Long Exhale Poems

Village in the Valley left behind, and then it's a fine find
Mountain in the making...in the dark alleys of my mind

You're a flashlight
In the night
You are a friend 
Till the end
Bite the bullet
You're the village...

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Psychologically still thirteen 

Ordinarily meaning pre Internet days
familiarization with me would entail
bringing the avid listener 
into my private mancave hideaways
less a physical place than a juncture in relationship, 
(whereby one or the other of us)...

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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Today, catching sight of the mallards
crying over Lake Iware:
Must I too vanish into the clouds?
—Prince Otsu translation by Michael R. Burch  

This world—
to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields
lying darkening at dusk
illuminated by...

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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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I’m stronger than I realize,
I’m not alone
And I’m not a failure

I am focused on the prize -
God’s Kingdom today, though I’m on my own
Feeling like a Jailure

I was brave enough
Life can be quite rough
I was...

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Yoga in Poem A Novel Approach Step 6

Brahmari Pranayama or Humming Bee Breath

IMP. NOTE: Temporarily I am stopping new episodes 
of Yoga in Poem due to personal reasons and will try 
to restart Yoga in...

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Dear neighbors,

I realize we have not met,
other than the guy next door
but that doesn't really count
cause that was just to put up a fence between us,
and I have met Marvelously Mad Max,
behind me, on the...

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"...making this shift [from ego to Authentic ecoSelf] usually requires inspired [inductive Right to Left +health-reiterative messages] intention and consistent, diligent effort [and a supportive vocational and residential and eco-logically balanced environment.]"

"And the way this...

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I’m stronger than I realize,
I’m not alone
And I’m not a failure

I am focused on the prize -
God’s Kingdom today, though I’m on my own
Feeling like a Jailure

I was brave enough
Life can be quite rough
I was...

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HEROES

Near somber guards, units of children heap 
dead leaves, naive to any else fallen.
Friend, you chuckle, but your posture speaks
of duty on this day of contradictions.

Firefighters bow heads in silent paean, 
while polished trucks stand...

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A few words about my good friend, Fr. Time, perhaps over-invested 
in developing this language and these dialects of evolution.

Not to blame someone for doing too good a job,
but why shine so much light on...

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June 12th 2017 TRANSITION revisited and revised today 4/2/2021

While scrolling over outdated docs
(i.e. namely OpenOffice documents)
derrière seated upon hard backed chair,
yours truly came upon following poem
to share with anonymous readers,
whereby slight modifications 
got made to...

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CRISIS TEAM: HELLO WE ARE HERE TO HELP

AGENT BROWN: HELLO I'M AGENT BROWN IN DIRE NEED OF THE FBI HELP AFTER I CONTACTED THE FBI ABOUT THE ARSON MURDERER OF 9 CIRO GARGANO AND HIS...

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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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"In the unmanifest [timeless (0)-soul] dimension, the ground of [eco-syntax] Being--that perfect, empty no-place [holder "Zero"] where there is only absolute stillness--you could say that God [Timeless Eternity] is peace.

Before the universe [spacetime] was born,...

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Within the frame a sepia scene
a dusty porch   a rickety chair   
the fabric of your dusky face creased
with ceaseless sunbaked woes
your old pair of getaway feet gives 
a different walk of...

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Verse 1:
Forsaken by the crowd of acceptance 
I am used to all sorts of rejectance 
I've been hurt so many times before
It doesn't hurt me anymore, for my heart is already sore
I laugh and talk
We...

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Once within eternal time
of pre-LeftBrain domination,
I recall breathing in 
EarthMother's richly hued nutrition,
and this Other inhaling me,
purging lungs of misperceptions
that I was Her
any more or less than S/he was me.

We owned this communion together,
sacred breath...

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It was sometime back in the 70's,
my later 20's,
I woke up one morning to realize
EgoSelf as an often dissonant nest 
of natural systemic TaoEarth,
a mindbody bicameral treehouse
in some way that felt socially
and economically
and perhaps even...

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Experience v Theory,
like Both/And inducted feelings v. Either/Or deductions,
like Internal Information v External ReConstructions,
like Memory v ReImaging,
like Cause/Effect v DNA of causal-effective nest 
of resilient Golden WinWin Theory

Western nature v spirit theories v Eastern nondual...

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This is my translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's second elegy from his Duino Elegies, which he began composing at Duino Castle in 1912. 

Second Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Every angel...

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"I do not see what right any one would have
to object to calling this part 
[the South American mainland], 
after Americus 
who discovered it 
and who is a man of intelligence, 
Amerigen, 
that is, the...

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What could I do? 

What to do
when your biological,
and even formerly sober ecological,
relationships suddenly veer insanely romantic?

Or worse,
mistrustful
and yet
not always distrustful,
or not,
maybe deeper sadness
and occasional manic gladness
emerging inclusively wider questions
of approach and/or avoid

Both romantic
and yet...

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