Long Similar Poems

I have been trying to find the right words to pen this verse, but since I came to this country my words are suppressed and my voice is oppressed. The wind is blowing furiously, and...

Read More

I often surprise many people in many ways
With the words I say…with the actions I make…
It’s extraordinary how many seek high praise
With the words they say…with the actions they fake…

Neither will I…
Assume the worst in...

Read More

Dear people, 
    (Am i?) Mad it’s a conformist state?
A status that perpetuates people to pair, to compare, to prepare, 
to perfect, before performance, …?
    -sure hard to try...

Read More

Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the bloody wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;

but when at last...
I soar the...

Read More

Each flame 
elegantly weaves in waves
flowing up from resources red cinder hot,
similar in warm color
temperature decrees
of beauty as integrity's truth
trust each surrounding flame.

Each flame 
unique in point of origin below
as ubiquitously flickering fading destinations above.

Yet...

Read More

Chinese Poets: English Translations II

These are modern English translations of poems by the Chinese poets Tzu Yeh, Lin Huiyin, Xu Zhimo and Huang E. These are poems about love, passion and beauty. 


Tzu Yeh (circa...

Read More

World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems V - Ber Horvitz, Yitzkhak Viner, Franta Bass

Der Himmel
"The Heavens"
by Ber Horvitz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

These skies
are leaden, heavy, gray...
I long for a pair
of deep blue eyes....

Read More

It's peaceful here in my backyard.
The crows sound happy
with warm October sunlight.

I just read about a deadly gathering in Las Vegas.
Absence of sun-drenched peace.
Inconvenient this time of lost loss.
Death is always inconvenient,
even when invited.

A veteran,
about...

Read More

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...

Read More

The problem of military reactions
to territorial control issues
is not merely that violence breeds further strategic development
of violence,
although this is no small,
nor amoral, 
concern.

This primal problem of militarism by historic default
is that it is an intrinsically...

Read More

I Have Labored Sore
anonymous medieval lyric (circa the fifteenth century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have labored sore / and suffered death, 
so now I rest / and catch my breath.
But I shall come /...

Read More

Sonnets LII-LX

The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch

How sweet the endeavors of lips: to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is...

Read More

A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch

Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the darkening...

Read More

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...

Read More

If God is EggWhite
then Tao is His embryonic EarthYolk.

Why would you say such a confusing and silly thing?

What is the difference between a Paradise Tree of Life and Death
and a Great Chain of Being?

Is this...

Read More

I would imagine Adam Smith's invisible cooperative economic
self-and-Other-investment hand,
at least during Christian Sunday morning services,
looked and sounded and felt very much
like the One Invisibly-Organic-Holistic-Enlightened MindBody of Christ.

I would further imagine
both he and George Washington,
at least...

Read More

Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux

These are poetic forms similar to villanelles, with refrains (repeated lines) and sometimes double refrains.



Rondel: Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot...

Read More

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,...

Read More

I grew up with rural Michigan white red-neck evangelical root systems.
These did not always feed my multicultural self/other liberation of the GLBTQ subclimatic root system
for regeneratively healthy instincts,
yet I learned to survive within this fundamentalist-alien-straight...

Read More

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...

Read More

~ The  Holy  Bible ~
 (Quatern)


 It tells the beginning of man
 How  God  created all from start
 He made the moon, stars,  earth, day, night
 It  tells of...

Read More

I’m stronger than I realize,
I’m not alone
And I’m not a failure

I am focused on the prize -
God’s Kingdom today, though I’m on my own
Feeling like a Jailure

I was brave enough
Life can be quite rough
I was...

Read More

~ Worship  And  Praise   ~
 ( Pantoum )



~O~



Worship God, each day, all the way. 
Keep the Lord always in my life. 
Try follow Him  in all each day. 
Worship, praise...

Read More

Prose Poems II
by Michael R. Burch

These are prose poems (is that an oxymoron?) and experimental poems...



briefling
by Michael R. Burch

manishatched, hopsintotheMix, cavorts, hassex (quick!, spawnanewBrood!); then, likeamayfly, he’s suddenly gone: plantfood.



bachelorhoodwinked
by Michael R. Burch

u are charming...

Read More

Translation of Eric Mottram’s Courbet: Elegy 8 by T. Wignesan

Blanches oeuvres ouvertes
résident dans les jours
la surface du banc de travail est noire
les géraniums-lierres
les fougères et les adragans
accumulent leurs oeuvres et jours:
La toile noire de Courbet
un...

Read More