Long Sludge Poems

Flint 
Within its brilliance gleaming
Cool black in lacquered polished silver chrome
Cranked up pistons bleached in summer’s heat
Hot steam rising as gears thundering
Beyond the crystal liquid city lights
Highways built across the land
In hearts felt pride American...

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Chinese Poets: English Translations II

These are modern English translations of poems by the Chinese poets Tzu Yeh, Lin Huiyin, Xu Zhimo and Huang E. These are poems about love, passion and beauty. 


Tzu Yeh (circa...

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Limericks VI - Religion

Pell-Mell for Hell Mel
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a Baptist named Mel
who condemned all non-Christians to hell.
When he stood before God
he felt like a clod
to discover His Love couldn’t fail!



Why I...

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(Continuing the trip through Hell of Dante with poet Virgilio)

Pah-peh Sah-tan, Pah-peh Sah-tan al-ept!”,
Started Pluto with his hoarse voice toss
And that gentle wise, who any knowledge kept,

Told to encourage me: “don’t have a loss 
By...

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Here's the scoop, friends...
   This is, as indicated, the 1st HALF of this fairly lengthy poem. The 2nd half had to be posted separately due to Poetry Soup's file-size limitations. No other way...

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This is the 1st half of a pretty long piece, the 2nd half, as usual, is @ "poems by Mark Stellinga" on the Soup...


OK everybody…could I please have your attention? 
I’ve got some real important...

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Limericks IV - Donald Trump

The Hair Flap
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

The hair flap was truly a scare:
Trump’s bald as a billiard back there!
The whole nation laughed
At the state of his graft;
Now the...

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Reversals of Fortune
I. Most think luck’s just what happens, though love groks luck’s seized
by each seed that sticks (somehow) in less stone-filled ground
(which its siblings blow off or press past). That’s less luck
to my brain...

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4/8/24

Aww shucks
Still at the crux
In a state of flux
With reality still out of touch
I've been puzzled much
So I smoke a couple blunts
That's a double dutch
From dawn to dusk
I turned myself into a husk
Just so I...

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February came in keeping with its ancient character a month of coldness, wetness and of thawing,
With departing frost and melting snow, February could possibly be called the wet season,
Maybe it's a time for floods and...

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You narrators from far, from my chamber I call. Take the story that I've told & may you tell it to all...

& so it began, that this poor little man
Took off through the bog with...

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The Naked brazen placid blue
Meets its foe the dark forbidding nemeses
Who unleashes his growing anger and fury
Obliterating and defeating his enemy
Proclaims a victory and unrolls his miserable shroud
With utter contempt
And spews his venom
Impregnating his virgin...

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Translation of Marcel Moreau's " A Paris " by T. Wignesan

IN PARIS

Paris bores me no end without you
My heart weighted down with melancholia
The spleen given over to asthenia
Empties its own sense of loss on to...

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The Ever Shifting Pattern of Life by
Terence David Cooper. June is wife's
name and they are Basildon,  Essex, 
England.

As children we learn lessons clear
Broadly defined lines we hold so dear
Constants to which we can easily...

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Ability to defecate wildly swings (both ways)...
between incontinence and constipation

Irritable bowel syndrome i.e.
the former excretory bout I address
the above (polite way to phrase diarrhea)
and avoid moon efficient cheekiness,
yours truly doth buttress,
a literal warranted pain in...

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A child, crippled by a tragic accident
Learned how to excel in sorrow
Never listening to words
That would encumber his bright tomorrow

Who cares if he's a paralytic 
It has nothing to do with his mind
A ray of...

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Written 22 December 2023
Forgiveness Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Robert James Langouri

                         ...

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Climate Change Haiku
by Michael R. Burch

late November:
climate skeptics scoff
but the geese no longer migrate.



The King of Beasts in the Museum of the Extinct
by Michael R. Burch

The king of beasts, my child,
was terrible, and wild.
His roaring...

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Light verse and nonsense verse

Mini-Ode to Stamina
by Michael R. Burch 
 
When you’ve given so much
that I can’t bear your touch,
then from a safe distance
let me admire your persistence.



The Trouble with Elephants
by Michael R. Burch...

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So many people always scream
that word ‘diversity,’
as if it’s the only idea
that we should ever see.
Yet more and more the shouting
comes off as childish,
more and more I think they
have a harmful fetish.

To start with they...

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strife riven island corner, rough hewn by rival visitation
  vexed, looking in, looking out, on the edge of places to go
  thrang in thrall of other realms, banners furling, batons flung
  across...

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( an informal poetic)


So I found it! The very essence of my soul, the eventual becoming 
Of my living form to travel to the unseeable future of everything.
So I found it! Beneath the blankets, beneath...

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Turtle by the Door


The bears and wolves are few;
one threadbare widow mourning,
two grays as consumptive as smoke.
The large dwindle,
their bodies grow more awkward,
more at odds.
The heavier beasts sway
like drunks in the scant woods.
Under a pelting...

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TRUMP POEMS AND EPIGRAMS III

Trump's real goals are obvious
and yet millions of Americans remain oblivious.
—Michael R. Burch

Our awful unlawful "president"
will soon be a jailhouse resident.
— Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly...

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all the coke lines in the bathroom
	lined up and she’s lined up and it’s just a number and
                 ...

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