Long Eagle Poems

I believed that I was rural … that I lived in country style,
where the city was close handy … that big distance was a mile.
Trains and buses ferried daily; a freeway ran close by …
comforts...

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I’m in distress
I can’t express
How I feel deep down inside
This feeling is a terrible tide
How do I impress
Everyone here in excess?
I’m just here to simply abide
By God’s Law, I don’t subside

My tears are diamonds in...

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Flint 
Within its brilliance gleaming
Cool black in lacquered polished silver chrome
Cranked up pistons bleached in summer’s heat
Hot steam rising as gears thundering
Beyond the crystal liquid city lights
Highways built across the land
In hearts felt pride American...

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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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Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the bloody wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;

but when at last...
I soar the...

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Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers I

I translated the first six Native American poems for my father when he chose to enter hospice and end his life by not taking dialysis …


Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation...

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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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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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IN THE WILD

Early morning, we go for a drive,
An awesome feeling as we arrive,
At our camp gate which, opens 
At 6 o’clock, 
Now we are in the African bush
Which, will unlock,
Moments that we have missed...

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These are early poems of mine, written as a high school student in the 10th grade. 

as Time walked by
by Michael R. Burch

yesterday i dreamed of us again,
when
the air, like honey,
trickled through cushioning grasses,
softly flowing,...

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Part 1: FORE SIBERIAN FATE

silk wings wet -
angel on the lake.
starlight glitter
separates from

the golden wheat.
her docile hair,
prophecy of ice.

winter pink,
pinched cheeks.
ice skate scrapes -
flecks of flakes.

the snow queen
before her relentless
reign, a pretty thing.

her smile warms
the...

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IN THE WILD 
( Re Post)

Early one morning, we begin our drive,
An awesome feeling as we arrive,
At our camp gate which, opens 
At six o’clock, 
Now we are in the African bush
Which, will unlock,
Moments that...

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Like Hannibal we crossed the pass and crossed 
   the Alps (okay, the Brynderwyn Hills) 
and a bridge too far on north-west passage.
   From out of the Valley of Mizpah 
to...

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I would imagine Adam Smith's invisible cooperative economic
self-and-Other-investment hand,
at least during Christian Sunday morning services,
looked and sounded and felt very much
like the One Invisibly-Organic-Holistic-Enlightened MindBody of Christ.

I would further imagine
both he and George Washington,
at least...

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Lake county music company filled with 
slots carney folk real carny folk the little 
pete's illegal gambling road show throughout 
the  Midwest gaming like your idol Frank Peter 
Balistreiri the mad bomber stops Metropolis...

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 A French ‘Indianist’ Doctor: A Tribute to a Die-hard Humanist
                         ...

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The Story so far…
Makani (The Rising Wind), a beautiful extra-terrestrial researcher is sent to a remote island to observe earth. She finds Sam, a shipwrecked earthling near death owing to drowning. Sam (Ka ‘Lo -...

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Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds (I)



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as hummingbird wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching...

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Mary Gargano the key player in covering the drug monies and drugs that ran from Milwaukee pitstop in Chicago Antioch Danville Marietta Georgia straight to palm beach blvd. Ciro Gargano his business partner Hayes stopping...

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Already was straight up the flame and steady
To speak no more, and yet away it went
Being the sweet poet to let it ready,

When another, which followed in ascent,
Made us to turn our eyes to top...

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 The People with Wings
 It was a huge photograph of an eye – an amazing eye that now drew everyone to Mecca.  It was said to belong to one of the ‘People with...

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I’m powerless over my addiction
I’m relentless in my sweet infliction
The heat of the moment showers
Upon me truly hours after hours

I lie here on your stone
In distress, on my own
I lie here on your stone
I express...

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All for the price of a dozen eggs,
America stands on shaky legs.
Globally, the claim is heard ~
"The US ~ laughingstock of the world,"
as daily, we star in our very own theater of the absurd.
Said the...

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Our lusty voice was in the tramp of narrow, winding,
     Scree-littered, deep-rutted roads;     
 Ravens, uttering guttural croaks, slow-wheeling above      
 ...

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