Long Slide down Poems

Today, catching sight of the mallards
crying over Lake Iware:
Must I too vanish into the clouds?
—Prince Otsu translation by Michael R. Burch  

This world—
to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields
lying darkening at dusk
illuminated by...

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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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The difficult translation of first Canto of Divina Commedia is here completed
In the part published before, Dante imagined to find himself in a dark forest where he met three beasts. 
Now he is going to...

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"go on" I dared myself
So I did
Booked an extra ticket for my Mum
"She'll love it" said my brain
"What if people break bones, you crash on the way, you forget the tickets, someone wears the wrong...

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|SEVEN MINUTES UNTIL OUR DEMISE

{"Seven minutes left; the insistent buzz in my skull would never abrogate, it preserved on being continuously strenuous. 
My whacks on the veneer of the tiles went unheard of as my...

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The indecision builds 
while staring into the velvet covered bible
and knowing that you have already
read more than was necessary.
Yet you stand and read on and on
hoping that one small word
will shine into the dark crevices
separating...

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The Fallen and the Angel

The droplets from the sky
Landed on her wounded shin
That pierced through her shivering body
Like a needle intruding her skin
The scarlet eyes of hers
Peeked through her saggy blindfold
All people turned into a...

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Each year in August the teams descend, cricket foe morphing quickly to friend,
Bonds are forged on a pitch unique, camped on the banks of Reedybrook creek. 
The grass is cut, the fields set out, the...

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My youth minister once told me that seventeen was too young to have felt the pain that I'd felt. She told me that seventeen was too young to be so corrupted, so scarred. According to...

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finding shapes in clouds
or four-leaf clovers in fields . . .
the child’s eye searches

What does it mean to view life through a child’s eyes? For me it means searching for things of wonder to revel...

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The barrister had always been a liberal thinker

An uprising star with roaming genes of a tinker

In the court-room she never took of her guard

But in real life she had become a nude poet and bard


When...

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“Look up at the stars,” you say
Its just another night up on the old water tank
Our blanket is spread and here we sit with the universe our theater
Another night of showing me the constellations 
Astronomy…your...

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A gentle breeze fluttered the curtain I hid behind, as I strained to hear above the pounding of the heart that was trying to break out of my chest, and above the roaring behind the...

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GOD NEEDS A GREEN CARD

God had a green card
But cannot get back in the gate.
The Bricks are thick
But not so tall, I think
God may need to scale the wall.

Are we safe in gated structures?
Must we...

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I don't like to say goodbye,

And I don't mind an honest white lie.

If you could hold me,

If you could love me,

If you could lie to me,

And tell me one last promise we both know you...

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The Truth Behind the Eyes

The rivers of rapid radiance slide down your face
I try to embrace the words you write with so much grace
Fine flavors of flamboyant fires thrill my tongue with dire delight
The tingles...

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He had brown hair and the most passionate eyes 

Is this Axel? 
I’m sure it is! 

I laughed although I was still in shock 

It was like a twisted merry go round 

Blurry and confusing...

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Written: January 17, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."Quote by Pericles

   ...

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These days, wet – with Linda, & Melanie .

Tears fall like dying leaves, their dust, blowing into my eyes.
Tears slide down my cheeks, slip off my chin, fall onto my shoulders.
They, given birth, created by...

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Up on the winding mountain,
there is a structure we knew so well— 
now consumed by red, devoured in flame. 
It was our shelter, a meeting place 
of like minds, a refuge against life’s weight, 
a...

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ZEN DEATH HAIKU X

These are my modern English translations of Japanese Zen Death Haiku. 

Forbearing the night
with its growing brilliance: 
the summer moon.
—Tsukioka Yooshi (1839-1892) , loose translation/interpretation of his jisei (death poem)  by...

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Watching her board bathed in fog at the station
Spectacles slide down the bridge of his nose
Usually a blur, not in this situation
Smudges can’t hide every beauty she shows

Lugging a satchel in high heels and cotton
In...

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I remember Christopher Robin
When helping Pooh find honey
Was my biggest problem
I remember the blustery days
We trusted each other in every way

I remember When we helped Eeyore
Find his way home from the Sea shore
Everything was good
In...

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My sister Mary younger by two years came with computer disc in hand to share what she had amassed concerning family history.We looked at photos of our parents before we had done the old number...

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A Time of Terror – The Rwandese Genocide

A screeching sound woke me from my sleep, I looked around in fear and trepidation 
Sensing a lurking gaze in the shadows, beyond the room I slept in
Sweat...

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