Long Spoor Poems

I love you only because I love you
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I love you only because I love you;
I am torn between loving and not loving you,
Between apathy and desire.
My heart vacillates...

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Sonnet LXXXI-LXXXIX

Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew...

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Already I reached the place where heard the sound
Of falling water in the circle next
Suchlike the rumble done by hives around,

When three spirits together changed their treks,
Running, out of  an horde just passing there
Under...

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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 STENCH OF INSOMNIA

   narcoleptic deities in charge of the world
   are tangled and detangled in the threads of time 
   
   they are sardonic and bitter...

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She here elbowed past me stomping, pausing not (although me whomping
With her wildly swinging handbag – five kilograms, if not more).
Cackling brusquely in a lather, that I should her baggage gather,
She then made a beeline...

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Poppy
by Michael R. Burch

“It is lonely to be born.” – Dannie Abse, “The Second Coming”

It is lonely to be born
between the intimate ears of corn . . .
the sunlit, flooded, shellshocked rows.

The scarecrow flutters, listens,...

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We sit in our idle houses
plugged-in to the world wide web 
of digital madness and make-believe. 

We text tweet posts from on far and shadow fight in elections streams but hide our eyes in the...

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Yesterday, in the meadows with comrades, dewy cloverleaves I nibbled,
Kneaded with hoofs, as galloped in euphoria hither and thither,
In a free, safe, and worthy world of utopia, my life flew off,
With companions gobbling cloverleaves and...

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Her arms laden with small garden tools and sweet scented flowers
She wanders into the graveyard, and treads the trodden path
Noticing the subtle differences given with the different hours
The gentle swaying of cobwebs after they are...

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Who could have known of their watch
Who could have told of their suspicion
Who could have told
That they were the harbingers
To my resurrection?

Me, I sat there
Plummeted 
Engrossed in my ingratitude
Occasionally
Languishing
Betraying the illusion

And I remember, too,
Lingering in...

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Moonless night covers the world therefore
Most people in places including east Africa sleep after closing the door 
There is good reason to secure the door
Not only because of thieves but something more

The dreaded beast from...

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Paradise                                  ...

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THE TASTE OF YOU     
                          ...

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I will inform you once the shells are spoor.
When they're timorous around the seashore,
Just as mushrooms will grow around a grave,
If they shine like slight candles in a cave.

So, you and I will devour the...

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on the wind
a bell tolls
memories surface
words unerased-
the image fades

with a tremor of light-
daybreak tinges
the nigrescent sky grey-
the horizon appears
distinct in my mind's eye

without-
the waning sun
warms my face
shalom cloaks
the wells within

hanging from the trees
winter fog welcomes...

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without-
the waning sun
warms my face
shalom cloaks
the wells within


with a tremor of light-
daybreak tinges
the nigrescent sky grey-
the horizon appears
distinct in my mind's eye

on the wind
a bell tolls
memories surface-
words unerased
the image fades


huddled together
from the sheeting rain
the unbrellas...

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Orang Ulu
Pronounced Uloo = Collective name for the 
up-river people of Sarawak

Orang Ulu,
loping through mottle-green light of the jungle-track,
lighter than dawn-mist, nimble as wild-cat.
Hunt-hounds around-him are bounding and
wailing a death-hymn or baying for
deer-spoor or fat-ox...

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Where has your mind gone, mirror man?
Can I call you my creator or my craft?
Your gaze awaited my unman.
Yesterday's raft is today's raft.
 
 I can't find you any longer.
"Do you likewise?" a youngster asked.
His...

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The Bitter End of the Road

Travelers coalesce as if from as dense fog 
about the grounds of the retreat.
The lodge shimmers silver-gray
amongst the changing autumn woods.
The gravel way diminishes in rearview mirrors
with the pinging sound...

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Getting nostalgic around days by the lake. 
We moaned while touching the pond's water. 
The lake's base shimmered with life and hake. 
As love, spirit and peace aren't a clumsy bailor.
 
Nothing moves as I...

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When you're hurt by someone you love and trust
                  You become sad a jumbled mass of nerve- crushed
...

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A coterie of unschooled children in tow
A blind woman shambles from street to street
Stretching an emaciated hand in a row
Hoping a coin her kitty will greet

From impoverished passersby
Who tighten belts to breaking point
Restraining a famine...

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Running wild propelled by echoes of thunderous hooves clip clopping rhyme

A troop of stallions gallop in assonance over fields of pasture in adnomination

Display streams of collective unconsciousness un-trapped by stirrups and reigns

Apposition knows no boundaries...

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She saw the face of Judas in him.
The bearded kiss festered no truth
and the metallic breath
exhaled putrid faithfulness.
The trampled petals spoor no lusting stares, 
redolent no more
even as the tongue creeps by the shoulders.

The razors...

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