Long Tapers Poems

Love in Kyiv
by Natalka Bilotserkivets
translation by Michael R. Burch

Love is more terrible in Kyiv
than spectacular Venetian passions,
than butterflies morphing into bright tapers–
winged caterpillars bursting aflame!

Here spring has lit the chestnuts, like candles,
and we have cheap...

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(Isaiah 50: 4, 5 /  Song of Solomon  /  John 11: 23 – 27  /  Revelation 21: 3, 4)


Out of Cold Shadows On A Highland Moor
Will You Come Walking To...

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Thing's and the time's are a changing
and moving at such a tumultuous
and fluid rate

The blinking rapid eye movement
can barely keep up pace with it
at all

Unfortunately like everything in life
sometimes progress also has a dark
downside to...

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(A Christmas Collage) 

The sun has set and night is stealing
Softly o'er the silent land,
While snowflakes slowly down are falling,
Shaken from an unseen hand.

To the top of Thorburne Tower
Light from windows streams around;
The glow of...

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I hold three magic stones in my hand, rolling them over-and-over-and over, leaving 
this 
reality behind -  far behind, as I fly  back-ward through time.

Suddenly! We are together; I have dreamed of this...

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We sold our freedoms for Big Macs, big stacks of crack, and bottles of Jack
This mess is wack and in fact I'm totally done
Havin' fun with the lines I've spun
We want to sit here and...

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Christmas by Invitation

My dearest Emmanuel – God with us -
Answering your Christmas celebration invitation
Reserving stable Space Via this Prayer
Watching with a child’s delight
Your birth announcement rising up above the snow 
Of star dusted mountaintops
As you...

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Darkness engulfed me
I struggled to adjust to the shadows
blinked when my vision brought to light—
an empty room, rumpled sheets of an unmade bed
a tear-stained pillow where I'd laid my head

There was a wooden luster on...

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P.O.E.m 2013

I.
---

Pretoria isn't far from Soweto yet
Earth's curve still hid each from the other
As blind eyes denied the other's pride
Colored only, European only - apartheid
Eradicated, chance for understanding

Only blood and bombs could determine
Negro and white...

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Dusk finally breaks
so we assert ourselves with ecstasy
and weed.
We claim omnipotence in pills and
crystals, whose uneven facets
reflect our fractured souls
shone through the darks of our 
eyes.
Whose catalyst propels our
transmission down highways of
perfect pavement and engraves
narcotic...

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Dragon drive

Under the pillow is a fantasy land,
A land ruled by a magic wand,
 
Everything seen is never like before,
Joyous breeze, all pervading azure sky,
Exclusive floor, Grecian design crafted on a leather surface,
Scales with uneven...

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A luxury sedan in a lone location
Moves along in endless time.
To be, to pass, and yet remain
Unmoved, untouched,
Always the same.


Suntapped tapers of autumn branches 
Spread and splinter, stark and bare
Against a sky of steely grey.
Heavy...

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I think on Sunday when it rains 
And the print stains on my fingers, 
Profiled whorls of black and pink 
Whilst the dishes fill the kitchen sink 
And the scent of burning lingers. 

An avalanche...

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I have walked the Earth and now my path tapers,
twisted ambivalence has me dancing on the razor,
contamination seeps through every reinforced layer,
I aim at two protectors but which one is the traitor?


Already exhausted, no finish...

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sitting by the late afternoon rippling lake 

dividing shade from sunlight

dividing the day from the night

something that feels quite right


unlike a fisherman catching a fish

it will come jumping out into my lap

with no reel, rod,...

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These days belong to snow and cold.
The leaden heart, the ashen skies
Conspire with the dark
That steals the hours daily
Settles us into unquiet peace.

Showing sense,
Creatures burrow down into their dens
Slip into their deathlike sleeps.

If we could,...

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based on Elihu Burritt’s “Christmas in Germany” (c. 1850)

You find a hand-built chapel among small homes
constructed by children. But what children – 
vicious young ne’er-do-wells from a Dickens novel, 
pickpockets and worse; if not murderers,...

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INFANTS
Infants, infants, 
Infants are like Ngwuor. 
They intoxicates like, 
White hot. 
Some are as whites as firmament 
While some are as black as charcoal. 
Its seeds are yellow as nutri C 
While some are as...

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Pondering past midnight I rest unsure
If my thoughts and rhymes would be a cure
I seem to have displaced my pen and papers
Don’t’ have a thick candle, only tapers 
A famous poet is my envision
I have...

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And who is artist?

I was told before, dollar for painting

(a hundred for creation)

I don't believe that anymore

(never really did)

We are the architects, playing to the open field of the underworld to realities

(an artist with an...

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Stay focused as an icon makes its surge
upon the stage as self-contained, assured.
I weigh it 'gainst a candle who's matured.
While tapers toil all night and scents converge,

the pooh-bah is about to reemerge.
The fragrance fine, but...

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The Girls in Steno, 1970


When it’s break time
the girls all walk together,
cigarette-protector cases 
clasped between their index 

tapers and their thumbs.
On each girl’s fingers glow 
iridescent lacquers.
When break time nears, 

they peek at each other,
twinkle,...

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Spring fling raining innocent
falling with the stars descent
all for young love's sake
Holding hands each minute spent
strolling paths with beauty's scent
in sweet floral wake
A soft touch was the intent
no turning back to prevent
desire's burning ache

Temptation, our...

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Hi… 
My name is Ironic Zinc. 
Too say the entire-less— 
Slightly-off— 
Voices echo throughout my inner being—as I… 
Wonder-what— 
Hat I may have thought— 
Questionable words; form files their suited claims— 
An accused, individual society...

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Line of inquiry - Ego shorn, here now reborn.

Unselfish Heart

The glow of the unselfish heart
Decorates emptiness with candles
While scattered relics of garden purity
Re-light votives in Babylon
In the gleam of selfless candelas
Nascent tapers breathe new oxygen
In...

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