Long Surgeons Poems

Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter hoar
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers—nude, forlorn.

Published...

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Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch
											
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred...

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Medieval Poems



Deor's Lament (Anglo Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland knew the agony of exile.
That indomitable smith was wracked by grief.
He endured countless troubles:
sorrows were his only companions
in his frozen...

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Sonnets X-XVI


Archaischer Torso Apollos (“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...

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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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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems (I)

These are poems about World War II and the Holocaust, which is also called the Shoah in Hebrew. 



Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust
by Michael R. Burch

I...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (III)

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot...

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Boob jobs and bomb jobs

Sisters in arms those tits and those weapons of massive 
destruction sex and death go together in dynamics
thermodynamics psychodynamics fused on the playground 
of this life of this poem on which...

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A shameful act in this world we live today
surely an educated mind can clearly see the truth behind a mask
Ignorance is the hardness of heart manifests in such violence 
The horrors and inhumanity of it...

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I am reading minds and potentially wise political bodies
with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, again.

He speaks of three interdependent aspects of wisdom.
The first is rooted in ecoconscious comprehension
of how and why knowledge, deductive information, facts, beliefs
may be both...

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Honey,
please don't even try to get me interested
in your Cranial Ontology Department.
You know how the name itself
puts my brain to sleep.

Yes I noticed your tendency to snore
when I am thinking out loud,
with tender thoughts about...

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I’ve only been at my fellowship gig a week, but It’s official, I’m a candy-striper. Sort of, I wear a blue vest, not the old, red-striped dress, but it’s the same job. I shadow my...

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Lament for the Makaris ("Lament for the Makers/Poets")
by William Dunbar [c. 1460-1530]
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
 
i who enjoyed good health and gladness
am overwhelmed now by life’s terrible sickness
and enfeebled with infirmity ...
how the...

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The third surgery didn’t work
He tells her there can be another one. 
He lies. Struggles to look in her eyes

She apologizes from a restless state
"I Won’t be here to see them graduate.
I won’t live to...

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Lisa and I were watching one of our favorite series last night, a Japanese manga called “The Way of the Househusband” and I could barely keep my eyes open. I went to bed at a...

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WHEN I GOT STABBED

The blade went through my flesh like a knife through melting butter.
Thoughts ran through my head as I bled out, like no more will I see my mother
Anger and rage streamed through...

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Nursing and nurturing
can often be used synonymously.
To nurse a baby
is first to nurture a cherished infant.

They share a nutritional history
of healthcare giving
and receiving,
delivered best and most durably
when care works coincidentally both ways
in all Win-Win bilateral...

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I shivered
I quivered
eyes!
cried!
dried!

I puzzled winkled I bled
I muffled tingled I shed

between the greens some shades
beneath the almond tree
I stood I sat  I gazed
I bled shed tears

pale leaves like flames on me
its summer time I...

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Thirty Eight ( Corny Cancer Poem) For Sharon

Hallmark has a million cards in their catalog
And not one of them says,
Life Sucks
American greetings had nothing that says
Thirty-eight and  Never coming home
So I hope it’s not...

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Believe me,
                                 ...

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...“It would be done in secrecy,
authorities wouldn’t approve…
but I tell you we can do this,
our results, so far, have been good.”

Carson thought for a long moment,
then said simply, ‘What does it pay?”
Prof said, “Rich men...

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>To hell and back with cancer, is my personal feelings, please do not take them to heart.

To hell and back with cancer.

It started with a lump to see right in the front of me. ...

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>Hydrotherapy pool in action

Now the blue sky has vanished, I must go out you know.
That will be the signal, for God to make it snow.
I wonder why he does do it?  I asked for...

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what do you need to be told
to make you capable of pragmatic liberation
which could be the foundation to a new
assessment of the inevitable
darkness is our measure but never our limit
its manic prism reflects everything all...

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A February Saturday,
Dull and cold and wet,
A visit from my daughter,
That I never will forget.
“Hello dad, you’re looking tanned”,
“Oh wait, no, you are yellow”
“Get on to 111 she said”,
Before even saying “hello”.
Put on hold for...

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