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...

Read More

   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...

Read More

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....

Read More

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,...

Read More

“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. ...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

*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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

"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...

Read More

How will I be in 10 years,
the fir tree asks the maple,
the calf asks the cow,
the baby splutters out


I need to know before they publish
the writs. I need to know 
before my head is presented
on...

Read More

We’ve come to know her on our walks…she seldom wears a frown.
She’s up early, just like us, and drives her golf cart around town.

Everyone knows Freddy…she wouldn’t have it any other way
Saying hi to her...

Read More