Long Wizened 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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Three Tribute poems--  composed by me,

For Longfellow blog….

(1.)

Glory Of Faith's Triumphant Golden Crowns



The rays of morn took their first golden breath

Dispersing powers of night's darkling mists

First gleams romancing sweet the earthen shores

Beating back dark...

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I got friggin heebie jeebies

Cuz buzzards circle o'er me
eyeing these lovely bones prithee
id est Roy L. T. Canard, Si
hence impossible mission 
to be lovey dove vee.

Vague remembrances of dream  
which recurred with frequency
transfixed by...

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Silently he sat in darkness, flinching at the sight of light.
Which created a glow reflecting on his balding head.
His cold glare did not help my nerves, 
so I simply stood there observing his silence.

His philosopher...

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 Diary Notes: Lament at Dawn A Year Ago and yet now No Change
				                     ...

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It is a fever.

  
The poet

They found the poet outside the park

His steps spoke many words of wine

His upper half seemed half asleep

And his feet walked a crooked line

His arms were spread as if...

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February came in keeping with its ancient character a month of coldness, wetness and of thawing,
With departing frost and melting snow, February could possibly be called the wet season,
Maybe it's a time for floods and...

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Woven are these pages in poetic verse,
With bare threads of our deepest feelings,
You will find laughter, tears and remorse,
and words of wisdom, prayer and healings.

What compels their pens to shed poetic ink?
What forlorn moment inspired...

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"Viral"
 


overlords for the good 
of the world 
walk and breathe
their lines 

pure as 
Snow White
war addicted
kissed while sleeping 

shadows speak 
a good talk 
viral wars rehearsed
it’s all in our system now

compromised 
inside out 
the...

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Once, a long ways away, and a long time ago
Lived a wee little man with his silly pet crow;
And once every day, as the sun went to bed
The wee little man and the crow he...

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It was the summer of my 16th year. Mother encouraged me to spend part of my summer vacation with Granddad, a self-professed stoic. I reluctantly agreed, for he was a peculiar man. I couldn’t imagine...

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I heard the dreadful Dryad's scream
As axe bit into woody flesh
The sap oozed out as scented cream
My veins stood out in rictal mesh

My wits all scrambled left me quick
My hands and face were full a-sweat
My...

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Diary Notes: Lament at Dawn
				                             …at the...

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I haint donning royal carpet treatment

No stuntman/woman showed up, 
albeit intervened in timely fashion
to thwart mishaps experienced 
courtesy me I bemoan,
and poet lore re: yet of Perkiomen Valley
Pennsylvania, United States of America
never suffered major illness...

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I’m sitting alone in this damp street
No one but me and the moonbeams
Stars are shyly showing off their dazzling charm
The wind is passionately touching the tree’s silhouette
I'm silently watching them dancing to my mute melancholy
My...

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Mine mortal flesh can finally escape...

Though mentally, physically,
and spiritually healthy... meth
hood dolled logy 
hoop fully, ideally, joyfully...
unannounced twill be mine death
without forewarning thine

grand finale allocated breath
best surprise visit me
(without reason nor rhyme)
ye grim reaper, when...

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He walks, rosary in hand, up the steps. 
His tread is broken, fragile, and the joggers 
Might hear his breath, each sharp inhalation, 
Each hissing exhalation, were it not for their 
Own breathless haste, their...

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The mirtangist may never willingly hear
may not want to hear
the multaiyam announcing his cue
nor the melodist aware of the flautist's right
to the change in the raga
the plucking of the yal strings
to the goatskin drummed bleats
and...

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for King Wen, circa 1151-1143 B.C.E. – with seven mind-bending kowtows

There where you had no occasion for play
There in your confined Ming I space
Where change wrought no change
In your fate
But for those plagued by your...

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It might be said of adolescence,
This is a stage demanding economic authority,
autonomous freedom to invest and disinvest,
without yet accepting concomitant political responsibilities,
to family
to community
to children
to grandchildren
to disenfranchised populations
to Elders' wiser investments, in their permacultural time,
to...

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Rain  diary  -part 1                          By   ...

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Modern Life
We are open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week
Except Monday mornings and Sunday nights.
What are they on about, at this place that I seek
That is supposed open 24/7 days a week.

The pub...

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Part One of Two

Mary Elizabeth Frye Dedication Poems, Seventh Poet Honored
Part One 

(1.)
Graveyard Visit, Seeing Death's Saddest Truth

Walking rows of silent tombstones that litter in my head
I see far more than just faces of buried...

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I awaken to the sound of your voice, your words, calling to me...
Calling to me...Petitioning me... like an ethereal Siren's Song
Moving towards me just as waves journey toward an empty beach...
Always and forever...moving towards that...

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Tis quite a beast of burden to bear atlas (shrug off not allowed)
Atlas shrugged an impossibility
tantamount to skinny dipping in the lock nest lagoon

Tantamount to shrugging Atlas off mine bony, 
   ill suited,...

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