Long Troy Poems

Sappho fragment #155
translation by Michael R. Burch 

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

*

Sappho fragment #156
translation by Michael R. Burch 

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable...

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My Best is at Rest.
This is a tribute to my Lifelong Best Friend Katrina.

My Best friend/Sister has passed on from this life.
She lived a life of love. To know her was to automatically love her....

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Premise
The great poem by the italian poet Dante is the DIVINA COMMEDIA
I have tried to translate in english verses of INFERNO (HELL).
It was a very difficult task. 
I expect criticism.

When just the midway of my...

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Thoughts can be thin fractures in the order of things.
Sometimes my dorm room seems a sterile sarcophagus, like an accusation, or an interrogation about my romantic choices, with nothing warm or inviting there. Sometimes I’ve...

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MY PRINCESS OF IMAGINATION
                               ...

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“Women Have Loved Before As I Love Now”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past-
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by...

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Mother nature oh! Rose of roses!
Mother of all flowers' and smell,
Ylang Ylang! You don't know what it causes!
An aphrodisiac turns you on like hell!

Sandalwood with its masculine warmth poses,
Rosemary clears the head, you can tell,
Peppermint...

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And after had passed the two enraged by
On which I had before pointed my sight,
I turned to others evil-born my eye.

I saw one, who the form of lute have might,
If he the groin in full...

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(1.)

Olympic Desires Born, Gods A'playing


Poseidon arose, trident a'gleaming.
Mermaids danced, fallen hair a'streaming.

Olympic desires born, Gods a'playing
Mighty Zeus often on earth a'staying
There below mortals stopped a'praying
Hades play, man's evil a'repaying!

Poseidon arose, trident a'gleaming.
Mermaids danced, fallen hair...

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VIII

In the minds fixed eye I see five newly discovered graves,              
Headless lions sat atop an impregnable "Triumphal Gate";   ...

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The difficult translation of first Canto of Divina Commedia is here completed
In the part published before, Dante imagined to find himself in a dark forest where he met three beasts. 
Now he is going to...

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Deciphering crossword puzzles, cryptograms and scrabblegrams once favorite pastimes

Livingsocial at 324 Level Road
circa post high school graduation
found yours truly voluntarily holed up
for an inordinate amount of time
within familiar four walls of his bedroom.

He preferred solitude versus
interacting...

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In realms where thought and tempests meet
where shifting sands outpace the feet
a creature stirs with cunning guise
Circumlocution cloaked in darkened skies
its words like desert viper’s sting
they strike the heart then coil and cling.

Through jungles thick...

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Achilles, His Heart and Soul Were Mortal
Part One- (Years Before Troy)

Achilles* woke, his slain foes calling out his name
hearing merciless woes, his sharpen sword they blame
looking at the heavens he saw the moon glowing blood...

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UNAFRAID OF DETROIT HITMAN SENDING ME THREATS OVER CIRO GARGANO ARSON MURDERERS OF 9 NOR JAY TOWNSEND JOHNSON HENRY BORN 1979 HIRED TO OBSTRUCT OF JUSTICE IN ARSON MURDER OF 9 CIRO GARGANO AND HIS...

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As We Once Imagined The Gods, Venus And Mars

    Universe eternally unending
    expanding space infinity sending,
    vast emptiness, separating its stars
    as we...

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Learning disabled, hopelessly unemployed
Troy can't write the address for his next interview.
Warehouse stock, 331 Tiffany Street, in the Bronx.
His girlfriend, Trinity, also unemployed,
with one child by Troy. She's more resourceful
but doesn't realize it. For one...

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Achilles, Bloody Battles, Death's Black Hand As Was Fated
Part Three, (the Conclusion)

Dawn, bright rays fell upon Achilles and his band
exiting ship, Greek sandals felt soft Trojan sands
with mighty magnificent Greek pride in courageous hearts
each seeking...

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Stevie Ray's guitar spurred the 1980s blues boom.
He wasn't like any other guitarist.
Inspired by Buddy Guy, Albert King, and Albert Collins...
He linked blues and rock in the late 1960s.
He ruled the American blues from 1983...

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Tyrian Sails Across Stormy Seas Sailed

Tyrian sails across stormy seas sailed,
and a bold prince they deliver
At every port cheerily he was hailed,
as an arrow straight from its quiver
Bade he the pilot to next morn tarry,
as...

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Late in life I struggle against my insignificance
When I should enjoy the freedom from performance before an audience.
Applause is happiness but if they withhold applause, embarrassment.
When Da Liu put me to work crunching hexagrams and...

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In a Stolen Moment
by Michael R. Burch

In a stolen moment,
when the clock’s hands complete their inevitable course
and sleep is the night’s dark spell,
I call it a curse,

seeking the force,
the font of candescent words, the electric...

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Limericks IX



Scratch-n-Sniff
by Michael R. Burch

The world’s first antinatalist limerick?

Life comes with a terrible catch:
It’s like starting a fire with a match.
Though the flames may delight
In the dark of the night,
In the end what remains from...

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The Bachelor Spectacular
by Michael R. Burch

One heart? Tossed aside.
The other? A bride’s.
In all his great wisdom, the bachelor decides.

Eeenie, mean-ie, mine-y, mo’,
one gal must stay and one must go.
If she hollers? That’s the show!

No heart...

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Limericks VIII plus one Lead-In Poem



Updated Advice to Amorous Bachelors
by Michael R. Burch

At six-thirty,
feeling flirty,
I put on the hurdy-gurdy ...

But Ms. Purdy,
all alert-y,
kicked me where I’m sore and hurty.

The moral of my story?
To avoid a...

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