Long Sojourns Poems

Nowhere Else To Go

Welcome to Israel: Land of Hope.1
(The land of Zion and Jerusalem.)2
Where prophets walked and prophesied,
For their God, our God:
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.3

And the Lord spoke to Abram, and he...

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"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows." - Native American Proverb

             ...

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A Meandering Cocophony of Thought that Evades Fate

Contractual obligations toward your future self
Non-Factual invocations that deprive you of your health 
Actual comparisons between poverty and wealth 
Emmanuel on the eve of a heavenly operation of...

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© Ben Burton 2-20-2015

If I were Edgar Allan Poe
I'd been dead many years ago


Two score, no more, the poet bore
Before rejoining his Lenore


Reflections now, from sixty-five
I'm wondering how I have survived


For, having shared his mental...

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I am the hunter with belt and sword.
I am captivity and desires searched for.
Great my name has become.
My dynasty is vast as a Roman Legion.

I stand for truth and honor.
Many have tried to defeat me.
Many...

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Love the oldest,
Love the youngest,
The smallest,
The broadest.

Imperfectly perfect,
Proudly humble.
Endlessly end,
Peacefully troubled.

Quietly lousy,
Uncountable counting.
Pleasurable painful,
Ungainly gainful.

Resurrecting in killing,
Smiling in weeping.
Coming in going,
Abiding in departing.

Truth in lies,
Open-mindedness in sly.
Elevation in humiliation,
Built in destruction.

Unity in separation,
Honesty in temptation.
Standing...

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An abode you can drive down a road is a trip,
but the learning curve’s steep. It’s a help to be rich,
strong, and good with your hands (for things often go wrong
that you will not expect)....

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WordScape Triptych  #1

Coming from the Underworld as a ghost, just sauntering out of the depths like you did;
With all the rest of us just watching and wondering what you were going to say;
Tell us...

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The Protraction of the Epiphany

Complacency in a stilted light of regret
Vagrancy in a jilted sight of neglect 
Emergency in a wilted light of insects
The urgency of a curative substance to inject

Wellsprings of artificial truth and...

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The Three Islands Sleep!

Sleep, sleep, the islands asleep!
Sleep while the winds blow on her face,
On her trees, and on her mountains and hills,
Sleep when the thieves dressed in suit come in,
Like the befuddled man sleeps...

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Avoiding Pain? Suicide Might Help!

I don’t like to get hurt, grok this path that most walk,
so write poems for strangers (I never will meet,
verse few friends do abide short of formal requests)
that reveal mind in...

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Only A Poet Would Understand
Only A Writer Will Know…
Why I Would Feel This Disheartened and
Why I Can’t Shake Writer’s Woe… 

… I Lost 200 Poems or More
Tho’ The Exact Count Doesn’t Matter
Most of What I’d...

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For so long you’ve held the key, the scepter and the crown,
Harrowing the reality, the subconscious, the deep within.
Your voice was deep, poignant, forbidding. Clattering like,
The tumbling down of ancient and spidery bones, swishing
Like the...

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Intimacy
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
 
I held the Sun, Stars and Moon at a distance
till the time your hands touched mine.
Now I am not a feather to be easily detached:
instruct the hurricanes...

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Gazing on the leaves falling,
                              ...

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A tattered, ragged leather bag
hides faded photos wrapped inside;
both black and white and kodachrome
reveal lost dreams once held with pride.

An older, colder man made weak,
by sojourns made so long ago,
has paid with shame a painful...

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Thong Thing Is Wrong

Thong thing is wrong 
Cellulite women rolled on folds of flesh 
Over waves and seas that crest 
What are those monstrosities  
Whales washed up on beaches

Thin strings not quite bikinis hide...

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Shrubbery leaves and foliage, all these very gloriously and graciously green,
In my verdant jade roof top garden, reflect greenness on my laptop screen.

Verbose prolixed, scattered, strewn fill up spaces all around in my jade garden,
Soak...

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Friday April 13th 2018

Has become a day for remorse.
Life's journey, on a new course

The Grim Reaper, knocked on his door.
Life, as he once knew it, to be never more.

Hopes dashed upon the jagged edges of...

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Being is becoming
Coming is going
Going is being

Start is dawning
Dawning is living
Living is dying

End is dusking
Dusking is dying
Dying is living

Style is smiling
Smiling is crying
Crying is styling

Listen to the wind
Winding down here
Here silence listens

Do with feeling
Feeling is...

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SONG TO MOON

Moon ! Light of Shadows 
    Luminosity of strengthening black bows
       tears of trite nights
         ...

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One sunny afternoon, I coiled
in the grass, and later wriggled
my way through the woods,
though scaly and limbless I am,
yet uniquely created and
outstanding among beasts.
My charming rhythmic
movement caught the attention
of the hunter, who though struck
by awe,...

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Kathy rides the bus 
an hour each day
to reach the club
saving her pennies;
last week 
the phone company
shut her off
less than  a month overdue
but they keep
single mothers 
on edge.

Tall and lean 
and yes still lovely...

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Eternity

Many times, I saw my spirit.
Many times, I felt my soul.
In life, I lived courageous.
Now it is time for me to journey home.

If you cry, that is fine.
If you laugh, that is better than a...

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Sleeping Beauty tosses and turns
as in a course contrary churns
galactic realm outside the heart
where further spatial spying smart
more astronomic savvy learns.

While telescopic eye sojourns
through visionary sight discerns,
the fairy talers too impart
Sleeping Beauty.

Enlightenment delusion spurns.
As mortal...

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