Long Lessons Poems

“I am NOT like my father!!!
You say that again, I’m going to kill you!”

I shrivel up in shame
For, I am not to blame
For the shenanigans you put me through so many times
Sometimes, I wish I...

Read More

This is the story of mad Molly Shaw
She might be mad now but she wasn’t before
she came home to find her man dead on the floor
She lay down her bible and let out a roar...

Read More

Flint 
Within its brilliance gleaming
Cool black in lacquered polished silver chrome
Cranked up pistons bleached in summer’s heat
Hot steam rising as gears thundering
Beyond the crystal liquid city lights
Highways built across the land
In hearts felt pride American...

Read More

"The Messenger"

Love is rich with 
venom and honey. 

there was a female ...

snake, 
it watched 
with green-eyed 
avarice, covetting
a dove’s nest

the dove, 
was white as snow, 
not young, getting on,
tiny flecks of grey

the dove 
alone,...

Read More

“Frequency” 

we are separated 
from the others
by a thin membrane

electromagnetic

we are receptors
unignited ununited
only tuned into our own

frequency

existing to be lit
the fuses touching
reaching delicately 

that which we do 
and do not see, 
believe

answers embedded
in tablets read...

Read More

Various Heresies 3

Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now...

Read More

Please be informed: 

The Nigerian youths have agreed together in love and oneness that in 2023 presidential election and in every other elections, whether state or local government. We will not vote for anyone who...

Read More

Too many times sadly
too seldom gladly
I must learn to trust
Earth's future more

Both Father Sun's timeless 
rounds of enlightenment
and Mother Earth's
codependent rhythms
regenerating rich 
empowering 
soulful soil
and surfing seas

And this trusting more
impels healing trauma's lessons,
surviving hale and...

Read More

Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers I

I translated the first six Native American poems for my father when he chose to enter hospice and end his life by not taking dialysis …


Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation...

Read More

“The True Mother”

What part of a heart
in another could one trust
when betrayal comes
like a silver bullet, words and deeds
sharp piercing to burrow 
bleed out Life’s dreams 
rust crumbles to dust

Virulent apathy spreads 
Betrayal’s destruction 
hand...

Read More

Political Science of EarthTribe Education

Really? That’s my topic?
Didn’t Paulo Freire already do this one?

Oh, I see..neurosystemic therapy learning 
and restorative justice mentoring,
including healthy pedagogical development 
of ecologically cooperative systems
doing the best we can
to avoid retributive...

Read More

Native American Translations

Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own...

Read More

Dear neighbors,

I realize we have not met,
other than the guy next door
but that doesn't really count
cause that was just to put up a fence between us,
and I have met Marvelously Mad Max,
behind me, on the...

Read More

Wounded Sacred Dementia: Part Two

Dementia's derelict WinLose SocialWorker
suboptimizingly hesitates
when I tell her
I have not changed my mind
about not adopting Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
into my vulnerable home
with a seven-year-old AfricanAmerican boy
blind
and unable to defend himself,
or even run...

Read More

Dear Donald John
and GoodFaith Followers,
CoInvestors,
ProActive Prayers for Rapturous Redemption
from Eternal Hellish
paranoid
Left EgoVoices anger and fear
Right SpiritFeelings ecodarkly terrified
from and of dying death.

Your LeftBrain does not lack
for paranoid Win/Lose conviction
We must live in a dog eat...

Read More

I have a hardbound copy of
"The City of Hartford 1784-1984"
although most of this coffee table story
of unfortunate events
takes place between 1850 and 1950s,
before and after the UnCivil War,
and,
like the U.S. Catholic Church
and many MainLine Protestant...

Read More

I don't think it's just me.
I find myself challenged to change LeftBrain cognitive beliefs,
languaged abstractions of personal feelings,
perhaps because it is not possible to change Right Brain's
Elder feelings of co-passionate trust
where dipolar co-arising positive pleasure
is...

Read More

Conditions were harsh out in Kansas,
For the children and Sarah and Paul.
Neighbors and friends packed up and were gone;
Headed west they could hear fortune's call.
Never sure year to year of the harvest,
So their talents were...

Read More

As to the this and the that and the how and the why,
    I pass no judgement on the tale at hand.
And leave it to scribes to much later decide
  ...

Read More

Once upon a time there was a castle made of pure ivory. Pillars pale and barren, holding a surface of grace and elegance. This castle was the home of a mighty unicorn named Stardust. She...

Read More

CHALLENGE TITLE POETRY CONTEST FOR AUGUST ON POEMHUNTER.COM! 

'WHY DO TURTLES CROSS THE ROAD? '


OK FOLKS! Please choose your favorite poem from those entered here and remember too to give your reasons for your choice....

Read More

"Hey, you philosophysing Hindu. Give me a break, Buddy. I was just pulling your leg. [...] I want the rest of the story. Really, I mean it.” Theson said nothing. [...] “I can see you’re...

Read More

- - Chapter 2: Adult Responsibility (With Some Breaks) - -     

By ten years old, no weekends off, 
Or Saturday cartoons, 
Although I did have cash to spend, 
I felt my...

Read More

I.
Treasures That May Be Found In Destiny's New Shift

( Mille viri sententia agere nescit donec suscipit calamum scribere.)

For a brief spell, I hung my hammock in the shade
of the ancient tall oak tree, that God's...

Read More

Today
we left off yesterday
to pick up
where speaking non-violent principles 
too often neglect to listen
to liberally artistic,
green and active
yet non-reactive
compassionate healers
may need to co-invest more
in co-operating democratic research
of
and for
WholeEarth DiaLogical Matriotism.

Excuse me,
but co-passioned listening
to silence
speaks not...

Read More