Long Relentlessly Poems

When it struck 11, I sighed in relief
When it struck 11, I haven't felt grief
The time kept ticking on and it wasn't brief
And I'm so… patiently shaking like a leaf
Vigorously feeling vital everyday...
Every minute...every second...come...

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SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

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The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VI



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound...

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R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact, 
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons...

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Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
—Yamaguchi Seishi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow...

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Poems about Things that Break II
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter.
 
 
 
Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch
 
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower...

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Rejection Slips

With over 5,700 publications if I count poems that have gone viral, I suppose I shouldn’t complain … but I do have some poems that have never been accepted for publication. Here are a...

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Randomling 1:  Matthew Macfadyen

I believe I'm in love with Matthew Macfadyen
He inspires in me a terribly bad yen
But as poetry goes
His name 'spires woes
Cause nothing rhymes with "Macfadyen”.


Randomling 2: Birthday Wishes
  
For my birthday,...

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I shall resolve to leave this
Place now...
And steadfastly search out,
Nestling between ridge and bluff
Amidst the folds of a foreign 
Land,
Several acres of unkempt ground
Fallow and rough;
Upon which stands...
Crumbled stone walls
With an exposed slate roof in
Some...

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Political Science is the compare and contrast study
of governing authority powers
with concomitant economic responsibilities,
and...um...opportunities,
speaking perhaps too candidly.

Why not other powers,
nutritional loves that can be owned only cooperatively,
can be, and would like to become, health invested,
but...

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I suppose you might have missed out on Paul Feyerabend's,
and especially Thomas Kuhn's Problem of Incommensurabiity.

Oh, not at all.
I have not looked at science or culture
or language
or even your attempts at communication
quite the same since...

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Do you share my concern that your happiness and healthy life are too ephemeral,
short-lived?

No! Why? Do you know something I should know?

Not likely.
Just wondering,
awed by your capacity,
your relentlessly positive energy for life,
despite the odds of...

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To receive care
that best meets your needs,
and also,
by the way,
everyone else's too,
we look first
to where and when we have given such care
since our original longest reborn journey
down Mom's birth canal,
prepared just in time for our...

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Upon this date he spoke no more of the preceding moments, 
Tearing and hurling insult upon insult
In several directions, his tongue whipped and scorched me,
And he waited relentlessly to see the spark in my eyes...

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Chinese Poets: English Translations

These are modern English translations of poems by some of the greatest Chinese poets of all time, including Du Fu, Huang O, Li Bai, Li Ching-jau, Li Qingzhao, Po Chu-I, Tzu Yeh,...

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Perhaps infertile
incomplete
unwashed memories
of elder v younger,
Goliath v David,
crusades v communion
critical, yet part of chronic, events
speak extended family disengagement truth
to powerful dirty laundry engagement failures.

That disclaimer said,
I have two incomplete conversations
in mind and heart
and what I...

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Dear Bishop Michael Cote, Doctor of Divinity
through pre-historic untold ages
through reborn renaissance stages
through industriously energetic praises
through enlightenment phases
through empowerment dysphasia

Some of us lesser health care practitioners,
good faith social workers,
teachers,
parents and grandparents,
uncles and aunts,
and ecofeminist inter-religious...

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Wise Elders are patient,
fully embrace non-violent communication
and health care
of climates and landscapes,
persons,
places,
things,
plants
and planet,
hopes
and dreams
rebuilding positive faith.

Wise Elders non-violently listen
for karmic grace of love
sometimes overflowing.

If Wise Revolutionaries for change,
clearing murky swamps,
then Wise Elder non-violent evolutionaries
toward peace
restoring...

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It's You, Not Me 

*this poem can be offensive and has naughty words*

It's all my fault
I put a gentle halt
I'm cold in my skin
You are warm with anger, disappointment and sadness from deep within

It's me,...

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Quakers build their cooperative politics
on following consensually-held fertile lights.

Buddha adds,
Follow your TruthLight,
back through our universal co-arising (0)-spacetime equi-valence
dualdark Out/In Breathing-Landscapes BiCameral MindBody Balance,
ecology of birth through regenerate rebirth
of eco-ego-cooperative Zen-Zero-investment
Earth-0-centric Health EcoReGenerativity,
Creativity of Love and...

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(His version of Room 123)

I’ve laid here on this bed dreaming of being with her for many days and nights, and tonight she agreed to meet me here, the stars finally aligned
Either I was too...

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Students conservative of body-health care
invest as necessary
in bowing and submitting subservience
to orthodox heterosexual vampirate mentors,
fundamentalist badnews evangelicals
sucking on pre-meditated rapture
of Heavenly bloodsucking EarthNatures.

To meet conservative RightWing
LeftBrain patriarchal 
student membership classroom requirements
of monoculturing monopolistic
indoor health-safety classrooms,
research...

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My love was serpentine to the touch
I can't quite explain it...the love of mine
Had gone away from my sight and such
I can quiz my mind to say otherwise, my bittersweet sugar wine…

Why am I extremely...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems II - Bertolt Brecht



The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned, 
teams of dull oxen hauled...

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