unanswered,...

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Love shouldn’t hurt, I’ve heard it many times before.
If they truly love you, your feelings they won’t ignore.
When you find someone you think really loves you,
you’re not seeing the red flags; you have no clue.
He...

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This day is Bright ! 
Thoughts take Flight .

Music – the companion of my soul !
Books – the confidants to my mind !
Daughters – the reasons for life to know
more than experience has allowed me...

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“The Tear”



How many oceans of salt 
does it take to form a tear?

Unrelenting waves of sorrow 
pounding a broken heart
hears the howl of sharp beaked foolish flying monkeys
ignorant feeding frenzies swallow whole lost families 
swept...

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