Long Engage Poems

A special dedication to Beyoncé's "Drunk in Love" song in her album "Beyoncé", which came out in 2013.
 
{intro}
I took a cat nap...yah put on your classic, clever-mini cap 
drank that sorrow sap, my companion...

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Verse 6: I've given up love countless times 
I needed to pay up for my heartbroken crimes
I already repented for my sins that made my high hopes paper-thin
Don't you feel that envy from deep within?...

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It may have been the devil himself who prompted the kids in my schoolyard back in 1947 to chant "Patsy Foley's roly-poly from eating too much ravioli."

At first, no one could remember who started the...

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Various Heresies 3

Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now...

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Please be informed: 

The Nigerian youths have agreed together in love and oneness that in 2023 presidential election and in every other elections, whether state or local government. We will not vote for anyone who...

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Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
—Yamaguchi Seishi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow...

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Math speaks through us
within us
of cognitive landscapes
imagined still and/or moving.

Primal metrics are rational and symmetrical,
good as true as straightforward,
complex creation story problems
unfolding with precise answers,
right as at least not not ecologically wrong,
ecopolitically suboptimal perhaps,
yet at...

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How dare you desecrate the Capitol with urine and feces!
Even filthy pigs refuse to defecate near their own dwelling place.
How dare you flaunt confederate flags, grim reminders of our bloody history, 
Alongside swastikas, hate symbols...

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[This poem 'No God Of  Mine' was seemingly confounding readers as
to its meaning. Ordinarily, if I felt a poem wasn't  cutting it, I'd delete
it, but on this occasion, I've been asked to explain it... so here goes.]


By...

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Note to Readers of Previous Versions:
There are so many new vignettes scattered throughout the poem that I hope you will reread the whole thing! There are many new GEMS, improvements to previous verses and improved...

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I suppose you might have missed out on Paul Feyerabend's,
and especially Thomas Kuhn's Problem of Incommensurabiity.

Oh, not at all.
I have not looked at science or culture
or language
or even your attempts at communication
quite the same since...

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In 1968,
a time of great concern for healthy human civil rights
for and of women as well as LeftBrain culturally dominant men,
Gregory Bateson invited a Symposium
not quite a finished Symphony
proposing Moral and Aesthetic Structure of Human...

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Was it a cruel twist of fate?
Sneering, laughing chance?
Perhaps something I ate?
A bad bout of happenstance?

It wrenched and tore at my gut,
A sickening, sober, foreboding sign.
Wretched chance it was not,
This time was by insidious design.

The...

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Here's the deal, folks...

   This is, as indicated, the 3rd THIRD of this fairly lengthy poem. Due to Poetry Soup's file-size limitations, this piece had to be posted in 3 parts. 
 ...

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Simon wizard, you poor under his sway
That all things of God, which then of good will
Must be always brides, and you birds of prey

For gold and silver adulterate still,
Now it's time that the trumpet sounds...

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In the dark of night a wind took hold,
With powers charged to shake the sky,
By moody swings of gods up high,
Their breath alone enraged and bold.

In the dark of night history spoke,
Of a world alive...

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 After graduating from UF, in the early '80s I wrote the book, lyrics and score for a musical adaptation of Moliere's farce Le Malade Imaginaire ("The Imaginary Invalid") and have decided to post five...

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At that moment an explosion of mud filled the air
    as their tension was now largely increased.
They tried to gather their wits but all took to stare
    as for...

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A perfect world
From A-Z…

Actually addicted attitude apologetic they assume while I'm angst in my room
Bold not blameless but blame shooting out like bullets
Critics just quit it, calculated moves, claim to have your back until you...

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What cooperative evidence
could we final climate find
for WinWin cooperation lovers
including LeftBrain secular humanities
inviting no more or less valueflow
than RightBrain WiseElder root-branch dipolar etchings
neurologically ancient bipolar temporal systemic 
body-branch, mind-root DNA enscriptured holonic trees,
DNA  river...

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The Call

For as long as I can remember, I have been phoning my mom. Even before leaving home when I was a teenager. Whenever I had good or bad news, it was just natural for...

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War and Peace: That Midst Nations And Nationals

War and Peace, a classical fiction by Leo Tolstoy, first published as Voyna I Mir in 1865–69. This picturesque reflection of early 19th-century Russian culture saw as its...

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“I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” (Sonnet XLI)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair,...

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Of Ghosts and fiends in Twilight, Cont.


A thought flashed in my mind from the old tales told
The lore of the beast and I had felt his foul breath
I had seconds to act or be devoured...

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Healing Win/Lose EgoNomial Intent

We belong together
Through all kinds of colonizing corporate weather,
We belong creolizing together.

So sings my mitochondrial DNA
when I listen deeply
to all prior matriarchal regenerations
speaking in still 
soft 
timeless win/win voices

Especially about polycultural outcome...

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