Long Ebb Poems

R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact, 
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons...

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(In a Lush Garden Somewhere Out There)

The student stands where shifting sands of thought
Once firm with reason 
now elusive truths are sought.
Its splendor wanes 
a threadbare fading strand,
A quest for wisdom 
in this digital land.

Sage:...

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Chinese Poets: English Translations II

These are modern English translations of poems by the Chinese poets Tzu Yeh, Lin Huiyin, Xu Zhimo and Huang E. These are poems about love, passion and beauty. 


Tzu Yeh (circa...

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MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem...

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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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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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Cooperative Feministas
are not quite so much Competitive Manifestos.

In David Holmgren's introduction to Permacultural Therapeutic Design,
he contrasts "Industrial Culture" with "Sustainable Culture"
kind of like comparing masculine LeftBrain culture
with feminist RightBrain enculturation, nurturance, resonance
over the longer-term scenaria,
rather...

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With Julian Jaynes
we find an egocentric languaged LeftBrain
developing reasons to sacredly love our healthy RightBrain inductive-integrative SacredPower feelings of Earth's co-relationship with LeftBrain's Self-ReGenerating Identity
of BiCameral Ego/Eco-Consciousness.

Later on in the evolution of Positive Psychology,
we find...

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Do you remember?
We lay in the moonlight, exhausted and content,
Moments from perfection, skin glistening with moisture,
Salty and sweet from love - love so amazing
That it stunned us every time ...
Always better than before, and always...

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As I look back across more musical times
of rhythmic reflections,
ceremonies and commemorations
of each dawn and dusk eremitic liturgy,
if that is not an oxymoron
of sound and sight,
song and dance,
tragically sad, yet also bilaterally bound with happier...

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The First Thanksgiving (Sept. 3, 1578)

The shortest distance to Cathay 1
(Land of riches: silks, teas and spices)
Lay to the north to the South Sea. 2
Didn’t Barlow tell the King, 3
Was reserved for England.

The routes ‘round...

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What Kind of People Are We

In a Shakespearean sense of tragedy and doubt the well-used
“To Be or Not To Be” from Hamlet is not the question I shall
discuss in this narrative. Rather, I shall consider...

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Placed First in:
This or That Vol 22 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Edward Ibeh                       ...

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It's hard to think in Either-Or Deductive,
while speaking and acting in Both-And Inductive.

For example,
If my Brother is kind and loving
(and he usually is),
and really not all that judgmental and condemning
with his wife and kids especially...

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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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Bad ass beauty brought bedlam, and begat bastard child...
courtesy booty call minus preemptive measures
while plugg naughty bits of tarnished knight 
while he took tea and crumpets within mistress's boudoir

The following verses typed out some years...

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(Notes: 
1.  Ancient esoteric teachings state that
"The Christ" is the divine blueprint for the man
imaged in the likeness of God. This is the divine
destiny for each soul that walks the path of life.
2. ...

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HungSau
always do your best to reveal
only what is already known pleasure
and passionately loved

Nature’s kindness 
and spirit-restoring justice,
trusted truth as peaceful beauty,
loving abundantly rich healthy life
and sufficient death.

But,
what do we love about death?
Should I not know...

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Youth

When orchids bloom in beauty life's aglow
to hold emotions locked in deep repose
in young desire and love warm thoughts will show.
Affection holds its ardor as it grows
to burn inside young hearts in evening tide.
In darkest...

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Stood upright, between two roads,
On a thin metal rail,
A solitary, brown coloured bottle 
Of beer,                    ...

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I'm reading The Evolving Self:
A Psychology for the Third Millennium,
by Czikszentmihalyi,
and How the West [sadly] Came To Rule:
The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism,
Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisanciogla
at the same time.

Czikszentmihalyi (C) wears academic labels of Positive...

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New Year's Eve 2022

Yours truly riddled with social anxiety,
hence (billy me) he will idle away
December 31st, 2022 
sequestered (with the missus) 
hunkered down in his mancave
while madding crowd  
entertains reckons partition of time 
into...

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Like water

I was the river
You were the sea
I dissolved into you
And thought I was free.
Out of the cage I flew
But landed on my knees 
As I tried to flee
The heavy clouds
And storms, of responsibility

Your love...

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Reading Csikszentmihalyi again,
whose last name would be Csikszenti,
if Mihaly, his first name,
need not also bring up the rear of his family name,
which has nothing to do with anything that follows,
I am sure you are already...

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Jesus help me,
cried Mother Earth
to Adam's Sacred Son,
I can't be birthin' all these ego-dominating babies,
gettin' on,
you know...
Makes me sad.
From "Mother Earth's Laboratory Journal", post-millennially self publishing

Money, like fertility,
is sexy,
needing attention
to continue regeneratively thriving,
health icons rooted...

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