Long Travelers Poems

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...

Read More

Native American Translations

Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own...

Read More

Dear Donald John
and GoodFaith Followers,
CoInvestors,
ProActive Prayers for Rapturous Redemption
from Eternal Hellish
paranoid
Left EgoVoices anger and fear
Right SpiritFeelings ecodarkly terrified
from and of dying death.

Your LeftBrain does not lack
for paranoid Win/Lose conviction
We must live in a dog eat...

Read More

Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch Sr.)

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long...

Read More

Who hasn't this nightmare of forgetting an inspirational word or phrase happened to?
                      ...

Read More

Thanks for your letter
asking for a free Taoist consult
on how to bring God talk
and experience
back into our Big Agri-MilitantIndustrialized Busyness Schools
and possibly our extended family lives,
on into our inside Holy of Holies,
our Climates of PanEntheistic...

Read More

Thanksgiving, 1971,
a parachute pilgrim approaches Northwest Flight 305
as Dan Cooper, anonymous businessman,  anarchist airborne, 
black suit, black sunglasses, a black tie
and a black briefcase broaching black motives,
Portland to Seattle, prison or criminal pantheon, 
before...

Read More

Dear Andrew Cohen,

I am riveted by “Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening.”  Your theme that enlightenment need not be limited to elitist and eisegetical experiences, memory, but invites us to become co-travelers...

Read More

“There,” Lumi said suddenly and Joulupukki looked through the trees, seeing a small house. 
     “Wait here said Joulupukki, I'll be right back.”
He made his way to the house and called...

Read More

*                                  ...

Read More

if you have taken the time to browse through this eclectic collection of self-indulgent foolishness, I hope you’ve been entertained by the quirkiness of its content, or at the very least, annoyed by the pervasiveness...

Read More

I was so anxious to get away but I did not realize what was on the way
I got a standing ticket because all the tickets have been sold out some on the black market, others...

Read More

Starting way back
with sixteen hundred Scientific Revolutions
in math and physics
biology and ecology
climate chemistry and analogical theology
began transubstantiating dialects
Deductive/Seductive outside
Reductive/Retributive inside
nature of ZeroSoul selves
travelers on a ZeroZen MotherEarth Land
Great time-chain of enchanted/disenchanted Becoming.

Science brought home the...

Read More

MORNING DEVOTION

Heavenly Father:

I lift up travelers to You. 

I pray for peace for Jerusalem and safety for Israel. I pray that between one and all of Her children would come to a saving knowledge of...

Read More

Date: April  1,   2051

  air planes departed in flight
 1 hour and 15 minutes
Between them. The trip was 7 hours
And approximately 30 minutes in
Duration. The first plane touched down 
On the...

Read More

Ours was daily mysterious,
sometimes near mystical, 
rapture;
a sensual yet platonic
dorm-mate love affair,
within the only male grad student corridor
at SFSU.

He was the presumably straight Vietnam veteran
southern white good ol' boy,
athletically studying Japanese,
with a gentle passion for...

Read More

Human history is difficult;
hard pressed,
discovering
and rediscovering,
connecting
and reconnecting feelings
about therapeutic needs
and sacred wants
for trauma-prevention peace
trust
joy

Through co-empathic singing passions
which may,
too often, 
feel stressful

Irritating
depressing
stormy
before unconditional win/win regard
for Self AND Other
reconnect,

Like EgoTheistic re-ligion
and EcoMatrimonial
indigenously multicultural
ecowomanist wisdom

Of Ego/EarthTribe mutual MeWe...

Read More

Family. Love. BOOSTER


                                ...

Read More

The scenery was magnificent, and the morning was slightly hot,
Our land cruiser was windowless, and sitting in a lovely spot.

The giraffes were splendid, and much bigger than I'd expected,
One could hardly gaze at the vast...

Read More

On a path that I thought will lead me nowhere                         ...

Read More

I blame me brother for the likes of this predicament,
when we pub crawled up to Bunyip, and where our night was spent.
Thank God I wasn’t in the driver’s seat, ‘cause we wouldn’t be alive, 
but...

Read More

While returning home from my job, in bustling New York City,
The blaring horns of traffic, and the noise were getting to me.

With loud yelling on the sidewalks, and cawing crows up above,
And my poor aching...

Read More

Much has been felt
then written
about loneliness at the top

Less written,
yet perhaps far more often felt,
about claustrophobia in the center.

Problems with delegation,
boundaries,
predictable timelines,
responsive management focus,
follow through performance,
closeted partisanship,
competitions to be heard
listened to
appreciated
respected 
for our therapeutic,
and not...

Read More

Living With A Myth

How dares one to speak of disability and live with it to tell the story narrate 
               ...

Read More

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)       ...

Read More