Long Mountainous Poems

Village in the Valley left behind, and then it's a fine find
Mountain in the making...in the dark alleys of my mind

You're a flashlight
In the night
You are a friend 
Till the end
Bite the bullet
You're the village...

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It may have been the devil himself who prompted the kids in my schoolyard back in 1947 to chant "Patsy Foley's roly-poly from eating too much ravioli."

At first, no one could remember who started the...

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The Tender Weight of Her Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

The tender weight of her sighs
lies heavily upon my heart;
apart from her, full of doubt,
without her presence to revolve around,
found wanting direction or course,
cursed with the thought...

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Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by...

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English translations of Arabic poems by Fadwa Tuqan aka "The Poet of Palestine"

Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink...

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Forever forgive me
For my one and only iniquity
Please forgive me
With forbearance eternally

Lots of anger and lust
Got a hold of me…
So, I must...oh, I must…
Set my soul free

Forever forgive me
Determine my footsteps to the light
Emotionally unhappy
Intervene...

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YangLeft: Those still capable of right thinking,
as our more civil
humane reflections
on bilateral political
and economic investment inflection,
sometimes cooperative
and democratically co-invested,
but usually just BusinessAsUsual
life remains a win/lose infested 
compromising 
ZeroSum political disempowering game 
deflection.

YintegrityRight: Sweety,
thanks for honorable...

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                             Brahman Nemesis

    ...

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GROUP VALUES

Belief in WinWin organic ability
to cooperatively manage secular 
as BothAnd sacred 
health development vocations.

Desire to create
open DNA-familiar GREEN systems--
Great
ReForesting
EconomicYang 3D SpaceDriven
EcologicalYin 4D TimeFlowing
Networking organic WinWin 
reverse-time gaming cooperative system
especially following matriarchal-wombed
DNA and RNA strings...

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Icons are funny things,
she thought.

Heaven feels like a warm light circle
when we are thriving
and more like a cold dark triangle
of weaponed tipping points
against me
and mine
competitively not communicating
when we are barely surviving
above the mortally terrifying bottom
of...

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Human history is difficult;
hard pressed,
discovering
and rediscovering,
connecting
and reconnecting feelings
about therapeutic needs
and sacred wants
for trauma-prevention peace
trust
joy

Through co-empathic singing passions
which may,
too often, 
feel stressful

Irritating
depressing
stormy
before unconditional win/win regard
for Self AND Other
reconnect,

Like EgoTheistic re-ligion
and EcoMatrimonial
indigenously multicultural
ecowomanist wisdom

Of Ego/EarthTribe mutual MeWe...

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I want to respond
to the retired Marine
who watched Democratic Congressional Leaders
during the State of our crippled Union event,
disappointed at how their patriotism,
their loyalty to sacred sacrifices of soldiers
appears too tepid,
jaded,
ungrateful
as compared to more thunderous enthusiastic...

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Turkish Poetry Translations I



Ben Sana Mecburum: "You are indispensable"
by Attila Ilhan
translation by Nurgul Yayman and Michael R. Burch

You are indispensable; how can you not know
that you're like nails riveting my brain? 
I see your eyes...

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Whole GreenEarth opening
win/win systemic

Prophesied by sadness
loneliness
suffering of midway not not 0-Range
EcoPolitical Capital ReInvestment
nonzero emergent health restoring zones
resonant tones
resilient tender
mercies

Restoring GreenEarth justice
is a warm spring thaw
flowing outside
and deeply inside RightBrain intuitive delight
bright

In this ancient turquoise embodied
white...

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It’s been a long time coming
But I’m still on my game 
Writing is the only outlet 
That frees me of this pain
I Talk it how I walk it
And this Walk is insane
Some days are harder...

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My fundraising problem with positive psychology,
said the good health doctor,
it is too social science squishy,
not leftbrain dominant enough,

Suspiciously ecofeminist
for natural science pathologists
Straight-White privileged proctologists
urologists
bicamerally challenged cardiologists.

I must concede
not ecopolitically erect enough
correct indeed
said the nervous 
trauma...

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BiPolarity
has been largely ignored
polarization,

Linear and stagnant hierarchies
peaking in well-capitalized severance
and sterile self-satiation

Use you
then leave you
win/lose planning
and worldview design
by non-feminists

Uninspired by EarthTribe's co-arising,
Both/And reconsidering
depolarizing
dipolarization

Bruised blue traumatic,
and green grown therapeutic
sides of each red coin's
capitalization

Of Left hemisphere's newer
monotheistic...

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What is wrong with deficit-growing expenditures
to continue supporting LeftBrain industrialized secular present
and past well-financed war-mongering threats
against nations
and people
and plants
and planet?

And nuclear ballistic arm-building,
and a Hummer and automatic defense rifle
for every Red, White, and TrueBlue household,

But...

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Gayla Speak Experiences
promote healing events
not intended to contribute to trauma
drama narratives.

Stories we tell
and trust
and thrust
and softly smile about
when we dare to leave
our stiff 
stiffling closets.

RedYang 
universal dominants
friendly feasting
with BlueYintegral
unitarian intent

Together praising massively thick
and deeply embedded...

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See me through 
All I say or do is true 
I admit it - I am ashamed...
I am the one to be blamed 

For now, I'm the rueful, disdainful hue of blue 
Leave me be...

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I am bound in the chambers of doubt
I want to run His ever-redeeming Route
Believing in You is getting more difficult, so difficult
Faith in You has been disappearing…and it’s my fault

I must trek these mountainous tribulations...

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Global pride! Greatest story-theme worldwide! Oceanic!
Voyage liner - Atlantic! British cruise ship! Titanic!
Born in the yard of Harland and Wolf! Floated to venture!
Who did ever dream of a deadliest wreck- adventure?

Christened after Titans of the...

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My (bleeding) heart is filled to overflowing, 
To see any growing glad(iolus), garden glowing;
Each sun peached, (petunia) petaled delight,
Is frozen in precious moments of pure delight,
From bursting buds, to the spicy boom of blooms,
Nature is...

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Do you remember stories about the incensed 60s?

The smoke-filled Beatles,
and acrid flowering Hippies,
and Aquarian Age of Free Love.

It fizzled out.
It wasn't such a Great Transition
as we had hoped.
Exhausted by Foreign and Civil Rights v Wrongs...

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I suppose a healthy Taoist
is a wealthy Change artist,
designer
researcher,
mediator,
facilitator,
mentor, 
resilient liver
more than a despondent dier.

Taoism,
like Zeroism,
and Universal Unitarianism,
is a multiculturally principled path
toward restoring,
and resiliently retaining,
MotherEarth's natural
AND spiritual
empowerment

Still left-hemisphere deductively dominating verbal voices
in warm conversation with
EarthTribe's...

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