Long Submerges Poems

Potawatomi language,
says Robin Wall Kimmerer,
does not verbally divide us into masculine and feminine.
However, unlike most English verbs,
Potawatomi verbs distinguish between animate and inanimate objects.

For example,
we use sit down
when speaking to an unruly son
and set down
when...

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Last Night 
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
translation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart
as spring sweeps uninvited through barren gardens
as morning breezes revive dormant deserts
as a patient suddenly feels better for no...

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My heart went on a roam to explore 
A place far away across the fence bar.
To seize the moment of an open door
Adventure felt free when traveling far.

With turmoil war, work inspired the mind,
There to...

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In waiting for you, my love, the seasons have snowed in black and white,
The landscape of our time together has been painted in trenches of lingering silences,
And every moment without your voice, an eternity crystallized...

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I cry sometimes. Enhancing this deluge of delirium. With a drop which 
flows from my face to the flood of Earth’s clay as I inhale this bitter breeze       ...

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Hither flows an isolated yet drowning droplet,
With a glistening shield concealing its gloomy core.
Straying across its share of triumphs and misery,
Within its own little sea world,
hoping to not be bruised when the ghastly wind whirls.
Hustles...

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This long time doodling Yankee 
(who calls Southeastern Montgomery, Pennsylvania LV
plus III four seasons visited 
   upon swath of topography to see
and hear flora and fauna over run 
   via industrialization...

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Posthumous
I’ve seen death passing by,
looking through her glassy eyes,
silenced by her inward shrieks and dumb.
Escaping presence,
all the while stepping closer to clinch on.
Where the precipice submerges
failing you in flight. 
Shot with the last shot, 
there was to...

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Her hands were happy, 
she fluttered them against 
a cliché sense of blue in the air
and laughed when the allure of 
the flowers further on trilled against
her skin. She submerges herself in light,
filtering through veined...

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Those enigmatic clouds of Charles Baudelaire were floating in the sky
An unhappy man, he, was standing under the sky,
He did not see the clouds, he did not know the color of the sky
Nothing charmed him,...

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Brainstorm cometh, damning frontal hemisphere
jamming lookout, noggin perched, roiling thinking
uber wayfaring zealot, drills legendary phalanx.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *...

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It's like I'm jade in the mist of 
diamonds. Where's my hero 
who will discover me despite 
the temptation of those 
diamonds? I see someone. 
Wait...he's picked up a diamond 
and walked away. Will no...

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I close my eyes 
locked in a millisecond
the moment before the bow 
touches the strings 
where silence has a tremor
and wraps me in darkness 
until I hear its particles 
vibrating against me
 
the bow wrenches
from...

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You’ll know when it’s time to go home or to stay,
When flight seems much better than standing to fight,
When the hair in your beard is starting to gray,
When oncoming headlights are glaringly bright,
When it’s no...

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Though People think you are so soft
               But I know in your veins is blood
Who want to touch you in the...

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Strange Currents
by Amir Khusrow
loose translation by Michael R. Burch 

O Khusrow, the river of love
creates strange currents—
the one who would surface invariably drowns,
while the one who submerges, survives.

***

Becoming One
by Amir Khusrow
loose translation by Michael R....

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Soosa plans to go on a cycle ride,
to a distant place, misty and wild
where nature’s beauty could be seen 
the fog that could ensnare the eye.

The teen girl was blissfully alone,
rides through the chill in...

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Overwhelmed while drifting into a foreign place
As water submerges me, all that I know is suddenly erased
I dive in deeper, dare to discern
What’s hidden in the darkness exposes all I never learned
As noise and clatter...

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Unanswered need 
is a kick in the head
then the heart
then the butt.

Mind/Body dissonance 
presents fearful afterflow,
inviting undertow I would avoid
until becoming a crashing crowning cart
with runaway in-your-face! 
root-systemic horsepower.

What is a more resonant step into...

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As each thought races, the mind slows down to give such images,
In every sense of imagination, wonder sparks,
Enlightened, I start tapping the keys as the words form into phrases,
Emotion is drawn from these letters that...

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Melodic passion, lilting harmonies lull my slender fingers, 
when I play with the stringed keyboard, I sink into the  mellifluous music, can feel the gentle keys under my fingertips softly as the alchemy notes...

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When night’s ebony is vanquished,
the pre-dawn turns slowly into peach.
Peach becomes persimmon and pink
as scarlet starts to streak the sky..
As I breathe the snowy whiteness of the clouds,
the sun shyly peeks out from behind them.
Suddenly...

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My ship sails far and the calmness of the waves
moves it smoothly, there's no warning of dangers;
am I looking for that tropical island
in which a treasure was buried?

The huge ocean can't hide every island, small...

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short circuited and
the fuse of purpose keeps tripping
high voltage boredom
on auto pilot in slow motion
the roundabout is not a funny circus
currents alternate 
directly challenge
polar opposition in contradiction of truth

‘it’s a beautiful day and you are...

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Calling card, heart shaped, scented with strawberry
Dot point offers plant remote scenario seeds
Swirled responses confuse clients, strings tangled
Caught in pitiless draught, swung by fastidious song


Men attempt to measure vapour, mind's desperation 
Digs hungrily into collapsing...

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