Long Woodlands Poems

When I was a child
Everything was magical
Full of mystery and the unknown
I read hundreds of books
The library my haven
My home
Hours upon hours
Night and day
I read and got lost in text
They supplied me with adventures
Secret journeys
Fun...

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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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Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch Sr.)

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long...

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Hark and listen well, if those foretoken in the eyes of hungers lust
Trapped in their illusion, trampling the Stars into dust
Forced with the detestation stench by the swamp of absolute disgust
Thou blackest scorpion be accursed,...

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Please take this time to steer your thoughts
To a wretched land of lochs and glens.
Where a village was tasked and the people fraught
At the woe and sadness life could send.

With the Dragons gone and the...

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A prawn masquerading as a peanut can be quite disturbing. So many times a peel is a garment used to shroud. A tentacle hidden. Here and there. Then to reappear with an often violent burst...

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An Excelente Balade of Charitie (“An Excellent Ballad of Charity”)
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17
modernization/translation by Michael R. Burch

As wroten bie the goode Prieste
Thomas Rowley 1464

In Virgynë the swelt'ring sun grew keen,
Then hot upon the meadows...

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Love me and come close to me
Love me and dine with me
Love me and dance with me
Love me and sing with me
It is such a wonderful feeling to wake up this morning
To wake up with...

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Just as honesty plants seeds of integrity
so too
vulnerability plants seeds of honesty.

My primary vocation
in this my gay grandfatherly retiring age
is to parent mindbody challenged adolescents
of diverse colors
as ecotherapeutically as possible
to optimize their and our wealth
of...

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But we of the Three Tribes live undiscovered 
   In the reverberating stillness of the 
 Three Gorges...
And are therefore unknown to the warring mongol;
    His impassioned lusts -- his...

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Pied tidings of suburbian 
Magpies,
Squawking and squabbling,
Quarreling ferociously among 
Themselves - 
Rush to steal
From off the beleaguered bird 
tables,
To the annoyance of all concerned,
A much begrudged meal;
Before scurrying away into 
Unfrequented woodlands,
Marooned like islands in...

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While we walked home from the movies, one moonlit starry night,
My friends and I talked and laughed, enjoying summer's delights.

The streets were quite silent, as trees swayed in warm breezes,
And night blooms graced the walks,...

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Night one on the new river, the campfire is spirited
and the future appears hospitable,
everyone has their rations, everybody is resting their pride
for on an expedition epic to each man and for a republic as well
souls...

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The People of the Enchanted Forest 

In times of folklore where many a tall tale told
The town folk spoke of mystic stories so bold
Of a forest, never seen by the likes of any man
Where mystical...

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Professed, nonwarranted kinfolk attest upon the secret florist
Herald stewards, forbear! Striplings, go not to entice the fawn’s forest 
Yonder snowy peaks, betwixt pearls, radiates the pinkest amethyst
Amidst, thy gently sloping curves, hymns of harmony praise...

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What once was a peaceful delightful place 
Joyful and friendly creatures in God’s grace
A stunning morning a soulful sunrise
A village heaven has gifted a prize
The most grandiose of rainbow arches
The villagers spirited because March is
The...

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A fierce wind howls as dark clouds race across the horizon,
     and beneath the hood draped over his face the man whispers;
Of a vast land with wild clear waters, of streaking...

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The ecosystem’s perfect design
A providence of the Great Divine.
A holistic balance that should not fail
If well-taken-cared of by those that dwell.

The atmosphere was just enough
To sustain the living and its habitat.
Green vegetations were all around
And...

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A fierce wind howls, and dark clouds race across the horizon,
   and beneath a hood draped over his face, a man whispers;
of a vast land with wild waters, of streaking sunrises and sunsets,
...

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A fierce wind howls, and dark clouds race across the horizon,
   and beneath a hood draped over his face, a man whispers;
of a vast land with wild waters, of streaking sunrises and sunsets,
...

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si tu t'appelles melancolie - oui
if your name is melancholy,
the scant tidbits I know of French.

perfect cold day to down
a cup of hot chocolate, java or joe
in tandem with an intelligent conversation
that easily doth flow
twould...

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A fierce wind howls as dark clouds race across the horizon,
     and beneath the hood draped over his face the man thinks;
of a vast land with wild clear waters, of streaking...

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Forth from the heaven, from the misty moorlands of all sacred woodland greens,
drop by drop by striking the pebbles and untouched vegetations oozes, 
the intoning hallowed water of evergreen woods' crystal cascades, brooks and streams.
to...

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“They took the whole Cherokee nation
Put us on this reservation
Took away our ways of life
The tomahawk and the bow and knife”
        From “Indian Reservation” by Paul Revere and...

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Jessamyn's Song (circa age 14-16)
by Michael R. Burch

16
There are meadows heathered with thoughts of you,
where the honeysuckle winds
in fragrant, tangled vines
down to the water's edge.

Through the wind-bent grass
I watch time pass
slow with the dying day
on...

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