Long Comfortable Poems

This is the second part of Rabindranath Tagore's Narrative poem - Phanki (Deception). The first part has been already posted. 




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The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!
 
Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
-Michael R. Burch
 
The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
-Michael R. Burch
 
Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
-Michael R. Burch
 
Dry leaf...

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LOVE POEMS III by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch about passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, relationships, devotion and marriage. 


Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to...

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The angles are in the storm
Just before  the break of dawn
Sending a message to everyone
Telling them to remain calm
The angels are singing out loud
They want to break the treacherous cloud
 and relinquish that awful...

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You've heard that self-unfulfilling prophecy?
"I love humanity--
it's just people I can't stand."

I love healthy humanity--
it's just uppity and/or snooty people I can't stand

I love cooperative humanity--
it's just overly-competitive individuals I can't stand.

Not so distant from,
I...

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It was at this point 11 o'clock 
At night. Damian Left Molly and 
Checked on the seven. Everybody 
Was fine. He returned to 
Business. Molly was no longer 
Afraid she knew she was in the...

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Date:   April   2026

The 1st degree is unknown 

Damian and Polly had planned
The trip to the Copy Cat Club
For weeks with Dolly and Molly
The club was popping when
They hit the scene.
The DJ...

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I have an outside RightBrain dominant thalamus
to watch and listen to,
to feel confluent and resonant with,
to love,
as parent with child,
yet this is more of a mutual-mentoring of
notsad-notsad sustainable bliss
within our normally limited nutritional sensory environment.

My...

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The title of this talk today,
"Win-Win Politics of New Feminist Economics"
suggests questions,
more than emasculating 
definitively deductive
reductive
answers.

Would you imagine
a minority-identified Buddhist,
more likely as a feminist?
or culturally comfortable
with political and economic Left-brain domination,
monotheistic competing for all-consuming
ritualistic servicing?

How...

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A few years back,
in the prior millennium,
1993 to be more precise
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
born without a stage name
had his book entitled "The Evolving Self" published,
by which he meant The ReGeneratively Nutritious Flowing Self,
but he was probably shy...

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Veronica Franco translations

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose.

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I) 
by Veronica Franco
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - IV - Primo Levi

Shema
by Primo Levi
translation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable houses, 
who return each evening to find
warm food, 
welcoming faces...

consider whether this...

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What went wrong with women and why women worry.
Some women worry for it’s in their nature. They grew up watching grandma worry and momma worry. They lack confidence. They too often need reassurance. Their insecurity...

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TO:  Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner, Chief States Attorney

FROM: Dillen Dye’s Employer

8/16/16

RE: Some apparent non-compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act; common courtesy, civil respect; freely accessible pursuit of health, happiness, and prosperity

I don’t...

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~The Book~
 ( Narrative / Short Story)


 Shhh...Be quiet! please...or you'll wake up everyone...

 Did you see what that young man did all this evening at the table while taking some of his notes?
 Yes,...

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Additional free advice to those* who would be King from the THIRUK-KURAL with Commentary
[*like presidents, prime ministers, dictators of declining (falling or fallen) nations or even empires]

K442: urranOy niikki uraa amai munkaakkum
   ...

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I wanted to write
 The best slavery poem   ever written—
Perhaps win a Pulitzer or Faulkner. 

I had every intention of conforming 
To the standards 
Of modern verse and composition, 
Lyrics fluidly written, 
Perfect...

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"Cocoon"

They say...
a New World 
traces over the old,
leaving the unaware,
erased, far behind 

the old unaware, 
left far behind,
crawls the walls
in its web of lies
spinning suspect 
strings of silk 
in the air

glistening diamond nets
slick and sticky...

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When I was a child in Los Angeles, you could size up groups approaching by watching their movements.

I remember this gang of older kids approaching me, watching them carefully while looking down to see if...

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The cold air seemed to help clear his head but the lullaby was persistent and 
he could not get it out of his mind.  He walked for just a few moments
before passing the the...

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Here I stand outside this door heart beating out of my chest, knowing that once I cross this threshold there will be nothing of me left
I got myself into this predicament I wanted this so...

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ON MY MOTHER’S PASSING

i wanted to keep my mother physically with me
but it would be like trying to hold the sun
like in life she still shines brighter than any star
is as gentle as the finest...

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======================================== 
** ORIGINAL MESSAGE ******************** 
======================================== 
Lora Colon – Poemhunter.com

Okay, Long Tooth. You have some explaining to do. Really. I'm not sure what you are trying to say in this poem.

I 'sort of' get the...

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Nowhere Man

Star dust, the stuff of a fool’s dreams.
Oh !!!, to travel upon star dust streams
- that glorious, never ending journey -
into the realms, the space of many.

This old spirit, seems, not to fit into...

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"The Depths"

From the depths
silence.

Where 
are the voices
of other 
women?

In that other place,
the monsters violate, 
they take and take
bloody all, what they want

the dreams of women
are torched, murdered, 
next to them, 
the sweet dreams of lives...

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