Long Stanza Poems

I smell like pencils in September.
After they’ve been brought to that…to the machine hanging on the closet wall where our coats, our boots, our bags, and nonsense lived.

You stared me in the eyes, since the...

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Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.


The...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VI



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound...

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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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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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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems V - Ber Horvitz, Yitzkhak Viner, Franta Bass

Der Himmel
"The Heavens"
by Ber Horvitz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

These skies
are leaden, heavy, gray...
I long for a pair
of deep blue eyes....

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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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Winter Awakens My Care
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything...

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Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that...

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======================================== 
** ORIGINAL MESSAGE ******************** 
======================================== 
Lora Colon – Poemhunter.com

Okay, Long Tooth. You have some explaining to do. Really. I'm not sure what you are trying to say in this poem.

I 'sort of' get the...

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Deor's Lament

(Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem circa the 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland endured the agony of exile:
an indomitable smith wracked by grief.
He suffered countless sorrows;
indeed, such sorrows were his bosom companions
in that frozen...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XII

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly,...

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(One poet's vision of what being indwelled by Christ's heart might look like)        

What makes me feel loved isn't easy to say, 
And not because the heart of...

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The day was fine and sunlit,
Decorated by several clouds 
drifting aimlessly in the radiant ocean-blue sky.
Chorused by gentle puffs of the morning breeze,
Sending leaves on the streets twirling like
ballerinas in a dazzling and mesmerising dance.
and...

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In It,  I Saw Prometheus Chained And Bound


I was reading Salinger's, "Catcher In The Rye" 
A follow up from Leo Tolsty's,  "War and Peace"
I heard a voice say, "seek wisdom before you die"
Remember...

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The search for love is never black or white.
I'm just looking for a pretty young thing.
It's human nature to desire what is right.
Forget Billie Jean, girl was just a fling.

I'm just looking for a pretty...

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Limericks IV - Donald Trump

The Hair Flap
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

The hair flap was truly a scare:
Trump’s bald as a billiard back there!
The whole nation laughed
At the state of his graft;
Now the...

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As ev’ry flower wilts and ev’ry youngster				11
Must age, so manifests each stage of living,				11
All wisdom blossoms too and ev’ry virtue				11
Enjoys its time, and cannot last forever.				11
At ev’ry call of life, the heart of man should,				11
(Without...

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What ever is fast and cheap you say...
You are so funny -
this is not a fast thing - 
to do a video montage of 5 minutes 
may take me a lifetime
as I move from inspiration...

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Poets Collective multi-site network 
Canzone
The canzone is an Italian form with strong similarities to the sestina. There are no rhymes; instead there are five keywords that determine the structure of the poem. Every line of...

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Translation of Oothukkadu Venkata Subba Iyer (circa 1700-1765)’s « THAYE YASHODA » by T. Wignesan


This devotional song and poem in Tamil (the principal Dravidian language which has spawned over twenty languages in the southern Indian...

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I.	Imagine a stack
Of razor blades
Bolted together
Polished edges
Forming a blunt mass…
Who would guess the 
Blackness of that face? 
	
II.	Picture Pandoran box
Harboring atom pulse; 
No less a voyeur
The scientist peering
Through revealing keyhole
Finds an interior
Darker than any light.
	
III.	Such...

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“On the Sonnet”
by John Keats

If by dull rhymes our English must be chained,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fettered, in spite of painéd loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrained,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To...

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What a gratifying experience this was...


While sitting at a readers’ desk in Bobby Booker’s Bookstore, waiting for the latest composition I’d composed
To reach the eyes of - Bob himself...the so-called - “God of Verse”...the man...

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An Echo Poem

Original: This Much I Know – Poem by Lora Colon of PoemHunter
Reprinted here with permission.

Soon the sun will set in this valley
Where I’ve roamed for many a year, 
So many questions left unanswered,...

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