Long Drought Poems

This is the second part of Rabindranath Tagore's Narrative poem - Phanki (Deception). The first part has been already posted. 




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When it struck 11, I sighed in relief
When it struck 11, I haven't felt grief
The time kept ticking on and it wasn't brief
And I'm so… patiently shaking like a leaf
Vigorously feeling vital everyday...
Every minute...every second...come...

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Oasis
by Michael R. Burch 
 
for Beth
 
I want tears to form again
in the shriveled glands of these eyes
dried all these long years
by too much heated knowing.
 
I want tears to course down
these parched cheeks,...

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I got up this morning in a good mood 
searching for solitude in the distant skies
And watching the clouds rolling by
I stopped and listened to the sounds around me
While contemplating my sacred destiny
Barking dogs and...

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Heavy storm was sweeping dark Paris streets
Lit with dim lights that dreary November night 
With ghostly shadows lurking in the corners
Cold wind dancing with dirty wet leaves fallen 
In the water pools in the middle...

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He lifts me up on cloud nine
I’m a lost sheep in godly sleep
He nurtures me like His child – I’m feelin’ fine
I’m a joyful sheep in godly sleep
Dead leaves of dried hope and fervor-lacking faith...

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America First
speaks a RightWing monocultural intention
currently championed by Trumpians
and Republican Aristocracy of Evangelism 
Tea Partiers,
by xenophobic paranoids
and sociopathic pharisee fascists,
by economically blind
deaf
and angry 
bigoted
terrified shouters;
just the opposite of dumb,
yet not cooperatively mindful either
of our global...

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The King of the Castle 



Said I’m but a child
Afraid of the world outside 
Afraid to run wild and to  be proud
Of the freedom it provides
Afraid of love 
Afraid of the dark 

Said you...

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When I was a FreshPerson in a new higher school,
our English Literature class was delighted
to meet a new to our area Ms. Liska,
who was a beautiful teacher
both outside
and in,
and so we all loved her,
and knew...

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What is a life to you?
Do you wake up to love
imagine a future with someone?
A wife or a husband,
a child or ten?
An exaggeration,
but love is different to everyone.
Do you have a cat or a dog,
that...

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Swept up into piles; everywhere 
Abouts; in collected heaps all 
Around.               
It is almost as if the drab 
Streets were strewn...

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There sits behind deep forests hidden,
A sight to behold, place of all sins ridden,
Where the great rivers give life and churn,
A thousand diamonds and the trees sing
Along with the wind, ruled by the great King.

Generous...

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Sun and traffic - day economy.
Six a.m. drive to plywood mill. Too tired
to be angry. Each day a step
toward death. What is being accomplished? The
small satisfactions
within each day. Book consciously read.
And frustrations. Package dropped, honey...

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Livin’ in filth…
Flippin’ out on everyone…
Pow! to my head. Pow! to my head.
Hand me a gun…gun…
Was livin’ my dream
Once in a great while
Was dyin’ in reality
Run just one more mile

*whisper* What am I s’posed to...

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Tim’s father had been a refugee once he put down his fight and his gun

The story is that he embarked on the very last ship leaving East Prussia

Under siege tanks and bombs from above fireworks...

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After drenching biblical rainfall...
verdant green acres covered the planet of the apes
like a petticoat junction
donning barrel of skinny dipping monkeys.

Once drought stricken vast landscape
far as the eye could see
suddenly flush with promise
of budding new shoots
and...

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We have been observing the expanse of the parched land for many years, a land that stood the test of time and captivated by myriad dreams unfolding through the footsteps of the ages thus penetrating...

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Many of you live
humbly and heartily
patriotically and industriously
nutritiously and faithfully
in Western and Southern States,

United in this time of shrinking reservoirs,
dying rivers,
hurricaned coastal residents

Displaced by floods,
invasive mold,
voracious rot and rats,

Barren top soil,
failing electrical networks,
drought,
inhumane heat,
decimated forests

Bereft...

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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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When asked
by my nephew
for an essential reading list
for PermaCultural Therapeutic Design,
my Taoist thoughts went back
to Unitarian-Universalist
Yin/Yang pre-history,
when Earth produced a theologian,
Dr. Thomas Starr King (1824-1864)
reaching out for non-violent dialogue
across all global healing cultures.

This 1800s Dr....

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BUSHFIRE
                                  ...

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As the sun shone in southern skies, I was finally on my vacation,
And I turned the pages of a magazine, with new fashion creations.

I lounged beside the resort pool, in a straw hat and sunglasses,
Sipping...

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How might Earth's underground narrative
of a sacred Tree
speak most profoundly
of old growth economic
and political
environmental trauma?

A question I forgot to ask
when I was younger
and more disabled
and WhiteMale monotheistic

How might even Republican Red MotherTrees
avoid secularized Self-serving
by Capitalizing...

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The Letter         

A young man strolled along the waterfront,
His mind and heart at ease.
Said an old man, sitting on an upturned punt,
Gazing out towards the sea. 

“Come...

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They sit on their own
in their Hermit Kingdom
other side of the wall
singing their song 
entitled 
nothing to envy

peeling the skin 
away in generations 
it's worse than a famine
where colour 
is wrung 
from the inside out

emotive...

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