Long Ancestral Poems

The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

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Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch
											
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred...

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Like Hannibal we crossed the pass and crossed 
   the Alps (okay, the Brynderwyn Hills) 
and a bridge too far on north-west passage.
   From out of the Valley of Mizpah 
to...

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The Story so far…
Makani (The Rising Wind), a beautiful extra-terrestrial researcher is sent to a remote island to observe earth. She finds Sam, a shipwrecked earthling near death owing to drowning. Sam (Ka ‘Lo -...

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Of Ghosts and Fiends in Twilight


The sun sank low on the darkening horizon
Grey mist hung adrift over the land thickening
A cold, brisk autumn wind held and embraced me 
With my horse’s pace and that of...

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Stood I there, that last day,
On an iron bridge...
An aqueduct by design,
Where, looking dreamily out over
The Ernes Lower Lough,
My compressed shadow 
Momentarily paused -
To contently recline:
Amidst coy Junes radiant beams 
of sweet benign!
All was stilled,...

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Greetings to each of you my dearly beloved brothers and sisters. Please read these seventeen blessings rendered for you in God's grace:

I. May God’s love for the new year grant you joy and inspiration overcoming...

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Prelude

After banishing my foe off to hell
The Lord took pity on my soul 
And returned it to my undead shell
Again, I was alive and whole

But the consequences of a second chance
Meant that I would have...

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Hannah, I haven't seen or heard you cry
not in the gray of winter day
or in the cold silence of our prisoner nights,
the others can hardly keep up with you on the marches
your face is changeless...

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The three enigmas of Turandot

The well of souls run deep in fabled lands of old.
Of China's ancient dynasty and the lost Great Tartary, 
a ballad of love and loss that must be told.

The Emperor's daughter,...

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Poet's Pre-Notes: A poem from my 8th week in a Stanford continuing education class offered on the internet, a study of free verse and structure. The poem writing technique is to write as unconsciously as...

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V. "The Great Collective Awakening"

Aren't we the true definitive problem,
     not just astray-
     malignant corporations…
Or unresponsive governments ?
We are faulted; consumers 
     telling...

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Dregs and tumors of decay
co-arise therapies 
for humoring healthy
wealthy life.

Those who stand on tiptoe do not stand firm;
Those who stand with equal weight,
bipedal-planted, do stand resiliently firm.

Those who strain their leftbrain stride 
do not walk...

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Herstory from Battlefields to Laboratories
-	Daniel Henry Rodgers

Beneath stardust's scattered gleam, 
Her-story, a comet’s tail, blazing across time.

Through seasons it molds
...Once hushed now bold
We rise like a chorus harmonizing 
...In this vast of an eternal fold.

For...

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How do we consume,
whether on-line or off-line,
in a doing justice way
to lives we digest
and excrete?

How do we produce
in justice doing ways
for lives invested with cooperative intent
design and long-term planning
by our ancestral Elders?
Themselves descended
from sacred creations
written...

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Exclusive Birth Rights

I am German and guilty as charged by history and evil parental culpability
privileged by life and proxy thus I refuse to forget ancestral perpetration
though I propose without any diminution that systematic genocide is...

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When will we gain the wisdom to survive
this disturbing 
degenerate
NegativEnergy
adolescent denialism
of fascist climate-bullying tendencies
toward shrieking violence
at silent displaced victims,
creating rivers of homeless 
multi-degenerating non-thriving refugees?

Where are the all growed up
nurturing regenerate adults
in our capital cities?

On...

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As Joulupukki was talking, Seileach used his own magic to probe the tree,
     “Ah, very interesting,” was his response.  “Yes, by all means lead the way.”
The three of them made...

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POEM: Welcome to Palestine. The land of the prophets and the martyrs. 


Let’s show show some respect, and bow down in humility…
Gaza may be small, but their angels are all over and as far as...

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In the heart of the forest, where the ancient trees stand tall
Lies a world untouched by time, where nature’s whispers call
Tribal people live in harmony, with the land and sky so wide
Their spirits intertwined with...

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The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue,
Will always remain in a dead language for degenerate times;
And we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line,
Conjecturing a broader...

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Dad Revisited- Once More


Last night I sat up in bed and prayed a little longer,
I asked god to send dad back for just one more  day with great fervour.

Dad was waiting for me in...

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From the beeginning


A heart beeats…
A heart beeats again…
A heart beeats…and then another.
A heart beeats…
And then another
And then another
And then another,
Until the rhythm of the hearts sounds like thunder!
Welcome to life inside the cocoon…


Eyes open. ...

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ENCHANT ME!
(A Contemporary Animist’s Prayer) 

To the shared breath of life:

Enchant me!
Whisper to me in the cadence and rhymes, 
the deeper susurrations of this tellurian realm
with its numinous places that already call out
my name!
Talk to...

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In the eases softening breeze leaves rustle in the crisp
Autumn air, as the creeping shadows begin to claim the
Hallows of the darkening night, layer by layer the blackness
Swallows whole the last remaining essence of light,...

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