Long Unsteadily Poems

They were gambling in front of the house.
Manservants and pages bustled about
Serving Suitors who just curse and carouse.
Few mix wine with water. I heard one shout,
"Clean down the tables with wet sponges! Rouse
Yourselves! And when...

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The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

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Dusk-gliding swallow, 
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers! 
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,...

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These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation...

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Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
—Yamaguchi Seishi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow...

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You stole away my lonely melody, Lord,
And made it harmony according to Your accord
I’d like to thank You with all of my heart as I make sound
My mind is trying to look forward to a...

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yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #1
by michael r. burch

plagued by the Plague
i plague the goldfish
with my verse



yet another iffy coronavirus haiku #2
by michael r. burch

sunflowers
hang their heads
embarrassed by their coronas

I wrote this poem after having...

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I
How long have I been doing this
Throwing my time & money
Into a hole
Filling up notebooks
Mining overheard conversation
For lines
Squeezing the sponge
Of my wine soaked
Mind
Into the bucket
Of poetry
And now here we are
Gulping down the
Lead tainted water
Like Romans
Romans
Forced...

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POTW 28 January 2018

Prologue:
A beautiful extra-terrestrial female researcher is sent down to a remote island to observe earth and beam her findings back to her planet. She’s strictly forbidden to make any human contact. She...

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Tuck into the public
private seclusion.

My aversion to inclusion
includes a stub, a tub,
a carelessly careful curation,
a velvet rope, a hint of hope,
a folding chair, softened and stickied 
by foam and frothing soda spills.

A not soundless though...

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When I worked as a carpenter there was an iron clad rule.If you woke up to a drizzling rain you came to work in hopes it would soon abate.
However,if it was pouring and the old...

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What could I possibly wish to say...
too much, too much but never a perfect way to word it
Perfect...I curse the word yet like a dart
it's quick to part my lips to prick the target of...

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After many years I paid a rare visit to the woods from my long ago childhood days,
Things have changed since boyhood, the bees are silent, the landscape has changed,
Gone, honey-laden scented flowers of the old...

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Great Nation



How our eyes have since turned to you
Prayed for your magnificent and proud banner
Its promise of liberty and freedom
Equality for all within its great nation

The saviors who came to defended life with life
In the...

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5...4...3...2......1..GO! 
Get ready to release yourself from deep waters
Land on high grounds
Thrills surrounding your awed temptations

3...2...1.. 
You are ready to take your first flight!!!    
To a wondrous
Space of wonders

Good morning to a space glimpse!

Luminous happiness sweltering
From...

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So here I am, the saddest clown, I laugh away the pain,
Then once it's all been said and done, the pain she cries "too late"...
And so the paint, it reflects my frown towards all the...

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The unpredictable yaw of rolling seas,
as in life pummels us from side to side 
randomly dictating its capricious ways 
lacking logic the tossing grips us and seeks to take our lives    

Death,...

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The unpredictable yaw of rolling seas,
as in life, pummels us from one side to the other 
randomly dictating capricious ways 
arbitrarily gripping our lives

Life, like the ghost of Christmas past,
comes at night, tells its tale...

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You are glistening 
Upon a eloquent design 
I claim it…it’s mine
Paint me a brighter day
without gluttony…
without trouble 
I’ll be captivated in an
everlasting utopia
Look! Here comes a beam
from the sunshine
I claim it…it’s mine 
Glistening
Captivated in
Complete delusion

Deeper...

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Shopping alone

It was raining, she didn't want to go out
watching the funeral of a famous singer 
the mourning took all day, playing him 
singing when he had hair and was youngish
I drove to the supermarket that had 
indoor...

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Verizon payment arrangement -
due november fifteenth two thousand nineteen

Yours truly long time
satisfactory Verizon customer
i.e. namely this monsieur
breathes easy, cuz within noggin
contentment doth whir
billing agent pleasant as
Mister Rogers neighbor.

Great relief pending bill
$148.80, she did defer
'pon my...

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i walk unsteadily,
ready to pounce with every ounce of my being
onto whatever scares me
and through the dark corridor, i suppose it is infested
i hear the scattering of cockroaches;
the pattering of thousands of tiny feet
and in...

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All my life broke up, like some great river's ice at touch of spring.
The world lay stretched before me like the open palm of my hand.
Alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the...

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An amazing moonlit hazy walk,
A knotted wooden park bench to talk,
A slip of the arm over her petite shoulder
Heart racing, she smiles, he’s feeling bolder

He rises and outreaches his shaky hand,
Coaxing her to embrace as...

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How I miss the sound of the lonely train chucketty chucking along
snaking rails
the eerie hooting of its horn cutting a path through unyielding darkness
that carries one's mind on a mysterious journey to places unknown.
The lonesome...

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