Long Legally Poems

With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

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Prizes for Ultimate Sacrifices


    prizes for the abstemious  for abstinence  chastity ?
                 the countless...

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Introduction: once again I incorporate 
my trademark penchant 
to fabricate fictitiously
portions of the following poetic endeavor
can you care to 
discern fact from fiction?

Attempts at lifelong friendships and holy matrimony...

Shot thru with figuratively cankerous nub,
cuz yours...

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A lovely outcome for our recreational journey,
or Way
or Truths,
or LoveLives,
whichever you prefer to pick out
from among this graced array,
tells a multi-generational creation story
of cosmic sacred ecology
and Earth's evolution revolutions,
drawing on and with 
scientific deductive knowledge
both...

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_ a symphonic, folk rock, blues song
1.
I'm an old man looking
For the lost, best parts of me.
I'm an old man looking
For the lost, best parts of me.
I'm looking in the places
Where the people say love...

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Stricken with anguished nausea

Written three years ago tomorrow, 
yet superimposed (likened to 
emotional palimpsest) upon 
mental state of yore
recent post traumatic stress 
triggered courtesy war
torn legally tendered greenbacks, 
where enemy bonded, heisted, and netted 
mine...

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I think it might be John Rawls
who writes about
thick and thin justice sandwiches.

Thick justice
may be more deeply embedded, richly spread
in regenerative pursuing time,
producing and serving healthy wealth relationships,
often digestively motivated
to achieve nutritional communion goals,

While thinner...

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There are times in life when we deal with strife
    And are helpless to the powers that be.
Where we are sequestered by doubt... and still tossed about
    By others...

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Madison's defense of the establishment clause to the Virginia legislature:
"Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the...

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I am just finishing my morning meditation when I hear my doorbell ring. It actually sounds more like that buzzing sound you hear if you fry a fat fly on one of those electronic bug...

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June nineteenth one hundred and fifty nine years ago

The conclusion of the American Civil War commenced with the articles of surrender agreement of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, at Appomattox Court House,...

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THE CITY AND THE STATE OF PLAY TODAY

No one worries about morals today 
They follow the rules they create
So to them all is ok
Those on the outside looking in 
Are the only ones feeling queasy...

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A JUNETEENTH PRAYER

Closing our eyes is easy…it’s probably the best way
to think, to hope, to dream…to make a wish…to kiss…to pray.

The quiet darkness behind our eyes is where we start
to heed the teachings of our...

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Ah... the glory of a restful sleep

Nothing beats the refreshing
blissful peaceful easy feeling
resulting from shut-eye after
feeling zonked out staying up
late after a hard day's night
binge reading or slaving o'er
crafting an umpteenth brilliant
masterpiece a comment from
modest...

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Stricken with turbulence at about seventy two inches

Yours truly issuing a deafening rebel yell
bursting forth with such might
courtesy cooking under pressure
analogous to volcanic upswell,
forcing me quickly to flap vestigial wings
(at the speed of sound)
while simultaneously...

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Deva Ossig, the landlady (and property owner) turned rogue

Just a couple weeks shy 
and seven years ago to the day,
I still remember contractual obligations
our previous residential abode
724 West Railroad Avenue, 
Bryn Mawr 19010 zip code
volatile...

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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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Humpty Dumpty sat on a "Wall"! Humpty Dumpty had a "GREAT FALL":"ALL THE KINGS HORSES,and all "THE KINGS MEN COULD NOT PUT "HUMPTY DUMPTY"TRUMPTY",back together "EVER AGAIN"! Is Donald John Trump "The Humpty Dumpty"? He...

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As I age into merely spiritual memories
of those sadly/gladly left behind
in less/more egocentrically embodied forms

Co-acclimating/aggressing functions
feel more like contrasting/constrained flows
of positive/negative
sensory-neural energy,
communication systems,
nutrition/digestion networks
of regenerating/degenerating
natural/spiritualized memory.

It does seem
our spiritual advisors
lesson-givers
teachers
scripture narratives
stories
preachers
communities
economies
directors
democracies
theocracies
leaders feature
pathologies of heart
and mind
and...

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An entire week I handled it-
The teasing and the taunting and
Every night the moon shone down-
Was really very daunting.

Judge John squinted his eyes at me,
T'was approximately mid morning.
Cleaned his ear with his finger-
"Am giving you...

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It was both a complicated and simpler place and time.
Mostly a quiet place tucked away, but not far off the beaten path.
Occasionally, a noisy and sometimes uncivil place, but very little crime.
A place though legally...

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He said s/he was a Permaculture Designer
of cooperative economies.

I asked him/her why I should care about designs
long-term
while I am still struggling through this day
before tomorrow,
when I, best case scenario,
awaken healthy 
to begin surviving yet another...

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October the 23rd 2024 at ten till eight the mighty Kublai died.
I was selfish and greedy wanting him to last just one more week,
even though a friend called saying she could help I made plans...

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I usually don't have the patience to read long novels, but this one                      ...

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IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXIX -  Bang! Bang! Who Shot Me Down like an Un-licensed Dog !

IF ever I had a country, a country certainly 
not subject to the whistle of a...

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