Long Squalid Poems

To a Daughter More Precious than Gems
by Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Heaven's cold dew has fallen—
and thus another season arrives.
Oh, my child living so far away,
do you pine for me...

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The pencil now resting the image was 'testing' for the creature before him, (his badly-drawn drawin') had come out 'not right' somewhat twisted and tight.

The picture in question, it burst with suggestion, for lines that...

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Imitation! Creative Compliment, Lacking in Originality, or Plagiarism? 

This week takes me back to college days. I was taking a graduate course (as a Physics major)   in 'Modern Poets' at the University of...

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I don’t feel good at this
I’m feeling so hopeless
I need some happiness
I’m feeling dread instead
I’ve been consuming sorrowful bread
I’ve been feeling rather dead

I want to repent of being sinful
I want to repent of being resentful
I...

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I am at the edge of the sea...of the sea...
I am falling apart as we opened the door
Follow me...follow me...come follow me…
Even in our departure, we are on the shore

I am the queen of the...

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I am at the edge of the sea...of the sea...
I am falling apart as we opened the door
Follow me...follow me...come follow me…
Even in our departure, we are on the shore

I am the queen of the...

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I will not waste away in the streets of such unbearable nightmares where I silently weep
I will survive the rainstorm of lament and listen to the mesmerizing murmurs of the deep
I am alive in the...

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My name, David, means beloved in Hebrew - the daytime is shining amongst my windowpane as I write this poem, not in vain, but with pain that soon goes down the drain...my mind is on...

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I am bound in the chambers of doubt
I want to run His ever-redeeming Route
Believing in You is getting more difficult, so difficult
Faith in You has been disappearing…and it’s my fault

I must trek these mountainous tribulations...

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I’m facing way too much stress
I need some spiritual happiness
I’m embracing my true endeavors and my passions that make me feel blissful
I don’t need this greedy society bringing me down and making me feel stressful

I’m...

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they disturb, deep behind my sleeping eyes
  ......
  retune my tautened strings, replay my frets
  vignette movies spin reels of dreams discovering
  fresh slants on shadowy delight
  the foreboding, ominous,...

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Una donna rattristita e velata dal pianto,
guarda verso un mare
piu' squallido di questo invernile mattino: 
rimpiangendo i pensieri dolci
cullati dalla nostalgia di ieri
che non sara' facile dimenticare!

Una nave parte,
si ode il suo rombo...
si infrancono
onde tempestose
sulla...

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Conjuring and challenging my silly, puny solitude…
Enduring and foliage of squalid grief…left me in the nude of the wintertime 
Sometimes, I wander…I wonder…I ponder so good
I am naughty this wintertime, up to no good…misunderstood all...

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Faith is like a flower that grows fervently 
Love is like a rose that glimmers majestically
It's like a tender dove that flies so beautifully,
For it gives me some peace that runs through my veins 

The...

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The sign actually said ‘Universal Disposal’ but the haggard squalid creature 

Had no time for such ephemeral discourse he could just about spell his name

Kanja meaning water born and his parents had hoped he would...

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Marching Rocks



  Like Toffee people chasing the westerly breeze
And, presumably ordered, abruptly, to freeze-
Tableaux is evocative of an ancient command
That left a sprawl of stones scattered on the land.

  On swift flight in...

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The sea is so bright and it illuminates the nostalgic night
It sways and sways to the rhythm of my young heart
The clouds are formulating right before my eyes with might
Raindrops collapse upon the ground from...

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She Was Very Pretty
by Michael R. Burch

She was very pretty, in the usual way
for perhaps a day;
and when the boys came out to play,
she winked and smiled, then ran away
till one unexpectedly caught her.

At sixteen,...

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We played on all weather turf which was mud and a few sods of grass

Dribbled like Pele and Eusebio in old boot for that one killer pass

From straight after school until there was not one...

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Talent
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin Nicholas Roberts

I liked the first passage
of her poem: where it led
(though not nearly enough
to retract what I said.)
Now the book propped up here
flutters, scarcely half read.
It will keep.
Before sleep,
let me...

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Darkness hangs heavily over my eyes
And you listen to the neurosis in my head
Like most misery it started with apparent happiness
Now I seem too volatile & strong willed.
It's frustrating how desire can transform into disaster
No...

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An evanescent bouquet of skewed briars,
is how a tinsel laden tawdry essence wickedly unfolds,
scuppered signpost to a fetid human compost,
faint light pendant on soul crushed quantum migrant,
who might chortle at vivid veil flimsy vacuum,
skirt recklessly...

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Please unchain me from this false utopia
This hopeful thinking is a hopeless flaw
Please forgive the wrongs I inflicted upon you
This tainted sorrow is infecting all of me too

Grieving for the death of yesterday
Take a breath...

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Collisions between yours truly and the missus

Space at a premium
in our apartment
lettered and numbered b44
at Highland Manor,
cuz the spouse
heavily trends toward disorderliness.

She readily admits her predilection
to disavow being a neatnik,
yet owns the capacity
getting down to...

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[Continued from Part 1]

“And the efforts of the Senate to extinguish all this fury
Were frustrated by convictions that their god would promptly hurry
To reward and praise the burning of the books in Caesar’s hall:
Pliny, Tacitus...

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