Long Related Poems

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...

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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...

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Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch Sr.)

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long...

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Disability, Illness and Fundamentalism

My brother died of Cystic Fibrosis, 
When I was twelve and he fourteen, 
It took away his ambitions, 
To study at Oxford - the pipe organ’s steam. 

I understand being born with...

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I wrote a sad but true urban legend called “Dillen and the DMV” last week.
Here follows an update.

Background Review:

One of my health care employees, Dillen, has wicked ADD, borderline intelligence, not qualifying for disability supports,...

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YinYin,
what did you most appreciate
learning at school this summer?

Probably in Community ReForesting.
You know, the EcoTherapy Class
I took
instead of eating lunch,
using "lunch" loosely
as synonymous with edible,
or at least tangentially related to edibility.

Oh yes, that one.
What stands...

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My wife and I met more than a few of this type of “shifty wheeler-dealer” during our many years dealing in antiques and collectibles.

           ...

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In 1968,
a time of great concern for healthy human civil rights
for and of women as well as LeftBrain culturally dominant men,
Gregory Bateson invited a Symposium
not quite a finished Symphony
proposing Moral and Aesthetic Structure of Human...

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NOTE: THIS IS ONLY THE 1st half of this piece-- its 2nd half is posted separately due to Poetry Soup's poem-lengths-limitation. Be sure to check out the balance of this poem = "Tiny Town Events"...

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Dear Andrew Cohen,

I am riveted by “Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening.”  Your theme that enlightenment need not be limited to elitist and eisegetical experiences, memory, but invites us to become co-travelers...

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Today we begin with a quote from Eisenstein
with commentary in brackets
informed by Bucky Fuller's cooperative metaphysic 
of Synergetic Steerage.

"We have a[n intuited, autonomic systemic] need to stay in contact with people with whom we share...

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The night sky was dark but for the beam of light that glared through the trees before them as they walked into the woods.  Joulupukki and Lumi were careful not to get to close...

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[ ... story with context, a plausible universe with top and bottom
  a coat of cosmos covering
  over a subterranean protoverse of potential fields
  a quantum cellar creating
  the very big...

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I believe it was Alfred North Whitehead,
an early developer of cognitive systems thinking,
who observed frequent miscommunication
and confusion
and chaos
over bilateral complexities
of Set v isolated Individual issues
within a systemic set
of inter-related issues.

This comes to mind
as I listen...

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A Most Courageous American President for the Ages

I thought it would be most appropriate for me to take a moment to
share some of my reflections on the life and distinguished public
service of the late 41st...

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So here's my question for this dawning day,
like a WinWin ruminating message in a bottle
floating through a LoseLose climate sea
felt still foggy from last night,
some mysterious how now;

One of many
health related strategic WinLose issues
tuning out...

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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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Beware The Ides of March 2023
 
Ides simply referred to first new moon, 
which usually fell between 
the thirteenth and fifteenth day
of a given month.

The following events all occurred
fifteenth of March 
across span of millenniums.

One:...

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"The Crow Bar"

she said,
here I bury my dead,
you can hear them sleeping
somnulent forget-me-nots,
snoring blithely unaware,
in neat rows between 
the thick,
ink injected lines,
their soiled lives
ploughed and 
turned over 
replanted
sunnyside down
expunged and 
wrung out

eventually,
not totally oblivious, 
they...

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The word Wyrd is Old English and means 'destiny'. From the same root comes Urd, one of the Norns, and the Germanic words Werth, Warth, and Wurth, which mean 'become'. The root word means 'to...

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Jesus taught and lived
Those who follow the Way
Truth
Life, rather than punishing death,
would be known
by our love,
especially for our enemies.

He did not say, or live,
Those who punish themselves and others with death threats
and war planning
and technology...

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LEONARDO DA VINCI POEMS, EPIGRAMS AND QUOTES

These are my modern English translations of the poems, epigrams and quotes of Leonardo da Vinci. I believe the first six epigrams pertain to the current American election crisis...

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A shaman has two vocations,
inter-related, 
wise teacher
and robust healer

With emphasis on noticing healthy natural systems
shared values
wealthy spiritual development of seasons
with timely regenerative change
without untimely degenerative treasons
to reason

Healers of motherland
and Her EarthTribes.

My favorite teachers
seem to remember...

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In It,  I Saw Prometheus Chained And Bound


I was reading Salinger's, "Catcher In The Rye" 
A follow up from Leo Tolsty's,  "War and Peace"
I heard a voice say, "seek wisdom before you die"
Remember...

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What if…

If fear did not guard and watch over me?
My seeds of shame and doubt
Would timidly venture out
And finally sprout,
But as they reached the light,
Like a vampire, would wither and die
Without the protection of night.
Or:...

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