Long Slain Poems

This is the story of mad Molly Shaw
She might be mad now but she wasn’t before
she came home to find her man dead on the floor
She lay down her bible and let out a roar...

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With this needle and thread I stitch the wounds Avril left
but with this blade I angrily carve a new
rough, short, jagged adjacent from the bone in my wrist
for a reflection of our relationship
and an outlet...

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"Welcome to the playground"
'Ring around the roses. Ring around the roses. 
Ring around the roses. Ring around the roses.'

Jack the ripper, he slept with a whore, and became deadly ill 
While his soulmate Jill became...

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The emotional, mental and spiritual fallout courtesy Colt Gray

Apalachee High School,
located in Winder, Georgia
witnessed an active shooter,
whereby the alleged lone gunman
(actually just a teenager of fourteen years)
killed four people and injured nine more
the latter hospitalized with...

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Medieval Poems



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English circa 990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on...

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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (I)

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot...

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Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that...

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Premise
The great poem by the italian poet Dante is the DIVINA COMMEDIA
I have tried to translate in english verses of INFERNO (HELL).
It was a very difficult task. 
I expect criticism.

When just the midway of my...

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Those primeval skies, no man ever knew
Ignited, as one massive boulder burst through
Hollow inside, creatures not unlike mice
Strapped themselves in as they plunged into ice
Instantly boiled then instantly frozen
None were to question the planet they'd...

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Those primeval skies, no man ever knew
Ignited, as one massive boulder burst through
Hollow inside, creatures not unlike mice
Strapped themselves in as they plunged into ice
Instantly boiled then instantly frozen
None were to question the planet they'd...

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POEMS ABOUT EROS AND CUPID

These are translations of ancient Greek poems about Eros. Eros was the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Cupid. While today we tend to think of Cupid as an angelic cherub...

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Resistance On The Iberian Peninsula

“Liberté, égalité, fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity),”
Scream French revolutionists as they guillotine monarchists heads, 1
Then crown Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of France, 2
Who commands the French forces in wars raged across Europe.

The Grande...

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Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable...

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'A magical lock?' Groaned Graygall in a voice of defeat.
    'We are doomed before even we are set to advance.
To defeat Trolls would be an almost impossible feat
    but...

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ETERNAL RECURRENCE*


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
“I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before and
 I hope to return a thousand times after.”  GOETHE 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


1.

Once upon a time, 
The Lord...

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'You've thrown me over the edge of the highest peaked cliff imaginable
As I spiral further down, my outer shell gets roughed up
by sticks and stones
until my body is disfigured beyond recognition
as if I'd been torn...

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Part I

Where gladiators fought for life,
we meet to fight for love
The constellations in the Roman night sky,
celestial spectators, bathe the Colosseum
in the white blood of light
The night is throbbing with the heat of our battle,
our...

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This whip is a relic of war
an instrument of severe education, 
come now Avia, look how lovely and vulgar,
it is essential for you to appreciate it's intention,
feel it's supple weight, the simple fright,
I use jasmine...

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Swept up into piles; everywhere 
Abouts; in collected heaps all 
Around.               
It is almost as if the drab 
Streets were strewn...

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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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There sits behind deep forests hidden,
A sight to behold, place of all sins ridden,
Where the great rivers give life and churn,
A thousand diamonds and the trees sing
Along with the wind, ruled by the great King.

Generous...

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A fierce battle ensues for the soul
                         
   ...

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(Notes: 
1.  Ancient esoteric teachings state that
"The Christ" is the divine blueprint for the man
imaged in the likeness of God. This is the divine
destiny for each soul that walks the path of life.
2. ...

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