Long Comparisons 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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Epigrams

Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that every leaf must finally fall,
it’s just that we can never catch them all.

Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover...

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Truth is a feather 
pushed off to the other side.

Truths are a body of feathers
within which our bodies reside.

OK, students of life’s healthiest purposes and meanings,
it’s time to regather, if you would be so kind.

Namaste.

[Silence]

[My...

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I think he's talking about a cooperative bicameral political system,
with "How to talk to the other side".

And what could that possibly mean, dear Yang?

Well,
I was watching this Ted-talk from Marin,
by Robb Willer, as I anciently...

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Could we be doing our best
to invest in Earth's cooperative health markets?
While you sell our most competitive killing machines
to our Saudi Arabian cousins.

Referencing this touchstone as an ecopolitical WinWin,
unlike Parisian multicultural investments in climate health,
as...

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What words do we choose for maximizing our ultimate accomplishments,
achieving our healthiest goals,
measuring our 100% successful therapeutic outcome projections?

Why do these words, 
and our feelings about these choices 
wave in and out of optimal happiness...

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Potawatomi language,
says Robin Wall Kimmerer,
does not verbally divide us into masculine and feminine.
However, unlike most English verbs,
Potawatomi verbs distinguish between animate and inanimate objects.

For example,
we use sit down
when speaking to an unruly son
and set down
when...

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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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“So tell me…what’s adopting like? Seems a little risky - picking out your children from the local lost and found! 
Suppose the kid’s a ‘loser.’ Do they let you bring ‘em back? Can you -...

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COMPARISONS

I sit here now back on my bed
Bandaged and still quite sore
I think back to my Mum and Dad
And all they both endured

My Dad he died of cancer
My Mum of MND
Both were unpleasant ways to...

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President Trump, 
shortly after his singularly smelly election, 
declared emphatic comparisons with Elder Republican
Abraham Lincoln.

Early on,
he described Lincoln as his kindred political soul,
admired mentor,
and the former President he was destined to most resemble
in spirit and...

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Perpetual Quandries of Dischord

Permanent irreversible Attatchment disorder
A lemonade stand at the Mexican Border
A traumatised disorganised old lady hoarder
The incriminating evidence on an old tape recorder 

Elements of discontent shivering through a crowd 
Firmaments of promises...

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Permaculture Design,
like any health restoring process,
begins with listening to each ZeroZone client
speak about deeply held goals and underlying values
they would like to share with their OneZone property(s).

Integral Permaculture Design
is no double-binary exception
in its ZeroZone internal...

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VII.

An involuntary shudder as I watch her 
Spread                           ...

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In theology,
and ecological healthy
and pathological relationships,
I know self-righteous fundamentalists
and nonviolent nondualists,
and most everyone else
processing together
win/lose
either/or
in-between
both/and.

Odd,
how such an abstraction
between fundamental uniformity
of sacred energy
and nondual co-arising unity
of divine-humane light,
can sever a healthy 
sacred-secular 
polynomial balance,

A harmonic resonance
championed...

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I am familiar
with evangelical conversions
understood as moving away from sinner,
unredeemed heathen,
unenlightened addiction to evil,
demonically disempowered
reprobate status
moving toward regenerative winner status
saved by the blood of the Lamb.

This traditional way of processing
progressive
therapeutic conversion
is a change through predation,
colonization,
of...

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We might discern diverse scales 
for describing omnipotence 
of CreatorGod
in the Bible,
as elsewhere.

Genesis begins with Earth's wind and water,
and is about CreatorGod of Earth as Eden
with Her divine lights and clouded winds
coming down from sacred...

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FYI: White House

FROM:  Mother Earth

In case you, or anyone you know, is possibly listening,
wanted to mention,

Climate change is a catastrophic NATIONAL,
even international, DISASTER;
a poly-psychopathic source of extreme dissonance.

Anyone who knows our butts
from a BlackHole...

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What is your earliest memory
of sacred birdsong voices?

How is this memory
the same and different than
your internal intimate Sacred EarthMother's Song?

Of sacred gospel and secular gossip
differentiating WinWin GoodNews
from WinLose we could go either way
more discerning and...

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"Swept away by the vision, this hope! No more wars, everyone living as one with our Creator, 
God. Safe warm, joyous, free the world united together, hate fear, abolished, the sickness 
of it, pain, void,...

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               In the glade of sallowed comparisons
           as told by the...

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A Meandering Cocophony of Thought that Evades Fate

Contractual obligations toward your future self
Non-Factual invocations that deprive you of your health 
Actual comparisons between poverty and wealth 
Emmanuel on the eve of a heavenly operation of...

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I may be in pain but you'll never see me cry out
I'm not worried about whether I'll make it to heaven or hell, because I can only live my life now
Whatever comes for me after...

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6/24/17


I've been thinking of a whole lot
None of the same old thoughts 
Never has it been about any jewelery or a gold watch
And the same could be said for having my soul lost


I'm not going...

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