Long Endings Poems

"The Strange Case of F.T."



They say the dead don’t talk
the stories I have calculated
to deliver a saving grace 
confessional shared amongst 
my equal peers, or so I deem 
you somewhat sometimes seem,
less than me, you...

Read More

Pain settles in quite instantly your senses 
are totally unprepared for this graveness
the notion to sleep sets in like an energetic 
twilight phase the injury abruptly strangles 
thought my ears are always ringing with this...

Read More

Dear Novice Poet,
Welcome to the wide open wonderful world of poetry!  Today more than ever before, a poem can easily be whatever you want it to be.  The rules are simple.  There...

Read More

"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...

Read More

New Year Poetry

Auld Lange Syne
by Robert Burns
translation by Michael R. Burch 

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And days for which we pine?

For times we shared, my darling,
Days passed,...

Read More

Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable...

Read More

I don't know what came over me that day - an instant of weakness after years of resistance, I suppose.

My beaming spouse leads me, a dog on a short leash, into the forbidden citadel, the...

Read More

By definition, Mr. Contradiction asserts the contrary or deny the truth of something. He admittedly is hypocritical and controversial, and most often, he refuses to surrender. He fights until only death or doom defeats him....

Read More

Beginnings – Endings

Out of the darkest reaches of time and space
came molten minerals, gasses, rocks, comets
– life traversing aeons, in suspended animation
across millions of light years, billions of desolate miles
creating unseen universe after universe,
creating unseen...

Read More

For the past thirty seven years, living for me was knowing that I do not know
I have been yearning for what I do not have a name for
The knowledge of the presence of this nameless,...

Read More

She dresses the land down
in a virginal bridal gown 
a masterfully cut and sewn chenille 
shines brightly with a fine crystal appeal

Her assistants work quite diligently
to add special touches and then flee
they decorated the mountain peaks 
using all their...

Read More

This story remains unfinished
as do all the best tales told.
Yet I must warn you
it has a happy healthy ending,
not dystopian,
although not a finished
political wealth utopia, 
Ever After LoveLife;
warm accompaniment
trusted energy of democracy

Where this power story...

Read More

In Regenerative Design,
dialectical cooperative contrasts
need not also mean
suspiciously diabolical 
competitive win/lose opposition
to our own internal RightWing
self-righteously
kinda venomously professional
commodified LeftBrain dominant encultured
prejudiced inside privileged
ego-supremacist voices.

In Regenerative Communication,
sometimes questions
are expressed as peace-intended
hypothetical Truth Statements,
awaiting sacred polycultural transubstantiation
through...

Read More

Mahmoud Darwish English Translations of Arabic Poems



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's...

Read More

The year that is about to make its last appearance 
before it dies and is buried to be only given a place 
in the history of our existence has brought  ?e joy, 
l° shall...

Read More

• rainfall - the blue summer sky making up her mind/you riding your bike from your university to your dorm/wind in your hair, you smile as it plants kisses on your cheek/there has been always...

Read More

RED SEA

At the mouth I lay splayed
blood trickling, slowly dripping into soft mud or red Akashic ink
             mud of my anus, ink of...

Read More

Throughout 2016 I have been reading Rob Brezsny's Pronoia
Is The Antidote For Paranoia
now ending before I reach 2017.

This postmillennial bible of multiculturalism
ends with several questions or statements
with space to write in my responses.

I am about...

Read More

Once upon a ZeroTime
we suffered great terror and loss.

People,
animals,
and plants
refused to speak kindly with each other
because of a Big Bad Wolf
named Ms. Climatic Change 
by her delightfully demented transparents.

Most all credible scientists in that day
were...

Read More

1.Remembrance

Remembrance of guilt from pages turned brown,
Opened and read inside rooms of my mind.
Written through time with tears sliding down.
I will claim each dung lit cavern I find.
My yesterdays speak of a poignant time.
Holding the...

Read More

Wouldn't it seem to persist an unspoken personal longing for perfection?
Is insinuated toward poetic supremacy; obviously . . .
I would feel confident in generalizing the presence within us all—to achieve god-like greatness.
I must say, that...

Read More

The Ending at Wounded Knee

This is what happened:
Two worlds collided,
And the elder one died.

Pony soldiers and Indian police,
Triggerhappy and jumping at shadows,
Killed Sitting Bull at Pine Ridge;
     His horse pawed the...

Read More

I shan't try and be witty an engage in the norm 
peeking through such pain my eyes see dim 
as crushing temporal lesion push against 
soft tissue endings pounding my optic nerves 
from my forehead...

Read More

Afternoon musing, not quite content,
Wondering where the time all went -
The time not really given, only lent.

The first day of fourth grade,
In the next desk a new girl stayed,
With honey colored hair all in a...

Read More

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared...

Read More