Long Resolved Poems

Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death...

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Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old and rolling
carefully in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains...

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers IV



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are your tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is your concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm...

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Date:  August 2041

Members of the Damian fraternity 
Were relaxing in the backyard. The
Soon to be 4 year olds conducted 
Themselves in their sandbox.
The older children picniced on
The grass. Amadeus DJ Damali 
And Desharah sat...

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Sonnets XVII-XXIV

Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten...

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MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem...

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Poems about Children V

Pan
by Michael R. Burch

Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves

Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles

where we cannot return,...

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Veronica Franco translations

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose.

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I) 
by Veronica Franco
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of...

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I was listening to Cornell West,
who described our catastrophic tolerance of disvalues for others,
situations we would never tolerate for ourselves,
disvalues like homelessness and hunger,
but also like random violence, 
abuse and neglect,
lack of caring,
as a "conspiracy"...

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What's up?
Thanks for this interview,
old man.

You are either blind or confused,
but probably both.

Well, thanks,
and I appreciate you as well.
Now, I understand you want to talk about human consciousness.

We comprehend your language as limiting human consciousness.

Now...

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Paradise
like Rome
is not built
and not rebuilt
and rebuilt
and redeveloped
and healed
and redeemed
in one 24-hour
cycle
and recycle
and revolving
round day v night,

And/or 
appreciatively regarding both day
and dualdark
rich and fertile 
souled and soiled
recycling night.

So too
my personal
and political
and economic
and ecological
and theologically reformed...

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A funny frog called Mr Snog,
once lived beside a slimy bog,
he was a most peculiar fellow,
his hat was red, his boots were yellow,
his waistcoat was an olive green,
the strangest sight you’ve ever seen,
no matter where...

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An attorney friend of mine once said,
We have two opposing views
of the hows and whys of law and time and natural evolution,
including natural law,
and including U.S. Constitutional Law.

One assumes both natural and spiritual nondual legal...

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“The Splice of Life”



When colour 
was to be 
washed out
of the world 

the evil ones 
didn’t care

the Actor led 
with his 
Dementors 
either side of him

Laundry, 

they resolved 
to be the best 
pristine method 
for...

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In the heart where your naivety resides
you wonder what haunts the sun
and why pain enjoys your childhood eyes,
when you see warm blood run
then you know that death can color
and like you, death loves a dramatic...

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Origin of Christianity

(If you don't like religious writes don't read on)

It may surprise some that Jesus was born a Jew, his parents Joseph and Mary were Jewish, both from the tribe of Judah, in the...

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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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A king entered in a robe,
Clothed in a raiment of
Multitudous colors:
Vast and enormous is he,
Occupying matters of matters,
Spaces of Spaces.
His presence accomodates no vacuum.
Before him was raident throne,
Swathed in light and graced
With fire of sulphur...

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Instant individual redemption
from predative enculturation
is overly spiritualized,
under naturalized,
rightwing evangelical dogma
more likely found in empire-building
strong business-loyalty development texts
than multi-enculturing
re-connecting
re-ligioning nature/spirit scriptures.

If spiritual 
and capital redemption from baseline natural evils
is good news for individuals,
yet inapplicable to global...

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My dreams were of the dire Queen
I had allowed her reign over me, callousing my heart,
She was inside me, laughing
Having crawled in
My walls closing, as she filled my soul
We were one, yes for a time,...

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Pardon any absent adulation, bequeathed capitulation, devoted dedication, indiscretion, blabbering peroration, improper salutation or any unintended vexation if this unknown earthling sent a nearly identical message. He over-looked a small number of errors and hoped...

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I was out one day walking, along the glad sounding shore,
Gathering pretty seashells, and watching the seagulls soar.

To the left were lofty mountains, touching the azure skies,
To the right, sparkling ocean, and ahead the butterflies!

In...

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I have heard almost nothing about New Year Resolutions
this pandemic year;

Although personal sound waves are filled
replete with incomplete invitations
to take better health care
of personal
and social
and economic
and democratic
and public
and green climate nonviolent communication
wealth optimization

As we move...

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I finally finished retiring four years ago,
a process that started in my mid-fifties
due to late adopting kids with special needs,
including needs for me to be home
to personally walk them on,
harness them in,
and wheel them back...

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After enjoying a pleasant walk, I then spent an hour at a park,
And I relished the dulcet sounds, of cheery airborne skylarks.

The blooms were so lovely, all sultry in the fervid sunshine,
And the hummingbirds were...

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