Long Heraclitus Poems

No Mark
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes, 
impaled upon
impassive rocks...

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear...

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur...

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before...

here where you have...

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“Nightingale and Roses”

the heart burst open
like a canary cracks open its cage with a song
listening to the nightingale with roses
flying like a throatful soul escaping 
from somewhere deep within,
soaring out the cavern measureless to man,
that...

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"The Kingfisher" 

Easters
fast escape us
like every 
Christmas 
comes and goes
like a Graduation
where the parent
is excluded
and the lost 
prodigious progeny
eventually 
makes their quest
for an elusive
Holy Grail
buried under shale
or burnt ashes 
floating on air, where,
the breeze pushes...

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ZEUS

1.
Oh Zeus,*
Ruler of starry heavens and of fertile earth,
Supreme among Gods and father of all men,
Your name known to me it is, although, you, unknown 
To me remain 
For 
No mortal, since the beginning of...

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Heraclitus :
The world continues to be in a state of flux ,
Where strife (Nekos) and love (Philia) , 
Are the dividing and uniting forces in control ,
To ensure the balance and unity of the whole...

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Pythagoras while playing the Lyre one day ,
Formulated his musical theory as Historians say !
Just as distinct notes were produced by the varying
lengths of the Lyre strings ,
So did the planets , revolving in there...

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THE PLURALISTS : Empedocles & Anaxagoras

That single primary substance the ‘arche’ of
the Ionian philosophers ,
Was challenged by Emphedocles (b.495BC)
and Anaxagoras(b.500BC) !
Emphedocles spoke of four qualitative elements
of Nature ;
As Earth , Air , Fire and Water...

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Continuation from previous poem

We reached the footer of a castle steep,
Seven times by walls encircled very tall,
Defended by a river hard to leap.

We overpassed it as hard ground at all;
Through seven doors I entered with...

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Imagine that someone wants to argue against the existence of air
All the while breathing in air
The Catholics have the Mitered Buffoon
They say Protestants have the “Paper Pope” too
Immanuel Kant said you can’t bring the noumenal...

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" There is not enough love and goodness in the world to give any of it away to imaginary beings. " *

 ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, 1844-1900  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



No, dear Friedrich,

God is not an...

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The amount of good and evil

Constant remains

Throughout space and time

There is

No more suffering than good fortune 

No more good fortune than suffering  

In the universe and in the human soul 

This is the law...

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In the beginning there was logos

Said Heraclitus!

In the beginning there was word
Said the Bible!
Sticks and stones 
Or words said
The sadistic torturers of all times!
When words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain
Said Shakespeare.
Then he...

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Philosopher, they call me,
Following Pythagoras* of old,
A friend of wisdom it means and
Nothing more.

For years philosophy’s principles
I tried to understand and
For decades her ethics strived
To apply.

Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Heraclitus
My subjects were,
Thus
Faithfully myself devoted to
Their teaching
With
No...

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In the beginning there was logos
Said Heraclitus!
In the beginning there was word
Said the Bible!
Sticks and stones 
Or words said
The sadistic torturers of all times!
When words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain
Said Shakespeare.
Then he...

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When my pen hits the paper 
I grow anxious and eager to write another caper
Steadily and gracefully then I lift my pen
I ponder with my thoughts on subject matter and where to begin
I hunger for...

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The ancient philosopher Heraclitus astutely said…on the banks of a river in Babylon…”You cannot step into the same river twice…for the waters are continually flowing on.”

I think that also works for any step we take...

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It’s a hard, hard thing to conceal
When you live in fear of ‘the real’
A terrible thing is to feel
When you’re a wheel within a wheel

I look in your bright blue eyes
For a moment, I’m tantalized
The...

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The river flows, and in its twisting
it breaks and rebuilds itself,
a perpetual motion that devours itself
and gives birth to time.
It is night in the heart of day,
light in the depths of darkness,
a fire blazing in...

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A white city here lies –
a trace of centuries gone.
An old man Heraclitus
awoke freely at dawn. 

At the bank of the sea
was a heavenly drop.
In the valley at hills
became ripened its crop.

Great sons of Artemis...

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FRIEND of WISDOM 



Philosopher, they call me,
Following Pythagoras of old,
A friend of wisdom it means and
Nothing more.

For years philosophy’s principles 
I tried to understand and 
For decades her ethics strived
To apply
Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Heraclitus
My subjects...

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...Apologies to Heraclitus and W. H. Auden...

We, defeated by the merest things,
in defeat, endure...for now.

No abiding truth in faith:
origins and destinations
we cannot differentiate,
all random, unguided
by any prescient power;
but, not illogical
(there is no illogic.)

We impose all...

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Zeno on Vacation

		           - In praise of immobility

	


		It certainly isn’t far from his room
		to the ocean. A few steps. Easily

		navigable, he says to himself. Not
		a...

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I
At home with Shankara & Ramanuja
As with Spinoza, Kant, and Buber
Seventy years on earth, to 1950, heir
To Thought of East, West, 'Father Nature'
Fought for Independent India, from 'Raj'
Taught we must do spiritual evolution
Community and nation...

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