Long Indifferently Poems

THIS WORLD OF DEW

This world? 
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane's bill.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last? 
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dewdrops beading grass-blades
die before...

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Unquotable quotes: Fat People – XXIX

(I know this piece sounds mean and cruel but as every single parent must have experienced, this is also the expression of utter exasperation, and perhaps there’s also the slightest...

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Her back never faces the door

“I’ll only need you on certain days”

she says
(absently)

“I’ll have to write them down
my memory doesn’t work so well
especially when I am caught up”

she’s thinking
(a lovely stare)

“Who is that in the...

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Without form and void, 
The world gave a lunatic gaze. 
Lack of luminous light love bought,
Darkness did give her a chase. 
Open to no one was her, 
Water beneath and air above. 
Open to someone...

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Rugby SCRUM* DANCE for Divorced and Dis-abused Wedding Guests

(Packs made up of eight « players » (see note below) may be formed indifferently : either segregate the sexes or mix them up. No sweat !...

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It’s monsoon season here in New Haven,
gone, are the banked, fluorescent colors of sunset.

This feeling hit me, like a rogue wave.
“We have to go out tonight,” I announced, to no one in particular.

I think I’d...

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FREE VERSE VI

Reason Without Rhyme
by Michael R. Burch

I used to be averse
to free verse,
but now I admit
YOUR rhyming is WORSE!

But alas, in the end,
it’s all the same:
all verse is unpaid
and a crying shame.



What the Poet...

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THIRUK-KURAL on not offending the Great*: Periyaaraip Pilaiyaamai - Canto 90 K895 and K897

[* The "Great" here are indifferently the King or other learned and wise people whom the King ought to respect and fear....

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THIRUK-KURAL on not offending the Great*: Periyaaraip Pilaiyaamai - Canto 90, K899 and K900

[* The "Great" here are indifferently the King or other learned and wise people whom the King ought to respect and fear....

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Indifference, if neutral,
is not hostile or inviting.

Indifference of nature,
like indifferent sages,
need not favor warriors detached from winning health
nor degenerative losing trends against healthy wealth,
cast in our 'hollow reed' self-neutral image
of empty potential godliness,
pure omnipresent transparency,
divine...

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The morning sun’s oppressive; a nasty b*tch in heat on Rizal Avenue,
Where vendors hawk their cigarettes, baloot, and dog meat barbecue.
The jeepneys buzz the intersection like a hornet’s nest,
But it’s quiet down the mountain once...

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We’ve created life that makes us see each other indifferently
In your world, I am an intruder while in mine, you are the coarseness. 
Making conflicts that are war like with little understanding of why we...

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April happens
One out of twelve chances
That it has to come each year
And it always seems
To happen out
This way

The vast chance 
The ocean has 
To roll out over me
Is never unwasted,

And it finds my raw, used...

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Communication break down for several months 
who knows why i am unsure i don't question the trials of others its not meant 
for me to know. I take the still frame in my mind of...

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Spirit voices echo        
In the hills above my eyes
I can hear them calling out 
To the ground and to the skies

Indifferently moving
Slowly passing through
The leaves on the trees...

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I stand here by my window looking outwards
In a house across the street are pairs of newly caged birds
Parrots , sparrows and some fancy exotic birds all in a single cage
I knew in that tiny...

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I sat at the shore at the
Break of the day. When the,
Sun steals from the vast curtain of nature,
Peeping through human infrastructures.
When I saw,a lamb beyond the transculent
sea,
Measuring the path of the pompous forest,
Chewing cud...

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OCULUS  

Is…

…about the MOON, its power, its mystery, its simplicity?

Its light is soft a pail reflection 
Of its son. 
The one always on the run. 

The moon is an oculus of cold white a...

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TO BREATHE OR NOT TO BREATHE

A nursing sister in ICU walks desperately from bed to bed,
Can you breathe my dear she fist asks Val, then Ted,
They look at her with fear of death in their...

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I'm jabbed at my side with plummet and jab, and yet I must grin and bear it,
I'm abhorrent with scorn for those who must mourn, but then I indifferently swear 
it.
Pathos and play this is...

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—Oh, it’s a terrible thing to see—

Look; the face,
that ugly face reflected in a broken mirror.

It’s a daffodil, the dream of Narcissus’,
it’s an inevitable arrogance, the karma of Hamlet’s,

yet no way to cast all these...

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Pensive, empty faces
Young and old
Keeping idle chatter
Above the noise of squirming, squealing babies...
Mothers forge patience while stuffing tots with
Popcorn and soda pop pacifiers.
The clock, under constant scrutiny, glares back
The hour,10 a.m.
Someone mumbles 'I've been here...

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I awoke again 
In the same godawful place,
With wine bottles on the floor, 
and egg on my face
"Thank Christ" I said...
...I honestly had no idea 
Since the last time I'd eaten,
Where my next meal might...

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pardons for the beggar
he knows not what he trades
witness to the rapture
a feather for a spade
preaching him a savior
what alms that would've made
words to sate the hunger
though wordlessly he prayed

threnodies for martyrs
indifferently played
lulling into stupor
those...

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damned patrons' victims proved helpless agonised
ministers agonised inside wombs, starlit shields of beheaded
offenders glassfuls of blood, elegant marks indelible, bricks in moonlit lorn
pits, gods' unstable tolerance         ...

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