Long Exhaled Poems

Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a...

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Damian Stood in the morning sun.
The sun felt good on his face.
Delilah was still sleeping. He
Kissed her face and caressed 
Her belly until she awoke.
Hey my Mrs. Me. Come on babe.
We will be leaving today...

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He just appeared to me, like wispily curling 
Chimney smoke, 
One grim and early morning in the very midst of 
Decembers briefest days, on the highest slope,
Toiling through my daily round; where, slowly 
Driving up...

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genius?
sometimes you are in its minimal spotted light...sometimes!
other times you just know you've been touched and you freeze,
moved but frozen...like a stranger it moves in, does its work and leaves.

...maybe it's been a while since...

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Continued from Maya 1

At length, when the womens' screams had ceased
and the sound of the thunder had stopped,
he gathered his courage and withdrew himself
from his hiding place beneath the corn.
He left the hut and prostrated...

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Fear of Climate Success

If you're like me,
which probably already reduces the size of my captive audience
to Zero,

Regardless,
if we're like we used to be
when we were born
with all the potential integrity neurons
of the uniting universe,

Through childhood...

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I'm in the process of joining a Unitarian Universalist Green Sanctuary
communion of All Souls,
in Connecticut.

This is not my first time joining a new intentional good-faith community,
but it is the first time I have signed a...

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AFTER MANY THOUSANDS 
OF STEPS
I BECAME VERY COMFORTABLE
WITH MY SURROUNDINGS.
I STARTED TO THINK
OF ALL THE EVENTS
LEADING UP TO THIS POINT.

I OPENED THAT DOOR
IN THE UNIVERSE.
I CHOSE TO OPEN THAT DOOR
I WANTED TO KNOW 
WHAT WAS...

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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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Captain kuni-lemel graduate strikes again - updated

Steely Dan sing queen (me)
outdid himself on sixtieth anniversary 
after Grahame Wood 
determined to meet 
the evolving needs of the community 
opened the first Wawa Food Market 
in Folsom,...

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To prepare for final cosmic breath
exhaled

echoing first breath
inhaling
waiting to exhale

silent sacred pause 
for Earth's final soliloquy 

Terminating all humane
and inhumane futures,
healthy
and disturbing relationships,
elegantly excruciating ecstasy

Leaving hell
without receiving Heaven

Surrendering commitments
to health
and lack thereof

Future obligations
and past assets

Resigning...

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One year Passed Damian Junior 
Was 15 months old. Damian 
Graduated from West Virginia 
University institute of Technology 
With honors and an
Associate of Applied Science 
Degree. His whole family 
Attended the graduation and
Congratulated him with...

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I don't know,
S/He said,

(right winged left
exhaled downstream
past everyone's egopaled head)

If God is dead
and also much too Capitalistic,
LeftBrain dominant hegemonalistic

(like water to a philosophical shark)

If God is straight
and white
and a patriarchal supremacist accountant
calculating monoculturally ambitious values

Then...

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(Door bell rings)

 — The damn dog barks and a voice is heard. Arms stretch, forming a letter Y. A head shakes. Dimples become this smooth cheek; lips form a letter O... Exhaled respiration sighs; the break of...

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we sat, my brother and I
leaning against the old wood pannels of the room
the smoke engulfed us like breath
as the threat of violence loomed

his voice was quiet still
passion and regret burned in his eyes
when he...

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How might Earth's underground narrative
of a sacred Tree
speak most profoundly
of old growth economic
and political
environmental trauma?

A question I forgot to ask
when I was younger
and more disabled
and WhiteMale monotheistic

How might even Republican Red MotherTrees
avoid secularized Self-serving
by Capitalizing...

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Strategically placed when raised 
Upwards
By your masterful and well 
Practiced hand.
To mingle with ever changing 
Skylines 
That frown down with arrogant 
Scowls
Upon the indigenous populous of 
This just and tolerant island.
To study and pontificate upon...

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Yuletide pageants vis a vis merry go round revisited

healthy progeny regaled being alive
analogous to children ecstatic twenty-five
on December exhaling joie de vivre at dive 
in into neat stack of wrapped gifts, when...
what! out of thin...

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Yoga in Poem A Novel Approach Step 5

Anulom Vilom or The Science of Alternate Breathing


HOW TO DO IT

Take your right thumb on your right nostril and while pressing and closing it inhale a deep slow...

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This was the explicit exploration 
Exasperation Continuation.
Molly laid across the bed with a 
Pair of lacey underwear. Damian 
Adored the exhibition. Her subtle
Sensuous submission. He reached
For her hips as she slid beneath the
Sheets he removed...

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I was listening, last night,
to a sympathetic defense
for conserving liberal arts
and producing deeper and wider liberating sciences
including healthy democratic
politically empowering science.

Once again
I am hearing about the persuasive prominence of identity,
how we label our ego-political selves,
as...

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In our Sharing Circles
we have a ground rule
to share a one speaker at a time floor
and unitarian silent listening support

And rules to not share uninvited commentary
suggestions
verbal agreements or disagreements
during, and after,
this formalized Circle.

Speakers are invited...

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Ohh I could have sat with my heart 
--elevated with dribbled echoes-- 
ahhhhhh until it yet exhaled the tarnished seams 
capturing only the quiet current lapping
and soaking dirty steel embankment	
along the river’s edge beneath the...

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Yuletide pageant merry go round

Panoply of mystical elements of holly day style 
breathe prez sense frostily exhaled aired
per millennia athwart 
(this terrestrial spaceship planet Earth)
two plus seventeen carousel rides resonated
veritable pantheon of pagan rituals 
and...

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My LeftYang eye and ear,
and maybe throat
and hand
and probably vocational foot
remain adamantly persuaded

My most successful time for deep ecological listening
and watching
is immediately after inhaling a vast theological lungful
preparing to speak my WiseElderness
into the remaining yin...

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