Coronavirus Poems

These are poems and translations of mine that apply to the coronavirus pandemic ...



This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how it all comes to naught.

Originally published by Better Than Starbucks



Fowles in the Frith
(anonymous Middle English lyric)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The birds in the wood,
the fishes in the flood ...
and I must go mad:
much sorrow I walk with,
for beasts of bone and blood.



Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
(anonymous Middle English lyric)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow EXIT this fen.
Second, that I cannot know WHEN.
And yet it’s the third that torments me so,
Because I don't know where the HELL I will go!



Update of "A Litany in Time of Plague"
by Michael R. Burch

THE PLAGUE has come again
To darken lives of men
and women, girls and boys;
Death proves their bodies toys
Too frail to even cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Tycoons, what use is wealth?
You cannot buy good health!
Physicians cannot heal
Themselves, to Death must kneel.
Nuns’ prayers mount to the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty’s brightest flower?
Devoured in an hour.
Kings, Queens and Presidents
Are fearful residents
Of manors boarded high.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

We have no means to save
Our children from the grave.
Though cure-alls line our shelves,
We cannot save ourselves.
"Come, come!" the sad bells cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!



thanksgiving prayer of the parasites
by Michael R. Burch

GODD is great;
GODD is good;
let us thank HIM
for our food.

by HIS hand
we all are fed;
give us now
our daily dead.

ah-men!

(p.s.,
most gracious
& salacious
HEAVENLY LORD,
we thank YOU in advance for
meals galore
of loverly gore:
of precious
delicious
sumptuous
scrumptious
human flesh!)

Originally published by Setu



evol-u-shun
by michael r. burch

does GOD adore the Tyger
while it’s ripping ur lamb apart?

does GOD applaud the Plague
while it’s eating u à la carte?

does GOD admire ur brains
while ur claiming IT has a heart?

does GOD endorse the Bible
you blue-lighted at k-mart?

NOTE: In the segmented title “evol” is “love” spelled backwards. The title questions whether you/we have been shunned by a "God of Love" or by evolution. William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” questions the nature of a Creator who brings lambs and tigers into the same world.



faith(less)
by michael r. burch

for the “Chosen Few”

those who believed
and Those who misled
lie together at last
in the same narrow bed

and if god loved Them more
for Their strange lack of doubt,
he kept it well hidden
till he snuffed Them out.

Keywords/Tags: coronavirus, virus, plague, disease, illness, death, fear, panic, dismay, germs, microbes