Long Springtime Poems

Dad hit me only once, an upper cut to the solar plexus. It nearly lifted me off my feet. I was 17 then and already fairly tall, 6’1.” He was 48 and of medium height,...

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Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

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With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

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Come, You
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VII

These are early poems I wrote as a boy and as a teenager.

The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men...

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Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within,...

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Oft in My Thought
by Charles D'Orleans
translation by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
To give my lady dear;
But that sweet...

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The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand...

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FIRE! UPDATED 1998 IN 2021 BY COVERUPS PAYOFFS
GARGANO FAKED HIS OWN DEATH MEMORIAL DAY 1999
THE CAR BOMB THAT ENDED MY LIFE AT LEAST AS I'VE KNOWN IT ON THIS DAY THE SKY WAS SO BLUE...

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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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Wovoka in the Feverland

In the Dying-Grass Moon came another winter to claim the old and sick.
This was when the first messengers came
To the desolation known as Pine Ridge.
They came riding in at the end of...

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Patterns of phylogenic history
retell our creative creation story
as bicameral restoration
of Earth's nature-spirit ecology,
both Eastern karma
and Western co-redemptive grace.

Spiritual memory experience
of RNA
and later DNA developments
and traumatic extinctions,
positive great transitions
and double-negative traumas;
are exegetical rhythms
and sacred seasoned pattern...

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YOU ARRIVED ON CUE I SUPPOSE RIGHT AFTER THE CHRISTMAS DAY ARSONS MURDERS PROCLAIMING MY LIFE WAS IN GRAVE DANGER WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ARSON MURDER 8 ELDERLY PERSONS PARISHES PROCLAIMED MY EX HUSBAND...

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Geese, Goslings and the Bridge

Sometimes, when you least expect it, Mother Nature makes a u-turn and draws you into the ridiculous.  Such was the time recently as I was returning from a friend’s home...

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"Worship in spirit and truth"

With Easter approaching, many people Christian and non-Christian are exposed to this celebration and may have questions concerning the various teachings, rites, rituals and traditions that are promulgated by public worship...

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This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on...

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Our lusty voice was in the tramp of narrow, winding,
     Scree-littered, deep-rutted roads;     
 Ravens, uttering guttural croaks, slow-wheeling above      
 ...

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My Last Las Vegas C.E.S. (1)
(A Memorial Poem)
I long counted Steve Bristow a friend (1) and we'd fly off to lunch
some days (Steve would get 'hours in' he needed for license - small planes).
It was...

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It was late in the perpetual summer, and I had been dozing,
On a blue and balmy afternoon, as I lulled on my porch swing.

When from my pleasurable dreams, I was eventually aroused,
By sweet breezes that...

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Font Din Black

so u real??? 
Warning! The following choppy, batty, 
dopey: elegy = flaky, goofy, history: iffy, 
jumpy, kooky: loopy, matty, nappy, nippy, 
sketchy material prone to find the reader 
dazed and bewildered, yet comfortably...

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Our Year Of Months (January - July)

1. Intro

Divided into months is our Earth year;
fixed firm in space to meet with climate change,
relation with our Sun makes it so clear
we will be blessed with seasons that...

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It was late in the balmy springtime, and I was attending a lecture,
On a topic of great interest, which was the history of architecture.

As a great lover of beauty, I admired structural geometric designs,
Like the...

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As I look back upon a terrific, exciting, and storied career,
I revisit the trove of golden memories, which I hold so dear.

Although some were bad, they have been predominantly sweet;
But the most striking one, still...

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Tell me,
Father Time,
if you would share this space
it would mean everything to me
to us, so kind

Choosing healthiest seasons 
for your highest priority,
comprehensive
social-political-economic-cultural issues:

1. Chilling domestic economy 
flat-line trends,

2. International peace intent 
and springtime praxis,

3. Continuous...

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The knight of knights, Sir Lancelot,
From far away in Camelot,
Went by a way that he knew not
And thus, by chance, spied Astolat
With sunset's gleam upon her tow'rs:
T'was there he met the maid Elaine,
With hair as...

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