Long Visages Poems

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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Stars fall under failing skies...stars fall...stars fall...
And sadly...i start to drive.
Through the unremarkable village with its tall 
Georgian Bay window panes, lightless,
devoid of visages; outwardly staring back at my 
Abject countenance with detached contempt and...

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This is the 1st half of a 2-part piece a tad too long for a single posting - a tale likely very close to factual - 


An ivory-tinted fluffy billow drifted through the sunrise -...

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There was poetry,
In the open fields,
On the slanted blueberries,
On the skirts of schoolgirls,

There was poetry,
In the sunny cupboards,
In the quiet gardens,
In the sweet air of spring,

There was some poetry
In the caressing hands,
In the chalk of...

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A colourful array of falsehoods
Intricately designed disguises 
Fools, fortunes, phantoms
Masks clinging on their faces
 Lives hidden away by an illusory veils
Veils that cannot be removed
Cannot be seen
Secrets tucked away in their eyes
Each a pair of...

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Le vieil identique problème – Translation of Kevin Gilbert’s « Same Old Problem » by T. Wignesan

(For Kevin Gilbert – cf. the introduction to Inside Black Australia (1988) – as quite obviously for Oodgeroo, too...

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The unrealistic acts we put on to manipulate one another, living and sleeping with active minds. The act of evil smelling over the surrounding, guilt brightly sparkling on our visages without pardon we step on...

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 Continued from Part 1 

The forgery of Multitudes between the Silhouettes
(and discarded cigarettes,
neath the haunted parapets)
mock my lonely echoed steps
         – mock my lonely echoed steps...

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TRUE ...

You know not those dark
Places, mine, the dull, black
Chasms that hold a mind
When it's bare - stark and

Keen and cold ... when it's
Left with itself for time
Unquenchable, out of the
Streams of consciousness

And normality, scraped...

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Khatia Buniatishvili's Tour de Force of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto N° 1 in B-flat minor on Zubin Mehta's 80th Birthday*

… the caged-beast terrified defying the donderbus blasts vollies of muskets and cannons heralding the charge cavernous...

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Quiet thunder
Sovereign prince crowned head
First Father Righteousness lead
Nazareth a place in Israel
Blessed named NaZaire
Name NaZaire from Latin Nazareus derived from
Run NaZaire Run
 
The Earth is your ball


Calm man, stille 'calm, silent, still
Populace wonders, Quiet thunder
Can’t...

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So many faces moved through the desks in my classroom
                   sitting uncomfortably at first
   ...

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Born-again Christians speak favor (or "favour") often. Today I experienced it in chess. CHESS is rational & mentally demanding, luck being absent."Good Luck & Bad Luck" are bandied about & have wide appeal. As I...

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Born-again Christians speak about favor (or "favour") often. Today I experienced it in chess. CHESS is rational & mentally demanding, & luck is absent. "Good Luck & Bad Luck" are bandied about & have wide...

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History contends that on that score
hing hot summer at 6:00 pm June sixteenth 
in the year 666 after the Devonian era, 
two lovers - a Mister Belmont Me 

and Missy Bryn Mawr Hu felt the...

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I am a Victim, 
Lured by mascara, and by a pretext piety 
Induced through lust by immoral vermin 

I am a Victim 
Blindfold through cunnings to fest on a plowed field, 
“Whore scammed”, trapped in...

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"What a Lark"


I used to be inspired once
like a lark beating it’s wings 
higher and ever higher into a
golden and blue eggshell sky.
Hailstones hit me 
during ascension 
and I’ve fallen
into steep decline,
lying on a pavement...

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Forgotten field of forever
I knew you once . . .
in daffodil days
when I wandered in wisteria ways.
Sprightly I skipped and rarely tripped.
Hope really did spring eternal then
in the spring of my strawberry youth.

Dahlia daydreams drifted...

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Most Beautiful Christmas Poem
	Christmas Rose	

The Christmas Rose bursts into bloom
As echoes of midnight’s final chimes resound –
Precious Bloom of Perfect Prophecy inhales a first breath 
Of winnowing starlight foretold
The Prince of Heaven steps into our...

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I don't want to wander those places where our footsteps have long since passed,
Down shaded alleys where our memories whisper and stand guard like stone sentries,
I no longer wish to hear those songs, symphonies of...

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Dressing the ancient stars amid their anthem weddings attire....

The universe anxiously anticipating these adorned galaxies of, anew ~

Bookplate bridesmaids, with such glittering eyes and broadening smiles

Quickly making their jubilant ways down, the amendable aisles

With a...

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The morning sun hovers coyly
behind broad shoulders of the John Crow Mountain
before unwrapping petals of fever plant and Venice.
Mama’s countenance was far contrast to one so radiant, 
so when the old Leyland bus went shuddering...

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Earth's golden orb rises o're the new eastern sky,
Where red sandhills and goslings blithely fly.
The secret mist of the morning bids its final adieu,
As a young day spontaneously, begins anew.

A spectacular derby in technicolor array,
Creation...

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Dressing the ancient stars amid their anthem weddings attire....

The universe anxiously anticipating these adorned galaxies of, anew ~

Bookplate bridesmaids, with such glittering eyes and broadening smiles

Quickly making their jubilant ways down, the amendable aisles

With a...

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Beautiful eyes, why are they looking at you?
to see your beauty before love's living truth,
in a liquid pool of smile the reflection drew
Your glancing eyes, more sensory worth

Evidence tapping on the windows of the soul
Vision...

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