Long Benignly Poems

Come, You
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the...

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Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within,...

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The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand...

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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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This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on...

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"We have an enemy within called the ego
who prevents us from using our mind intelligently.
It hides deep within our heart
and emerges with regularity
to challenge and consume our will."
     Rumi (M. Mafi,...

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Icons are funny things,
she thought.

Heaven feels like a warm light circle
when we are thriving
and more like a cold dark triangle
of weaponed tipping points
against me
and mine
competitively not communicating
when we are barely surviving
above the mortally terrifying bottom
of...

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  MAGDALENE : JEWEL OF JESUS 


She was the Chosen
a beckoned one
to ignite His speeches 
smooth it with her own
illustrious strength
‘Courage against Odds’
marked her inner Jewel 
 soft it lay cradled  
rhapsodic rubicon...

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Ah... methinks I could sleep forever

Basking in a supine position
with eyes wide shut
while the space heater churns out
fast moving molecules of heat
solitudinarian drowsy thinker fêted
by miniature fantasy 
of tropical island paradise
accompanying and populating slumber
courtesy flickering,...

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We are nearly all macro-economic capitalists
Yet micro-economic cooperativists
with those we trust

S/he said
while burning up
and out.

Yet,
a Patriarchal Capitalist
has also fully monopolized
his LeftBrain lessons
and monotheistic idolizing faith
in micro-economic,
familial
monocultural tribalist,
nation-state exceptionalist,
straight white male privileged
zero-sum competitive 
commodified consumer relationships

S/he...

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We have an enemy within called the ego
who prevents us from using our mind intelligently.
It hides deep within our heart
and emerges with regularity
to challenge and consume our will.
       ...

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Sogyal Rinpoche
tells a Doors to Perception story.

Positive and negative feeling individuals
bear witness to a river.

Those more goddess-like
see this river as great
savory
fragrant
nutritious
beautifully resonant
musically harmonic
multiculturally rich,
a transporter of karmic mediation
preferring win/win cooperative
ecofeminist
green energy conservational
and black lives matter...

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To love, agapic and/or erotic,
is a positive economic-political relational choice
to trust whomever
and whatever is our Other right now
with open caring empathy,
even when we may feel like withdrawing
into suffering,
self-isolating
depressive,
repressed concerns of mistrust and dissonance,
because we have...

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As we become Avatars of healthier climates
we absorb nutritional empowerment 
preferring more therapeutic cultures.

What is the difference between cultural awareness
and integrative communication,
successfully regenerative-potentiated communication,
healthy dynamic vitally redundant communication,
nutritiously benign reiterating viral communication,
further enculturing communication?

Perhaps LeftBrain's...

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The Golden Rule,
like Permaculture Design,
teaches we all deserve
the restorative grace we need,
whether victim or predator of innocence
as we can each empathize 
with those harmed 
and with egocentric predators;
both written across our own
therapeutic live
and pathology of...

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NOSSIS

There is nothing sweeter than love.
All other delights are secondary.
Thus, I spit out even honey.
This is what Gnossis says:
Whomever Aphrodite does not love,
Is bereft of her roses.
—Nossis translation by Michael R. Burch

Most reverend Hera, the...

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Silver lining sought amidst coronavirus COVID-19 onslaught

Two hundred and forty six plus months
into twenty first century celeb
and anonymous folks alike
gripped courtesy pestilence re: deb
buckle fishtailed, looped, roughed up...
wreaks/wrought havoc across world wide web.

As a secular...

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Once upon time's center
grows two permaculturing farmers,
multicultural mediators
of Earth's healthy polypathic remainder,

And, surrounding them,
seven elders
and their cheer leading mascot
of disabling foolery

Arriving each spring
in his wheeled chair
to witness
and sometimes loudly prophecy,
to entertain with his win/win intentions,
studying...

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Sherri Mitchell invites us all
to gather more cooperatively in our search to avoid
once again in this Fifth Extinction MultiGeneration,
the entitled
privileged
win/lose colonizing
leftbrain dominant potential patriarchal terrorist
lurking within
our climate darkening ego identity.

How do I sabotage my more...

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Breeze, storm, tempest, tornado, wind,
Typhoon, you are named, yes, whirlwind,
Yet, you have well compressed yourself;
In me, into a gasp, named breathe,
Without which I have a mere death,
Thus commanding terms on myself...

I could hear your voice...

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Fraught as an extremely socially anxious younger person...

hashtagged introvertedness trademark
silently exorcised, ostracized, and vilified
Impossible mission to resuscitate...
a forsaken promising
(even short lived) friendship
regardless of expressed gender
exhibited by other persons from yesteryear.

When trying to jump/kick start
lapsed meaningful...

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Guarana Mo!

Most of the follow
     wing (fictitious) quit
tuss cent shill, knit
head, (non adult tryst) pit
tee full (sorry excuse
     for originality), rit
dunk yule huss, feebly
   ...

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My dearest little Beautiful Butterfly!
It’s not so long,
Since the hasty hands of Time, 
Snatched you away from us, 
Abruptly, unpredictably... 
Time snatches away, 
Living as well as non-living beings;
He gives his alleged reason for his...

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Earth's green/blue healthy healing climate

Some LeftBrain emergent verbal singers
and dancers 
felt as resonant Gaian EarthMother health 
for rebirth re-connection
reweaving

Reconceived 
empowered and bilaterally enlightened
benign winds of ecofeminist
local EarthMatriotic
community domestic
democratic 
typically extra-familial fertile polycultural

Regenerative health global-systemic 
benignly...

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The woodland's sights and scents add a piquancy to the affair

By the moonlight's inky, starry gaze, so fleeting to retain

To dawn's fragile light shadows benignly filtering through

The damp, earthy undergrowth a mossy bed convenient

An ample,...

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