Long Emissary Poems

Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain...

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“The Juniper Prize: Between the Known and the Unknown”

That man built a house 
of straw and sticks
and the stories that burned within -

all consuming the titled prize;

like a bird 
sings a song
the metre repeats and...

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   Symbols cry in dry ice theater -
the expanse of aesthetic visa-
drawn-
from the romance of the silvery eye -
as it golden advances the lid of covenance 
in dynamic enzyme.
Open faced type interpreted-
interpreter-embossed embol-
in...

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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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Dear Brother,

When we were children
adults often asked us
What do you hope to be
when you grow up?

But, our brothers and sisters
were more likely,
and probably more wise,
to ask
Who would you most hope to become?
To be like?

Which implies,...

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“Now, I would like to make you aware of my guests.”
     “Your guests?  Are they here?”  Seileach seemed very curious.
     “I'm sorry, but no. ...

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Pandora's BoX

Whom to blame?
What woman now walks, the lethal ancestress
Of the original ancestress, that one named 
Pandora, that one with the gleaming eyes that said:

   "I want; I need, to know?"

Where is she...

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My Lords an adjournment is 
Called for...
All my retire;
But holding foremost in your
Thoughts,
I beseech ye,
Thee impudent countenance of
This most ardent denier.
Therefore heed me,
I caution all ye present,
Thou shall not disband;
Moreover, to reassemble at any
Sudden instance...

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What is dogmatically
unchangingly fundamental to Christianity,
and to all win/win positive faith systems,
is certainly not capitalism's ZeroSum economic assumptions
in which winner god takes all
from loser satan.

But, what is fundamental compassion's truth
is profoundly sacred
globally open-systemic theology
of HolySpirit...

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In Elysian Heights, Room 8 stands strong, 
as a blessed place for a furlong purrloin whisk-along a ride-along comforting face,
where memories of childhood days belong,
a classmate, a friend, roommate_in our youthful race, ("Room 8") was...

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EarthMother's unwilling Emissary
asked each faith community
and patriotic party
what they thought and felt
about God's preferential option for the poor,
despised,
criminal,
homeless,
wounded and powerless women and children,
physical disabilities,
sick,
terrified,
rabid with anger and fear,
enslaved,
addicted,
insane.

Does this sound like an accurate description
of your...

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*THE ARMAGEDDON   IN THE SOUTH*

Blessed with inestimable reservoirs 
Countless traps sealing gas yet untouched 
Seated on wealth beyond its numbers 
Wealth to sustain their  tenth generations 
Enough  to feed the glutton...

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The mirtangist may never willingly hear
may not want to hear
the multaiyam announcing his cue
nor the melodist aware of the flautist's right
to the change in the raga
the plucking of the yal strings
to the goatskin drummed bleats
and...

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O glorious dear sun, sovereign of the day, in the sky above
you’re one whose radiance resembles a little of God’s love;
by nurturing all creatures in the world with your unique rays
and setting such a high...

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I had been placed in chains 
Where the cripples shed their canes 
And the blind regained the art of seeing.
It was a robbers’ den 
And as all God fearing men, 
I had assets needed freeing.

Sometimes...

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LET ME BE EVE
AN IMAGINATION OF ANOTHER LIFE

Oh let me be Eve,
And make me forever live
In this heavenly place of a crib.
And let me be taken from Adam's rib
On this day when he embraces sleep,
And...

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I 
am 
the 
voice 
in 
the 
early 
twilight 
calling.I 
am 
the 
voice 
that 
cried 
in 
the 
dusk. 
Am 
the 
limbs 
shaking 
and 
the 
lungs 
convulsing. 
I 
own 
the 
tongue 
that 
cracked,the 
lips 
that 
parched 
and...

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Were they mad crazed drunk or on drugs
As they desecrated a place most holy Ooh
Were they conceited or just plain diabolic
As they committed an abominable act Ooh

The Holy of Holies why they did not respect
Were...

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luckily for our ambiguous plot structure
and the stern requirements of partisan doggerel
the ringing coin toss bounced then came up tails
and fortune directed that the box be opened
gingerly gripped in two slender shaking hands
by Pepper d'Angelo...

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The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary from Terra  sent to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization.

However, in doing so he must come to view in...

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A WELL-VERSED FIRST 

The first time
The very first time
That fantastically infatuating first time

Still the second as sublime
But bless the birth and conception of the first time which too fleetingly flees
The first time passion persuades heated...

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Learn from the eagle how to soar with winds
Spanning your wings to conquer tall peaks 
Float hopes high reaching sapphire blue skies
Triumph with your smile as the world goes by

When beset in clutches of troublesome...

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A WELL-VERSED FIRST TIME

The first time
The very first time
That fantastically infatuating first time

Still the second as sublime
But bless the birth and conception of the first time which too fleetingly flees
The first time passion persuades heated...

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Sometimes in churlish chains
Fed up with ribald refrains
On my mind inflicting pains and strains

In the morning, afternoon and night
When from life I gain no delight
Sinking into sorrows on the flight

From illusion
Conflated with delusion
Carved from collusion

Between...

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"The left hemisphere's assault on our embodied nature
is not just an assault on OUR bodies,
but on the embodied nature of the
[sacred EarthMother]
world around us."
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary, p. 440

The WhiteMale monotheistic privileged...

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