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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Sharon
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15

apologies to Byron

I.

Flamingo-minted, pink, pink cheeks,
dark hair streaked with a lisp of dawnlight;
I have seen your shadow creep
through eerie webs spun out of twilight...

And I have longed to kiss...

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Poems from "the GAUD poems" and "the ur poems"...


& GAUD said, “Let there be LIGHT VERSE
to illuminate the ‘nature’ of my Curse!”
—michael r. burch


reverse the Curse
with LIGHT VERSE!
recant the cant
with an illuminating chant,
etc.
—michael r. burch

Can...

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THE ur POEMS


& GAUD said, “Let there be LIGHT VERSE
to illuminate the ‘nature’ of my Curse!”
—michael r. burch


grave request
by michael r. burch

come to ur doom
in Tombstone;

the stars stark and chill
over Boot Hill

care nothing for ur...

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FROM THE ur POEMS



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by Michael R. Burch 
 
... u were borne orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification; u
would love to...

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grave request
from "the ur poems"
by Michael R. Burch

come to ur doom
in Tombstone;

the stars stark and chill
over Boot Hill

care nothing for ur desire;

still,

imagine they wish u no ill,
that u burn with the same antique fire;

for there’s...

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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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Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.



Byron
was not...

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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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