Long Southern Poems

Rumors
How we arrived at where we are
By Franklin Price
05/03/2020

By now you've heard the rumors
How Covid-19 came to Earth
How it did not come here naturally 
How Wuhan, China gave it birth

Maybe aided by our government
To make...

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Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a...

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Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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I was skeptically listening 
to a retiring social researcher,
and problem-solving imaginer,
from the American Enterprise Institute;

An Institute
I usually find more destitute
of bicameral consciousness than not,
and thereby with less healthy resonant imagination
than more pathological dissonance.

But, I found...

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MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem...

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Like Hannibal we crossed the pass and crossed 
   the Alps (okay, the Brynderwyn Hills) 
and a bridge too far on north-west passage.
   From out of the Valley of Mizpah 
to...

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Rejection Slips

With over 5,700 publications if I count poems that have gone viral, I suppose I shouldn’t complain … but I do have some poems that have never been accepted for publication. Here are a...

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Thanks for your letter
asking for a free Taoist consult
on how to bring God talk
and experience
back into our Big Agri-MilitantIndustrialized Busyness Schools
and possibly our extended family lives,
on into our inside Holy of Holies,
our Climates of PanEntheistic...

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Over the next two evenings after the Council had recessed, Seileach visited each of the Councilman who had voted to release Dyndoeth in an effort to assess their feelings about whether they were inclined to...

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 A French ‘Indianist’ Doctor: A Tribute to a Die-hard Humanist
                         ...

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Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds (I)



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as hummingbird wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching...

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Bharathidasan’s “Pulikku nay enta muulai” (To the Tiger, the Dog knows no safe dwelling!) translated by T. Wignesan 

Bharathidasan (1891-1964) was a self-proclaimed disciple of the eminent Brahmin poet: Cuppiramania Bharathiyar (cf. two poems of...

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LOVE POEMS II

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, sex, dating and marriage. On an amusing note, my steamy Baudelaire translations have become popular with the...

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Rian sat puzzling in his suite in the Keep.   His thoughts in disarray,  jumping from one concern to another without any logical order.  He sat before a desk that once was...

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The First Thanksgiving (Sept. 3, 1578)

The shortest distance to Cathay 1
(Land of riches: silks, teas and spices)
Lay to the north to the South Sea. 2
Didn’t Barlow tell the King, 3
Was reserved for England.

The routes ‘round...

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{Poet’s Note : I wrote this poem for the passing of my very dear friend & comrade, Cecyl Esau, Umkhonto we Sizwe Commander in 2021, as a contribution to his memorial service. Cecyl was given...

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In the ancient Empire of the Chrysanthemum Throne, horsemen riders from the southern regions, their steel swords close to their sides, clang heavily to their waist as they ride hard to the capital. Before their...

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I am an Outlander
Who lives on a high hill
Overlooking a man-made lake
That once was a rapidly rushing river
Along whose banks the Ozarks Bluff Dwellers and the Osage and then Delaware
Hunted, fished, and created shelter
For their...

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Beware The Ides of March 2023
 
Ides simply referred to first new moon, 
which usually fell between 
the thirteenth and fifteenth day
of a given month.

The following events all occurred
fifteenth of March 
across span of millenniums.

One:...

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They were joined by Ceridfen, Lumi, Gwaldon and several others a bit later in
the day for a late mid-day meal.  Seileach, the efficient elf that he was, had already forwarded a letter containing specific...

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Erlenkönig also pushed forward the idea of the Council of Six.
Which was a wonderful idea in theory.  The council eventually became the
most powerful force in the Elfin Clans, one representative from each of...

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Prelude to what…..

I see you,  /  you / yes, come into my…… 
laboratory of alchemist mystical languaging.
where arsenic spills into the whirlpool of thought 
and savage syntax shatter like glass on concrete.

Where Titans...

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I Could Not Do It Before
By Dr.  Tina Medina

I could not do it before
I dare not shut the door
My heart yearned for something more
I loved you to the core
Even though I did not keep...

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Mission Control, this is Flight Z924693744, do you read?
We're having some technical trouble. How should we proceed?

We have spotted a planet, that appears to be suitable to abort;
But, to return to earth, we will need...

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THE FRIENDS

They were the best of friends to the best of friendship
They did everything together to the best of friendship
The three wise men that came together from different locations
One from the north, one from the...

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