Long Ships 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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Rumors
How we arrived at where we are
By Franklin Price
05/03/2020

By now you've heard the rumors
How Covid-19 came to Earth
How it did not come here naturally 
How Wuhan, China gave it birth

Maybe aided by our government
To make...

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Athenian Epitaphs

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls
in their...

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Medieval Poem V

A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, and dies alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds,...

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“ANTE BELLUM”


BEIGEBest served where it can’t be seen
On Stirling Silver platters
With redruM narcotics
Delivered by sharp Blood-Red
Well-mannered talons
Strutting in sleek wet rolling tight-skirted
Long French Silk Stockinged legs all the way down to 
Lethal Six Inch stilettos...

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I.	  The Settlement

          Hickory bark bluffs
          at the blend of two 
    ...

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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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Winter Awakens My Care
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything...

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“Now behind the eyes and secrets of the dreamers in the streets rocked to sleep by the sea, see the titbits and topsyturvies, bobs and buttontops, bags and bones, ash and rind and dandruff and...

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I remember feeling so empty the abuse had escalated after four hurricanes witnessing a murder horrific traumatic brain injury I was now uprooted leaving my beautiful home in Fort Myers Florida at the behest of...

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God Bless Each Day's Magnetic Field On Earth!

God Bless Each Day's Magnetic Field On Earth!

God bless each day's magnetic field on Earth (1) that shields the human race
from cosmic rays bombarding Earth and us (from...

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The First Thanksgiving (Sept. 3, 1578)

The shortest distance to Cathay 1
(Land of riches: silks, teas and spices)
Lay to the north to the South Sea. 2
Didn’t Barlow tell the King, 3
Was reserved for England.

The routes ‘round...

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Beware The Ides of March 2023
 
Ides simply referred to first new moon, 
which usually fell between 
the thirteenth and fifteenth day
of a given month.

The following events all occurred
fifteenth of March 
across span of millenniums.

One:...

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The Great Lakes acronym spells homes

I chose titled topic by a fanciful whim,
nevertheless still consider my knowledge 
of aforementioned material slim.

Housing multivarious biomes
register ecological syndromes
whereby constituents of NOAA 
Great Lakes Environmental 
Research Laboratory writ tomes.

Pellucid...

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I don’t want to feel.
I tried that and it didn’t work. I tried to numb myself because I just feel alone. I don’t want to talk about it because feeling pathetic is not a very...

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I’ve Been So Lucky in Life! (1&2)
(Only Raped 5 Times Metaphorically)

Poem’s Introduction
My poetry has always been about transparency. It’s about letting go of an effort to be liked by others, and allowing others to gravitate...

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“He fought often and once bled in the cause of freedom, but his habits of War did not lessen in him the peaceful virtues which adorn his private life.”  Doctor Benjamin Rush, signer of...

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Differences – you say !

I – me Lass – brave Helios, rides his golden chariot, 
drawn by fiery Steeds, into the vastness of this universe.

These mighty Titans, dispatched – brilliant, glowing -
ruled, controlled the blueness...

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For a few coins Melord, I'll tell a story of two that met in this place, 
and here you can take your rest, and leave sumpter to graze in the tall grass.

I payed the old...

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“The God Complex”



His face imprinted 
hidden under layers of ink
he whispers his words

like a haunting breeze
dust blown off the pages
towards the back of their minds

once-in-a-while 
reminding them of stories 
they are eventually, all souls

book-marked 
tagged...

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Sometimes I have the courage to think of the things that made me what I am today,
My memory takes me back to terrible things far away far off into my bitter past,
My mind like a...

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A prawn masquerading as a peanut can be quite disturbing. So many times a peel is a garment used to shroud. A tentacle hidden. Here and there. Then to reappear with an often violent burst...

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The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem
Old English Poem (i.e., Anglo-Saxon Poem) from the Exeter Book, ca. 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and...

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The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem - Part II
anonymous Old English Poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this...

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Beware of pirates without a ship
like rebels without a transportive WinWin cooperative cause,
like ego-politicians without sacred ecological-economic portfolios.

One of the ways we communicate cooperative values
and choose not to communicate disvalues
is by how and where and...

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