Long Shallow Poems

Agony be to society's demise
Labels are for fools, not for the wise
Play the familiar tune of in-unison serenity 
Fatality won't come any time soon, thankfully...

Homeless people were on the news not to long ago...I weep...

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Sappho fragment #155
translation by Michael R. Burch 

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

*

Sappho fragment #156
translation by Michael R. Burch 

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable...

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As winter hazes of January spraying
While I was meditating on how
To write this riveting poem which
Seemed to be for someone who
I never cast in my sight.
Despite her name is not an odd in me
But I...

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“Forever”



When The Terrors came,
The Uncontrollable Ones,
she closed her eyes
and listened for the notes
her mother had planted
amongst the deep blues,
beds of Forget-Me-Nots,
she followed the 
labyrinthine trail 
and through a gate unhinged,
it would seem destroyed, thrown aside,
she...

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It had been a hellish week.

On Monday
my lonely and tired AfricanAmerican husband
told me, as gently as possible,
that what I had hoped was a temporary separation
is to be extended into perpetuity.

This separation had been scheduled to...

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To a Daughter More Precious than Gems
by Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Heaven's cold dew has fallen—
and thus another season arrives.
Oh, my child living so far away,
do you pine for me...

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"The Sleeper and The Supernaturalist"


The Sleeper
shone as she walked 
through the Woods

shining alive 
like nothing
natural could

caught 
in the moonlight 
unaware

the innocent
red-caped roses stared
the trees whispered,

"beware, beware"

barefoot softly 
the Supernaturalist 
transfigures instead

from under shine 
she bares...

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[Now ShallowMan is quite content
receiving FactoidMan’s consent
to quibble and express dissent
as long as keeping covenant
with fingers crossed and belfry bent
when viewing Facts in sealed cement:]

SM
“The Facts you give me circumvent
those ‘truths’ your chuckles supplement;
although they...

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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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Pain settles in quite instantly your senses 
are totally unprepared for this graveness
the notion to sleep sets in like an energetic 
twilight phase the injury abruptly strangles 
thought my ears are always ringing with this...

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The Song of Amergin: Modern English Translations

The Song of Amergin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea breeze
I am the ocean wave
I am the surf's thunder
I am the stag of the seven tines
I am...

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Skin of Terror
- Daniel Henry Rodgers

(The stage lights come up slowly on Michael's face, which is crisscrossed with wrinkles from his fuming anxiety. He peers out into the gloominess at the wheel and tightly clutches...

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CRISIS SESSION FBI HUMAN RESOURCE DIVISION NON-REDACTED
FBI: HELLO WHAT IS YOUR EMERGENCY

AGENT BROWN: HELLO THIS IS AGANT BROWN AND THAT DARK PLACE IS RETURNING AGAIN I AM IN CRISIS AGAIN 

FBI: OKAY WE ARE HERE...

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[Well, ShallowMan’s ne’er at a loss
for voicing shallow thoughts that gloss.
With trenchant wit he reaps the dross
when seeking sense in applesauce.

But to his aid flies FactoidMan
who always has a Fact at hand;
with him, who needs...

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"Cocoon"

They say...
a New World 
traces over the old,
leaving the unaware,
erased, far behind 

the old unaware, 
left far behind,
crawls the walls
in its web of lies
spinning suspect 
strings of silk 
in the air

glistening diamond nets
slick and sticky...

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Stars fall under failing skies...stars fall...stars fall...
And sadly...i start to drive.
Through the unremarkable village with its tall 
Georgian Bay window panes, lightless,
devoid of visages; outwardly staring back at my 
Abject countenance with detached contempt and...

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Domestic violence survivor killed after reporting my abusive ex husband to the fbi he’d began extreme attacks on me mental cruelty mostly first hitting me in my back with a brick I still stayed what...

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Is how it all began our beautiful thing we both knew it was arcade concealing it the way we did and was we wrong for protecting the jukebox the many simple pleasures hidden treasures would...

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Polypathic conversation with David Holmgren:

Today it is common to hear the suggestion
[cooperative] education and [therapeutic] training
is the [mindful] key to allowing people to contribute
to a more sustainable [ecopolitical] future.

Although I recognize the value of formal...

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I have a lot to write and say, buddy, so hear me out some more
Don’t make me feel lower than I have ever felt before…
Listen, understand and stay quiet until I say no more…sorry if...

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Good boy gone bad enters the stage with a spotlight overhead, despite being misunderstood in my ghetto neighborhood

The lonely applause celebrates in my cracked, corrupted, and crazed cranium
I exaggerate too much and so too much,...

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'Continental Drift' - The Metaphor

In the seventies (1), few people dreamed ‘it’ was true,
guessed by scientists first when rough coastlines compared (2)
matched like parts of a puzzle (a jigsaw), found place
that joined ‘drop-offs’ waves hid...

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In the heart where your naivety resides
you wonder what haunts the sun
and why pain enjoys your childhood eyes,
when you see warm blood run
then you know that death can color
and like you, death loves a dramatic...

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“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
–“He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” by W.B. Yeats 

“I love you...

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...cont

Breath...
You once said to me,"I'm a man of extremes," and I understood immediately what you meant.  When you drank, you drank hard.  When you worked you expected perfection, in yourself not others, because...

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