Long Sprouting Poems

Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.

The common...

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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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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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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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Transparently robust private/public healers,
servants,
ego/ecotherapists,
investigate, with appreciation,
cooperative health insurance
for people,
healthy homes,
resilient transportation,
and cooperative tree and plant and children and elderly nursing
preserved through winter kitchens
and solar-fueled composting centers.

Health insurance assurance,
transubstantiating health/wealth reassurance,
investing in cooperatively-owned and eco-managing
therapeutic non-violent...

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Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by...

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English translations of Arabic poems by Fadwa Tuqan aka "The Poet of Palestine"

Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink...

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We are each a new way of bilateral becoming and thinking
about what a mind with body is,
where these are headed,
individually,
and as a part.

Thinking about what embodied consciousness is
and where,
in what stable climates of opportunity,
and which...

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Various Heresies 6

Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

The mother leopard buries her cub,
then cries three nights for his bones to rise
clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.

Good mother leopard, pensive thought
and fiercest love’s wild insurrection
yield...

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I.
Treasures That May Be Found In Destiny's New Shift

( Mille viri sententia agere nescit donec suscipit calamum scribere.)

For a brief spell, I hung my hammock in the shade
of the ancient tall oak tree, that God's...

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I have a lot to write and say, buddy, so hear me out some more
Don’t make me feel lower than I have ever felt before…
Listen, understand and stay quiet until I say no more…sorry if...

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I have been scared of the darkness below
The sun glows bright and the wind will blow
I have been unprepared for the worst again
The moonbeams glimmer above like my pen

Was in solitude for hours
Ideas sprouting like...

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I'm in the life-long process 
of conjoining a Unitarian Universalist Green Sanctuary
communion of All Souls
living healthy 
on all wealthy Earth soils.

This is not my first time joining an intentional good-faith community,
but it is the first...

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"It [Communion] is the liberating experience of the Authentic Self recognizing itself in others--the many coming together as One in egoless freedom and the mutual conscious intention to evolve."...

"It [Evolutionary Enlightenment] is a new and...

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I was raised in one of those white nationalist churches,
passing itself off as a Christian evangelical Bible church,
where "evangelical" meant fundamental
and "fundamental" meant we did not interpret scripture
but accepted it as God's literal trans-historical Word
of...

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"Heart"  

Deep fissures formed
in the cracks of 
the nowhere place
where time leeched
bleeding claret 
through the green 
veined blues

protean bit by bit
the flesh disappears
prematurely 6ft under
mulch for rebirth
the subcontinent
conscientious conscience 
inward reaching

the divine central tableau...

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Ahh...ahh...ahh...
If I did a trust fall,
Would you catch me at all?
If the sky was the limit,
Why won't you admit...
Your true colors towards me that meant so much to me?
I just want your wings to fly,...

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Damian  CJ and the guys boarded
The 9 o'clock concord  flight that night
They were on Trinidadian ground 
Within two hours. Then rented a
Limo, chauffer included. When 
Four arrived on the site they noticed the...

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Please help yarn hexed door neighbor...

Yours truly pinned down by invisible 
vestiges of coronavirus and
getting attacked from angry plague 
of buttons, plus huge spools of yarn
grossly mistook me for human sock 
to seal and line...

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.
.........................................INNOCENCE
..................................Oh!  it is so very asleep
.........................As we grow up the bliss that we seek 
....................To stay innocent blissfully innocent -As kids
...............My lovely world-  it conspires to keep me so clean
..........No cigarettes no porn...

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_ _ _ _While walking one day in crisp autumn air, 
On the edge of the sidewalk,  I saw it so clearly_ _ _ _

         ...

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Ted’s libido has now gone astray
He refused a quick roll in the hay
So what could be the cause -   
It’s the male menopause   
He’s been grumpy and snappy all day!
 
His...

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Wergle Flomp Good Humor 2023

The following constitutes a rather 
twisted as a pretzel SUBTITLE:

I dash with my jiggling boobs in an attempt to escape... 
being overrun by teddy bears and beanie babies
while carrying out heavy...

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Love wants nothing to do
with the everyday affairs of men.
Love's only intention
is to catch the lover!

Rumi

God wants nothing to do
with the routine affairs of men,
God's only intention
is to catch the lover's attention!

I wonder if Freud's...

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My grandparents' grandparents,
all sixteen,
digging roots through cultural meristems,
young adults,
adolescents during Time's 1880's,
post Civil War birth of Sir James Crow monoculture.

What would we name this self-hatred,
this lack of compassion and gratitude for help
for human nature's lavish...

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