Long Tragic Poems

Dear people, 
    (Am i?) Mad it’s a conformist state?
A status that perpetuates people to pair, to compare, to prepare, 
to perfect, before performance, …?
    -sure hard to try...

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His glowing golden eyes glistened with a comprehension beyond the mortal condition

A well-toned, tall, and tanned man, who most, not all, would call handsome

A brightly bleached stalactite overbite gleaned between the mean features of an...

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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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I love you only because I love you
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I love you only because I love you;
I am torn between loving and not loving you,
Between apathy and desire.
My heart vacillates...

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Sonnet LXXXI-LXXXIX

Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew...

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Every Day You Play
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Every day you play with Infinity’s rays.
Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water.
You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp...

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Athenian Epitaphs II

These are ancient Greek epitaphs for lost family and friends, including dogs and other animals ...

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night: 
his owner's faithful Maltese... 
but will...

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NAME: Phil Latio.

QUALIFICATIONS: LLB (Law) PhD (Medicine) & FSC (Federation Starfleet    
                    ...

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"Azure Vistas"

Azure vistas presented themselves to me
rolling inwards the clouds like tumbleweeds
mercilessly bump fallen angels off the map
like torrents of rain falling petulantly on blunt contracts

I glimpsed the sweet refrain of a resurrection
swift upon a...

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Wounded Sacred Dementia

My last foster care-provider
and -receiver story
is also a sad story
of my last special needs adoption
of bipolar born,
and oppositionally reared,
alcoholism.

My BiPolar Wounded Child
turned an auspicious five
on the day I first saw her,
and promptly rejected...

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“le livre bleu” 

Terabytes.
lonely poets, writers, 
musicians and artists play here,
they wear masks that cover
vermillion dripping smiles
over sharp little wolverine teeth,
they drown their sorrows in their muses -
contemporary little monsters – Still Life, 
they call...

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~ King  Of  Kings ~
( Whitney's Kiss   )


~O~


Seek  His  Love 
You'll find His Grace
The whole  world
Proclaim His Glory 
Now  is  time
To  Praise  the ...

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It was 1968 we'd gathered again in the school auditorium my tiny hands sweating only five years old while my name was called in all of this cold  
civil rights riots plagued my little...

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As I look back across more musical times
of rhythmic reflections,
ceremonies and commemorations
of each dawn and dusk eremitic liturgy,
if that is not an oxymoron
of sound and sight,
song and dance,
tragically sad, yet also bilaterally bound with happier...

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The Republican congressmen,
and I do mean white privileged straight men,
came to their Democratic opposition
concerned about how depressing
December can be,
and all of winter,
come to think and feel
of dark discerning Advent,

So maybe we could stage
a comedic debate
about...

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(Continuing the trip through Hell of Dante with poet Virgilio)

Pah-peh Sah-tan, Pah-peh Sah-tan al-ept!”,
Started Pluto with his hoarse voice toss
And that gentle wise, who any knowledge kept,

Told to encourage me: “don’t have a loss 
By...

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justice 

What does this vastly misunderstood word mean to you? 

Too what ends? 

May we seek? 

Who(m) may guide us? 

Endless deliberation (spiss spiss spiss)

Debated and glorified by us all 

Beloved; instilled among (a) core...

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Could we be doing our best
to invest in Earth's cooperative health markets?
While you sell our most competitive killing machines
to our Saudi Arabian cousins.

Referencing this touchstone as an ecopolitical WinWin,
unlike Parisian multicultural investments in climate health,
as...

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  I feel so damn trapped in rage 
Like a rainbow lion in a cage 
I feel so much pain in my brain
And it's driving me quite insane

Numb my solace shame
Get me feeling more...

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It was September 
Of one thousand 
Nine hundred seven
The end of summer
With apples lying thickly
Under the apple trees
And the smell of Autumn
Covering the grass
Filled with ripe yellow
And orange squash
He was born in a little
Wooden house...

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What Kind of People Are We

In a Shakespearean sense of tragedy and doubt the well-used
“To Be or Not To Be” from Hamlet is not the question I shall
discuss in this narrative. Rather, I shall consider...

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(Remembering Innocence)


Note to Readers of Previous Versions:
There are so many new vignettes scattered throughout the poem that I hope you will reread the whole thing! There are new tales, improvements to previous verses, and improved...

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Saturday, September 23, 2023  

Coincides with first day of fall
and Autumnal equinox for said year,
where colorful splash kindled like tinder.

After I riff flecked about thee August
Autumn Equinox 2023,
this seasonal polymath teached you 
fall Equinox...

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Ali's Song
by Michael R. Burch
for Muhammad Ali

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river,...

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It was the weekend, and I was sleeping late that day,
Alone with the morning, while savoring marvels of May.

As I drowsed luxuriantly, at the outskirts of dreams,
I heard a strange sound, while soaking in gay...

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