Long Ulysses Poems

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
-Michael R. Burch

*

Willy Nilly
Michael R. Burch

Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, Willy...

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Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a...

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Various Heresies 2

You
by Michael R. Burch

For thirty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.

For thirty years You would not open to me;
You remained...

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Unquotable quotes: Writers – XXXVIII

     for Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoieski  
     who let not even hope sustain them and who used their...

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Science can’t save you, neither can religion,
at least Popper and Niebuhr, philosophers and poets,
are entertainers, which is why actors and athletes
are paid so much. Thanks for the summaries.
I was teaching Shakespeare’s 92nd ridiculous sonnet
to my...

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Poet:  Ken Jordan 
Poem:  One Knee 
Edited by:  Sparkle Jordan 
written:  September 2017


One Knee

Yes, I kneel down on one knee 
damn right I do -
I will not honor an Anthem 
of...

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This is a story about a Butterfly

She escaped the Boilermaker
Through transformation. 
To transform required a period of incubation, 
a need to sleep to dream and 
the freedom of quiet self-contemplation - 
of course, such a...

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Enjoy, Florence, because you so great are
That on seas and ground your wings you flutter,
And down in hell your name around spreads far!

I found five, among the stealers’ clutter,
Your citizens which then made me ashamed...

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Into The Heart Of A Soulless Existence

Damn these flies! 
There must be a half dozen of them 
Buzzing around my tiny room here, 
Buzzing and humming spasmodically, 
Like tongue-less eunuchs 
In a locked church full...

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James Joyce:
In winding streets of Dublin, I did dwell,
found Ulyssean tales to weave and tell.
In this modern age, voices rise anew.
What themes thrive, Margaret, in works like you?

Margaret Atwood:
Ah, James, your stream, like a cerebral...

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Do you still wonder 
now that you’ve been washed out
into fate’s unforgiving seas
why you were sentenced to a life
you swore was in the wrong body?
Living in the wrong body is a natural crime
The price
To live...

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Speechless at Auschwitz
by Ko Un
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
mountains of shoes ...
returning, we stared out different windows.

Ko Un speaks for all of us, by not knowing what to say about the...

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Inspired by The Sirens and Ulysses, oil painting by William Etty.

The painting depicts a scene from Homer's epic "The Odyssey," where the hero Ulysses (aka Odysseus) orders his crew to tie him to the mast...

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Part One

“Apart from its popular conception of transmigration, (which is) sometimes almost humouristic, Manimekhalai offers a documentary contribution of immense value, under an easily accessible form, on the philosophical speculations of Ancient India.
The cosmology of...

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Once, A Time, I Was Accused To Be
Like A Siren of The Sea
As Ones In Ulysses’ Odyssey
but, No … That Was Not Me …

Those Sirens, Lured To Death
They Were Lethal Temptresses
Like Myth of Cursed Lilith
Or...

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If everyone could just take one minute out of their day...and pray with me...

Dear Lord,
Hear me Lord,
I’m tired Lord...really tired
Tired of all the pain in the world...Lord
Tired of all the hate...
Tired of all the killing...

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The Cyber Nymph
Loch David Crane
August 18, 1997

Lie back--expose your belly ring		
up unto the sky. . .
I just hope when I get down close
it won't put out my eye!

That summer I was 48 
and she pert...

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Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Regan, Biden 
Sparing a turkey from a Thanksgiving table. The presidential Turkey Pardon

Massachusetts
is a truly historic state.
Indigenous people lived there for
over ten thousand years before it was
colonized by the English in the...

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Crystal Magnificent Morning

You should see LA 
In the crystal magnificent morning of continuing time. 
It is a magic that has to be seen to be believed, 
And yet, 
So few have truly seen the show....

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“The heaventree of stars” (in Ulysses as said Joyce)
“hung with humid nightblue fruit” (ah that Bloomian voice)
could evoke a masterpiece the world has come to know,
The Starry Night, so treasured now, by Vincent van Gogh…

In...

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(I.)

Of Ulysses, Homer's Troy And The Wrathful Gods

I, who am of the ancient tribe of trees
  Climb slowly.

Eons unguessed, ere I shall see the crest
  Of the blue towers, - love's high citadels
Hath...

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***At the bequest of a friend 
or two this poem is a 
continuation of Tennyson''s
 'Ulysses'; though I don't
expect much glory for this
write, it was one of my
finer poetic attempts; 
especially Tennyson who
I think was...

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Brutus Iulius Trois Page 05

Loud laughed Pandrasus  Hear the mice roar 
yet stubborn Pandrasus swiftly gave chase
over the high mountain, through the deep forest
so easily he fell to the trap Brutus had laid
on Achelous's...

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Tattarrattat


…amazing how things change over time, from a simple knock at someone’s door, smoke signals, walking & serenading to the Pony Express, and now Cell Phones…what next, microchip implants?


Tattarrattat of sounds making universal calling to...

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Though I have been born on an island
Though the sea and the beaches make themselves seen to me so often
Each time I do sit and watch the waves
I do feel like I am roaming soul,...

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