Long Afternoons Poems

Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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I was driving to Utah, because I had gotten a promotion;
And chose the scenic route, so as to put things in motion.

I had been traveling from Los Angeles, to Salt Lake City;
And the scenery along...

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#1
"It is a sin to kill a Mockingbird.
While playing games with rocks or guns, defray,
them, please, ...shoot old tin cans.  Each whispered song 
from Mockingbirds, can heal the wounds  of the day"

Virtues are...

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By watching lots of foreign films I’ve seen a lot of places 
I’ve never been…and don’t expect to ever make it to…
But I’d have only made the time, and spent the cost, to see them...

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I grew up and out on a four family-owned,
and cooperatively-organized,
extended matriarchal farm.

Four interdependent 1940s through 1970s patriarchally managed businesses,
without substantial questions about who should wear pants,
yet with a surprising matriarchal cooperative understory.

The boxers outnumbered the...

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We’re (Lisa and I) back in Athens Georgia (hometown USA), where it’s the halcyon days of summer. The south used to be the home of summer heat - not anymore. Now everyone has their little...

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PRINCESS DIANA POEMS

Fairest Diana: an Epitaph for Princess Diana
by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger?so solemn, so lovely?
an orchid ablaze in a crevice...

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“We may think of freedom, not as the right thing to do, but as the opportunity to do what is right.”              ...

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My momma was big on naps when I was a girl.
Until I was eight years old, she sent me to my room on summer afternoons.
It was probably because of the heat in the south,
The way...

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Perpetual Quandries of Dischord

Permanent irreversible Attatchment disorder
A lemonade stand at the Mexican Border
A traumatised disorganised old lady hoarder
The incriminating evidence on an old tape recorder 

Elements of discontent shivering through a crowd 
Firmaments of promises...

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I want more solstice evening silhouettes.
And nights of rhapsody filled with rental stars.
To explore blurred mornings when the sun rises.
With transitions dripping through the trees.

I want to know how the seasons change.
Who makes time a...

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Yes it's true that I have by-gone friends that I once knew.
                       ...

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I currently conjoin with AllSouls,
a sacred green communion of saints
and sometimes sinners.

A few live together,
couples,
extending families
reaching multiculturally out
through AllSoul roots
regenerating pasts,
transforming future generations
now repressed by fear of global climate pathology
as thick and toxic
as lose/lose ecopolitical...

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The People's Coop
is a warm inviting place,
for some
a reading and meditation
and arts practice and performance space,
for others
a place to ride sleek bicycles
with self-and-other improvement book racks
while peddling energy into the cooperative Grid,
sheltered by solar panel...

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What are fair and effective nudges
for too much freedom of wounding weaponed speech?

Maybe equal freedom to listen nutritionally
and not speak toxically?

What's a fair response
to competitive over-investment in fear-mongering--
Threats to hold your breath 'til everyone sees...

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What do I see when I drive through my old neighborhood?

Not the familiar cookie cutter houses or the elementary school I attended with my friends. Instead…

I see my ten-year-old self clad in saddle oxford shoes...

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Let Dust Blur The Pages
 
By Phan Tan Hai
     
Let's close the pages, where the dreams still linger
let pen and ink flow the lines of poetry on their own
words written down...

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I saw Pop sitting just outside the veranda, slumped over in his wheelchair, his limp left arm tied to the chair’s railing.  He looked up and waved with his good hand.  “Sara!” he...

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What have we become?
         We who used to sit in my bedroom
         listening to Beatles records on headphones.
We spoke...

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I find my entertainments close to home
as nothing could be more wildly hilarious
and downright curious
than my own complex teenagers
who sometimes speak
and do their math
about what adds up toward our shared
and independent 
futures.

Then there are cacophonous...

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I was born in everlasting springtime, as happenstance often does to others,
Like natural green halls wherein joy sings, to its wilder sisters and brothers.

I was situated in mellowed sunshine, like a colorful ship on the...

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in loving memory of my nephew, Eric
Jones, who is now flying with the
angels


I was a professional kite flyer, and had won big contests and tournaments,
As the one who has glimpsed a dream, and hasn't ever...

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driving to work is a regular part of the day for her,
but the specialised hospital is too far -
twenty-five days, exactly at nine!
the best option is the subway ..why not?
instead of watching those busy roads,
immersing...

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CHILDREN OF THE SUMMER GARDEN

In the lazy days of summer
 When heat streams up in afternoons
Come into the season’s garden –
 Nature’s outdoor living room.

Early riser, blue Morning Glory vine
 Opens at dawn and sometimes...

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*** SINGING MEMORIES ***

“Many days you have lingered around my cabin door.
Hard times, come again no more.” **

A memory came flying through to me this afternoon
— a fine memory, not recently seen,
Up from long ago,...

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