It's rare that I encounter someone who is truly a unique and creative person, who doesn't seem weighed down by the world like the rest of us, but Michael Burke is such a person.
Michael runs the monthly poetry readings at the Phoenix and Dragon bookstore, which is where we met. He radiates calm, and warmth.
He is a musician as well as a poet, according to his website.
One lovely thing about reading his poetry is that as I read, it's his lovely baritone voice I am hearing.
Michael
(at left)
One Can Only
I obtain my faith
By having my questions answered
Yet I sustain my faith
By having my answers questioned
I am within the Will of God
When I am without the want
For such a Deity
In seeking for anything
Outside of me
I awaken the energy
Inside of me
It is this energy
That enables me to search
It is this energy
That lay in the shadow
From the Light of Energy
I cannot think of not thinking
Of something...
Without thinking of it
This is the essence of duality
When I release the essence of thinking
I become thought itself
The only expression of God
That there is
A unified singularity
A Divinity divided is not less Divine
It is diminished in power
It is a fractal Deity
It becomes a segmented secularism
And it turns on itself
To gain the advantage
Of unified power
When, actually, in this case
To surrender is to conquer
No power equal to itself
Can defeat itself
It must realize
Defeat is but annihilation
Of some of its own power
This illusion is disillusioned
By the acceptance of surrender
The veil cannot hide One
It can only conceal
One from the Other
When the separation is severed
And Union is seen as
Never Being Separate
The veil is no more
And I exist as One
Only One
I inhale only God
I exhale only God
I speak of nothing
No Thing
Because I am only One
I have no thing to speak of
Because there is nothing
Outside of me
Any expression I can express
Is an expression of the One
Therefore Now and Forever More
The penultimate statement
Of all time
Will never change
The only real Truth
There is...
Is the divine statement
I Am That I Am
For One cannot know God
One can only Be God.
Web Of Wonder
I heard the wind whistle
Through the webs of wonder
Woven by the spirits of serenity
For just that purpose
To bring outer sound
To inner silence
To capture the breath
Of The Beloved
In Sacred reverberation
And release the blessing
Of the Grace within
I saw crystals dancing
On these strings of infinite patterns
Glistening in the vibration of Love
Pulsing with perfection
Singing with the Saints
Aligned with Angels
Whose tears of joy they represent
By sprinkling free from captured essence
To splash upon Disciples
As they become Apostles
Rooted in the earth
Yet blossoming in Heaven
Captured in their time
Yet beyond that constraint
A vision of the future
Is a look into the past
For where we are going
Is where we came from
And woven in that
Web of wonder
Is All of Us
Before we were
Any of us.
Interiority Complex
or
How I Found Nothing Outside Of Me
Demons brought to light
Are angels set on fire
I day the night
With blind desire
For that I've yet to see
Has seen me
It cannot be
If it's free
Free of the cage
I built to engage
It's sorry views
And mortal blues
It's endless defenses
And infinite fences
It's drudge to begrudge
And bind my mind
It's urge to splurge
And tie my high
On low vibrations
Insincere sensations
It wants me crippled
Dependent and nippled
Feeding on the faults
It festers in my vaults
Cause it knows when its empty
I receive what is meant me
The love I sought in my life was seeking for me every day
But it took a vision of my ex-wife for me to get out of the way
And then, just as suddenly, my Father appeared
Riding bareback on a giant Eagle
His cosmic aura tangling with the solar winds
He looked so royal, he looked so regal
Then he raised his arms above his head
And before disappearing into the Light
I saw written on the back of his white leather jacket
Everythings gonna be alright
Then I appeared in the sky
All of it
There was nothing that wasn't me
And I found everything I'd been searching for
By finding nothing was outside of me
I was the beating of the eagles heart
The resurrection of a widowed spirit
I am light to my own night
I am dawn to my own day
Because your love allowed me to fear it
And in that fear was release
And in that release was peace
And in that peace is peace within
And peace within is inner peace
And inner peace has always known
That Love knew what I was
Before I ever knew what Love was.
photo by Lisa Amos
Aquatic Angels
Long ago, long before we inhabited this planet
Angels swam with Dolphins and left their mark
More precisely, their cosmic energy, within
These aquatic angels....these submerged saints
Our rare brothers and sisters...these diving disciples
Mammals who live in the water
These acrobatic avatars, are our ancient ancestors
Blessed with a connection to spirit
That echoes in the sound of their singing
What's perceptible is life changing
What's imperceptible has already changed us
These are the frequencies of our fundamentals
And their arc when they swim, an expression of Grace
Is the same as the magnetic arc around this very planet
As they play they infuse our Earth with wisdom energy
So that we may walk as dolphins of the land
Allowing our arcs to caress the air in which we swim
Let us give to that air
What they give to the water
For when you come with Love
Love will come to you.