Long Rhythmic Poems

The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!
 
Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
-Michael R. Burch
 
The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
-Michael R. Burch
 
Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
-Michael R. Burch
 
Dry leaf...

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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A Sample of some of the genres I write it...Nature, family, depression...just a taste...just a taste. These are all reposts and can be found along with these titles:

The Sound of His Breathing (Written about my...

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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Political Science of EarthTribe Education

Really? That’s my topic?
Didn’t Paulo Freire already do this one?

Oh, I see..neurosystemic therapy learning 
and restorative justice mentoring,
including healthy pedagogical development 
of ecologically cooperative systems
doing the best we can
to avoid retributive...

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Alone I arrive, walking from Frederick
over the gaps, across gentle hills
out onto a knoll
overlooking this burnished landscape.
Before me I see countless writhing rows
of indiscernible shapes gathered
in terrible rituals mid fire and smoke
darkening the sun.
From distant...

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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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Sonnets X-XVI


Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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Cooperative Feministas
are not quite so much Competitive Manifestos.

In David Holmgren's introduction to Permacultural Therapeutic Design,
he contrasts "Industrial Culture" with "Sustainable Culture"
kind of like comparing masculine LeftBrain culture
with feminist RightBrain enculturation, nurturance, resonance
over the longer-term scenaria,
rather...

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The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand...

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Skin of Terror
- Daniel Henry Rodgers

(The stage lights come up slowly on Michael's face, which is crisscrossed with wrinkles from his fuming anxiety. He peers out into the gloominess at the wheel and tightly clutches...

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I went again today ... to that place, the allurement overwhelming ... the one
we called "ours" so tritely, "mine" before you, "mine" again now, (tho' others
have doubtless staked claimed - ages before and since). I...

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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 autonomic neurosystemic] need to stay in contact with people with whom we share emotional...

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As I look back across more musical times
of rhythmic reflections,
ceremonies and commemorations
of each dawn and dusk eremitic liturgy,
if that is not an oxymoron
of sound and sight,
song and dance,
tragically sad, yet also bilaterally bound with happier...

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Life is like that extent 
     Live that moment 
                   to full extent...

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I don't recall whose inspired idea it wasn't
to invite the math professor
into our Therapeutic Collaborative Laboratory.

I do recall when I first heard her speak
of cooperative polynomial qualities
for improving ego/eco-therapeutic communications.

She was, of course,
in the back...

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In sandy Egypt lived three men
In ancient days when pharaohs reigned
The kingdom of the pyramids,
Osiris and that Isis’ den,
Whom everyone worships and heeds,
Or at least doing so they feigned,
And those gods too blessed them and...

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So cramped ...
Strain to move,
Flex and budge in tiny increments ...
That's the limit.
Constantly testing, trying,
Pushing, pressing ...
Constrict, exert, constrict, struggle,
Spin slowly, push ...
That's it. That's all.
Nothing more.
But it helps ... relief,
A body sigh ...
But only...

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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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"Monsters in My Head"



the small gods
inside of us
worry too much

they speak in tongues
that never know the 
depth of what is real or not 

for tongues 
they never think
they just have a taste for blood

trading gossip...

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The reading of Villon poems at West Berlin’s Free University, Winter Semester 1957-58
                      ...

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I saw how martyrs longed for love, and so began the play of my flitting heart
A strange girl had I become, with airs of fickle dream,
My heart an embodiment of wonder to all that dared...

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I have slept but I have not slept
I have not slept but I have slept
For the first time in two years
I slept without a word of care
No codes, no crossroads
No railroads, no shiploads
No lizards no...

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Someone who knows
Said You were an old ancient Tree,
But at the time, it didn’t really matter, 
Or seem important to me.
I knew You only for a very short time 
and just a little…
You see.
Your transparent...

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What does it feel like to wake up into your skin?
Your day?
What do you feel first most days?
Is it in any way influenced by gratitude,
or totally given over to worry,
anxious
or, worse, anticipating 
shortness of healthy...

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