Long Primarily Poems

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...

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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...

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Limericks VI - Religion

Pell-Mell for Hell Mel
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a Baptist named Mel
who condemned all non-Christians to hell.
When he stood before God
he felt like a clod
to discover His Love couldn’t fail!



Why I...

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I have had a highly redundant,
one might even choose polypathic,
graduate studies experience
spanning my adult life to date.

This began with a semester of Philosophy.
Just enough to learn I wanted something more experiential,
a more communitarian environment of...

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"Smooth Big Cat"



He was one of those guys you just knew would be a dud. "Be nice", she said to herself.

She met him on the upswing from the abyss of a dismally closed final chapter....

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The language and images of Mario Vitale's poetry are so closely bound to the natural cycles of seasons, of generations, of the body's functioning, that is surprising to realize how many of his poems deal...

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The ugly head of the Original Intent issue
co-arises with what were our ForeFather Patriarchal Patriots
thinking and feeling to leave out prohibitions against antiChristian degeneracy,
and to put in permissions for antiChristian degeneracy.

No.
Wait.
That's not right.
We could not...

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'Continental Drift' - The Metaphor

In the seventies (1), few people dreamed ‘it’ was true,
guessed by scientists first when rough coastlines compared (2)
matched like parts of a puzzle (a jigsaw), found place
that joined ‘drop-offs’ waves hid...

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“The Scorpion’s Touch”

Under glass
the sound cuts out sharp
just like under water
and we run out of breath 
like insects running around 
frantically out of time
we are magnified 
in our tight enclosures

internally observed
the external turns away
two heart...

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My thought for this day,
although still early,
is respect for hope.

Respect for our interdependence
and respect for our challenging differences,
important, yet hopefully not as powerful
as our interdependent love for healthy life.

Yesterday
I noticed a brown cardboard box
in the...

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Back in the height
of our pre-millennial military-industrial
post-revolutionary days
of competing excess...

No, love,
Stick with
Once upon our Sacred Times...

Once upon a time
here in the US of Northern Americas
we used a Reservation Model
to dispose of hopelessly disabled aboriginals,
too RightBrain...

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Future selves recycle past dynamic imaginations,
Greek Gods as muscular Yang athlete images
evolve from older internal messianic bodhisattva Yin,
double-edged incarnations of power.

It is in this coincidentia oppositorum,
claims Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
that the peaks,
the Taoist Tipping Points
of wu wei...

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When I was very little, a lion lived under my bed ...

It sounds cute and funny now, but then it was a
Very real thing, and that lion terrorized me. Where
Did that lion come from? It...

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Limericks IV - Donald Trump

The Hair Flap
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

The hair flap was truly a scare:
Trump’s bald as a billiard back there!
The whole nation laughed
At the state of his graft;
Now the...

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It is known throughout Earth's anonymous
unanimous Commons,
Systems are hard to change.

The more macro-competitive,
Yang-strong,
The more difficult of all conversion stories

Over pernicious decades,
We tend to add "isms"
to pathological ends
of these global systemic issues.

This polyculturalistic/multiculturalism suffix,
negative appendage,
suggests a...

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A harrowing drive on the Schuylkill Expressway
(route 76) both heading into
(and a small number of hours later
exiting) center city Philadelphia
to Schwenksville on May 19th, 2024.

Yours truly (a doodling Yankee), and the missus
went to town, NOT...

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Lost dexterity since fingers tap away at qwerty keyboard...

since being a student in grade, junior and high school
analogous to geometry proof how lack of use proves
quite aware that finger muscles atrophied
veering off on a tangent...

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Jesus help me,
cried Mother Earth
to Adam's Sacred Son,
I can't be birthin' all these ego-dominating babies,
gettin' on,
you know...
Makes me sad.
From "Mother Earth's Laboratory Journal", post-millennially self publishing

Money, like fertility,
is sexy,
needing attention
to continue regeneratively thriving,
health icons rooted...

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Self as Other redeeming
invasive species
responsively mirroring 
co-empathic esteemers

CoMessiahs
not even primarily historical remembered persons
plants
planet
isolated from cooperative redemption,
communion function
flow of regenerating healthy salvific change
in divine-humane primal becomings

Like Full and Empty
YangEgalitarian physical 
light energetic replete
Reconnecting as Yinterdependent dualdark...

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If I understand correctly,
and this seems infinitesimally likely,
which is nearly infinitely unlikely,
but anyway,
If we do think bilaterally,
then we have regular imagined
and remembered,
reweaving and unweaving,
diversity through spacetime,
and then we also have RealTime 4D diversity,
and also perversity,
which...

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“Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room”
by William Wordsworth

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his...

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Renee Vivien Translations


Song
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the moon weeps,
illuminating flowers on the graves of the faithful,
my memories creep
back to you, wrapped in flightless wings.

It's getting late; soon we will sleep
(your eyes...

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Moving into a new home
with anonymous neighbors,
whom you typically have not even met
before deciding where you will replant yourself,
and perhaps also your significant others,
sometimes including multiple generations,
and pets and plants,
all takes place before you have...

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I have heard many moms repeat
"You never stop being a parent."

Sadly, I don't see or hear that quite so much from the dads,
although I know of remarkably nurturing exceptions.

I thought of this as my impossibly...

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I was speaking with a bus driver mom
about her bipolar son withdrawing from meds
on a trial basis,
hoping to qualify for military service.

She was praising the strengths of her son's Christian school,
from which he is about...

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