Long Sacrament Poems

"The Strange Case of F.T."



They say the dead don’t talk
the stories I have calculated
to deliver a saving grace 
confessional shared amongst 
my equal peers, or so I deem 
you somewhat sometimes seem,
less than me, you...

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Near Sainthood
by Mirza Ghalib
translation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

On the subject of mystic philosophy, Ghalib,
your words might have seemed deeply profound
and we might have pronounced you a saint...
if only we hadn't found
you...

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Poems about Things that Break I
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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Last Night 
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
translation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart
as spring sweeps uninvited through barren gardens
as morning breezes revive dormant deserts
as a patient suddenly feels better for no...

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I often fail to notice
nuanced distinctions
between ethics of punishment,
retribution, on right hand
and boycott,
shunning revenge, on my left;

Between reigning down further abuse
and more quietly raining temporary neglect,
social 
economic
political distancing.

Punishment is a tool
for privileged narcissists,
win/lose competitors,
colonizers,
for fake-righteously...

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The Conditions of Living

Stark organisations of my observations
Respond to beauty with pure elation 
Instead of chronic devastation 
Process the abject consternation 
From contrived over-saturation 
And acute mass manipulation 
That should be in legal confiscation
Truth found...

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He said he planned to freeze to death.

Did he mean to have his body frozen?
Stored to hatch again later,
leftovers out of time's deep freezer of waiting.

No, not that.
He responds with undeniable dismissal,
this would not be...

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Let's do a bit of sacramental gaming.

Oh no, Dear!
That smells and sounds coldly inappropriate.
What would your great-grandmother say?

OK, well...
how about a mutually refining discussion
about theological system development?

That might be alright,
although heavy.
But, don't you mean the...

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"Election Edition"  posted 1 Nov 2020
politicians:      like diapers, need frequent changing (for the same reason)

debates are like steer horns      a couple points with lots...

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Lost in the Mists, Part V and VI
                           ...

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That first black and white
grainy
strangely fluid
floating
flat screen view
of the early developing individual
inside EarthMother's womb

Reminds me
of that first
full-spectrum green and blue
strangely white cloudy
moistly floating
slowly revolving
flat screen view
of home planet
still developing
evolving
revolving Earth.

A LeftBrain dominant individual worldview
from a...

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What did you learn to play
in school today?
Hedging future winning bets
against lost devolving yesterday

I learned religious history
of manifest colonizing destiny,
Responsibility to over-rule healthy integrity,
Authority to addictively enslave
our lesser prey,
womanfest cooperative destiny,
without duplicity.

How is such sad...

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Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who's the fairest of them All?

If you were hoping for InterFaith Power and Light,
what might you need to better empower
and enlighten your community
during Earth's Great UnRaveling?

Perhaps Earth needs global power and...

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Grace is supernatural gift from God bestowed on us through the merits of Jesus Christ for our salvation.

"[Grace is] a supernatural gift of God to an intellectual creature, bestowed with a view to eternal life......

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"Ghostlike"



Through dreams
I visit you ghostlike
in disguised ways I speak 
silent thoughts to you
I breathe them lifelike
into your dreamlike
skies 

alive you have travelled
astral in my mind
I hold you in 
my hands 
your heart fluttering
like a lost...

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"Composing Opalescent"



Together we arrive 
Composing opalescent 
blue-green green-blue
jaded oceans submerged 
then rising from great waves
thrashing in on our storm 
we are united mast-held and entranced
entwined limbs bathed in sensuality's
St Elmos Fire hitting our sharpest peak
in...

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"The Golden Chord"

I have stories
caterwauling
to be told,
I will caste them out there
no matter how bold.

They will not drown,
they’ll survive
soaked to the bone,
transfigured transporting
they’re magic
for the one who sits absent
on her Royal Throne.

Some are parked on...

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"50 Words for Poe: Temporal"



"Labyrinthine mind 
within chalked 
bones of cranium
lies the vestibule 
and shrine of
broken sacraments -
absent Advent,
Pentecost and
an "epiphany" 
solely lacking 
The All Divine.
There She lays like
Iseult waiting for 
Dragon's tongue
Black night eternal
immersed...

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Five WiseElders come together
hoping to complete their life circles
resonantly yin, right embodied
sacred light
resiliently yang, left enspirited
secular polypathic bright

Hearing emotions
before seeing to speak changing motions
of flow-strength, river currents spinningly deep
and winningly wide
to move Earth's deforested
un-glaciered mountains.

I...

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“How to Become 1”

the great resignation
calls dreams forth
when God knows
who we truly are

what we are

all worth 
out in the open 
without our lies 
and finery 

when titles 
no longer
justify existence
no longer matter 

the purpose of...

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I run from memories, stained in enough felony
After a failed choreography to budge up new colony
To annul life, yet live the same life pieces harmony
Quick succession of bolding and evanesce jeopardy 
In confusion.

Constantly nudged, freely...

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—Our days of no beginning and no end—

When a giant thinker who wandered in the wilderness of meditation 
for a long time came to find himself, leaped over a wall that was built 
for a...

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Foggy Nights, A Letter To A Friend
By Curtis Johnson

I have driven on  snowy and icy roads in Wisconsin and Illinois.  In the summer’s heat of the Sacramento Region, I have driven in cars,...

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A little piece I wrote for Flips Funeral
 There is an interlude to the beginning
 But the present has now passed
 As I record this passage
 Of a hero to the last
 So I beat...

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Even now, she could recall the intoxicating ecstasy that consumed her as the blade bit and tore. A perverse mix of terror and dominance, an unholy sacrament enacted to satisfy depravities that should have died...

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