Long Tuberculosis Poems

Recluse by dint of circumstance

Proud anonymous troglodytes 
forerunners of mine
confronted threats less horrific
than forty fifth commander in chief
of United States of America.

He/him (matted hair, ratty, scrawny, 
and tetchy ugly villain)   
scurried into dark...

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Ford's Theater, April 15th, 1865...
Petersen House, Washington, D.C.

I admit to own a passion
for the Civil War in general,
and the life and death of
the sixteenth president in particular
between a hard spot of whiskey
and draughts of arrack;
nonetheless...

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“On the Sonnet”
by John Keats

If by dull rhymes our English must be chained,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fettered, in spite of painéd loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrained,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To...

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The sign actually said ‘Universal Disposal’ but the haggard squalid creature 

Had no time for such ephemeral discourse he could just about spell his name

Kanja meaning water born and his parents had hoped he would...

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Petersen House, Washington, D.C.  

(i admit to own a passion for the Civil War in general, 
and the life and death of 
the sixteenth president in particular).

between a hard spot of whiskey 
 ...

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Am I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch

Sleepyheads!
I recite my haiku
to the inattentive lilies.
—Michael R. Burch

Stillness:
the sound of petals
drifting down softly together...
—Miura Chora, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The sky tries to assume
your eyes’...

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Philipp Reis (Deutsch/ English/ Español   (Sentanka)

Übertragung von Sprache
Mit den einfachsten Mitteln
Über große Entfernung 

Versagt blieb ihm der Erfolg
Viel zu früh kam sein Tod


Transmission of  voice
By using the simplest means
Over long distances 

Success...

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These are original haiku by Michael R. Burch and his translations of haiku by the Japanese masters Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, Masaoka Shiki, and others. 

Am I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch

Sleepyheads!
I recite...

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THE NIGERIA WE DESERVE 3

Who could enter a dark room without breaking
The holy glasses therein?
Are we suppose to keep running from pillar to post?
We have come of age to eat the fruits of the land
Knowing...

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The bleeding of my eyes cannot
be over emphasis as the a weakness of my heart.
i have been brave thousand times to stop the 
black sky from darken my heart, yet my 
braveness was sold in...

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With her first words she mesmerized his soul,
Of rose water and lavender was her aroma,
Her tip tap of her fairy tale walk was majestic,
A woman of status still in her prime of depth and note,...

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One thing we discovered that all aliens are not cruel
In fact they do have humility and care being loyal
To our multi-verse in tons
In a way like humans
Some are even superiors to us
With cutting edge technology...

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Mother Teresa
She is the mother of every poor people, injured people, ordinary people...

Always we remember the great news
'Mother Teresa will get the Nobel Peace Prize.'
It was one of the best moment in our life...

She lived...

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It all began in the summer of 1876, in which Brother Clive Werthings had returned from 
feeding the sow.  He walked through the kitchen door and into the morning light shining in from the...

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for George
"You always said you had little invisible friends,"
He wrote in a Christmas card one year, and Yes,
funny he would remember that.  I called them Shovel,
Hoe, and BicaBacaBoca, all of indeterminate gender,
like Arial in...

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Where do you start,
When this world opens up
In front of you,
When this hidden view
Reveals itself in one big bang.

I knew I wasn’t normal
From an early age
But when you hear it all, 
It still shocks.

The attempted...

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Grace Darling

Tempest spits upon the gunnels
But Grace Darling manhandles the paddles,
To rescue the folks of the Forfarshire crash,
Stranded on Farne Islands off Northumberland coast.

The spirit of innocence to give more than ought,
Took on the challenge...

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The headline in today’s paper
caught my attention, and with interest –
I read through the article.

The case of someone who’s ill
with a dangerous form of tuberculosis
a target of all media people
with its overwhelming implication.

As an international...

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Uncle Roy written by Shadow Hamilton

As the evening drew in and birds settled to roost
the world seemed to give a collected sigh
as it stood poised waiting in the wings
the time had now come to gather...

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A wooden flute,
              I glimpsed among my mother’s treasured keepsakes in childhood. 
          ...

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Left wing
Mother had tuberculosis and my sister, and I were
sent to a place, a children’s home with many houses 
depending on age and sex my brother had already been sent
to one he had found German...

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The People we don’t want to know. 

From pay check to pay check many working class people have two jobs,
 then it all dries up and there is no work and manual labourers are 
called...

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The Alcoholic 
An hour or so, but my mind keeping looking back to a past 
as trying to find the moment when things went wrong and 
contentment escaped. It easy to remember simple things 
like...

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Hoop-la! Hoop-la! Polio is back in town.
And it is sick of being silent
With all the other viruses around. 
It wants some humans to infect
To gain back some respect. 

Covid and monkeypox, you better watch out
Ebola,...

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(In the opera “La Bohème”, four impoverished students 
share a Paris apartment. Rodolfo falls in love with Mimi, 
a seamstress who is dying of tuberculosis. With money 
at an all-time low, Rodolfo’s friend, the philosopher...

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