Long Swallowing Poems

"Open Oceans"



Kneeling on pearls
wisdom preys

praying
preying

hungry hearts
count the days 

wasting away
in all that preying 

for prayers 
to be answered

children become
strangers

reading 
strange words

finding 
themselves puzzled

genuflecting to a deity
they do not know, nor wish to

fumbling
mouths closed,

swallowed hole
in the...

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"The Payload" 

The payload 
came crashing down
like rain expelled
from the fat belly 
of a ruinous pregnant cloud 
bilious with buxom promise

it came crashing down 
like school fish released 
from the tight confines
of a course rope...

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"Peace in the Nowhere"

Ghosts remain in this place
they read their words 
marked each day on walls
like prayers, it gives them
peace in the nowhere

someplace relevant to go

Ghosts commune in this place
disowned long ago or walked
off the...

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Why does dawn dress robust morning,
while dusk undresses sight?
Each dawn incarnates another Earth Day
a lifetime of Easter mornings 
redeeming nocturnal sight's revolution,
another therapeutic day of gift-it-forward light,
some longer,
some shorter 
before naked covered night.

Why life?
To uncover...

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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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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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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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So cramped ...
Strain to move,
Flex and budge in tiny increments ...
That's the limit.
Constantly testing, trying,
Pushing, pressing ...
Constrict, exert, constrict, struggle,
Spin slowly, push ...
That's it. That's all.
Nothing more.
But it helps ... relief,
A body sigh ...
But only...

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Young Timmy saw Jim walking down the street.  Timmy considered a quick retreat, but steadied himself with a shrug.  Timmy dreaded the sight of Jim, a teenage bully and wanna be thug, who...

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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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"The Crow Bar"

she said,
here I bury my dead,
you can hear them sleeping
somnulent forget-me-nots,
snoring blithely unaware,
in neat rows between 
the thick,
ink injected lines,
their soiled lives
ploughed and 
turned over 
replanted
sunnyside down
expunged and 
wrung out

eventually,
not totally oblivious, 
they...

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"Monsters in My Head"



the small gods
inside of us
worry too much

they speak in tongues
that never know the 
depth of what is real or not 

for tongues 
they never think
they just have a taste for blood

trading gossip...

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**Trigger Warning**



"I Knew Anne Silently - My Ravenous Poe" 

I knew Anne.
you’d think 
with a name like hers
she’d be able to find her way 
out of unchartered waters.

it didn’t come as a suprise, 
then, on...

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What purpose do I choose to live;
remaining aloof from evil practice and intent?
What meaning can we find to live,
reversing "evil"
that could transcend our individual absence of identity?
Original Intent uncovers love-life's revolutionary invitation
into mutual belonging.

What is...

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Friday May 13th, 2022

An excerpt taken from a lengthy tome,
written courtesy a favorite poet of mine.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia  struck within a blink,
I swear yours truly never took a drink,
nevertheless he witnessed
and falsely accused of being a...

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(alternately titled: idolizing childhood's end
today April 25th, 2021
generates elusive warm treasured memories).

Akin to significance my eldest sister
felt toward her “Willies” –
(totally tubular fuzzy bendable contrivances
analogous to an outsize pipe cleaner)
until she became a tweener
my Matty...

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There was no easy day going under cover 
with four kids riding along with the FBI supervisor 
I was just a young mother of four actually expecting 
again seven months pregnant the FBI installed wires...

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"Small Mutinies"



So what if my point of view
is not that which wraps 
you in comfortably warm
fluffed-up silky 
cashmere blankets 
of insecure insincerity
simple scribbles 
bleating from the 
chirping crickets 
and frog croaking
symphonies 
muddying waters
cutting pristine lines...

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East west north or south which way should I go?
East West north or south, I just want to sing and shout
We have just had a nice little shower,
To cool down the boiling temperature, 
but it...

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Richard Mcgeehan Poem

Poetic license I employ
to match inventive
wisdom and witticism
regarding (brother in law of mine 
husband of eldest sister of same)
interspersing, initiating, incorporating
fabrication whenever possible,
and only the subject himself
can discern fact from fiction
and get a...

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"The Monochrome Echo Chamber"




How many Roads
to "IT"
Black 
as Black & White? 
or Unicorns and Rainbows?

Unitarian 1 and only 1 
Trinitarian 3 exist in 1 
An answer 
arrives 
unheralded 

Reversed in Time
Something 
has lit the fuse
Something...

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"Paper Tigers"



eyes mark slow time
spotting leopard rhyme
never changing its spots
black balled
white pops
the want-to-be bees
sting the dripping honey spot

slapping cards down
kitty pots are shuffled
bluffing intelligentsia
between the gaps
flatulent poets floss their teeth
waxing lyrical strings
tied to the weary...

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Joulupukki knocked on the door before entering the room.  In the center of one wall was a bed that was large enough for two humans to fit in comfortably.  The young elf lying...

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by sun-kissed shoreline 
patiently I cast my line
waiting for a catch


Fishing was my family’s go-to, inexpensive recreational sport.  Many weekends were spent at the lake checking trout lines for fish or standing on the...

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Re: viewing the emotionally prosperous papa razz zee life I did not live

The following poetic account 
written more'n a dozen 
dirty dancing decades ago, 
while I (a socially 
withdrawn Homo Sapiens) 
one indigent Yahoo 
groveled...

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