Long Unwed Poems

(Musings of a poet with huge doubts and a fragile faith)

Introduction: Is God A Joke Or Human Vanity?

When close friends die and other’s thoughts are suicidal,
When mankind’s soup du jour is loneliness with anguish	
When mental...

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Mary was a virgin girl:
With big dreams and aspirations!
An angel came to visit her:
With honor and salutations!
Troubled by his sayings:
She did not know what to think!
The angel said to Mary:
My dear, no need to shrink!

Mary...

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Norwegian bachelor farmer days I never lived

Woebegone and egg foo young on you
meaning me of course
sidestepping a crucial positive
electric kool aid battery acid test
prior to pledging troth,
and tying Gordian knot
to strangulation point,
never fending for myself,
nor...

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There was a little girl named Angel. 
Who had such a beautiful spirit and 
was cute as she could be. Angel had
a heart of gold, everytime she could
help someone in need she would. The 
sisters...

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Nineteen eighty-four was a year of forgotten memories. Somewhere in the United States a secret society was started called The Order of the Black Cage. Now it is two thousand-ten and so much has happened....

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Sappho Translations VI by Michael R. Burch


Sappho, fragment 52
translation by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday,
you came to my house
to sing for me.

Today,
I come to you
to return the favor.

Talk to me. Do.
Sweet talk,
I love the flavor!

Please send away...

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THE POET’S PANEGYRIC

“There’s someone I knew with talent unleashed
and a heart that had for so many relentlessly reached
This poet sought inspiration from the living and the dead
But I can tell you this about the poet...

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Sappho Translations IX


Sappho, fragment 17
translation by Michael R. Burch

Hear me, Queen Hera, as your delightful festival nears,
you to whom the sons of Atreus performed vows,
those dazzling kings who did such amazing things,
first at Troy, then...

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Ego held me, captivated by his good looks,
a sculpted figure that only comes from princes of story books.
Everyday I'd sit and beseech the knowing, wise eyes
of the future, yearning for him to retrieve me from...

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great expectations
anticipated in the 
poetic heart 
Havisham delivered
all and more for love, 
a separate unseen thief, 
tore the others’ worlds apart

webs like ectoplasm
from underneath a rock
scurrying swiftly out of sight
wrapped tight around a child
dressed in...

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Now, Railroad Bob has lost his job, he’s got no place for working,

His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.

The union man don’t give a damn, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,

the...

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They claim that you were ‘outdated,’
old-fashioned and ‘not with the times,’
because you hesitated to
give up traditions of your kind.
They claimed new was always better,
that you weren’t on history’s side.
You noticed their way rarely worked,
“Reactionary!” they...

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We are called to love one another as sisters and as brothers.  We are called to pray for one another, our mothers and our fathers.  We are called to spread the good news...

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Author’s note: The following is in haibun form—poetic prose (microfiction with less than 200 words in this case) coupled with a haiku. It was written in response to a writing prompt to (re)tell a Christmas...

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Woman in Chains
(What Man Would Abide It?)

Women throughout centuries – the softer sex.
I picture them subservient since what feels like time primordial!

What man would abide
being sold as if mere chattle and being called another’s property?
What...

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Death orifice my Libidinous command,
I contras life's ecumenical demand!
Now reach down in this thistle grim,
Desolate me with the edged limb.
Grant this voyeur that glimpse of dead,
A comatose where life and I unwed...
As minutes kiss my...

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Have you ever heard the cry of the broken hearted?
Whose heart bleeds as it pleads as a result to losing, the one girl, he needs
Humble your heart and mind and access with empathy; well enough...

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Value
All
Learning
Education
Denies
Ignorance
Construct
Theories
Organize
Read
Insist
Appreciate
Notice

She is a brown eyed girl with soft brown hair
The gown covers her pregnant belly
The tasseled cap is her crown
Nothing can down her determination
Motivation comes from nightmares 
Motivation comes from dreams
As she speaks, tears stream
She...

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The Barretts of Wimpole Street

Imagine you’re a woman, with a mind
as trained, acute and fertile as exists.
Imagine that your erudite, refined
creations top each year’s best-seller lists.

You write in English, French and Portuguese.
Translating ancient classics from...

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A pregnant lass with eyes of glass had never learned to cope;
once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry slope.
She fled the curse of worlds perverse by shooting shots of dope,
and stalked...

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Imagine you’re a woman, with a mind
as trained, acute and fertile as exists.
Imagine that your erudite, refined
creations top each year’s best-seller lists.

You write in English, French and Portuguese.
Translating ancient classics from the Greek,
(for you, no...

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First you breathe on her
Was it love or lust?
Was it fact or fiction?
You stared in the windows through my heart
Of age or not
We begot
A child co-created along the way
     Conceived only...

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Society tends to identify you only by your condition
Never by your name just by attrition
Unwed mother, crack addict, HIV carrier or whore 
Never calling you by your name just labels evermore 
Now there was a...

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VERSE 1.
Some people ask for more;
I'm an unwed mother;
Teen born in my loneliness;
I just want love, from anyone;
Some people past for joy;
I'll take any one;
While others seek bigger and better toys;
Now I don't  want...

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Love that is taken for one selfish goal
can never be true as far as I know.
Rape took the soul of a sister and friend
ravishing her frail spirit to a bitter end.

At sixteen she went on...

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