Long Topic Poems

“Son”...”say goodnight to grandpa”

Spurred by mother dearest 
as well as other politesse
drummed into her second born
fobbing blandishments as incentive
tumbled off fingers of prodigal son
tripped wordsmith to splutter forth
forthwith the following lines.

Back in the day 
quaint...

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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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We need to talk.

Is this one of those times
where you need to talk
and I must pretend to listen
while you rant?

Well, yes,
if you could extend this favor.

Your topic?

Social Darwinism.

Isn't that the birthplace of unfettered Capitalism
and Fascism
and...

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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...

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[Well, ShallowMan’s ne’er at a loss
for voicing shallow thoughts that gloss.
With trenchant wit he reaps the dross
when seeking sense in applesauce.

But to his aid flies FactoidMan
who always has a Fact at hand;
with him, who needs...

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I wanted to write
 The best slavery poem   ever written—
Perhaps win a Pulitzer or Faulkner. 

I had every intention of conforming 
To the standards 
Of modern verse and composition, 
Lyrics fluidly written, 
Perfect...

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I was a seventeen year old senior in a coed, catholic high school.  Our gym classes however were still all boys and all girls.  My senior year we had gym every other day...

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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 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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Buckminster Fuller and Julian Jaynes 
recently reviewed their cultural and scientific influence 
on health and well-being, 
ecological and economic positive outcomes, 
during the current CoOperativist NonDual Transitional Era.

Bucky:
 I wish I had spent more time...

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Do you know what it feels like when your dad leaves to go get the milk and comes back with a gun and some vengeance?
No? Well me neither.
See look, being funny is hard.
Some people don’t...

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On the need to avoid being envious: Canto XVII, K161, K162 of the THIRUK-KURAL, Translation with Commentary

[ ENVY, of course, knows no racial nor ethnic boundaries, but I wouldn't be wrong, I dare say, ...

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YangLeft: Those still capable of right thinking,
as our more civil
humane reflections
on bilateral political
and economic investment inflection,
sometimes cooperative
and democratically co-invested,
but usually just BusinessAsUsual
life remains a win/lose infested 
compromising 
ZeroSum political disempowering game 
deflection.

YintegrityRight: Sweety,
thanks for honorable...

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The Great Lakes acronym spells homes

I chose titled topic by a fanciful whim,
nevertheless still consider my knowledge 
of aforementioned material slim.

Housing multivarious biomes
register ecological syndromes
whereby constituents of NOAA 
Great Lakes Environmental 
Research Laboratory writ tomes.

Pellucid...

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In our wildly indigenous
western town
we have a notorious Ancient GoodWitch.
Like GrandMother Moon,
she seems to emerge with a new, yet old,
community healing process
about once a FullMoon month.

I heard she would like to co-facilitate
a Future HealthWealth Community...

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Back in the height
of our pre-millennial military-industrial
post-revolutionary days
of competing excess...

No, love,
Stick with
Once upon our Sacred Times...

Once upon a time
here in the US of Northern Americas
we used a Reservation Model
to dispose of hopelessly disabled aboriginals,
too RightBrain...

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Understanding Suicide Understanding Me

Awhile back I had a dear friend contact me to ask if I heard about the young mans suicide at a nearby towns school. I had not. After asking one time on...

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Date:   May  2050

Damian returned home early morning 
Back from another visit with Dolly. Still
Early misty May morning another
Dawning. 2050! The newborns triplets were
Sleeping. Damian was peeping. He would 
Have to travel the...

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In his essay "Let's Be Reasonable" 
Rev. Todd Eklof [The Gadfly Papers]
reduces reasonable to logical;

This is a common left-brain dominant error,
confusion between deductive premises
and coldly reductive conclusions
calculated assuming cause v effect linear formulas
more than feedback...

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After serving six long hard years at Methacton State penitentiary...

as mini reunion number 
XLV fast approaches 
Saturday, April 30th, 7:00 pm 
until 10:00 pm
at The Trappe Tavern, 416 West 
Main Street, Trappe, PA 19426
regarding graduating...

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In the intimate interlace of chance and fate, in the ultimate interplay of time and place, and with the consummate checkmate of my human dignity, all that is -- is over, in the stormy, swarming...

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In It,  I Saw Prometheus Chained And Bound


I was reading Salinger's, "Catcher In The Rye" 
A follow up from Leo Tolsty's,  "War and Peace"
I heard a voice say, "seek wisdom before you die"
Remember...

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Fr. Time is with us today, again, or still, I guess I should say.

No, you just did.  
That would be redundant, 
to say it again, 
like I just did.

Just a reminder of a contractual...

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It was late in the balmy springtime, and I was attending a lecture,
On a topic of great interest, which was the history of architecture.

As a great lover of beauty, I admired structural geometric designs,
Like the...

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