Long Virginity Poems

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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Native American Translations

Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own...

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GILGAMESH . . .  

Story has it you used your power to run amuck
Putting fear into the people, and brides in Unuk

So the people of Unuk pray to the sky God Anu
To sort out...

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Part 1: FORE SIBERIAN FATE

silk wings wet -
angel on the lake.
starlight glitter
separates from

the golden wheat.
her docile hair,
prophecy of ice.

winter pink,
pinched cheeks.
ice skate scrapes -
flecks of flakes.

the snow queen
before her relentless
reign, a pretty thing.

her smile warms
the...

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Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch

Each night beneath the elms, we never knew
which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance,
then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up
like searchlights seeking contact in the distance . . .

Quiescent unions...

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Identity Apples

iam a fat skeleton, resurrecting 
from the sad memories of dada 
and dark mysteries of aminism 
iam buganda 
i bleed hope 
i drip the honey of fortune 
makerere, think tank of africa 
i dance...

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I stumbled over Paul Tillich's translation
of the MessiahMentor's Other Great Commission.

The Great Commission we learned in Sunday School
was to go out and convert the barbarians
and savages to Christianity.

Yet this Other Great Commission feels like a...

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Word Fantasy in F Sharp Minor  (3 Movements)

1

(Andante con moto)

Hey man. Take this.

I got it last night,
under a fractured street light,
with shattered pieces of clear glass, scattered
at the nexus of an obscure dark freeway...

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I don't want to start with those cliché things but please believe me when I say I don't know what love is, I'm just trying to get my own opinion through. Credit Love. Funny enough...

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The fruit juice drips momentarily beneath the alter filling the crevices and corner, while the sound of impatient traffic rolls down the street honking horns and disrupting the peace. A strange sound starts rumbling in...

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Sand in my lungs and in every nook and cranny possible, nothing out here not even a simple bush or tree. Everything is dead and dry as a bone. My own skin holds no life,...

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I have been writing this verse since last night
But my heart was so heavy, my tongue cleaved  
To the roof of my mouth and it felt as though 
Something has fallen through the roof
I...

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Do I want to only look at new ones,
never been used,
or is that a too restrictive market,
too competitively priced
for virginity of place and relationship on Earth?
And, is such redemptively-intended virginity
an asset or a deficit,
in which...

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Dad is that you?    What are you doing there in the mirror?

I am trying to shave and I don’t need any help.

Do they shave in heaven or is it just cribbage and...

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silent issues

humanity
and the hypocrisy
of soft tissues

openly
running out of paper rolls
secretly
disgrace on humanity's cheeks silently rolls

there's a monument
on earth
to the unknown soldier

there's a monument
in the firmaments
to the unknown child 

a well known secret

a hood by night...

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When I was 16 I lost my best friend
I started to grind, smoking weed and drinking Hennessee 'n' Gin
Then my clientele blew up
I'm 16 making bands feelin' like I grew up
Poppin' pills and chewin' em'...

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When I was 16 I lost my best friend
I started to grind, smoking weed and drinking Hennessee 'n' Gin
Then my clientele blew up
I'm 16 making bands feelin' like I grew up
Poppin' pills and chewin' em'...

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Vanity and insanity 
Is who I was and am - victory is contagious but has its pros and cons...its negative and positive effects in the long run - sometimes, you don't win 1st place, but...

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I lay bare on the burden of time, scraping away the residue that is stuck on my mind, the fear of yesterday had gone away and I am on my way to start a brand...

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His mind has all the meaning of a madman that is screaming
Tortured and tormented, a life lived to be lamented
Drained and defeated, his family finally retreated 
Leaving him believing that he was beyond redeeming 
The...

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Wonderworks
by Michael R. Burch

History’s
mysteries
abound
& astound,
found
(profound)
the whole earth ’round,
even if mostly
underground.


The Procrastinator’s Creed
by Michael R. Burch

It’s always, “Tomorrow, I’ll do it.”
Work? I eschew it.
I never collect money I’ve loaned
and the rest of this poem’s been postponed.


WHEN...

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Limericks VIII plus one Lead-In Poem



Updated Advice to Amorous Bachelors
by Michael R. Burch

At six-thirty,
feeling flirty,
I put on the hurdy-gurdy ...

But Ms. Purdy,
all alert-y,
kicked me where I’m sore and hurty.

The moral of my story?
To avoid a...

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Early Poems XIV

Am I
by Michael R. Burch

Am I inconsequential;
do I matter not at all?
Am I just a snowflake,
to sparkle, then to fall?

Am I only chaff?
Of what use am I?
Am I just a feeble flame,
to flicker,...

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Milton was a person you couldn't help but like.
Almost every  time I wrote a Triolet
He'd stop by and visit and once said,
 "You know how I love the triolets!"
A gentle soul,  shared gentle...

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Blessed me as a Girl, why god?why me?
Its me or my weak soul?
Somebody can be so cruel, I didn't understand the semantics of life?
I couldn't resist strength to collide with them.
Was Woefully screaming but nobody...

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