Long Dakota Poems

Native American Translations

Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and...

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Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch Sr.)

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long...

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Many of us have a favorite possession from when we were young, and this 
93-year old gentleman is no exception.

               ...

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- - Chapter 2: Adult Responsibility (With Some Breaks) - -     

By ten years old, no weekends off, 
Or Saturday cartoons, 
Although I did have cash to spend, 
I felt my...

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My love is light (a fairy kiss?)          
               Like the pressure of...

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Beware The Ides of March 2023
 
Ides simply referred to first new moon, 
which usually fell between 
the thirteenth and fifteenth day
of a given month.

The following events all occurred
fifteenth of March 
across span of millenniums.

One:...

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My Last Las Vegas C.E.S. (1)
(A Memorial Poem)
I long counted Steve Bristow a friend (1) and we'd fly off to lunch
some days (Steve would get 'hours in' he needed for license - small planes).
It was...

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The past can’t tell the future; I'd almost forgotten this,
The past six years had brought me higher yields than average,
Though expectations soared, now nada, nothing, zilch.
Our wheat fields decimated from the lack of rain.
And those...

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            Romance in Durango

We met south of the border in Durango,
she was hot and boy could she fandango.
  She said at a glance
...

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Part 1

This is a true story about world’s end,
But don’t freak out for it was long ago
God’s message must have been garbled
That the prophet’s prophecy failed you know.

And since those days in fifty eight
Such prophecies...

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I was taught by   my father to be obedient in the dense forest to save the individuals trees, stop destruction to plantation. I cannot be silent under the detriment from lumberjacks to global...

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Crazy Horse Monument

Up there! On the Black Hills Mountain, 1
A work in progress sculptured in granite,
Of a stern faced warrior, strong and determined, 2
Unadorned in a war bonnet, with his hair flowing in the wind,
And...

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I want to go to Idaho
I bet you never knew
And Wyoming… and Hawaii…
Oh, and North Dakota too!!
I’ve been to all the other ones
For once there was a time
When I would tease the pull of Earth
And...

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Ides simply referred to first new moon, 
which usually fell between 
the thirteenth and fifteenth day
of a given month.

Smithsonian Magazine history buff
Tom A. Frail
posted March 4, 2010 issue
url = https://www.smithsonianmag.com/
history/top-ten-reasons-to-beware-
the-ides-of-march-8664107/
top ten reasons to 
beware the...

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Technology is wonderful, especially in medicine, Elmo told Opal, the day their son Brett called to tell them the good news. The doctor had told Brett and Debbie their first child would be a boy,...

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It seems a shame that you're not here
To share my evening stroll with me, 
As I walk down this gravel road
That takes off just outside of town.
Two pheasants flush from bar ditch pools
(The grassy soup...

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Mount Rushmore; Carved In Stone

From deep within the earth’s crust,
An orogeny pushes
The batholith upwards
To become ‘The Shrine of Democracy,’
Of weathered presidential faces
Chiseled in rock in South Dakota;
Representing 150 years of history
(From birth of a nation
To...

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Pausing on a late trip to South Dakota
I pulled off of the highway
Somewhere in Kansas
And shut off the lights
Reflecting that it might be good
To clear the windshield of bug carcasses
That were only being smeared 
Into...

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Cerebral Intelligence Empowered With...
Google Embedded Microchip™¡åßç

Nowadays...ah so passe routine top notch roboticized
brain surgery ushers, inoculates, begets... promising
immunity against pesky flagging and/or absent minded
precursor to dementia praecox, alzheimer's regarding
partial/total recall asper memory, said loss linkedin with
age...

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The location of the Spring Creek School was on a flat, nestled 
between the cliff on the north and the Little White River on the south.  The river 
flowed in from the northwest, circled...

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The surrounding grounds were prairie grasses and brush.  Trees were 
scattered along the west boundary while the eastern area was furnished with a 
heavier growth of various kinds of trees.  Willows and buffalo...

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He was so excited when he stumbled on the cave during deer season  two years ago. .As this was the region he patrolled he immediately posted signs stating danger at its entrance due to...

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(A Pre-Memorial Poem for Bob Lind)

Well the day that I met Bob Lind stays in my mind
For we met in a restaurant farmer’s still use,
A fond memory with me for twenty five years,
Of friends meeting...

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As Cole rode across the Dakota prairie,
sweating a bit under the suns harsh bite,
he saw ahead of him a slight woman’s form,
she walked bare-footed, naked, and pale white.

Sunburns had reddened her shoulders and neck,
and her...

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