An old enemy turned into clarity.
In the silence I hear my truth.
The winds carry my voice,
from lifetimes ago.
Eternal.
Ancient wisdom purifies my soul.
I now choose to listen.

Beyond the noice, I hear life.

1               thank you
—-   =     —————
X              I love you


Teach: Solve For X

X is 1, thank you =  I love you

if you are lucky, lucky to be adjudged trustworthy,
someone’s ******* inside insights freely given,
unexpected with no disclaimer, no red stop sign,
“danger ahead,” after all, you inquired sincerely

you caught out breathless, the big data absorption
rate is exceeded, but you understand this tidal wave,
formed thousands of miles away, you and your silly
notions of ‘learning from love,’ aye, were the trigger!

you understand this gale force long in the forming,
the unleashing a cleansing, a self-tallying evaluation,
a crooked trail of struggle, optimism, recovery, both
a reliving and a relieving, and an entree to relief living

and you, fancy shaman, you wordysmith, understand,
you’ve been appointed a trustee of someone’s heart,
can only best muster is an ineloquent encompassing
“thank you,”^
acknowledging a bond you’ve granted, a bond accepted

and overwhelmed by this Rubicon crossing invitation,
you can’t yet blather, pry, think small, just acknowledge
this gunshot across the bow landed squarely tween eyes,
sensing, hoping that this simple response was pitch perfect

minutes later, you receive a summary judgment, to wit
an entirely unexpected
“I love you,”
a declarative, simple equation, understanding that it’s
a spontaneous gush, with no judgment, no risk, pure
acceptance is purely sufficient, that it comes with an
overwhelmingly baked-in affection for,
you, fool,
for just being there, for asking, for learning,  eyes tearing, if
you, fool,
have love within you, then you should give it, give it,
give it






3:53 PM
Tue. Jul 21
Twenty Twenty

For someone
it can be a noise

Drum beats
tremble with space
metals split
the bunch of leather beats

A typhoon of disorder

Staying wrapped
in the middle of a striking hurricane
Feeling the sound
shouting to me

My heart beats
It absorbs those beats
It shakes my head
touching my spirit

This music long ago
came from shamans

When the music was
a human ceremony

Mysterious rhythms

What are those numbers
in the elastic organic rhythms?
What are those symbols
of the perception of the world?

Followed long roads
and formed through time
passing from people to people
with their own body rhythms

Their clouds
Their rains
Their thunders
Their earth

Transformed in the
orchestra of percussion

And the story of their nature
descends to me

I hear my ancestors
their messages

I meet them
and now I play

Their and our rhythms
of the Korean percussion

for Thomas Raine Crowe

...These nights bring dreams of Cherokee shamans
whose names are bright verbs and impacted dark nouns,
whose memories are indictments of my pallid flesh...
and I hear, as from a great distance,
the cries tortured from their guileless lips, proclaiming
the nature of my mutation.

NOTE: My “mutation” is that my family appears to contain English, Scottish, German and Cherokee blood, meaning that my ancestors were probably at war with each other. Did my English ancestors force my Cherokee ancestors to walk the Trail of Tears?

I have recently created these new translations of Native American poems, proverbs and sayings ...

What is life?
The flash of a firefly.
The breath of a winter buffalo.
The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset.
—Blackfoot saying, translation by Michael R. Burch

Speak less thunder, wield more lightning. — Apache proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

The more we wonder, the more we understand. — Arapaho proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Adults talk, children whine. — Blackfoot proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Don’t be afraid to cry: it will lessen your sorrow. — Hopi proverb

One foot in the boat, one foot in the canoe, and you end up in the river. — Tuscarora proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Our enemy's weakness increases our strength. — Cherokee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

We will be remembered tomorrow by the tracks we leave today. — Dakota proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

No sound's as eloquent as a rattlesnake's tail. — Navajo saying, translation by Michael R. Burch

The heart is our first teacher. — Cheyenne proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Dreams beget success. — Maricopa proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

Knowledge interprets the past, wisdom foresees the future. — Lumbee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

The troublemaker's way is thorny. — Umpqua proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch

The whiskey bottle is empty,
But I find the cap on the floor,
and give it away.
Somewhere, my closest family
sleeps, and I live
for the first time all week.
Ask whoever you want,
they'll tell you the truth;
the hymns of ancient people's
resonate in your ears,
and dead ancestors will look on
horrified.
Still, I am the medicine man in these parts.
But that was another life,
one of silent contemplation of the infinite.

Indigenous knowledge and unwritten tradition
Ritual dances and pagan gods
She speaks to the deads
Heals the deepest wound
Whispers to the reindeers

But one day people with skins, the colour of snow, came
Untouched by her wisdom
Nothing she could do to stop them
The land was soiled
Purity went away

we suckle the **** of the "civilized" world
thats designed for your comfort and your ease.
but we are all blind, hit stop and rewind.
its the shaman that really sees.
umbilical chord to the material world
designed for fleeting satisfaction.
chasing for tomorrow, life that's full of sorrow.
fooled by capitalist distraction.
turn our backs on nature, killing for the dollar. eat some of nature's candy so you can hear the mother hollar. dog eat dog, no more running with the pack. shaman saying he could change the world with the fungus in his sack.

I create a dream and then lose myself into it.

My whole self.

I create the biggest most soothing dream that I could ever imagine; all of my wants and all of my current needs I put into it.

I invest all of my life energies into the dream and then I crush it.

I really mean that I crush it.

It gets scattered into millions of pieces of stardust and meteorites sprinkled among the mountains and dales of the galaxies and beyond.

Nothing fails as nothing is started. I am nothing. I become nothing and I stay as nothing until a new dream appears and the process is repeated once again. It expands and shrinks as it blinks back at me.

"It is all a big joke August."

I can hear the voices of the gods.

It is all the mystical nature of it all.