Long Composed Poems

Psychologically still thirteen 

Ordinarily meaning pre Internet days
familiarization with me would entail
bringing the avid listener 
into my private mancave hideaways
less a physical place than a juncture in relationship, 
(whereby one or the other of us)...

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Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally...

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Poems about Mothers


Mother's Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother's smile, no softer touch
than mother's touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much."

So more than "much, " much more...

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Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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These are peace poems, prayer poems, hymns and lullabies I have written for family, friends and the world over the years ...

Peace Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

for Jim Dunlap

Be calm.
Be still.
Be silent, content.

Be one with the...

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You Never Listened
by Michael R. Burch
 
You never listened,
though each night the rain
wove its patterns again
and trembled and glistened...
 
You were not watching,
though each night the stars
shone, brightening the tears
in her eyes palely fetching...
 
You...

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I was skeptically listening 
to a retiring social researcher,
and problem-solving imaginer,
from the American Enterprise Institute;

An Institute
I usually find more destitute
of bicameral consciousness than not,
and thereby with less healthy resonant imagination
than more pathological dissonance.

But, I found...

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Systems,
ecosystems,
and ego body-systems,
patriotic systems
and feminist systems
mutually improve,
grow more robust,
resilient,
resonant when WinWin relationships
between diversely paradigmatic elements
within said system
and between unsaid systems
improve,
grow more healthy wealth together
well-greased co-operative channels
and web-structures
WinWin overwhelming WinLose
competing smaller self-centered investments.

Capital small-self promotion tends...

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Enheduanna is the first writer we know by name. She created the first poetry anthology and hymnal, circa 2250 BC, in ancient Sumer. She was the daughter of King Saragon the Great. 

Lament to the...

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Numbers, numerals,
like words,
combinations of letters,
mean something,
sometimes more secular,
sometimes more sacred ecological.

Numerals and letters share sacred iconic human-intelligence root systems
within a bicameral ecology of mind-body nonduality,
both RightBrain matriarchal empowering flow of integrity (Czikszentmihalyi)
and LeftBrain patriarchal Yang...

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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

Archaischer Torso Apollos (“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...

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Sonnets X-XVI


Archaischer Torso Apollos (“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...

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Rejection Slips

With over 5,700 publications if I count poems that have gone viral, I suppose I shouldn’t complain … but I do have some poems that have never been accepted for publication. Here are a...

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I have had a highly redundant,
one might even choose polypathic,
graduate studies experience
spanning my adult life to date.

This began with a semester of Philosophy.
Just enough to learn I wanted something more experiential,
a more communitarian environment of...

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Winter Awakens My Care
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything...

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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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Merov’s Ghost (1) and Other Shots Across My Bow!

In mid-November of Fourteen, I published my first web verse here, (2)
the earliest spanned sixty years, composed for Senior English class
one night in Nineteen Sixty-One. Assigned just...

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I.
Treasures That May Be Found In Destiny's New Shift

( Mille viri sententia agere nescit donec suscipit calamum scribere.)

For a brief spell, I hung my hammock in the shade
of the ancient tall oak tree, that God's...

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Wise Elders are patient,
fully embrace compassion's communication
and health care
of climates and cultural landscapes,
animated persons,
sacred spaces,
organic places,
panentheistic plants
and monotheistic planet
impassioned hopes
and pleasant dreams
rebuilding positive faith.

Wise Elders co-passionately listen
for karmic grace of love peaks 
overflowing.

If Wise Revolutionaries...

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The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts 
by Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and high priestess of Inanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers!
Lady of the resplendent light!
Righteous Lady...

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Oh well I got an angry email to begin my day
Because of my last post on the Jabidah thing yesterday
Galit sa akin but greeted me with Assalamu alaykum.
And kung personal Moro friends ko naman ito...

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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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Unquotable quotes: The Janitor, Gardienne, Landlady, Housekeeper, Portero, the Sereno and the Hausgast – XXXI  Part One

Be they so named or not in these here parts, visions of shrieking furies with Gorgon heads and...

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Deor's Lament

(Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem circa the 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland endured the agony of exile:
an indomitable smith wracked by grief.
He suffered countless sorrows;
indeed, such sorrows were his bosom companions
in that frozen...

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Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy the land:
raging like thunderstorms,
howling like hurricanes,
screaming like...

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