Long Slopes Poems

Wonderland
by Michael R. Burch
 
We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test
the beatific anthems of the blessed,
the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s
sincere religion. Magnified, the lens
shot back absurd reflections of each...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers I

I translated the first six Native American poems for my father when he chose to enter hospice and end his life by not taking dialysis …


Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation...

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These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation...

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Where Does the Butterfly Go?
by Michael R. Burch

for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
Where...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems IX

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school student and during my first two years of college.

Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of...

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You've heard that self-unfulfilling prophecy?
"I love humanity--
it's just people I can't stand."

I love healthy humanity--
it's just uppity and/or snooty people I can't stand

I love cooperative humanity--
it's just overly-competitive individuals I can't stand.

Not so distant from,
I...

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I.	  The Settlement

          Hickory bark bluffs
          at the blend of two 
    ...

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 TUAN TATA : Song of Uda - I
by T. Wignesan

(Patrick Noone, a British anthropologist, discovered the Ple-Temiar tribe living isolated in the jungle highlands in the State of Perak on the west coast of...

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Many of us have a favorite possession from when we were young, and this 
93-year old gentleman is no exception.

               ...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VIII

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school and college student. 

Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that...

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Yoga in Poem A Novel Approach Step 6

Brahmari Pranayama or Humming Bee Breath

IMP. NOTE: Temporarily I am stopping new episodes 
of Yoga in Poem due to personal reasons and will try 
to restart Yoga in...

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Everything here is true
Just as stated
because it's already happened
or - it has yet to occur - 
but it's very soon to occur
and I have such strong feeling
that the future will be as I see it
as...

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from island corner, big Antrim lad
  to Belfast city, a tiny pad
  shattered windows, tilted clocks
  Goliath had lost his socks
  gargantuan giant going mad

  Armagh apple girl, any topic
...

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I am an Outlander
Who lives on a high hill
Overlooking a man-made lake
That once was a rapidly rushing river
Along whose banks the Ozarks Bluff Dwellers and the Osage and then Delaware
Hunted, fished, and created shelter
For their...

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FIRST MOVEMENT (Minor Key)

Times such as these test body soul and mind
So should our thoughts be pain and dark confined
Or loosed to concentrate on brighter things
Like furry puppies, flowers and girls on swings

In this bright...

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From my lowly bachelor’s house
Proudly christened ‘Embassy Fair’
I woke up to the chirping of birds
On the trees above and across the vale
And the riverine bushes in-between
I woke up to the crowing of cocks
And the mooing...

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The ride to the country is uneventful
Except that I feel a little like
A man riding inside a cannon ball.
Yuliya's father Igor drives
I'm also up front (the honored guest)       ...

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(oh, mercy ... )

amazing eye whites,
perfect and pure as glacial ice -
they draw me in,
like diving into a clear Caribbean lagoon,
fluid and cool ...
brown iris so dark in contrast,
that they're lost in the inky black...

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1.

Our blessing, our son, our family clown
The cracker of jokes, the soother of strife
Takes it all in, teaches us to slow down
Although he bungee jumped straight into life

Yes, when he’s ready, he can move so...

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THE RISING HILLS, THE SLOPES, TO QUENCH MY THIRST.
In the last century, the hopes were little,
Grasses they collected, yellow bananas, they peeled,
To move up the slopes, preparation was fore filled,
Oh the grower of banana trees,
To...

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A KIND RECONSIDERATION 
OF THE ABRAHAMIC FAITHS
IN A DIFFICULT TIME
I
I am interested in Moses,
the baby in the bulrushes
who eventually was able
to speak truth to power and
delivered his people to a
promised land
I am interested in Saul...

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there, among those Ruby Spires
          stood I, a-gazing toward the mist
               red...

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Treading Down the Journey of Life

                            I have...

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Land Is A Loom
I sailed the fiord like inlets between Powell River and Drury Inlet.
The land itself  spoke from mountains, torents, islet
From bird song and bear splashing fishers
From rutting moose and cougars sharp incisors.
The...

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Alaska; the wilderness state, the last frontier:
Where majestic mountains,
Deliver streams into flowing rivers:
Down slopes covered in forests
Of Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock,
That dominates the landscape.
The name Alaska originates
From the Aleut word ‘Aleyska,’
Meaning the ‘mainland’ or...

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