Long Cathedral Poems

The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!
 
Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
-Michael R. Burch
 
The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
-Michael R. Burch
 
Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
-Michael R. Burch
 
Dry leaf...

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I have a hardbound copy of
"The City of Hartford 1784-1984"
although most of this coffee table story
of unfortunate events
takes place between 1850 and 1950s,
before and after the UnCivil War,
and,
like the U.S. Catholic Church
and many MainLine Protestant...

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"Overcoming misleading [economic and political] metaphors
that are physically [naturally, ecosystemically, phylogenically] in [and of] 
your [ecological-organic embodied] brain
is never easy."
            George Lakoff, The Political...

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I went again today ... to that place, the allurement overwhelming ... the one
we called "ours" so tritely, "mine" before you, "mine" again now, (tho' others
have doubtless staked claimed - ages before and since). I...

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Today
we left off yesterday
to pick up
where speaking non-violent principles 
too often neglect to listen
to liberally artistic,
green and active
yet non-reactive
compassionate healers
may need to co-invest more
in co-operating democratic research
of
and for
WholeEarth DiaLogical Matriotism.

Excuse me,
but co-passioned listening
to silence
speaks not...

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A society
culture
religion
humane species
forgetting,
or more likely under-valuing,
how to unitedly suffer loss
may never have learned to face our universal fear 
of dissociative ego-death
as a badge of Earth-systemic re-cognition,
dignity through suffering 
sacred Ego's over-capitalized absence
where once we knew...

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Red light, the neon beer sign on the distant wall reflects off the long expanse of polished bar top, overpowering the quiet brown wood. It’s after lunch, only a few people in to stir the...

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Yet at this very moment the cathedral was crumbling
down upon the cries of foresaken refugees, 
the monastery's walls wobbling from war's wreckage, 
and as the black bursts billowed into sun drenched brutality
with the bodies of...

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Tea in the afternoon with his wife of many years is usually peaceful, Hubert thinks before he makes his announcement. Then he says it. 

"I'm going upstairs," Hubert tells Ruth as he hoists himself out...

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Tell me, my friend,  
does infinity not unsettle your reason,  
or is it a comfort—to believe it meaningless?  

Look beyond the rust of your disbelief—  
this isn’t the frostbitten dogma you...

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Religious gatherings happen on Thursday as well in Bean’s Cathedral.  The Scribes would read from The Doctrine of Crop and Harvest and the Bean people who attended would be blessed for a greater existence...

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"Christmas in the Cathedral of the Forest Deep"




The silent heart is found 
embedded in the 
Cathedral of 
The Forest Deep

The lost jewel
shines in the dark
see the reflection of emerald eyes
endless hazel woods scried

On Christmas Eve
when...

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The ship came like a flying horse, at an inexact time
Our brother-sailor, from the Pantheon of Poets, was on board
Jean Pierre Basilic Dantor Frankétienne D’argent
Who wrote, in haste, the last act
Happened to be miraculously on...

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Queen Elizabeth Alexandra Mary ll
Her seemingly eternal monarch--God has now beckoned
Balmoral Castle, reigned over the United Kingdom
"God Save The Queen" The British national anthem
21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022

     ...

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I. Sighting

I saw you  
through refracted light-  
a prism of chance  
splitting ordinary into spectrum.  
Wind-tangled hair  
terra cotta and rosemary beneath your nails  
the scent of soil and...

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"A dressed day has disrobed into the depth of a drawer's nightstand." 

(Oh, how positively awesome that what can be sorted out in such an explanatory pattern that a difference would maketh a day.)

The muskiness...

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My teacher died.
   
   His lungs failed him.

He taught me that the lungs
harbor grief.

   His lungs are gone.
My grief has only just arrived.


   He used his lungs...

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A MINISTER RETIRES :  
SOLILOQUY 

I arise as infant Phoenix 
from Akasha ashes 
counterparts frozen 
with foibles intact
a still Arctic of death
sheath for recalibration 

Source Light breathes into 
fontanelle slowly sleepily  
Sekmet my...

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I'm in the cathedral praying to God
Unable to quell the thoughts that poor people's money built it and that money was spent on beautiful details in the highest eaves as those people starved 
And I...

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I
How long have I been doing this
Throwing my time & money
Into a hole
Filling up notebooks
Mining overheard conversation
For lines
Squeezing the sponge
Of my wine soaked
Mind
Into the bucket
Of poetry
And now here we are
Gulping down the
Lead tainted water
Like Romans
Romans
Forced...

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From north, south, east and west 
This is the town to beat the rest,
Where history and present blend
As through its many streets you wend. 

Where once a monastery so great
From every view would dominate,
Where Pilgrims...

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A combination of Prose and Free Verse:

The most thrilling and inspirational piece of music ever to reach my 
ears is, without doubt, Handel's Messiah. I've never known anyone 
who could experience a performance and remain...

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Prisons fester further desecrating guilt by association
as churches
and synagogues
and temples
and mosques
foster sacred innocence through re-association,
communion of the wanna-be saints
and Bodhisattva suffering warriors
for EarthRights Peace and Justice.

When our faith communities
feel like monoculturing monotheistic prisons
of fundamentalism,
then our...

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It looked so right on paper to everyone; but when the night embraced her she was alone, still wanting to believe in love. 

Her footsteps echoed through her cathedral of a house which offered her...

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Haiku Variations
by Michael R. Burch

This is a poem composed of haiku-like stanzas:


Variations on the Seasons I
by Michael R. Burch

Lift up your head
dandelion,
hear spring roar!

How will you tidy your hair
this near
summer?

Leave to each still night
your lightest...

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