Long Branch Poems

Zen Death Haiku

Brittle cicada shell,
little did I know
you were my life!
—Shuho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Returning
as it came,
this naked worm.
—Shidoken, translation by Michael R. Burch

As dew glistens
on a lotus leaf,
so too I soon must vanish.
—Shinsui,...

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Epigrams by Michael R. Burch



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch
 
Show me your most intimate items of apparel:
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Negotiables
by Michael R. Burch

Love should be more than the sum of its...

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Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the bloody wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;

but when at last...
I soar the...

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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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Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
—Yamaguchi Seishi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow...

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Cosmology + Ontology = Cosmontology 

NEW Cosmontological Principle: Be SO SO humble! 

>>> SEE NOTE BELOW 

A Sufi Dream-Poem--Our purposefully "proto-conscious" UNI-ballish recycling?

By: Moji Agha
Started on Oct. 26, 2020

You know?
Being a microtubular cosmontologically proto-conscious
goofy sufi...

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When oppositional cognitive dissonance 
deflects focus from compassion,
I've learned to go back to when I deflected focus from her.
She sends me passive-aggressive messages,
bread crumbs leading back in time 
to where she began to feel alone,
marginalized,
siloed,
anxious,
neglected.

If...

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"The Sleeper and The Supernaturalist"


The Sleeper
shone as she walked 
through the Woods

shining alive 
like nothing
natural could

caught 
in the moonlight 
unaware

the innocent
red-caped roses stared
the trees whispered,

"beware, beware"

barefoot softly 
the Supernaturalist 
transfigures instead

from under shine 
she bares...

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Poems about Things that Break I
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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Poems about Things that Break III
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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I'm working on this Systems Theory

All existing formal religious traditions
and informal spiritual experience 
of Great Sacred EcoLogical Transitions
[e.g. Holocene to 
Green AnthroScene;
HolySpirit to
Whole Holonic Natural Communion Systems]

Originally,
through our divine monotheistic
and/or polytheistic
and/or atheistic naturalistic branches
shared as...

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It's not only
our cultural value conditioning
that presents a health communication problem
about transitions of climate
without our Interior
and within our Exterior
Landscapes.

It's also about internally incommensurable
cultural values,
norms enjoined throughout Earth's domesticated human race
toward humane evolution's economic journey

Whether transportive...

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MY Collaboration with Ricky Nelson in the Last Days of 1980

The eventful news of that day about what was found on board that crashed plane, won't replace that particular memory of Mr. Rick Nelson's hearty...

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Face to the sky,
Breath of the Caribbean
Woven with earthy Autumn,
Saturates the alveoli of my lungs,
Pouring raw impulses into the neurons of
My pleasure centers, so triggering a myriad of
Memories ... the demurring requiem to summer tide...

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Setting aside richly incorporated through homeless economies,
we have three political ways
to compare a population's internal status:
a. Aboriginal populations,
b. Immigrants--sometimes appearing as multiculturing creolic waves,
c. EmPowered Natives.

Natives are aboriginals
unless a more self-centered wave of supremacist immigrants
stake...

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So here's my question for this dawning day,
like a WinWin ruminating message in a bottle
floating through a LoseLose climate sea
felt still foggy from last night,
some mysterious how now;

One of many
health related strategic WinLose issues
tuning out...

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Two, perhaps three miles out to sea, beyond the reef to Zapatillas,
Bocas’ dual sand-edged footprint jewels with jungle centre trees, 
Francesco’s outboard boat heads out to Caribbean’s deeper blue.

Where sun burns softer gringo skin, but...

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PRELUDE.
When the sky and world are dark no sounds are heard in the woods. Perhaps the scrabbling of night creatures on the hunt fo food. But no sound of woodpeckers ra ta tatting, bird song...

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A GIFT FOR EVERYONE 
ESPECIALLY 
FOR  CHILDREN
 


The Mulberry Tree & its Birds


IMPORTANT NOTE:
Now watch a short Video film made by me (placed on my Music Channel on You Tube) based on this Poetic...

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Our lusty voice was in the tramp of narrow, winding,
     Scree-littered, deep-rutted roads;     
 Ravens, uttering guttural croaks, slow-wheeling above      
 ...

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What cooperative evidence
could we final climate find
for WinWin cooperation lovers
including LeftBrain secular humanities
inviting no more or less valueflow
than RightBrain WiseElder root-branch dipolar etchings
neurologically ancient bipolar temporal systemic 
body-branch, mind-root DNA enscriptured holonic trees,
DNA  river...

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  Another Cruel Link in their Chain 

1.   Beginnings

Her babe was her joy, such a beautiful boy,
	and he suckled her breast till the end.
The slaver sought cash, bestowed mammy a thrash,
	sold her...

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Attitude with latitude

originally written January 19th, 2019
and tension defines the dynamic

Valiant prince sip pulled effort
rebuffed, snubbed, thumbed
courtesy eldest daughter
uncontested vainglorious woke
mine genuine apology,
viz sincerely yours truly
psyche asper paternal overture
toward aforementioned offspring
smitten with opprobrium
figuratively smacked upside...

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Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out a small national magazine....

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Ugg and Ogg, on a rock they sat.
 The pair were in hiding from the sabred cat.
 They had hunted for a whole week long.
 But, recently it had all gone wrong.

The ladies were waiting...

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