Long Identity Poems

SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

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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...

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His glowing golden eyes glistened with a comprehension beyond the mortal condition

A well-toned, tall, and tanned man, who most, not all, would call handsome

A brightly bleached stalactite overbite gleaned between the mean features of an...

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My protagonist today,
a Gay Black Religious Mature Male,
not quite ready for silver-grey Obama temples

Is off this morning
to a new full-time job,
8 to 5,
Monday through Friday.

He has been out of his calming,
regular custodial collared routine,
for over...

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"The Strange Case of F.T."



They say the dead don’t talk
the stories I have calculated
to deliver a saving grace 
confessional shared amongst 
my equal peers, or so I deem 
you somewhat sometimes seem,
less than me, you...

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Some days and nights
I am terrorized by death,
cold silo ache-echoing fear,
claustrophobic breathless dark
barking inevitable factness and finality
of my decomposing mortality,
of history's posthumous demise,
post-humorous as hell.

What good is death
if it cannot at least invite eternal engagement?
Hopeful...

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Why does dawn dress robust morning,
while dusk undresses sight?
Each dawn incarnates another Earth Day
a lifetime of Easter mornings 
redeeming nocturnal sight's revolution,
another therapeutic day of gift-it-forward light,
some longer,
some shorter 
before naked covered night.

Why life?
To uncover...

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No Mark
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes, 
impaled upon
impassive rocks...

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear...

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur...

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before...

here where you have...

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Truth is a feather 
pushed off to the other side.

Truths are a body of feathers
within which our bodies reside.

OK, students of life’s healthiest purposes and meanings,
it’s time to regather, if you would be so kind.

Namaste.

[Silence]

[My...

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Let's start with a fundamental flaw of fundamentalist Christianity,
a literary flaw within literal non-interpretation of historical creation
and sacred development.

This is true of radical jihadist Muslims as well,
although we both know you think you're more special...

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There is nothing weaker than water
But none is superior to it in overcoming the hard,
For which there is no substitute.
(Laotse, "Nothing Weaker Than Water", Lin Yutang, trans.)

That weakness of mind and body overcomes strength
And uniting...

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Life as active love 
evolves toward more polycultural communication,
across both species and time,
within Earth’s Solar EcoSystemic Universe.

While this conversation includes human natured communicators,
we suboptimize our ecological balance
if endo-human discourse monopolizes our lifetime learning dialogue.

A life...

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Let me speak clearly with you
dear religious and atheist Trumpians,

A fool in executive office
is a leader
only in foolish directions.

A rich thief
is the worst thief
as survival motives
are absent,
so self-thrival motives
remain piratically rampant.

An intellectual prostitute
to feel-good AmericaFirst...

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Queen Gaia
of Earth's Shabbat
is here to speak today.

Unfortunately,
she can only sign,
and the only way she can see
is through our DNA/RNA fractally-balancing syntax,
so she has asked if she could respond to your questions
as she understands them
within...

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What evidence do we have that businesses receive financial as well as other nutritionally healthy benefits, 
by co-investing cooperatively within health-developing community cultures?

What are financial benefits for faith-in-health communities 
both internal to corporate anthrosupremacist monocultural...

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Donald impersonating
a nice guy publisher right 
after my accident traumatic 
brain injury car bomb attack 
he followed me to book stores 
ice cream shops art museum 
obsessed with my poetry my 
manuscript i was writing...

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I don't think it's just me.
I find myself challenged to change LeftBrain cognitive beliefs,
languaged abstractions of personal feelings,
perhaps because it is not possible to change Right Brain's
Elder feelings of co-passionate trust
where dipolar co-arising positive pleasure
is...

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With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

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I have an outside RightBrain dominant thalamus
to watch and listen to,
to feel confluent and resonant with,
to love,
as parent with child,
yet this is more of a mutual-mentoring of
notsad-notsad sustainable bliss
within our normally limited nutritional sensory environment.

My...

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Math speaks through us
within us
of cognitive landscapes
imagined still and/or moving.

Primal metrics are rational and symmetrical,
good as true as straightforward,
complex creation story problems
unfolding with precise answers,
right as at least not not ecologically wrong,
ecopolitically suboptimal perhaps,
yet at...

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From ISIS to J HORE totally 
unafraid of the JIHAD domestic 
threat arriving to end my 
life over my American poetry 
accompanying Rasta yago 
waving a 9MM driving a 
Tahoe parked next to her 
dark...

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The probe alerts for federal 
employees identification machines
data including finger printing 
system use for fraudulent 
access to aviation government 
buildings documents and data 
to allow domestic terrorists access
identication machines still not 
located be vigil when...

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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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OTETS THE MANY DAYS AND NIGHT YOU LENT ME YOUR 
DIVINE EAR THROUGH PRAYER DURING HARDSHIP TIMES 
AND ILLNESS RAISING MY GRANDDAUGHTER KEEPING HER 
SAFE IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS IN WISCONSIN OUR LADY OF 
MOUNT CARMEL...

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News release woman gets only 
four years for stabbing five people 
with a large butcher knife saying 
I’m going to Mort you why would 
Wisconsin concealed a butcher 
knife dangerous weapon out the 
hands of...

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