Long Prevailing Poems

The Field
by Rumi 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Far beyond sermons of right and wrong there's a sunlit field. 
I'll meet you there. 
When the soul lazes in such lush grass 
the world is too...

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Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!



I choose to love you in silence
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I...

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If I have this right,
and I almost certainly don't have this Left-Deductively right,
our Environmental Health and Safety Protection Agency
and our Public Health and Safety Education Department
have recently co-invested in BlackWater WinLose EcoPolitical Empowerment
through PublicSector Piracy...

No,...

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I grew up with rural Michigan white red-neck evangelical root systems.
These did not always feed my multicultural self/other liberation of the GLBTQ subclimatic root system
for regeneratively healthy instincts,
yet I learned to survive within this fundamentalist-alien-straight...

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It seemed to me,
when I was eight,
U.S. Christian disciples and teachers
had been given so much grace

And had fundamentally boiled it down
to settling for such small subcontinental WhitePatriarchal colonizing gratitude
for God's universally healthy
multicultural EarthTribes.

It was so...

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Quietly, the memory of my grandfather manifested itself,
In the colors and shimmers of the Holy Spirit, 
I saw his human face,
The familiar lines, the flesh,
The pair of oceanic eyes, slowly blinking 
Smiling,
Like a heavenly beam
Splashing...

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Remorseless sweaty palms

despite being prescribed glycopyrrolate.

Though the angst riddled psyche of mine crafted youth, long since receded, ebbed in the past, infringement, impingement, and indecent wracking wrath of mental illness, that even as a middle...

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This Current Life of Mine
          Created by the Supreme Almighty for His pleasure, I bear His image with body, soul, and spirit --- fashioned through His...

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Spawned from the loins that 
Perpetuated the loyal serfs mongrel
Seed:-
These peoples of a conditioned and
"Resigned-To-it-all" breed.
Born into the enveloping tedium
Of interlocking days...Interwoven
With interlocking days -
Victims of stark circumstance
And vague promises unmade.
Gregariously living out their lives
When...

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Let us,
for a heuristic historical moment,
pause...
create mental feeling embodied space,
for domestication as value neutral,
neither inherently good nor bad,
but more of a gradual evolutionary process
increasing mutual accessibility,
and therefore care-giving
and care-receiving vulnerability
to active daily trust and mistrust,
while...

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In a surprise announcement today,
President Plan B Sandman's EcoMinster of Economics
translated bicamerally balanced ecologic
into "Full-Budda Bilateral Consciousness."

Curiously, 
rather than presenting metaphysical support,
he seems to offer analogical evidence
for his ecological assertion
about logic,
or logos,
or language,
or whatever the...

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I was attending a birthday party, once when summer was young.
We played games on the back lawn, beneath the huge orange sun.

Colorful birds were tweeting, almost the way that people do,
To say good morning sunshine,...

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My mind is as hollow as the dead of night
My spirit is dancing out of cheer and fright 
My soul is shattering because I’m too late
To talk about what’s on my mind these days– 
In...

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Imposition is one of humans' greatest flaws.
Countless times proven as the underlying cause
Of immense human suffering throughout history,
In endless ways justified to levy extensive misery.

People in general can't accept others as they are;
Differences are perceived...

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Himalayas

Eons ago in the planet’s evolution,
During tectonic plate movement: 1
The Indian Island Ma moved northward
Crashing into the Eurasian continent,
To form the Himalayan mountains. 2

Out of the chaos, towering peaks arose,
Piercing heavenly soft, white cotton clouds,
Bursting...

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April's last Flowers


I was watching carefully
The last stems 
Of April's Red flowers
Which were spreading their beauty and smile 
Unconcerned with the destiny 
That after April 
There would be almost no such flowers 
Of red Lily
For...

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appropriate advice from the THIRUK-KURAL to those* who would be King: VALIARITHAL - Understanding the Wielding of Power, K473 and K474
[*like presidents, prime and chief ministers, dictators or even modern-day "emperors" under the guise of...

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Ecotones
are ruled by prevailing polycultures,
unusually fertile margins between two bioregions,
like a continental-ocean shoreline
or a clear blue lakeshore
poised above green grassy plains
and below glaciered and alpine forested mountains.

Ecotones
are broader when horizontal,
or can be,
but always comparatively narrow
when...

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My Lords an adjournment is 
Called for...
All my retire;
But holding foremost in your
Thoughts,
I beseech ye,
Thee impudent countenance of
This most ardent denier.
Therefore heed me,
I caution all ye present,
Thou shall not disband;
Moreover, to reassemble at any
Sudden instance...

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kaisers, kings, emperors fight for territory
  dispensable bodies left in the ground on foreign soil, unreturned
  militarisation of memory and folly
  an Irish nation half-wrenched from a bloodied and wearied empire
 ...

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Quiet sounds surround every thought throughout invisible crevices, hiding behind the unseen. A single tree nonchalantly sways out of rhythmically forested life. Aimed in an unknown direction; feelings of hopelessness; unreasonably so. Lost in movement;...

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Lay down your old ink pen...
Rise from the table...
Push back your chair.
Gather them all up...
Put them out of sight now...
Place them safely in the cupboard 
Bare.
Wrapped in stiff brown paper,
Strung tightly together
With thin white string;
Turn...

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October 2 Scripture Meditations Based on Luke 10-11

Key Verse – Luke 10:21 In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid...

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They won't let us have
the same things ...
things that once was given to them
They say we deserve it not,
because we're of the rejected seed ---
those who drew the accursed lot
They know who they be,
them who...

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I was a skillful, amiable nursery worker, cultivating blooms in a greenhouse,
Like feverish and fragrant blooms, often grown in redbird's green treehouse.

Hours were spent sowing seeds, adjusting conditions, and also and pruning,
As June full moon...

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