Long Vastly Poems

The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!
 
Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
-Michael R. Burch
 
The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
-Michael R. Burch
 
Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
-Michael R. Burch
 
Dry leaf...

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Sappho fragment #155
translation by Michael R. Burch 

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

*

Sappho fragment #156
translation by Michael R. Burch 

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable...

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Epigrams by Michael R. Burch



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch
 
Show me your most intimate items of apparel:
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Negotiables
by Michael R. Burch

Love should be more than the sum of its...

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Fahr an' Ice
by Michael R. Burch

From what I know of death, I'll side with those
who'd like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker),
and real fahr...

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ALBERT EINSTEIN POEMS

These are "poems" I created from Albert Einstein quotes, changing a word here and there for the sake of meter and rhyme...



A question that sometimes drives me hazy: 
am I or are the...

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I love you only because I love you
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I love you only because I love you;
I am torn between loving and not loving you,
Between apathy and desire.
My heart vacillates...

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Every Day You Play
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Every day you play with Infinity’s rays.
Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water.
You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp...

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Poems about Things that Break II
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter.
 
 
 
Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch
 
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower...

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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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Veronica Franco translations

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose.

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I) 
by Veronica Franco
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of...

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I hanker and pine for wood burning stove weather

I haint no spring chicken,
("Buk buk buk buk ba-gawk!")
but in Summer re: 
long in tooth sexagenarian 
nostalgic for the following imagery 
evoked yesterday with very little effort
(aside...

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MODERN SONNETS II

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.



In Praise of Meter
by Michael R. Burch

The...

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justice 

What does this vastly misunderstood word mean to you? 

Too what ends? 

May we seek? 

Who(m) may guide us? 

Endless deliberation (spiss spiss spiss)

Debated and glorified by us all 

Beloved; instilled among (a) core...

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Dear Toni,

I saw you on The Daily Show
the other day
having your way
with Trevor,
or was it the other way around?
Not sure.

I'm also not sure where we first went wrong,
but I'm sorry for once having thought you...

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What words do we choose for maximizing our ultimate accomplishments,
achieving our healthiest goals,
measuring our 100% successful therapeutic outcome projections?

Why do these words, 
and our feelings about these choices 
wave in and out of optimal happiness...

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“The Scorpion’s Touch”

Under glass
the sound cuts out sharp
just like under water
and we run out of breath 
like insects running around 
frantically out of time
we are magnified 
in our tight enclosures

internally observed
the external turns away
two heart...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems II - Bertolt Brecht



The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned, 
teams of dull oxen hauled...

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This Permaculture Design Operetta
comes out from within you
with universally acclaimed Grand Patriarchal Earth Rights
to sing in reverse harmonic rhythms and blues
with Full-Octave Matriarchal Earther Feminists Wronged,
marginalized in pre-millennial peace-maker roles
postmillennially re-inheriting the Good Society's climate...

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I've been watching the people across the street for about a year now. We wave at each other every once in a while, not really much more than seeing a familiar face without a name....

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To faith communities
and fraternities,
brotherhoods
and sisterhoods
and sororities,
local non-profits
and friendly neighborhoods,
mediators
and counselors,
cooperative associations,
trauma-informed learning theorists
and practitioners for resilient
mind/body peace,

Do not deceive yourselves.
Continuing to gaze and daze 
on a monotonous monocultural path

Disassociating 
internal v external
navel v social 
my...

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The waters of the Holy Spirit stirred with strength
And commenced to churn itself alive inside the well,
Forming a new maelstrom so radiant it seemed to rise in special presentation,
Roaring its heartfelt existence known
Our prince roared...

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Along the desert SANDS of what seemed to be a 'no man's LAND' in Eastern Mesopotamia, there was discovered a KING and a people group of unknown language and ORIGIN. No one ever knew for...

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How much simpler
and yet vastly more complex,
diversely resonant,
past decisions to hire the credentialed professional elite
also choices not to hire a charismatic
brown-skinned
ecofeminist,

And how much more resilient
urgently cooperative
corporate win/win covenant repercussions might have been
if we stopped compartmentalizing,
and...

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I was going to be late to work again, as it was one of those days,
When one small mishap after another, made for way too many delays.

Lateness had become a genuine problem, to a person...

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Ecotherapy,
including permaculture design's care of
Self,
Other biosystems,
Earth Whole EcoSystem,
as three faces of Gaia Goddess holonic trinity,
transmillennially emerges an intricately interdependent paradigm--
clinical as natural eco-political cooperation's
Positive Deviance Psychology.

Transmillennial regenerators are learning
to see with new eyes,
hear with bilateral...

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