Long Songbirds Poems

A trunkful of recyclables patiently awaits,

(and cries out long day's journey into night,
no...not for Eugene O'Neill),
but rather being distributed
in their respective bins at Wegmans
Under the Elms

Dressed up in our Sunday finery,
(which attire frankly looks no...

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(1.)

Olympic Desires Born, Gods A'playing


Poseidon arose, trident a'gleaming.
Mermaids danced, fallen hair a'streaming.

Olympic desires born, Gods a'playing
Mighty Zeus often on earth a'staying
There below mortals stopped a'praying
Hades play, man's evil a'repaying!

Poseidon arose, trident a'gleaming.
Mermaids danced, fallen hair...

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The Celtic dreams come forth through auric visions of an all-seeing eye. 
An ancient calling where the mystic rivers flow down a rugged mountain
while Angels bathe in the springs of an everlasting and radiant beauty....

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Celtic Dreams

The Celtic dreams come forth through auric visions of an all-seeing eye. 
An ancient calling where the mystic rivers flow down a rugged mountain
while Angels bathe in the springs of an everlasting and radiant...

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I was a very enthusiastic gardener, who loved being surrounded by beauty,
Like the songbirds that visit cherry trees, with a taste for something fruity.

I adored the familiar blooms, but held a fascinated interest in the...

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To Kill a Mockingbird is both a young girl’s coming-of-age story and a more nebulous production about the reasons and consequences of bigotry and discrimination, examining how good and evil can coexist within a particular...

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I was a zealous meteorologist, which I had been for a long time,
As the roving years work diligently, to create a very fine wine.

So content in my fond vocation, many deemed me tops in my...

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(1.)

The Truth Of Dearest Love Sworn, I Ask God How

Over the grit-stained shoulders of ancient marble
Rests a million vagaries of humanity's million sins
Just as earth's flocks of beautiful songbirds warble
So goes the evils engaged in...

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Repent and change your ways
Wait fervently till you see brighter days
Repent and change your ways
Martin Luther King Jr. just wanted us to feel liberty and we still haven’t achieved it...yet we give praise...in happy-go-lucky days

Face...

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The worst of the bright-cracks have passed.
The tumultiest of the bucketiest of the rains have proved not to last.
The cat has chirp-purred his way into a damp-fur snuggle.
    It’s Price is Right...

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Inspiration, Revelation, Adaptation, Within Poetic Verse

Sonnet I

I saw morn's soft hands stretching to touch bright moonlight
Is but a fleeting blink betwixt man's death and birth
Dark unknowing is why we so oft fear the night
In that...

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Am I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch

Sleepyheads!
I recite my haiku
to the inattentive lilies.
—Michael R. Burch

Stillness:
the sound of petals
drifting down softly together...
—Miura Chora, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sky tries to assume
your eyes’...

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The Poet, The Pen, The Solemn Prayer,
("In Tribute To Edgar Allan Poe's, Lenore")

He wrote and wrote tho' so very tired and weary
in his weeping heart lurked many romantic quotes,
such that set eyes to saddest glaze,...

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Villanelle: Remembering Not to Call
by Michael R. Burch

(a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch)

The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.

Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never...

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Our English Rose
by Michael R. Burch

for Christine Ena Burch

The rose is—
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.

This is my translation of ancient...

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These are modern English translations of poems written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer. 

The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
by Geoffrey Chaucer
translation by Michael R. Burch

When April with her sweet showers
has pierced the drought of March...

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Life flashes by in a moment of time.
Late twilight’s rose fades, the sweet songbirds leave.
Though we strive to remain in reasoned rhyme
All living will die, the joyful will grieve.
What vision can guide us? What blinding...

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Alligators, Aardvarks; Arctic fox and hare. Also Armadillos and Asses will be there!

Bobcats, Beavers, Boars; One Blue whale will do! Bovines and a Booby (maybe 2)!

Caribou & Camels; *Cavies & a *Coot; Cottontails, Chipmunks, Chinchillas...

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Polly Astley loved to have visitors, for she loved piquant, plum people;
Like counting stars when we were young, in milky moonlight, peaceful.

Her days were spent teaching children, with faces perky as sunflowers,
When redbirds danced in...

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I was an illustrious, nuclear physicist, and I was studying the strong force,
Holding together building blocks of all atoms, as stars hold to their course.

That force joins roaming quarks, which neutrons and photons are made...

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These are original haiku by Michael R. Burch and his translations of haiku by the Japanese masters Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, Masaoka Shiki, and others. 

Am I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch

Sleepyheads!
I recite...

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I was a bed and mattress tester, a dream job like that of a yellow moon.
I tested the comfort of beds, pillows, etc., for night is ever coming soon.

I studied sleep patterns too, like vivid...

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Norah Lynn was ten years old, and dreamed of being a ballet dancer;
Like cherry blossoms, fluttering in breeze, whispering with no answer.

She lived with her parents and sister, Phoebe, in the house upon a hill.
Norah...

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I wrote the Invisible man poems many years ago. These poems, and I have not submitted them all, was for a little girl who died in a road accident. They are a tribute to her...

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