Best Lao Poems

We meet on the road
But once and I cannot tell you 
In the time we have:

   "We are one." 

   "What's left, what survived, what remains
   Of old dreams, old wars, old loves." 

We share atomic lives:
Small, brief, unpredictable...

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Home is where the heart is
Two eyes looking back at me 
In your presence and embrace 
The safest place I’ve ever been
The place I’d like to stay
Constant laughter
Complete vulnerability of just being, me
I think this is perfectly how it should be
We fit
And I can’t help...

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LAO TZU ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS IV

The Roots of Turbulence
by Lao Tzu, translation by Michael R. Burch

Heaviness lies at the root of lightness;
stillness begets turbulence.
Thus the nobleman heads his caravan
keeping a constant eye on his possession-laden wagons.
At night he sleeps secure behind high-walled towers,
undaunted and untroubled.
But how...

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LAO TZU ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS I

Be Like Water
by Lao Tzu, translation by Michael R. Burch

The highest virtue resembles water
because water unselfishly benefits all life,
then settles, without contention or needless strife,
in lowly cisterns.

Weep for the Dead
by Lao Tzu, translation by Michael R. Burch

When seeing mounds of the...

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LAO TZU ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS III

The Valley Spirit
by Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The valley Spirit never runs dry,
the river to whom all waters run:
the Spirit of our Primal Mother.
Deeply rooting Heaven and Earth,
to most eyes a delicate veil dimly seen,
yet a never-failing Fountainhead.

Adhere...

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As you know by now…if you read my poems from time to time
when it comes to putting my thoughts and words together…
I am partial to the rhyme.

(It’s how I start my day)

But today’s blessing does not rhyme…and I hope you think I’m right
when I say...

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LAO TZU ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS I

An unbending tree
breaks easily.
—Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nothing is weaker or gentler than water,
yet nothing can prevail against it.
—Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That the yielding overcomes the resistant is known by all men
yet utilized by...

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People feel something lacking at their core
and worry they are nobody, living meaningless lives.
Depressives dwell on this existential dread
(susceptible then to projecting it outward in paranoid fantasies 
of climate change, gender dysphoria, and political turmoil),
the less privileged just accept it
as the nature of life, the...

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("Bristlecone", 2016, original pen and ink)

Samsara

Beneath the titillation of Samsara
the veneer of morality waits.
Or is it the opposite?
Beneath the veneer of morality
the titillation of Samsara awaits.
Either way, it’s the same thing,
the whole damn mess
being one giant game of seduction.
But that sucking sound
at the heart of...

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