Long Timorous Poems

PART 1:          THE MEETING

Alone one night neath lantern light, I trudged a weary mile.
Forlorn, I went with shoulders bent (the storms around me howled)
until I met...

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To a Mouse
by Robert Burns
translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sleek, tiny, timorous, cowering beast,
Why’s such panic in your breast?
Why dash away, so quick, so rash,
In a frenzied flash
When I would be loath to run after you
With...

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Ah Consuela! Invoking vast vistas for visions of green Spanish eyes,
I discern them again where she left me back then,
                 as we kissed when she parted, my friend.
Through those ruins I tread towards the footlights,...

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My mind's a naturalistic blur;
    She is a hazy green image
    pressed up against the lens
    Our hands press against each other
    only...

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Remember the story 
of Billy Goats Gruff?
The troll under the bridge,
and all of that stuff?
If you liked that old story
it's all good and well,
but it isn't at all 
the troll tale I will tell.

Now, Trolius...

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When you are in love
stars can fall at your bidding
the moon can swallow the sun
and love` s moment itself
is a perpetual miracle
a trip to outer space.
Those unable to find another love
agree that loneliness
is the perpetual...

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As dawn it roosts, to the early lids of my opened eyes,
Never ever has been a happy feeling pleasant comprise.
Quinquennium back I can clearly remember,
The morning’s plea scalds my thoughts like burning ember.

My blanket festooned...

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These nightmares feel real, like I’ve been here before,
I must be stuck in a phantasm of visionary abhor.
It was when my eyes closed that I knew this was an illusion, 
now I’m tortured by this...

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When did this metamorphosis come about?
As I stand and watch.....wanting to intercede..
To be the one this little boy needs
The one who kisses the forehead, ...and wipes away tears...
It's who I've been....for all these years...
It's who...

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Written: October 20, 2023, 

If an opera cannot be played by an organ grinder, it's not going to achieve immortality. By Thomas Beecham
            ...

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A place of branches         revealing an empty day
                   ...

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Oh my love! I think of you who to my heart is so fondly dear,
3 million tons of affection, warmth and love you added to me when you were near.

You have been my joyous, affable...

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In the archaic anchorage 
of the wayward mind, 
isolated from the righteous roots 
of transcendental inviolability
by the dislodging drive 
of the deriding desires,
untamed instincts shroud 
the entranced senses in disdain abyss.

Under the surface of sensual...

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When did this metamorphosis come about?
As I stand and watch.....wanting to intercede..
To be the one this little boy needs
The one who kisses the forehead, ...and wipes away tears...
It's who I've been....for all these years...
It's who...

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A fury amidst the storm,
flowing as calmly as the sea
Fire raging through a forest,
blowing as wind caressing a tree
An ocean lying, hidden behind timorous eyes
One glance could flood Ones earth to the sky
Swaying on the...

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Attributed To Concerned parents
of Traumatized Refugee
Dear Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump...

Posthumous belated tattered letter fragment
recently discovered (liberally sprinkled with
hyperbole (presumed for greater audacious
zealousness), sans accidentally acquired
by yours truly.

Miscellaneous personal item highly valued
when thwarted from...

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Attributed To Concerned parents
of Traumatized Refugee
Dear Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump...

Posthumous belated tattered letter fragment
recently discovered (liberally sprinkled with
hyperbole (presumed for greater audacious
zealousness), sans accidentally acquired
by yours truly.

Miscellaneous personal item highly valued
when thwarted from...

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An ancient mariner in the ocean of languid life,
I am sailing seemingly for agonized ages 
in the limitless luminosity of sublime sunshine, 
on the cruising course where the trying tempest rages. 

On the sapphire swells...

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Music of My Soul 

The earth ever composes mystical arias for me
That taste the splendor in thunder’s profusion,
Then touch the silent metronomes of lyric waves free
To hypnotize my pulse in movements of fusion.

The sounds of...

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I know you see me from up there,
from halfway up the steep and twisting lane.
In early half-light as you take your walk
I no doubt seem to loom as you descend,
appear to grow, to rise from...

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to my every step,
there’s a uniformed man
whose hands are soaked,
in blood of my brethren
would kill me,
if I resist to be oppressed
senses of the world leaders get defunct,
when there’s any question of violations in my homeland
how...

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SUNRISE
  
I  rise from bed and open the window.
Stars of  Cassiopeia  and small aurora are still visible; 
Venus hangs  like a lantern in the  eastern  firmament -
Goddess ...

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Alone in a dark place,
Sitting under a tree,
Holding his feeble soul,
Hiding his timorous heart,

He sits and watches the sky,
He sees the shining stars,
He contemplates the glare,
He sits covered with despair,

"Not going home," he whispers...
With a...

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Could you love
an old white redneck
with HIV,
inhaling too much medicine?

Could you love him
if he were able to listen
without judging,
but commiserating,
curious about nuances,
finding dark humor
transcending rumors
of ego’s timorous tumors
and climatic anthro-terrifying tremblers?

Could you love a sad...

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Convalesced amongst peaks and valleys,
Verdant and undulating over Afon Ebwy, 
I paid my way through the colliery
With but a baker's dozen of years behind me.

Seduced by the hanging-left red scare,
I rejected ancient teachings and scripture
For...

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