Long Victim Poems

AFTER THE KARCHER FIRE LOUD SILENCE FBI AGENTS WERE GETTING CLOSER CIRO GARGANO WAS NERVOUS UNRAVELING THE CREW STORED THE CONTENTS OF THE TAILOR SHOP IN THE GARAGE AT LAKE COUNTY MUSIC COMPANY THE GARAGE...

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2003 TAMPA FLORIDA I CRIED OUT TO THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION ARLINGTON HEIGHTS ILLINOIS JAMAICAN THIEVES BROKE INTO MY HOME RIPPING PAGES IN JOURNAL ARSON MURDER DYNAMITE CIRO GARGANO MY EX ABUSIVE HUSBANDS TORCHED...

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I GAVE AN OATH WEARING WIRES PREGNANT FOR THE FBI ARLINGTON HEIGHTS CHICAGO FIELD OFFICE TIMES WERE VERY HARD BACK THEN I WAS SO YOUNG WITH SMALL CHILDREN RETURNING FROM GERMANY MILITARY WIFE WHEN THE...

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I’m in distress
I can’t express
How I feel deep down inside
This feeling is a terrible tide
How do I impress
Everyone here in excess?
I’m just here to simply abide
By God’s Law, I don’t subside

My tears are diamonds in...

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My protagonist today,
a Gay Black Religious Mature Male,
not quite ready for silver-grey Obama temples

Is off this morning
to a new full-time job,
8 to 5,
Monday through Friday.

He has been out of his calming,
regular custodial collared routine,
for over...

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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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Fulfilled fantasies and legitimate realities…you do know how to please…
Are you listening to my voice of longing and yearning?
No, don’t backstab me with your broken promises…stop being a horrid tease…
Do not worry, Lord, I am...

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With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

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A Stolen Memory
A Mirthful Chorus
By Sy Roth 


We surrounded him 
Asked to let go.
She stared at the misshapen face,
Unshaven sandpapery skin 
Eyelids a tabula rasa
Fluttery sere skin
And we could see the humor blossoming in his...

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I am sick of excuses to avoid responsibility
and I am, today, sick with excuses to avoid responsibility
with "I'm just a mortal human. I make mistakes.
I judge situations and relationships,
assess potential risks to care and nourishing...

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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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Sonnets X-XVI


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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From ISIS to J HORE totally 
unafraid of the JIHAD domestic 
threat arriving to end my 
life over my American poetry 
accompanying Rasta yago 
waving a 9MM driving a 
Tahoe parked next to her 
dark...

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The probe alerts for federal 
employees identification machines
data including finger printing 
system use for fraudulent 
access to aviation government 
buildings documents and data 
to allow domestic terrorists access
identication machines still not 
located be vigil when...

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Come, You
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the...

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I saw a girl at the museum. I had to take her number
It was like my heart woke up from a long slumber

She was admiring a Picasso painting.
 I knew nothing about art so I...

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BILLY BOB:
This is ANDERSON WALKINHSHOES... 
Chorus:
Ooh...ooh....new life, new soul. 
Ooh... Ooh... Life on a good road. 
New page will be flipped after life shools me, we, they and you too.
Yeah, That's the truth.
Crazy what billie...

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Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that...

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Joe: "It's 9 a.m., here in Gotham and my partner, Mike and I, have been here since 7 a.m., and we also passed a cow coming over here!"
Mike: "That was no cow sir just a...

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FIRE! UPDATED 1998 IN 2021 BY COVERUPS PAYOFFS
GARGANO FAKED HIS OWN DEATH MEMORIAL DAY 1999
THE CAR BOMB THAT ENDED MY LIFE AT LEAST AS I'VE KNOWN IT ON THIS DAY THE SKY WAS SO BLUE...

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After witnessing a murder meant for me after surviving a car bomb igniting my skull crushed my face bruising my brain i received threatening calls from my husbands mistress I'd reported break ins strange behavior...

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REGGIE WHITE SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS AT UNIVERSITY MALL THE DAY YJAY TOWNSEND JOHNSON HENRY PLOTTED TO HAVE ME MURDERED OVER MY POETRY THE KILLERS LAY AWAITING FOR ANDREWS TAHOE TO PULL IN THEY PARKED IN FRONT...

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As I awakened to the night terrors again it's 3am. I know I'm being monitored in my own home Ciro Gargano installs cameras to watch my every movement in order to know when I write...

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Domestic violence survivor killed after reporting my abusive ex husband to the fbi he’d began extreme attacks on me mental cruelty mostly first hitting me in my back with a brick I still stayed what...

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