Long Outward Poems

Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

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Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch

“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.

“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.

“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VII

These are early poems I wrote as a boy and as a teenager.

The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men...

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How was school today?

Fine.

Did you learn anything important?

Maybe. I'm not sure yet.

Really? What are you considering?

We talked about Howard Odum's natural trinity
of altruism.

Maybe I skipped that day
way back in premillennial times
before Permaculture Design had taken...

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Cooperative Feministas
are not quite so much Competitive Manifestos.

In David Holmgren's introduction to Permacultural Therapeutic Design,
he contrasts "Industrial Culture" with "Sustainable Culture"
kind of like comparing masculine LeftBrain culture
with feminist RightBrain enculturation, nurturance, resonance
over the longer-term scenaria,
rather...

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When I was a child in Los Angeles, you could size up groups approaching by watching their movements.

I remember this gang of older kids approaching me, watching them carefully while looking down to see if...

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Says Csikszentmihalyi,
"Social scientists
(Abraham Maslow, Lawrence Kohlberg, Jane Loevinger, [Ken Wilber, Edward Podvoll, Julian Jaynes, Jack Kornfield, Richard Dawkins, Clare Graves, Carl Jung] and James Fowler)
describe a dialectical motion
between [Yang-ego-form] differentiation
and [Yin-eco-logical function] integration,
between turning attention...

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 ~ Trust  In  Jesus ~
 ( Linked )



 Trust in Jesus
 T
 Jesus loves you
 R
 You, me, and  all
 U
 All in  this   World 
 S
 World...

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Depression is like dying
without hope this process will end well,
without remediation
at least not for my closely held ego-identity,
and despair 
this turning inward
creates a cocoon by avoiding outward.

Focal awareness of ego mortality, 
immanent and emanant,
eminent,
turns inward,
returns...

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Understanding Suicide Understanding Me

Awhile back I had a dear friend contact me to ask if I heard about the young mans suicide at a nearby towns school. I had not. After asking one time on...

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C:
  I journeyed long upon the way, e-mailed through your router
  hello "Henry", good to greet, I am in your computer
  I am between him and her, so I am gender neuter

...

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Now we along one of hard rims are brought;
And a thin spray on the  brook is fixed, 
So shield to rims and water is begot.

As Flemings, Cadsand and Bruges bewixt,
Fearing the high waves pouncing...

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“I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” (Sonnet XLI)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair,...

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A prawn masquerading as a peanut can be quite disturbing. So many times a peel is a garment used to shroud. A tentacle hidden. Here and there. Then to reappear with an often violent burst...

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There is a world of difference
between schism and jism,
but they both end up the same.

Just as patriarchal Roman Catholicism
overpowers living and breathing Christianity,
so too does Capitalism
overpower cooperative capital co-investment,
so too does autocratic rationalism
overpower syncretic enculturing...

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THE LAW

Yet sacrifice would cover for Love's sake
before that time, the Law was sent to guide
sin offerings appeased man's guilty state
but could not change his rebel heart inside.
The WORD was written down on Torah scrolls
with...

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Your compassion reveals
mutual biological interests,
a powerful tool
for focusing fertile thoughts
and pent-up feelings

My passion regenerates
articulates
seeks to accurately label
read and process,
attend to your best nonviolent communications,
nonverbally hummed flirtations
of this
our potentially significant
Otherness.

These compassion communications,
positions,
postures,
poses,
plays,
prances and dances and trances,

Intuited...

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I crept into the pit of hell all alone. Contingent upon my lifestyle I knew this could be my last day alive…

She haunted me in my dreams. She terrorized me in the sunlight but through...

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Inferiority complex as a kid, adolescent and emerging adult

Yours truly (an amazingly,
gracefully, and markedly modest
passively aging baby boomer -
formerly introverted long haired
pencil necked geek),
prattling wordsmith doth behold
nostalgic memories regarding father
(Boyce Brandon Harris)
long ago lapsed decades

during...

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March 18-27

This time I woke, 
He was staring readily,
Smiling, plotting steadily

I lifted my body and gently gazed at his grotesque beauty
He was always at his best in thought…

“You look ravishing…” He began. 
“Mouth-parched, crusty-eyed, hair...

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The finite contemplating the infinite
The stardust male and female still flush with light
From exploding stars, seeding new possibilities, our true progenitors.
So that even God Himself must take note of our passing (in its season),
Such elemental...

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I didn't know if I was blessing blessed being lesser or cursed, (Yes I did)
Or was I overwhelmed in my mess or ( I was being elated)
With the power of the Father
I was being overjoyed...

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Due to some rare, genetic disorder, Cliff was born with physical features that made him different from everyone else.  Although, most people would say “different” was a kind term to use to describe Cliff....

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Once upon a ZeroTime
we suffered great terror and loss.

People,
animals,
and plants
refused to speak kindly with each other
because of a Big Bad Wolf
named Ms. Climatic Change 
by her delightfully demented transparents.

Most all credible scientists in that day
were...

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Yesterday's gone, overcome & chose to live as if every day's the last. Make every second count. It's true not one thought can be replaced. Look ahead & embrace tomorrow. Hold strong within, steady yourself...

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