Long Anthems Poems

State of the Art (IV)

These are my "ars poetica" poems about the art and craft of writing poetry. 



Hearthside
by Michael R. Burch

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...”  — W. ...

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Wonderland
by Michael R. Burch
 
We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test
the beatific anthems of the blessed,
the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s
sincere religion. Magnified, the lens
shot back absurd reflections of each...

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SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

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Poems about Poems VI

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood?
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Walter Mitties, woo the Muse
with reprimands of Dr. Seuss.

The...

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Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

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Healthy nutrition research
starts with wealth producing past searches,
individual through community co-investments
in good and fragrant meals,
or even harmonic and graceful music with dance performances.

Ingesting healthy passions 
consumes PositivEnergy wealth
for future co-productive system projections.

My evidence for future...

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In Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"
she paints a nationalistically wealthy saint
where also lives a monochromatically utilitarian narcissist,
sucking on attachment to fame and power
for bought and sold ZeroSum accounting Souls.

If the perfectly powerful pure patriarchal patriot
were your...

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Poems about Children III

Miracle
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

The contrails of galaxies mingle, and the dust of that first day still shines.
Before I conceived you, before your heart beat, you were mine,

and I see

infinity leap in...

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Dear Toni,

I saw you on The Daily Show
the other day
having your way
with Trevor,
or was it the other way around?
Not sure.

I'm also not sure where we first went wrong,
but I'm sorry for once having thought you...

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There once was a species
with one sacred EarthTribe Vocation
provoking polyphonic yearnings,
polypathic necessities
responsibilities
authority spaces

There once was a NewTribe health plan
divinely humane for ecodancing,
ego listening cooperative well-said choreography
to sing GoodNews wondrous anthems
of global theological geography
to worship politically...

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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...

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I have heard almost nothing about New Year Resolutions
this pandemic year;

Although personal sound waves are filled
replete with incomplete invitations
to take better health care
of personal
and social
and economic
and democratic
and public
and green climate nonviolent communication
wealth optimization

As we move...

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I cannot tolerate
those who are intolerant,

I cannot stand
those who take a stand
against unknown others
unlike themselves,
much less than we are truly 
health and safety seekers
multiculturally alike.

I can tolerate anything
except intolerance,
most certainly including impatience with myself,
not excluding...

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A Commentary on

"A Note on the [Patriarchal-Colonizing] Treatment
of Plant Names"
by Robin Wall Kimmerer, p. 385
BRAIDING SWEETGRASS:
INDIGENOUS WISDOM,
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE,
AND THE [SACRED] TEACHINGS
OF PLANTS

I too often accept
with nary a LeftBrain dominant thought
that our verbalized labels
for individual EgoPersons
are...

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I was tying up her second shoe
when the second coming came.

The first had been the night before
when the bus demons dropped her off
to say they might be back
but weren't exactly sure when,
while I tied up...

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Medicine and sickness satisfy each other.
MotherEarth is medicine.
Where do you find yourself?
     Zen Master Yunmen
     China, 800s

Therapy and trauma require each other.
Ecological Earth is nature-spirit therapy.
Where and...

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if i tell you that i love you;

will you sing for me all national anthems
of the black countries, of the white countries
will you give the defined hope of the Indian religions
if i tell you that...

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For those who agree that love is success
and hate is failure,
some admittedly unsolicited advice
from low-income and retired voter trenches:

1. Do not only run as AntiTrumpian.
Trumpianism means no more or less than
AntiPolycultural HealthyWealth
of and for Restoring...

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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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Back in Eighth Graded Class
of StraightWhiteMale English privilege
I learned all healthy narratives
must have at least one
of three tension intentions

Unlike sacred mythic prayer and fable 
multicultures invoking poetry 
flowing soulfully 
provoking gospel primal anthems

Of StraightWhite Man...

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Sonnets V-IX



Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse... warm, palpable and slow...

once...

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OK class, now listen up and down,
in and out,
said Professor Fuller Watts,
professing political philosophy 404.

We begin with a deductive
reductive
object lesson,
then spread out across inductive intuition
universal information 
and self-governing intelligence
through co-mentored gratitude.

I will speak in bipartisan...

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It is not patriotic
to desecrate a flag
or even denigrate a nationalistic anthem
celebrating a war-torn patriotic flag.

Yet is it even anti-patriotic
to refuse to bow to it,
the flag, that is,
to not stand with supremacist intentions
while singing about...

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I wake up with a great startle.

My Obama EarthTribe CoOperative WinWin GlobalVillage Dream
was merely my hibernation.
I dreamed we share richly valued properties from healthy-wealthy African Elders,
but awake, once again,
only to painfully remember
I am now merely...

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As climate pathology peaks
toward climax conditions

LeftBrain privileged blindness
and deafness,
tastelessness
replacing savoring,

Absence of green
and sea salty blue
fragrance,
bereft of internal robust feelings
and external wellbeing touch
drop unhealthily
unwealthily away
from enabling organic integrity
to know 

Empathy is to spiritual consciousness
as sympathy mirrors...

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