Long Xvii Poems

Epigrams by Michael R. Burch



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch
 
Show me your most intimate items of apparel:
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Negotiables
by Michael R. Burch

Love should be more than the sum of its...

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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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Sonnet LXXXI-LXXXIX

Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew...

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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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Sonnets XVII-XXIV

Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten...

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“Here the fierce with the thin pointed tail,
Who passes mountains and breaks arms and walls!
Here who with stench can the world assail!”

So my duke started to talk with his calls;
And hinted then it to get...

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“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
–“He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” by W.B. Yeats 

“I love you...

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On the need to avoid being envious: Canto XVII, K161, K162 of the THIRUK-KURAL, Translation with Commentary

[ ENVY, of course, knows no racial nor ethnic boundaries, but I wouldn't be wrong, I dare say, ...

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Greetings to each of you my dearly beloved brothers and sisters. Please read these seventeen blessings rendered for you in God's grace:

I. May God’s love for the new year grant you joy and inspiration overcoming...

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K169 and K170 of CANTO XVII of the THIRUK-KURAL with Translations and Commentary

[If one could put together all that has been said, written and published on the Thiruk-Kural and on its progenitor Thiru-Valluvar, it could...

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                      I
 Remember when days were long
   and all de children do...

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Tetelestai—“It is finished”—may be the most significant word ever uttered across the stratosphere. The single most important statement in all of human history. Spoken by the innocent and dying only begotten Son of God. Tetelestai...

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165 and K166 of CANTO XVII of the THIRUK-KURAL with Translations and Commentary (continued)

(Commentary: The more I delve into Thiru-Valluvar's work, the more I'm convinced that it's not in each and every couplet that the...

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Early Poems XVII

Morning
by Michael R. Burch

It was morning
and the bright dew drenched the grasses
like tears the trembling lashes of my lover;
another day had come.

And everywhere the flowers
were turning to the sun,
just as the night before
I...

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K167 and K168 of CANTO XVII of the THIRUK-KURAL with Translations and Commentary

[Here, again, in these two couplets Thiru-Valluvar is having the time of his life making his followers dread the consequences of what he...

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Before we look at iambic meter you must understand syllables, how they are used to break down words into separate sounds, an example, 'un/der/stand; a  three syllable word. The latter, (word), is a single...

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XVI: Who was wrong...

Who was wrong I cannot say
But often keep pondering day after day
Thoughts to which attention I shouldn't pay
But the heart simply won't be at bay

Wonder who was right, both if at all
But...

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What's true these days? This world we live in has so much lies we can't even 
tell the truth anymore. Real eyes, realise, real lies. If only people could see with 
the eyes they were...

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A mountain madness, Colorado Springs'
Pike's Peak, some twenty miles to summit's top,
with roads like winding snakes that coil like rings
and at the open edge, steep cliffs of rock.

This mountain madness soon directs and reigns
along its...

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Unquotable quotes – XVII

The more the spread of the Multi-Verse(s), the less the possibility of purpose in our lives on earth.
In a world chock-full of people where almost everybody wants to be heard, be seen...

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The Donald supporters were pissed
But Dorian Gray they have kissed!
Measured in fathoms
Their brains’ empty chasms
All hail the chief narcissist


Author's Note: Sunshine Smile's recent post, "Showtime," inspired me to write this. Her poem really speaks to...

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No spot, no matter how ugly can be transformed,
into a place of beauty and delightful with flowers;
in spring I feel a rising sense of excitement,
oh, soon the winter damage will be full of color.

Primrose with...

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K163 and K164 of CANTO XVII of the THIRUK-KURAL with Translation (continued)

K163: aran aakkam veendaathaan enbaan 
            piranaakkam peenaathu alukkarup paan

Nor wealth nor virtue...

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Porcelain shroud slowly falls;
hapless Mother trapped inside.
For the next twelve weeks at least,
her time she’ll be forced to bide.

Returning from his exile,
Uncle Jack’s come out to play.
Across our world, it’s been said:
free to have his...

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IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY : XVII - XVIII

                         ...

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