#banned
a harmful charm
an armed risk to the head
a villainous thing . . . a book
i puruse the shelves of Alexandria
i wanna read something mad loose and youth
willing and ego and naturally skilled
something that hasn't been
untaught to behave
i'm in need of a black market guide
and a really tall ladder
i have a desperate need
to trigger a brain reaction
Jul 29, 2025
Jul 29, 2025 at 4:57 PM UTC
Cant ban me
Page wont load
All my views gone
You must be democrat
Cant even view my art
Silent voices
So important
Posts blocked
Posts regulated
Typical from dumb
I cant even move locations
What did i do to you
I been faithful
Thanks for your time
But like
Where the boss at
Fix my ****
Im a viral poet
Sep 13, 2024
Sep 13, 2024 at 4:39 PM UTC
I often think of you, the one that got away.
The nights staying up until 4am
I regret nothing.
I wish you would let me stay
I thought to you my humor would mean something
But alas.
It is you after all, Mark zuckerburg.
Apr 10, 2020
Apr 10, 2020 at 6:25 AM UTC
Die Bücherverbrennung ("The Burning of the Books")
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.
Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he’d been excluded!
He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power —
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven’t I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!
German text:
Die Bücherverbrennung
Als das Regime befahl, Bücher mit schädlichem Wissen
Öffentlich zu verbrennen, und allenthalben
Ochsen gezwungen wurden, Karren mit Büchern
Zu den Scheiterhaufen zu ziehen, entdeckte
Ein verjagter Dichter, einer der besten, die Liste der
Verbrannten studierend, entsetzt, daß seine
Bücher vergessen waren. Er eilte zum Schreibtisch
Zornbeflügelt, und schrieb einen Brief an die Machthaber.
Verbrennt mich! schrieb er mit fliegender Feder, verbrennt mich!
Tut mir das nicht an! Laßt mich nicht übrig! Habe ich nicht
Immer die Wahrheit berichtet in meinen Büchern? Und jetzt
Werd ich von euch wie ein Lügner behandelt! Ich befehle euch:
Verbrennt mich!
Published by Poetry Super Highway, The Hindu, The Tory, Chicago Sun-Times (excerpt), Poemist, Poetry on Demand and Convivium
Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, German, translation, burning, books, banned, harmful, unlawful, **** regime, fires, bonfires, oxen, carts, cartloads, Adolph ****** writer, writers, excommunicated, exiled, burn, truth, pen, blazing, fiery, liar
Bertolt Brecht Epigrams and Quotations
These are my modern English translations of epigrams and quotations by Bertolt Brecht.
Everyone chases the way happiness feels,
unaware how it nips at their heels.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The world of learning takes a crazy turn
when teachers are taught to discern!
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Unhappy, the land that lacks heroes.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Hungry man, reach for the book:
it's a hook,
a harpoon.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
War is like love; true ...
it finds a way through.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
What happens to the hole
when the cheese is no longer whole?
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
It is easier to rob by setting up a bank
than by threatening the poor clerk.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Do not fear death so much, or strife,
but rather fear the inadequate life.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, translation, translations, German, modern English, epigram, epigrams, quote, quotes, quotations
Mar 9, 2020
Mar 9, 2020 at 10:43 PM UTC
Why
Why
why
why
I left because of all that happened
but I was banned anyways
for "dehumanizing" you
I said nothing
i was silent
I'm sorry for what ever i did
I'm sorry that I broke your heart
and I made you feel like
less of a person
I just want to know why
banning me was valid.
why would you manipulate the mods like that?
what the ****
Dec 21, 2015
Dec 21, 2015 at 4:25 AM UTC
The libraries and bookstores of the world
Are stocked with pleasantries:
Prim, proper, peach juice-oozing volumes
That made the grade.
These books are all well and good,
And are not unworthy of examination,
Simply because they were deemed so
By a jury of your peers.
Make note, however,
Of the myopia inherent
In limiting yourself
To the savoury.
Observe:
Past the shelves of
Well-lit,
Worn-covered
Thoroughly thumbed delicacies,
There is more to be seen.
Do not hesitate to approach the shelves
Wreathed in thorns and security tape
And kept under dim bulbs.
The books that lurk there
Are sealed tight
And wear jackets plastered in sludge:
Sludge laid thick by heavy-handed brushstrokes.
Prying open the padlock
Will sometimes reveal
Further grime coagulated upon the pages.
Further prying, however,
Will split open tomes
Scrawled with fractures of light,
Lending to the eye
An illumination unique
To such tarred works.
Do not fear these banned books,
These veiled wonders,
For they contain pure, unscreened scrawlings
Soulfully wrought upon simple scraps of paper.
It is within these that truth can be found.
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015 at 7:58 AM UTC
I hereby declare
That you shall not have a fare
Towards this land of beauty and fair
For you have put me in despair
Never have I been so clear
To put you out of here
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 1:18 PM UTC
If you take away our literature, you take away our sight.
We become the blinded king of nowhere.
When we look out on the world beyond the valley of ashes,
we will conceal our eyes and
forget that you don’t need a pair of glass slippers to be Cinderella.
We will forget that we need need to be home by midnight,
because after midnight it’s so dark
that you might go out hunting and mistake a mockingbird for a crow,
or a crow for a raven.
When we try to use our words, words, words, they will cut out our tongues
and force us to play a game that leaves us more hungry than satisfied.
This is because instead of pure knowledge, we are being spoon fed a corrupted education,
and we will no longer eat alphabet soup without our big brother standing over our shoulder preaching to us about the glorious future that will be 1984,
and we will all be forced to live in that cowardly, old world.
And there they will lead us like lambs to the slaughter.
Where if they see the spark of curiosity
they will try to wash it out like the ****** spot they see it to be.
We will forget why the caged bird sings
and why the baby’s gravestone only said Beloved.
They will paint an A on our chest which will stand for absent,
as in absent from the conversation because
we are not able to comprehend what they are saying.
We will not find joy in the poetry written on baseball glove
because we will not know how to read it,
and we will never be the catcher
because we will all be separate and and still not live in peace.
When we come to a fork in the road
we will take the path that everyone else has traveled on,
because we have not learned to stand on our own two feet.
Which means that we will never be able to find Alaska or
where the fault is in our stars.
We will not hear the stories of what happened to the handmaid,
and they will tell us if we are brave, kind, honest, intelligent, or selfless,
because you can only be one.
Our whole lives we will never have pride, but we will accept their prejudice.
We will hear the heartbeat in the floor boards and blame it on the wind.
When we find ourselves stranded we will reach for the conch and fight over it,
because we will all be stuck between a rock and a hard place,
and when the sirens of our society call to us with lies about what our future will be,
we will jump from the boat and swim towards our deaths.
because life without books is just as good as no life at all.
We will lay dying in coffins that our children build for us
as unspoken poets with our heads in the oven.
We will be condemned to make the past our future
and we will watch as they test what they can burn at 451 degrees.
And finally when we all sit down and accept the bibliocaust they have stoked,
we will forget the things our dear friends
Ellie and Anne warned us about what can happen in an annex or in the night.
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 10:49 PM UTC