Long Insignificance Poems

WOMEN ...

Truly amaze me ... they possess the super-human
strength to birth a child - one of the most painful
and demanding physical and emotional feats of end-
urance known to our species - yet they have the
self-confidence...

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Poems about Poems V

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as though she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She...

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Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds (I)



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as hummingbird wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching...

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I went again today ... to that place, the allurement overwhelming ... the one
we called "ours" so tritely, "mine" before you, "mine" again now, (tho' others
have doubtless staked claimed - ages before and since). I...

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justice 

What does this vastly misunderstood word mean to you? 

Too what ends? 

May we seek? 

Who(m) may guide us? 

Endless deliberation (spiss spiss spiss)

Debated and glorified by us all 

Beloved; instilled among (a) core...

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I was raised in one of those white nationalist churches,
passing itself off as a Christian evangelical Bible church,
where "evangelical" meant fundamental
and "fundamental" meant we did not interpret scripture
but accepted it as God's literal trans-historical Word
of...

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Easter as interpreted by one...

rebated, rebelled, rebirthed, rebooted, 
and rebuked courtesy 
one ill shod Unitarian atheist,
who means NOT to affect
any sacrilegious fallout
nor offend devoutly religious 
man, woman, or child,
when the most important 
Christian holiday notated,...

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I have a son,
in whom I am well pleased,
with more than his share of heart
and mindbody intelligence,
to comprehend vastness of Earth's evolving history
and future demise,
to comprehend full emptiness of universes within
and without
co-arising nondual lonely/solitude
double-binary universes
de/re-generative,

Enough...

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Just watching raindrops slapping leaves
is better than anything requiring electricity
including fame and posterity. Monday
morning I walk over to the art museum
stand before Homer. I'm imagining
life in ancient Greece, the land largely
deforested to build a navy,...

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Is there room to care for the penultimate?
Can't decide if the space can satisfy two collard greens.  
One oblivious cabbage... one who has desperately tried to expand the space, to save the others, who...

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Sometimes I feel so

Insignificant.



I have yet to understand why I’m here.

What’s my purpose?

Will I be forgotten easily when it’s time for me to go?

Or will I be remembered by many?

It’s difficult to pinpoint what makes...

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Sonnets V-IX



Afterglow
by Michael R. Burch

The night is full of stars. Which still exist?
Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know.
For now I hold your fingers to my lips
and feel their pulse... warm, palpable and slow...

once...

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Easter as interpreted by one...
rebated, rebirthed rebooted, and rebuked
ill shod Unitarian atheist

Though avast percentage
of stonehenge temple piloted ghosts,
harking back millennia
constantly zip unseen thru aerospace,
they unwittingly espy
woolly sheep hush fleeced herd
profoundly religious peep pulls
plodding fast as...

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I currently conjoin with AllSouls,
a sacred green communion of saints
and sometimes sinners.

A few live together,
couples,
extending families
reaching multiculturally out
through AllSoul roots
regenerating pasts,
transforming future generations
now repressed by fear of global climate pathology
as thick and toxic
as lose/lose ecopolitical...

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An image of the netherworld envisioned by a misanthrope

Mein kampf fraught re: 
emotionally/psychologically challenged 
impossible mission to cope
compared to classmates, I felt like a dope
and entertained escapist fantasies,
whereby Miss Rainbow 
(sixth grade student teacher),
though robbing...

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Late in life I struggle against my insignificance
When I should enjoy the freedom from performance before an audience.
Applause is happiness but if they withhold applause, embarrassment.
When Da Liu put me to work crunching hexagrams and...

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Born into a world with only one hand to hold
Delivered by eyes impassive to his existence 
cold fingers brought no warmth to his welcome
While no strength held him high.
The yearning in his eyes hollowed with...

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I have a son
with more than his share of heart
and mindbody intelligence,
to comprehend vastness of Earth’s evolving history
and future demise,
to comprehend full emptiness of universes within
and without
co-arising nondual universes,
enough intelligence to become haunted
by our deep...

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To shivering seas 
   mirroring cracked crystals,
I am searching for a righteous rhyme,
to orchestrate eclipsed realms 
with blue orchids 
      and plum blossoms,
singing sunflower symphonies 
of blooming poetry,...

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Climate change,
like most,
if not all,
unwelcome change,
too often violent and deranged
and hopelessly redundant,
remains conservatively controversial
as to who started It.

Yet this issue of inheritance
fades into insignificance
when confronted by our tsunamic evidence
of who is secularly
and sacredly
responsible for healing...

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Black lives matter. Me too.
Not my president. Give peace a chance.
Luck runs out. I like immigrants. 
Power must be challenged by power. 

Equal and opposite reactions.
God is the answer. Love is the answer.
Walk on the...

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Pointed Art
Michael R. Burch

The point of art is that
there is no point.
A grinning, quick-dissolving cat
from Cheshire
must have told you that.

The point of art is this—
the hiss
of Cupid’s bright bolt, should it miss,
is bliss
compared to Truth’s...

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Deep within the bowels of the Earth
(dark visceral centre)
immensely distant from the sheltering sky
amidst a thick fog enveloped landscape
with here and there a projected
craggy, derelict chasm
precipitously crooked 
rocky claws pointing toward

an infinitely wide yawning abyss
dwelt...

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Deep within Earthen bowels
immensely distant from sheltering sky
amidst a thick fog enveloped landscape
with here and there a projected
craggy, derelict chasm

precipitously crooked 
rocky claws pointing toward
an infinitely wide yawning abyss
dwelt kindred spirits 

comprising soul asylum
where grateful...

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So when the webbed-tide snares the lunars nether recesses in its glow casting shadows that arise among the craggs wedged beside some cliffs of common confirmed debris of the unnamed fallen heaps of mucked mired...

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