EGBERT THE ADORABLE OCTOPUS & OTHER NONSENSE VERSE

Egbert the Octopus can be viewed here, in all his high-IQ’d-ness and adorability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V32yeA9yUuk Egbert the Octopus is so damn cute & smarter than u (the point is moot) ’cause he doesn’t pollute when he commutes, only, perhaps, when he (ahem) “poots”! —michael r. burch I have also seen the diminutive Einstein’s name rendered as Eggbert the Octopus. Monarch by Michael R. Burch I had a little caterpillar, it wove a cocoon for its villa. When I blinked an eye what did I espy? It flew off, a regal butterfly! Nonsense Ode to Chicken Soup by Michael R. Burch Chicken soup is fragrant goop in which swims the noodle’s loop, sometimes in the shape of a hula hoop! So when you’re sick, don’t be a dupe: get out your spoon, extract a scoop. Quick, down the chute and you’ll recoup! Preposterous Eros (II) by Michael R. Burch Preposterous Eros, mischievous elf! Please aim your missiles at yourself! Feel the tingle, then (take it from me), you’ll fall in love with the next hussy you see! She’ll spend your money, she’ll take your car... you’ll soon end up alone in a sad little bar. Preposterous Eros, mischievous elf! Please aim your missiles at yourself! I was so drunk my lips got lost requesting a kiss.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The Inconstant Cosmologist by Michael R. Burch An incestuous physicist, Bright, made whoopee much faster than light. She orgasmed one day in her relative way, but came on the previous night! Pale Ophelias by Michael R. Burch Ever in danger of a lethal tryst, with a comical father crying, “Desist!” We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist. “Children, be careful!” our mothers insist, and yet we plow forward, in search of bliss, ever in danger of a lethal tryst. “Remember Eve’s apple,” some inner voice hissed, which of course we ignored, the prudish miss! We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist. Such a sweet temptation!, and who can resist the enticements of such a delectable dish, whatever the dangers of a lethal tryst? “Stay away, Cupid!” With a balled-up fist, we lecture the stars when things go amiss. We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist. Lovers are criminals & need to be frisked! We’re up to the task, like lobsters in bisque. Ever in danger of a lethal tryst, We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist. U.S. Travel Advisory by Michael R. Burch It’s okay to be gay, unless, let’s say, you find your fey way outside the Bay. They will want you to pray to their LORD, or else pay for the “wrong decision.” Stay in San Fran, or maybe LA. Rhetorical Prayer by Michael R. Burch don’t tell me man’s lot’s poor: i always wanted more. don’t tell me Nature’s cruel and red with visceral gore. i always wanted more. please, dial up ur Gaud and tell Him i don’t like the crap He’s selling. if He’s good, He’ll listen, i’m sure, this Gaud u so adore. Speak by Faiz Ahmad Faiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Speak, while your lips are still free. Speak, while your tongue remains yours. Speak, while you’re still standing upright. Speak, while your spirit has force. See how, in the bright-sparking forge, cunning flames set dull ingots aglow as the padlocks release their clenched grip on the severed chains hissing below. Speak, in this last brief hour, before the bold tongue lies dead. Speak, while the truth can be spoken. Say what must yet be said. Ebb Tide by Michael R. Burch after Goethe Ebb tide. The sea is wide. In the depths dark things abide. Hush, pale child. Never fear. None as dark as men, my dear. Ebb tide. The sea is wide. In the depths dark creatures glide. Hush, now father. Never fear. Men are nothing where you are. Moonflower by Michael R. Burch after Robert Hayden Marveling, we at last beheld the achieved flower— both awed and repelled by its alienness, its moonlit petals, its cloying fragrance, its transcendence, its shimmering and wavering intimations of mortality ... How could I understand? by Michael R. Burch for the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts How could I understand that light might be painful? That sight might be crossed? How could I understand the cost of my ignorance, or the sun’s inflorescence? Who was there to tell me that I, too, might be one of the Lost? Sarjann by Michael R. Burch What did I ever do to make you hate me so? I was only nine years old, lonely and afraid, a small stranger in a large land. Why did you abuse me and taunt me? Even now, so many years later, the question still haunts me: what did I ever do? Why did you despise me and reject me, pushing and shoving me around when there was no one to protect me? Why did you draw a line in the bone-dry autumn dust, daring me to cross it? Did you want to see me cry? Well, if you did, you did. ... oh, leave me alone, for the sky opens wide in a land of no rain, and who are you to bring me such pain? ... This is one of the few "true poems" I've written, in the sense of being about the "real me." I had a bad experience with an older girl named Sarjann (or something like that), who used to taunt me and push me around at a bus stop in Roseville, California (the "large land" of "no rain" where I was a "small stranger" because I only lived there for a few months). I believe this poem was written around 1975 at age 16-17, but could have been written earlier. Into the gloom by Michael R. Burch Into the gloom, beyond the point of caring, past fascist rows that stare and blanch and cross and watch us always, by the sunset’s flaring, we watch our footprints vanish. Sponge-like moss absorbs our heavy bootheels, till the whisper of passing from the earth, our soft refrain, sounds like the hoot owl’s eerie lonely vesper from distances like hers: Remain. Remain. We cannot stay, for all our fond returning, although the earth sighs too: Remain. Remain. This bridge aflame with sunset coldly burning?— another cross, another cold domain. I cannot think of why we came; now, leaving, we do not go as quickly as we should. The sun wants nothing of our pallid grieving. The darkness we encounter, just a wood, is neither good nor bad. Nor hell nor heaven is found here in this small plot’s barren ground. The owls that “weep” are not our solemn brethren, not do they weep; their cry is just the sound of something mournful to our ears, that dying seems metaphor for death. Perhaps a mouse would understand their ghastly ghostly crying and think to flee, or hope they chase a grouse, a-tremble with the sudden realization that life is full of talons and small cries. Out of her corpse there spills a squalid nation of worms and lice: which proves that nothing dies that does not spring to life as something lesser. O, leave her to herself! Let others guess here what death can “mean.” I do not hope to know! I only hope to leave, while we can go … PETRARCH TRANSLATIONS Sonnet XIV by Petrarch translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lust, gluttony and idleness conspire to banish every virtue from mankind, replaced by evil in his treacherous mind, thus robbing man of his Promethean fire, till his nature, overcome by dark desire, extinguishes the light pure heaven refined. Thus the very light of heaven has lost its power while man gropes through strange darkness, unable to find relief for his troubled mind, always inclined to lesser dreams than Helicon’s bright shower! Who seeks the laurel? Who the myrtle? Bind poor Philosophy in chains, to learn contrition then join the servile crowd, so base conditioned? Not so, true gentle soul! Keep your ambition! Sonnet VI by Petrarch translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I once beheld such high, celestial graces as otherwise on earth remain unknown, whose presences might earthly grief atone, but from their blinding light we turn our faces. I saw how tears had left disconsolate traces within bright eyes no noonday sun outshone. I heard soft lips, with ululating moans, mouth words to jar great mountains from their traces. Love, wisdom, honor, courage, tenderness, truth made every verse they voiced more high, more dear, than ever fell before on mortal ear. Even heaven seemed astonished, not aloof, as the budding leaves on every bough approved, so sweetly swelled the radiant atmosphere! Overshadowed by Rahat Indori loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The brilliance of stars goes unnoticed since the moon overshadows them every night. So Be It by Rahat Indori loose translation by Michael R. Burch If we’re opposed, so be it; there’s more to life. There’s more to the skies than mere smoke. When a fire breaks out, many wounds abound; it’s not just my home in flames. Yes, it’s true that many enemies also abound, but they don’t control life with their fists. What comes out of my mouth, are my words alone; they don’t speak for me, do they? Today’s rulers will not be tomorrow’s; We’re all tenants here, not owners. Everyone's blood irrigates Earth’s soil; India is no one’s paternal possession. Daredevilry by Michael R. Burch Trees full of possibilities whisper of ancient mysteries— mysteries of birth, of life and death. Each leaf—illuminated, light as breath— gives up clinging to the old verities, embraces its frailties, skydives … Kabir Das (1398-1518), also known as Sant Kabir Saheb, but often called simply Kabir, was an Indian mystic, saint and poet who wrote poems in Sadhukkadi, a vernacular dialect of the Hindi Belt of medieval North India. Sadhukkadi was a mix of Hindi languages (Hindustani, Haryanvi, Braj Bhasha, Awadhi, Marwari) along with Bhojpuri and Punjabi. The world grows weary reading scripture’s tomes but a leaf of love enlightens us. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Without looking into our hearts, how can we find Paradise? —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How long will you live by eating someone else’s leftovers? Find your own way, don’t live on regurgitated words! —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Keep the slanderer near you, build him a hut near your house. For, when you lack soap and water, he will scour you clean. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A true wife desires only her husband; a starving lion will not eat grass. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Certainly, saints, the world’s insane: If I tell the truth they attack me, if I lie they believe me. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch When you were born, you wept while the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world weeps while you rejoice. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The one who enlightens the world remains unseen, just as we cannot perceive our own eyes. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch No medicine rivals Love: one drop transforms you whole being to pure gold. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Either grant me death or reveal yourself: this separation has become unbearable. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch They called the doctor to investigate Kabir’s illness; the doctor checks my pulse to diagnose my disease. But no doctor can understand what ails me. It cuts too deep. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I neither have faith in my heart, nor do I know anything about Love. And what do I know of Love’s etiquettes? How will I ever live with my Beloved? —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My Beloved calls me with such intense love, but I am sinful and gone astray. The Beloved is pure but the bride is soiled. How dare she touch his feet? —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Kabir kept searching and searching until he was completely lost. The drop dissolves in the ocean; now nothing can be discovered. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Whatever you need to do tomorrow, do today, for time evaporates and vanishes like a mist. Thus work undone remains undone forever. —Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Autumn Lament by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14 Alas, the earth is green no more; her colors fade and die, and all her trampled marigolds lament the graying sky. And now the summer sheds her coat of buttercups, and so is bared to winter's palest furies who laugh aloud and do not care as they await their hour. Where are the showers of April? Where are the flowers of May? And where are the sprites of summer who frolicked through fields ablaze? Where are the lovely maidens who browned 'neath the flaming sun? And where are the leaves and the flowers that died worn and haggard although they were young? Alas, the moss grows brown and stiff and tumbles from the trees that shiver in an icy mist, limbs shivering in the breeze. And now the frost has come and cast itself upon the grass as the surly snow grows bold as it prepares at last to pounce upon the land. Where are the sheep and the cattle that grazed beneath tall, stately trees? And where are the fragile butterflies that frolicked on the breeze? And where are the rollicking robins who once soared, so wild and free? Oh, where can they all be? Alas, the land has lost its warmth; its rocky teeth chatter and a thousand dying butterflies soon'll dodge the snowflakes as they splatter flush against the flowers. Where are those warm, happy hours? Where are the snappy jays? And where are the brilliant blossoms that once set the meadows ablaze? Where are the fruitful orchards? Where, now, the squirrels and the hares? How has our summer wonderland become so completely bare in such a short time? Alas, the earth is green no more; the sun no longer shines; and all the grapes ungathered hang rotting on their vines. And now the winter wind grows cold and comes out of the North to freeze the flowers as they stand and bend toward the South. And now the autumn becomes bald, is shorn of all its life, as the stiletto wind hones in to slice the skin like a paring knife, carving away all warmth. Alas, the children laugh no more, but shiver in their beds or'll walk to school through blinding snow with caps to keep their heads safe from the cruel cold. Oh, where are the showers of April and where are the flowers of May? And where are the sprites of summer who frolicked through fields ablaze? Where are the lovely maidens who browned 'neath the flaming sun? And where are the leaves and the flowers that died worn and haggard although they were young? “Autumn Lament” is one of the earliest poems that I can remember writing. The use of the archaism "'neath" is an indication of its antiquity. Unfortunately, I don't remember when I wrote the first version, but I will guess around 1972 at age 14. “Autumn Lament” has been published by The Lyric. Trump’s Trumpet: Trumped Up or Trumped? by Michael R. Burch Our president’s sex life—atrocious! His “pieces of ass”? Braggadocios! His tool though? Immense! Or perhaps just pretense, since Stormy declared “hocus-pocus!” Why does Melania flee Trump’s unthreatening wee-wee? It looks like a cauliflower and its taste is sour. —Michael R. Burch An Aging and Increasingly Senile Trump’s Saddest Tweet to Date by Michael R. Burch I’ve gotten all out of kilter. My erstwhile yuge tool is a wilter! I now sleep in bed. Few hairs on my head. Inhibitions? I now have no filter! Trump's Catches by Michael R. Burch Trump comes with a few grotesque catches: He likes to grope unoffered snatches; He loves to ICE kids; His brain’s on the skids; And then there’s the coups the fiend hatches.

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