A wild goat lived in his heart
dreaming of paradise
so he decided to go there
and it was larger than imagined

For weeks, he looked
for the most beautiful place
to live, until one day
he approached the border, a wall

of mountains, and their weight filled
his legs, he could go no farther
and stayed where he was
without answer

when his son asked if this
was it, the best, and they
of all people the happiest
here in paradise

There are no guest rooms
because the land is too full
for a paradise life

The villages arm themselves
against newcomers
there is no need for them

They have to move on, to the hard soil
of the mountains, on the edge
of the North Paradise

or in a bend back
to the south, nowhere
welcome, nowhere is there enough

milk and honey, enough space
even if fields fall vacant
because of drought, smallpox, or plague

The neighbours fight for it
because the land is too full
for a paradise life

Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day . . .

learning to fly—
away, away . . .

O, love is not in the ephemeral flight,
but love, Love! is our destination—

graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night!
Let us bear one another up in our vast migration.

Published by The Book of Hope and Dreams (anthology). Keywords/Tags: learn, learning, fly, flying, flight, destination, migration, destination, heaven, love, eternity, eternal sunrise

Ba ba black man
wandering the flaming sun/

Why do you choose to smear the night?
is it that you're too sour for truth and light? /

What’s your guilt?  
why running from the sanctuary your ancestors built? /

Traveler beneath my country’s fire-rain
off to the backyard and heave my pain/

If you deem freedom to be tons of dollar
come swing ***** of dust into the eyes of your mother/

Life of a dark traveler isn’t a small joke
so don’t you find my words a suffocating smoke/

Geese scrambling on the roof
scratching uncertainly.
Seeking balance.
Steady purchase on a ceiling peak: perched.
Finding home,
flocks frayed by the Four winds
and Fate.
Honking hellos and goodbyes.
HONK
HONK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV-Khs9Rqxs
Listen while reciting - Enjoy!!
-----

Alchemical Butterfly
wing in the sky
eastern diamond bay
we were born this way
everyone will cry

Shhh It's all okay
Garden of God at play
megalithic dao
mirror of now
everyone is gay

I'm tired of the human race
But have love for god
I want to leave this earth
but float among space
And look back, from a pod

Im forgetting all name and form
And feeling as if I were never born
I cannot tell if it is after or before
All is now wet, I smile as it pours
Another barrier between my place and yours

But thats okay I like it inside
Closer to my heart for my soul to untie
Where there are no clocks
because people don't have the time
Life is a lie and the truth is everyone will die

So set me free from here
the land of the sun
where people are blind
the land of the gun
where humans **** their kind

My soul is a boat
Distant from shore
Bending the horizon
onward to nevermore
no body to tote

Invisible non-bodies –
collective elctrodynamics,
fast and furious nano-flares
of hovering incandescence.

They need no permission
to cross borders, leap checkpoints,
falsify fingerprints, scramble eye-scans.

They converse in a code
of wrangling fury, one alias
to another, true identity
unknowable.

These migrants can’t be detained
or deported, They assemble
out of nowhere, instigators
of disruption, provacators
of destruction.

There’s no stopping their attraction
or repulsion. They represent our
deepest fears, for their clandestine
agenda is not at all what it appears.

Waking up to the sounds of bombs exploding
Everyday I drown deeper in despair
Running from guns, carrying my possesions and I
Breathing in the cold poisonous air.


Trapped by authority
This is no place for a kid to grow
As I stand here in the rain
I start to draw a Rainbow.


Given the choice between death or sea
I leave the sandcastle I built to drown
We travel for hungry months
Our flashlights anticipating, wave after frown


As I step foot into my new life
Trauma dances around in my eyes
For every breath I take here
A person in my country dies.


I am a puzzle piece with endless corners
Humanity was stolen from me a long time ago
Therefore home will remain forever lost
So I draw another Rainbow.

We fell like the leaves
I blew away with the wind
a warm heart only believes
that love will never end

i should have known
there would come a day
when winds would blow
and birds would fly away

a bare branch heaves
swinging in the wind
indian summer deceives
the cold is setting in

1.
It felt like crossing      
all things cross, right?

2.
It has been many years since we have walked through that tunnel
and into this land
where the hands of spirits became the wings of ancestors over us
and the quiet inner gust became an orator of truth  

Truthteller could you tell me again my name
They have given me so many on the northern journey,
disguised me to be one of the multiple
flickering pixels on a television screen

eyes darker than their own
but who has darker eyes

3.
She is the barefoot daughter of the Pachamama
womxn of many tongues
womxn whose tongue was not cut off
so you hear her sing when the sun comes up
and sway with the blades of grass
onward in the direction of the voices and the wind
and all the things that cry and laugh out loud  

4.
They made you cross, too
and at the same time
But they made you forget
about the birds,
the wind,
your name- our name
and the alphabet
5.
silence is the alphabet used to speak truth  

6.
They made you forget your name.
Ask them your name as you look up at the sky
cloudy or clear
as  children lay silently next to demarcation lines
housed in steel bars
gloomy and lost
ask and listen
to be humbled by your name  

7.
The spirits call again
can you hear them now?

back through the tunnel of innocence,
they whisper your name.