could you ever, with your ears, express a piece of music, as: fluffy? dark soho's piece is fluffy; and by god i was the pretentious one at the beginning of the 20th century critical of the emerging music... but i'm the one merging at the beginning of the 21st century: and it's a T.S. Elliot scenario: the overload of rhythm: industrial core due to the industry being foetal sieg heil! and so many have fallen for the nostalgia trap... it's not coming back: against the thump thump gyroid reproductive muscular we emerge from... for whatever lack of drums in the orchestra: we're paying for it with an excess of techno techno Bob the goldfish cardboard box dance sequence... or as some would suggest: filling in the gap about the joke concerning a triangle being a part of the orchestra and the person educated in it, rather than the harp.

ah, the blank, and i have to work on it: let's imagine i was just
cooking a pork stew for my father and you don't
bother to ask why someone's surname is written
Raßer - and you don't know how
to pronounce it: and you end
up with razors - which you end up saying
racer - or how about sharpening
the s into a zed - how's that?
this is surgical activity while you you're
at at the butchers: necromancy aplemty:
when god speaks, the devil whispers -
American divergence of the pronoun
y'all / you all -
                           we the safeguard
and they the paranoia -
                                    take it slow,
imagine yourself living in Alaska:
you're exposed to the elements
and Prometheus isn't handy:
  all you have is west London drool
that later translates into easter in London,
Ld: isn't even an postal code:
given Greenwich, bellybutton on the world
they're bound to abuse / feel special
                 about, it's just a John Bishop
          Scouser type of beating.
                  ya - i say i aye, you frostbite of
culture, ya yarn ball of ****!
    oh 'ere we go: the red-coats are hunting
foxes: sort of scenario -
   the sooner they ******* a killing
the better for me: 'ave that one with a grizzly:
             some say the longer the yawn
the greater the applause -
      yo! Yogi! turntable of Las Vegas
says you better gamble on hibernating in the
effing Hermitage!
  - we say a lot of y'all when we imply the
plural, don't we? terrible, ****** thuggish
'n' all, to say it.
   i have five pages worth of notes,
and even though i'm drunk,
i came across a foundation, i'll never be ask happy
at i am right now,
   i signed a copy of my book (look! i don't
have a publicist, i don't have the ******* swagger,
i have the inferno that says:
  when the writing dries up, get a proper job;
if the writing doesn't dry up?
             you're less than necessary than a
supermarket shelf-stacker...
                 there are succumbing reasons that
explain the affair later) -
      no i'm about to sell my first copy -
  i say to her: when you working this circuit next?
Friday night? i'll tell you how much i'm selling
for, well: i'll never be this happy: ever -
it really doesn't matter how much for how little:
   i'm not exactly a family animal: farmed -
i'm political: through and through -
   by the time i finish this whiskey i'll be
demanding something new...
    i don't think your able limbs do idle chores:
i just think admire that they do them
and hardly complain: i blame it on the workers'
encouraged banter - and that's called solidarity.
still, right now, it's all about
dark soho's: dark moon in stonehenge -
       or why you never take l.s.d.
   question arises with Bach...
and polyphony - again, non-linear polymers:
   back when the Germans were at it
music sliced through the air
                   - or the modernity of lost
string (quartets) and woodwinds -
          only the thing plucked rather than in slicing
stroked kept from the strings:
    it was truly a devolution via brass -
   you can have the iron age,
but this is the brass age -
                   and subsequently the evolution
or filling the void of orchestral percussion,
which began with jazz: how orchestra was stripped
of woodwinds and strings and elevated
the humble triangle and enforced drums
and the rhythmic transcendence of limb and heart
and less ear and mind -
           oh the spontaneity thus involved:
forever the enigma of the composer's ability
to say much more than *A, when saying in A# -
oh hell: music used to be the Mongolian horde
of all things imaginable,
                  the screams, all the entrenching
embodiment of battle: soothed -
  but in our apathetic guises: music is a variant
of the once exfoliated, thus hushed:
music is expressing a war in waiting - or a war
that's not to be - once music music ascribed
wind and tornado toward its elemental composition -
these days there is less wind, and more earthquake:
we are exposed to a trembling -
           an overt percussion methodology:
that's not fire and the storyteller / poet by
the lonesome huddling of nomads by the fire
with oud and recitation of the to come Quran:
we are experiencing a complete reversal of wind:
here we have dark soho's tectonic cardiovascular:
over stating the percussion until the eventual
obliteration of breath, and subsequently
the flatline of the heart's rhythm: to reach the zenith
of a flatline: beehive musicology.
         it's all earth: and the quaking
rather than a waking into.
                  sure: to the alien ear outside the populace
of those that listen to that kind of "****":
but let me assure you:" you can intellectualise
anything beyond the guilty pleasure:
or else - care to disclose your opinions about doggy?
once we were slicing and ******* -
these days? we're hammering, Soviet committee
said: hammer hammer hammer...
            gravitational drilling against the Catholic
lessons of worldly-detachment akin to a Gagarin:
and all the world's problems morphed into
an image of moving away from earth...
    far far away...       well: we're grounded, like it
or not.
              i love that: y'all -
                          it's as if we all need to agree, ~.
and what better way to actually open a poem up
if not to say how prose is a miser and poetry
the mad spender, or compose: he had / another thought
he wished to take / but...
           originally
                    he had
                  another thought he wished to take
                 but...
saving an Amazonian tree, suggesting that: one by one.
i'll sell my first copy on Friday,
i just need to know how much money was put
into printing it -
   and it will be the happiest i'll ever be -
who cares that it's only 1... if i were selling
100,000 copies i'd be thinking of buying a Mercedes
to do away with the capital...
      oh right, the poem (six pages of notes):
the question, what does it all mean?
       i'm thankful that the all means very little,
or at least enough for physicists to take a bother
in answering:
               i'm just thankful to say that at least
bites / bytes / isolated units have more meaning
than the whole... i.e.?
do i care what the universe means, more so
than i known what the word darkened means?
                 pause for thought -
the well established organic search engine that memory
is: and never will be: an algorithm (engine) -
           still the organic variation of accessing it
reveals Rodin's statues -
                        post-Rodin (Rho-dan: ****** iota!
why so naked in the first place?!) -
            the point where it's not so much enigmatic that
you wish to replicate: but entomb, and mould
a statue worthy of the perpetuated cut-short
and mediating the idea that thought has also
the faculty of imagining and memorisation
that hardly translate into being via ergo...
       if that's the case: you're demented via the
ergo of memory... and deluded via the ergo of
imagining -
                      or Frankenstein / Disney respectively:
but never the extinguished cogito, somehow,
oddly enough:
                          and by the way - no one is going
to question my opinions because dialectics was
giving the hemlocks... my opinions
will only become passed around like Bulgarian
Versace copyright thefts, or because they
were never ideas: attachment .pdf
                   will never entertain someone else's thought,
or because they were originally always opinions
will be consecrated on the attachments of .jpeg:
ever wonder why the crucifix always
mobilises so much emotional foundation to
react and protect a torture-filled instrument
worthy of worship? me neither.
                but that's the whole beginning:
we ensured our memory is eroded by an easily
accessed algorithm - we prefer the goggles to
mensa -
                   and if i were a technophobe: e ah e ah oh...
McDonald would turn out to be McTrump:
'cos' i wouldn't be using it.
              then how to synchronise the senses:
you surely can't leave one the prime consumer of
all the things around you:
     i guess that as stated: you can't live out a life
whereby one is polarised, and the others recessively
make your thinking into potato -
   then again: not polarising one of your senses
will leave you thinking that old fantasy that
you live in a hologram "reality": which i mean by saying:
if one of your pentagram limbs isn't polarised
like a blind person, your thought will claim a sixth
sense status - and subsequently you'll experience
either a second chance of allowing one of your senses
to be stressed / polarised, or all your senses will become
overpowering your non-sense: that's thought into submitting
to a polarity / vector: kindred of
the manual worker feeling his trade take
perfect replication -
a composer polarised by "hearing" -
a painter polarised by "seeing" -
a poet polarised by "speaking" -
a chef polarised by "tasting" -
   a perfumer polarised by "scenting" -
and within the sixth sense extension:
a politician polarised by "thinking" -
  the first antonym suggestion comes within the latter's
parameter: mobilising or puppeteering:
would i care to find variations for the latter? no.

     interlude... opening of page 3 of notes on a windowsill...

and how often is soul ascribed a sensual dimension?
i guess as many a time thought isn't ascribed one:
necessarily made into nonsense.
soul? what do i mean by that? the part of you
that isn't indestructible, but, rather,
the part of you that feels that ease: the uninhibited
correlation (verbiage necessary, darling,
if you want the gist of it) -
when at ease you're not really ascribing to yourself
thinking, but a narrative -
  hence your notion of being indestructible,
or young.
      when thinking is easy we're not actually thinking,
we're narrating, hence the majority of us
are clogs in the machine, and once the machine works
we're upbeat about it, because we prefer to narrate
ourselves into life than think ourselves into it:
primarily because (even i included):
we lack a public addressal attache to make
vague concerns over our: inhibitions -
we are entrusted with inhibitory encrusting
for the sole purpose (we should be afraid of
suggesting): let's see who falls off the ferris wheel
first and we can entrust our congeniality toward
the joke: thank **** it wasn't me, later...
          but still:
if were were really intended to think
rather than narrate we'd be given global warming
solutions everyday...
   there's nothing in us that suggests an 'ought',
a moral choice to later say: thought
                      that could fish-hook us out of
kissing the narrative goodbye -
  narration is an undisturbed faking of thought -
as such the 'ought' is never thought of:
because there's a narrative going on
that's more important than anything requiring
even the most basest obligation.
       we are never obliged to be, because we are
never obliged to think: it's strange how the
two are anti-synonymous due to the ergo disparity:
as if one produces the other, or the former
the latter.
              thinking you're good never precipitates
into being good - and vice versa:
   for all i know i know fake rather than falsifiable
saintliness: the power of the scientific
  suggests that i should be Baron von Scorn
when it comes to the ignorance of testifying
         against people who abhor science
and reproduce, nonetheless, with failure to
transcend deformities: because deformities are
glorified and all forms of ability demonised:
so it looks quasi-Vatican-e.
                   preface to a Michelin star:
start with a ******: work your way down:
enjoy your meal, bygones-be-bygones:
you very happy people.
                  but i never understood why
the idea of thought has never the opinionated phrase:
me, exponentially, to no book's avail!
        p.s. as to be ever written!
    thought conscripts man to rubrics -
for example? examinational candélabre -
  some call it i.q., other's call it: for god's sake man,
****** shoot! shoot!
                        and the flying toes and digits:
thumbs away: booh booh Blitz.
                        first thought: that Jersey song:
fifth of November - that Fawkes ****
who almost.... n'ah.
                            in case you're narrative:
thought has its narrative: it's transcendental -
phenomenology comes into play with
narratives and Lady Gaga and how you're an
"individual": thought is acquired trying to transcend
atomic electron orbits that says: electron clouds -
or it's there, but it isn't there, but it's not there,
but it's there: huh?
                         narration conscripted to the rubric
of school exams at school: palpitations, sweat,
nerves... in this scenario thinking is actually
regurgitation -
                          actually we're still doing the Elvis
Costello hope: while narrating we pass from
these shackles of having to think lessons through
when in fact: we're gearing to having no need
in having to learn them primordially, period!

the paranoiac "they" are eroding our protective
membrane -
    they begin with memory -
         it's not that we care to remember certain things,
but by educating us in the Pythagorean theorem
they're not necessarily dressing us in bow ties either -
they need to implant an abstract educational
thought to replace our natural assimilation into
a narrative that we ourselves have created -
       they need to create erosion within our
memory to stop us coagulating our sense of memory
within a framework of us imagining backwards
rather than forwards:
      the cinema of the mind means memory utilises
imagination to do cartwheels backwards
rather than forwards: because forwards is always
a Disney pharmacology of the neon hyper colouring.

or how they made us escape the "Alcatraz"
of the couch of cognitive narration into an
iron maiden of thinking -
                    in this realm narrating is disparaging
from thinking: narrative is a comfort zone:
thinking is a discomfort zone -
                       but neither me nor you will
become a Newton in terms of narrating the ideas:
so why the hell would they want us to think?!
       concerning Heidegger:
the problem is not that we're not thinking -
the solution is that we're narrating and have
no urge to write books, and thank god for that!
               or man, as the pentagram of the senses,
reversed into thought as the sixth sense calamity
and reversed back as that sense missing
and the tetra exemplified...
         when learning what is the weakest point,
the audio or the optic-receptive stimulation?
                         i mean, the senses over accuse
thought's complexity as if it were a sense akin
to them, hence the suggestion nonsense;
well of course, thought is actually non-sensory -
     i just suggested that when thinking
i'm not polarising any of the penta -
         i'm suggesting that when thinking i'm
invoking the tetra - as if blind or deaf -
but that means i'm deviating from the superstition
that a sixth correlative mediatory balance exists
between the two dichotomies -
                            the senses will always treat
obscure thinking as if obscure narratives:
even though i know how much a price of bread
costs in the 21st century -
                              what i'm saying is that
the nonsense assertion is also true for the other:
not having had the chance to polarise one
of its senses to point toward the artefact use of
wh

Nothing is ever time wasted,
just the interlude to the rest of the album. Soon it becomes nostalgia. To think you almost pressed the skip button..
It's all about trying new things.
Slowing were briding the gap.
Looping untold tales of blues and jazz into our samples.
The things considered classical.
Instant vintage.
The things we keep hidden in headphones,
The venerability of hype.
It's always about the crowd.
Afraid to digest something different.
This was the first time I met her.
At first I laughed,
Reaction that I faced my own ignorance.
Listening again finding purpose.
Not knowing that we'd come to spend the rest of our lives together.
All three minutes and forty five seconds.
I was dishonest.
Not revealing anything real about myself until I heard it for the first time.
The first time she sung.
Music.
This wasn't an image to be upheld in front of others.
Or the gossip type spread circle to circle.
I was never exposed to this.
Skimming the top layer ready to press next.
Too far caught in the slander that first impressions can give.
History often repeats itself but this wasn't the case.
This was wholeheartedly the epitome of how she effected me.
The rhythm of how she moved.
How she spoke.
Like that I matured almost instantly.
She became my biggest influence.
A two way street that bridged the gap of my own ignorance.
After time I began to leave my headphones on the dresser.
We were amplified.
She'd follow me everywhere just as I'd follow her.
Soon it caught on to the masses.
Each and every thought became a publicist of what she'd recite over and over again.
A parental advisory issued with every cover.
Finding the one became a catalog.
Stumbling back to the first interlude all over again.
The copyright not for sell

not a papist or ****** or shapist
but enjoying a curve
not an escapist
lacking the nerve
not a florist, tourist or activist
unless its summer time
and certainly not an alchemist
no water into wine
a lovely smiley altruist or artistically quite loud
but sadly failed when drawing
kindness from the crowd
mist
gist
fist
hoping to desist in being a monarchist
and always very eager on not being dogmatist
but still I really strongly emphatically insist
that faddist, fauvist fashion
is only a passing passion
for the narcissists among us
realist
publicist
terrorist

humbly suggesting that zeitgeist
is an ist
but failing to enjoy the line
being a fatalist
not a facist, xylophonist or anything with isms
just a bad contortionist
with creeping rheumatism  
determining the future through a timely
cruel twist
whilst realising ultimately
I’m just
a sad typist

i was about to start writing this up when i thought:
another whiskey Quincy? **** storm,
spilled the remains of the one i barely touched
before having to pour myself a:
puritan Scot in Cheltenham.

now, i heard people say any town in Essex
is a ****-hole...
                            fair enough...
but there are darker recesses of England you
must get to know before making that
assumption...
                  sure, London, proper London,
zones 1 - 4, E17 (post code, outer reaches,
Walthamstow, used to have a dog racing
track - played there once,
like a typical Paris catwalk, those hounds)
can skive off Greater London
                    like New York can laugh off
New Jersey, it's pretty much like that...
the only thing is: Londoners don't know what
exists outside this area: the buffer zone.
this is the buffer zone...
                 you experience England outside of
this very sensitive area of integration,
take for example a 3 hour coach trip to
a little town of Cheltenham in Gloustershire
not far from Oxford (a hub of learning)
and Bristol (Massive Attack, and that
bridge by Brunel - funny, engineers are above
architects, in that engineers build things
that *work, architects are like science-fiction
novelists rather than scientists -
do you know how many problems workers
experience, because an engineer
"forgot to mention" something essential in the plans?
at least an engineer gives you a read table,
all architects work for Ikea -
          ah, here's pieces a - z,
put it together yourself) - anyway...
              spilled my Quincy whiskey, now i'm a puritan
of scotch - unlike that damning quote from
1950s Hollywood: whiskey with a drop of water...
   ok ok... a little **** of ice floating about...
when will the nagging stop? no one says jack
about putting water into authentic absinthe...
      why? cos it goes cloudy green when you do!
(too much digression, news paragraph).

   i was leaving London on Friday,
murky the way i like it... Albert Bridge never seemed
so out of cinematographic urgency -
               but the west end with its grand buildings
appealed to me to start imagining
                    Oscar Wylde ghosts leaving these places
for promenades in top cats and tiaras for the ladies...
                     west London... the best way to see it
is in transit... preferably rather urgently...
                    and in a coach with other people not paying
attention...
                       the Thames receded into the estuary (
as it does), those housed in boats experienced a wake-up
call with a 10° ***** into the mud -
                                past the Chelsea pensioners' abode,
past many monuments to be exact...
   and then onto the open M4... past Windsor Castle
and the streak of aeroplanes about an aerial mile
apart landing at Heathrow -
                                  3 hours later, there i was,
in Cheltenham - chitty chitty bang bang,
apparently dubbed the hub of all English literary
endeavours - well, if you're going to host
a literature festival, wouldn't you claim to host
it with at least one patriotic son of the word?
did i see any statue of a famous poet or writer in
that little rugby stockpile of excess triceps?
nope.
           well, at first i thought it was cute...
                                a little Portobello, albeit
without the St. Petersburg paintwork on the houses,
houses as grey as the skies...
                                           got lost looking for
the b & b hotel i was supposed to be staying at for
the night, went into a gas station, asked,
i was apparently only adjacent lost -
                           old school, map printer and no
g.p.s. on foot -
                                  i once read a map and navigated
a car from an obscure Essex city,
to an even more obscure city in eastern Poland,
past the dreaded Penta Germania consisting of:
Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Wuppertal and
obviously Dortmund -
                                           i call it the whirlpool
of navigation...
                            anyway, so i found the abode,
what a nice little place it was, shied away from
all the traffic - a lovely garden,
a room fit for a journeying writer,
          actually, everything a writer could hope for
to lock himself away and write,
            tunic scenic - everything to ease the literary
constipation - the surroundings, the whole decor,
i even took a picture thinking: shame if no
Balzac were to not emerge from these rooms...
                           i sure didn't,
i dropped all the things, took a shower,
went into town to do the g.p.s. topographic of
the city so i wouldn't need a map in the future -
bought a bottle of whyte & mackay with a huh?!
apparently this brand isn't popular...
               went back to the room and found myself
drinking in front of the dreaded sight...
well... it was a room fit for a writer...
               but it had a double bed in it...
and a mirror at the desk...
                                    i downed one puritan glass
and looked in the mirror: i don't need your company.
looked away and found to my amazement the
truth of modern writing: the industrialisation
of writing... it emerged in the 20th century when everyone
did it by himself, with a typewriter -
        the industrialisation of writing on an individual
scale can be quiet debilitating when trying to
rekindle the quill... i didn't write anything, i doodled,
and those were bad doodles, it wasn't writing,
it was doodling... i drank a quarter of the bottle
and went out...
        went into the first bar, ordered a Guinness and
and sat down by a table with a
(later disclosed) Gloustershire University student,
a Canadian, jacking-off a script for some
B-short-movie in a public place: to catch the oozing
exfoliation of inspiration from crowded places -
if ever that worked, it might have ever worked
in a graveyard...
                             we were joined by his friend,
some peasant, we got chatting, boy, it was such a thrill
to exchange names... the Canadian's name
i did remember: Darcy...
                          he had that look about him that made
it worthwhile to remember his name,
ah, when names fit the image...
                         chubby, pig-blondish, hairy...
i'm guessing a native of Quebec...
                               but i could be wrong.
so a few hey hey, yeah yeahs later i asked if they
knew something about this gig on the festival slot
that was starting tomorrow, 5 p.m. and for free...
sure sure... got to eye the guide... so i asked:
so, maybe we could meet up at this place at this time
and go from there....
                                  Titanic looked more graceful
sinking than the reply...
                                                 i had to really check myself,
this isn't London psyche chess, this is:
we are small people from a small town,
we think a charming stranger is a serial-killer...
                    the Yorkshire ripper case scenario,
not last... first.
                              i might have been ******* a lemon
by then and pretending to be drunk squirming
a Buddha look - i pretended the polite noting down
the details: suddenly i didn't think like attending
this ****** venture that would start at 5 p.m., end
at 12 a.m. and according to my travel diary:
having to wait 2 hours to catch the 2 a.m. home.
so i went to the first instalment of the "literature"
festival... lemn sissay and salena godden -
and i have to admit, it was a corker - a true
a champagne cork popped and hit the crystal
chandelier and i laughed... and that's how i lost my
virginity to "spoken word",
                                         i wasn't listening to poets,
but i was thoroughly entertained, i swear that
at the end of her performance Salena pointed into
the dark (great tactic, how can they be nervous
if they can't see anyone? they stand on a pulpit of pure
light and see black ahead, where the nerves?)
and said: esp. to my friend over there...
                i might have involuntarily back-laughed /
snorted like a pig trying to catch enough lung volume
for a ha ha...
                          got chatting to this lovely middle-aged
couple: told them: i'm being ***** with gags.
                prior, i was watching the queue build up
into the room, with a god-awful grin on my face...
i couldn't take it off...
                         perhaps because i was looking at
the demographic and thinking: where are my peers?!
i spotted about three people in a close age proximity -
the rest were farts and soon-to-be-farts...
                             now Sissay freaked me out...
in a good way... i met the two after the show,
i brought two copies of my own printed work to give to
them... i had to ask their publicist if i was allowed
to touch the Aegean marbles... luckily i did,
but then i asked the stupid question to Sissay:
so who were you trying to imitate when your eyes
were bulging out nearly gauged out like a Pink Floyd
song video of: teacher! let these children go!
               i should have associated something African
freakish in mask, a strengthening - the sort
of look that New Zealander rugby players put on
to frighten people off when dancing the haka -
he really did talk like that...
                                       the little devil voice didn't help
either... but i only asked that "stupid" question
while mumbling something about how hard it was
getting published and how anyone aged nearing 40
forgot the free press of the internet emerging and
how he asked for a q & a after the performance...
and... hand on my heart:
                                   got asked one question...
          and answered... only one question...
                                        a complete and utter ******* meltdown...
   not: oh yeah, so who's your major influence...
                      a Samuel Beckett moment from not i.
later i standing outside and smoking, a grand English
dame of the west approached me,
chitty chatty kiss the hand later i got to say the most
famous line known to the current Englishman:
unfortunately... from Essex.
             honest. anyone asks you in Essex the question
they always ask: so where you're originally from?
                         anywhere else in England
they just ask you: whe

people should really stop ridiculing this medium of communication, and abusing it to serve out market square profanities against people while trying to sell kilograms of apples and shrimps... don't people realise this is a resurrection of the wild west? there are no laws here, there are no publicist authorities telling us: profit above niche interests... you really want a world where only something akin to the Da Vinci Code comes to your eyes' mesmerisation unglued from that sloppy version of sleep: in the s.e.m. when given the epileptics' digest by the television producers? this is play-dough! we have the ultimate authority - the software within software... all these software brands are also slaves to the hardware companies... please don't let them undermine the content within the content, because that recycles itself back toward the context within the context: i'm only using a computer, not a ****** kettle to make tea.

the argument bypassed all hierarchies of power,
                and it was done in the realm of the shadow people,
    long was the established
authority of man, in that democratic  babble -
until someone resorted to anarchistic measures
and said: well - allpoetry.com is a ******'s pleasure
garden of Pavlov, wattpad.com doesn't allow
                                                           ­                            ctrl c / p,
                 and elsewhere a truest
democratic expectation was
written out, against all established
lumberjacks of print,
   there, it was written,
lay the gambit - two cruise ships set off:
   become rich or die trying,
or...
               speak the truth against
a billion or two people and die not wanting
         a silver-spoon up your ***...
but i still can't believe that *incubus
released their seminal morning view
album in 2001; ****! i was 15 then,
an album of my youth...
                        such that music ages
like wine... apart from classical / literati
music kindred of Bach -
               the 20th century phenomenon
music as enjoyable as alcohol,
        no stiff-necktie princes readied for
louse agitation sitting in an opera theatre
for too long: grit and grime:
the down-to-earth passe that was actually
an impasse in terms of: can't ignore this
outlet.
             there's freedom where you can
find it,
                  sometimes facebook.com
allowed minor computer coding,
   the stroked-out ambiguity of
the zoological enclosure of <u> ending with </u>
for something being underlined,
but it's still all software, the hierarchical priest
that's a chef, but not the hardware wired
slaughterhouse attendee or the butcher -
i still find it bewildering that journalists
treat the medium that's electronic as a form of
surrealism, unreal, psychiatric worthy investigation...
well: dope,
                     people die from interacting on this
quick-action translated into real life "t.v.",
              journalists are basically writing us off
and whatever the internet provides goes against
their famous revolution of the printing press...
they can't stomach democracy of the internet,
they prefer to peer for the autocracies of
their belittling tabloid conglomerates of a Hussein;
they can't stomach freedom,
they can't stomach free enterprise: with or without
a care to have a family, pay the extortion that children
surmount to...
                         they are like priest, in the grey suited
attire of authority that's beyond
       distinguishable...
                                    opinions spewed like
regurgitated kebabs on an Essex dance floor after too
many shots of warm *****... without even a
chance for a dialectical horizon...
                     little fears, little people.
sure, i can be the village idiot: i did the opposite
of people outside of a eugenic background of
Shakespeare or Beckett households do,
    simply outside keeping the motto, if not
merely the motivation to be blunt flints -
i.e. great-grandfather was a doctor, grandfather was
a doctor, father was a doctor, i am a doctor...
embarrassing, this "noble" form of ******...
                doctors and lawyers are alike...
     if you want to know where the neanderthals are
these days? i'll tell you, there, where i pointed
at with the inbreeding of inter-generational "improvements"
but keeping the family name attired in a certain
profession...
                                    to be honest, for all that blah blah
of Darwinism (never stance it off against theology,
                      any -ism isn't a -logy, the former
attires itself with words but simply dictates images)
               we're less bio-diverse than we think we are,
        i call it the ****** plateau, nirvana unplugged
said it better, but i find the hard case of social mobility
          being immovable in terms of
                         a Francis Shakespeare imitating his
great great great, great great grandfather
                                 or a Michael Faraday
                                 Jr. Jr. Jr. Jr., Jr. Jr.
                           securing a patent on a Dyson light-bulb...
****** happens all the ****** time,
               it's just the socially acceptable ****** that
doesn't require rammstein to write a song
         entitled Viennesse Blood
                                            (6-    -en- -ease:
         6 denoting the Welsh ***** to you and ****** to boot,
                                     and the universal *******)...
                                                      ­ was i shocked when
i heard about this story? i could have been...
                                           but then i've been reading
the mentality of the culprit that's kindred of the Marquis
de Sàde (alternatively Sadé... i.e. eh?)
                       and i figured: have you seen how local
  and uninformed the people surrounding the case are,
                  they would have hardly known that
a plebiscite was taking place...
               two carrots a beetroot and a cabbage broth
in their eyes translated the civilised world's shock...
                  but that's what's shocking about
our modern world: you can truly become a barbarian these
days by treating modern, socially progressive / civilised
          antics or behavioural patterns with an
anti-social tinge of revision: basically stating the truth:
      and truth is the newest form of brutality (oddly enough),
incubated by the phrase: brutal-honesty...
              so evidently that's counter to: civilised-deceit.

Lift up your eyes and see
You are correct to deeply fear.
Worse than all history
It’s gonna be a bad year.

The GOP has changed DC,
Now it stands for Demented Congressmen.
Federal Secretaries can barely spell!
It will take decades to fix this again.

Hide in your house and pray
Ignoring all the threatening signs.
Pay no attention to the news,
Everything will turn out just fine.

Who needs their civil rights?
Just pay your taxes and be quiet.
No one in Washington
Hears your opinion, they don’t buy it.

The whole show is bribes, so
If you’re a multi billionaire
And pay the right people,
Some one in Congress will care.

Remember the actual rules,
The important thing in politics
Is  stay in office for life
Even if they have to use tricks.

Being a statesman today
Doesn’t mean a thing any more
Because the voters
Don’t really care to keep score.

They raise lots of handy cash
And buy the most successful publicist
Then they have the people
Crushed in their grubby little fists.

some people forget that writing into excess is never a modern sign of wavering... it sometimes means that there's enough for it to be exhumed... call it instant-archaeology... it's not about other people's conversation, it's about their company, and that far from being reached let alone being riddled...*

a letter to a lovely Ms. ***.:

hey! stop exposing your Nancy like a nun and poke back with a conversation - i'll sooner be dead than a monologue.... Florence Nightingale hear my plea - i love how the following "strings attached" gets attached... 3 thousand miles away, living in a cultural ferment of only youth included / exposed content... but no otherwise: curb the chances of oath and here plops a plumb punch... never heard of 5 o'clock shadow with such an explanatory shortening expressed with the least bereft: or right twitching buttock for a enamoured heart-attack heart: a clamouring clown said: if someone painted a Mona Lisa on my face... if someone... i'd ditch the circus and the claustrophobia antidote trick... so ** and no Santa... and ha and still no Santa... it.... it? it?! hey! hey presto al fresco! god, and i wrote this and i wasn't even fifteen readied for a cougar and: she's his p.r. / publicist... whatever the **** that means... they can and can like the wold and the three guinea pigs;
p.s. the wolf's advances are heaving packed, sure, but asthmatic: or three nights in Paris. you'll never write a book in London: everyone is being prescribed eternity with a timescale of 100 years max... and i do mean that retaliation to the question in Icelandic terms: test your d.n.a. sequence, stop frolicking over forced saints taking care of retards... or ditch the whole Darwinism; how many down syndrome kids does it take it take to chop a tree into firewood? one **** and a whip. see how far the joke goes? me Chimpanzee, me Panda, me me! forks and up yours! build that building of royal surgeons and public opinion -
autumn always auburn, chequers auburn with oak -

kingly European - that coming of winter -
                    Czech and the Carpathian mountains -
oh sure... now the Romance...
the Romance... now gone... fish 'n' chips...
                       i lived in England 20 odd years
the most romance i ever received was an A
at A-level history.
                                             i'm still asking you about
the sort-**** resolve though...
                                             i'll start laughing
when you get off the *** of rocking that
bellybutton girdle or curbbing.
                **** me, Hindu cows of ethnicity in
former Empire bound villages entrapped
by nostalgia;
                 sounds like the perfect breeding ground;
and it is, given the ultra glass like people
who feel the stamping of a mosquito dead
like they might feel a Serbian insurrection
into tonguing Ottoman:
but of course the English man engages:
because he "knows"...
                              just as long as he learned
the cabbies ref. i'd be
fine                            in championing
him on every turn...
                                   chappy ain't no
chappy to be a happy lad... so what
does that matter? i'm quasi 21st century
but actually trapped in 20th century.

                                                 i do love that
it's all happening in H'america...
                                                         makes the trivia
questionnaires a lot shorter...
                                           every time i think of
eating i think of a H'amburger rather
than              a H'entucky -
                                            because the inflatable
Juan with draw-on stubble
                 married a Chasing the Dolly wife -
                    and never mentioned Mozart once...
FAME = P + CANON
                        Pachelbel's Canon -
or... the nuance of the millionth plumber:
   y'er toilet made e burp?
                           hence the maiden at the aisle
and the ******* in the cot...
                    and the serenade of the Cotswold runny...
flapping flapping furore -
                         or the chicken grease off my cheek
in fully glaring applause: rather than i tattoo
a knuckle on some ponce Netherlander
spitting onto a Polish girl's cheek and some pseudo
Irish tells me that i need psychiatric help.
ENGLAND!
                         *******!
Handel grew fat and you grew slim...
                       Shakespeare wrote and you demanded
Emoticons!
                          Emoticons rather than emotions!

you can try to escape Europe, you really can,
but trying to submerge Poland as a colonial
country akin to the Africans will only demand a greater
rift in your little delusion,
                                   by god my heart is a kindred Scot,
nationalist...
                          and i will rip that bloodied cheek off yer
******* cheekbone the minute you say yer-nay-own...
                          play chequers an' tartans wit ye!
i'll make Jack into a stripper and the union into
haemorrhage George and jolly Andrew...
                           you make me into your little
Ethiopian herder i'll make sure that little
emblem of tourist insignia dies with it...
                        Spain is cheap... given the English standard...
Greece is too...
                                  the Alps are a cheap middle-class
**** and the Carpathians are Dracula...
                                          whoever gave these wankers
the Greenwich compass thought twice about the same
wankers... contemplating a trip to Mars..
                oi!
                              glaciers!
                 oi!
                                        the Mariana Trench!
oi!
                             ah, **** it...
oi oi... toe foe un luv 2 twin bananas!
*** yer bananas!
                                             yes, we employed a few
of those specimens to straighten the problem out:
none returned, all remaining became classified as:
with cannibalistic tendencies:
                                          stimulants increasing
deviating behaviour? synonymous rhyming:
                        crime
                                         slime
2 + 2 = bonkers...
                                  cannibalism
     altruism
                                   hedonism...
               soothsayer's saying:
                                if not a limb, at least a thought;
yum yum yummy.

Sonnet: The Ruins of Balaclava
by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, barren Crimean land, these dreary shades
of castles―once your indisputable pride―
are now where ghostly owls and lizards hide
as blackguards arm themselves for nightly raids.
Carved into marble, regal boasts were made!
Brave words on burnished armor, gilt-applied!
Now shattered splendors long since cast aside
beside the dead here also brokenly laid.
The ancient Greeks set shimmering marble here.
The Romans drove wild Mongol hordes to flight.
The Mussulman prayed eastward, day and night.
Now owls and dark-winged vultures watch and leer
as strange black banners, flapping overhead,
mark where the past piles high its nameless dead.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (1798-1855) is widely regarded as Poland’s greatest poet and as the national poet of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He was also a dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor and political activist. As a principal figure in Polish Romanticism, Mickiewicz has been compared to Byron and Goethe. Keywords/Tags: Mickiewicz, Poland, Polish, Balaclava, Crimea, war, warfare, castle, castles, knight, knights, armor, Greeks, Rome, Romans, Mongols, Mussulman, Muslims, death, destruction, ruin, ruins, romantic, romanticism, sonnet, depression, sorrow, grave, violence, mrbtr

Well, you find yourself important only with wealth.
You earned it.
But it doesn't make up you.
Altho' you think it does.

If you suddenly should lose this wealth.
Stay true to you.
Remember, who you were?
Before you became a star.

The makeup.
The publicist.
And the investment bankers.
And your financial adviser.
Are employed by you.
But stay true to you.

They vanish quick.
When the money is gone.
False relationships always do.
If you don't.
Stay true to you.

Those that keeps you grounded.
Will always mean you well.
They don't pretend to be.
It just not them.
As long as you stay true to you.

Brief Fling
by Michael R. Burch

“Epigram”
means cram,
then scram!



The Whole of Wit
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

If brevity is the soul of wit
then brevity and levity
are the whole of it.

(Published by Shot Glass Journal, Brief Poems, AZquotes, IdleHearts, JarOfQuotes, QuoteFancy, QuoteMaster)



Feathered Fiends

Conformists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael R. Burch

(Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition)



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

Abbesses'
recesses
are not for excesses!

(Originally published by Brief Poems)



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

(Published by Romantics Quarterly, Daily Kos, Setu, Genocide Awareness and Darfur Awareness Shabbat; also translated into Czech, Indonesian, Romanian and Turkish)



Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.



Stormfront
by Michael R. Burch

Our distance is frightening:
a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth
interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning.



Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do stars
applaud the glowworm’s stellar mimicry?
—Michael R. Burch



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

Weigh me down with stones ...
     fill all the pockets of my gown ...
          I’m going down,
               mad as the world
                    that can’t recover,
                         to where even mermaids drown ...



Laughter's Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.

(Originally published by Angelwing)



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.

(Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea; also translated into Russian, Macedonian, Turkish and Romanian)



Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for.

(Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea; also translated into Arabic, Turkish, Russian and Macedonian)



*** Hex
by Michael R. Burch

Love's full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes).

(Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up Online)



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters—
deep and dark and still.
All men have passed this way,
or will.

(Published by The Raintown Review and Blue Unicorn; also translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager. I believe it was my first or second epigram.)



Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.

(Originally published by The HyperTexts)



God saw
it was good.
Adam saw
it was impressive.
Eve saw
it was improvable.
—Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Untitled Epigrams and Prose Epigrams

A question that sometimes drives me hazy:
am I or are the others crazy?
—Albert Einstein, poetic interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Truths are more likely discovered by one man than by nations.
—Rene Descartes, translation by Michael R. Burch

Old age, believe me, is a blessing. While it’s true you get gently shouldered off the stage, you’re awarded such a comfortable front row seat as spectator. — Confucius, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The Golden Rule is much easier to recite than observe. — Michael R. Burch

The Golden Rule is much easier to recite for others' benefit than to observe oneself. — Michael R. Burch

Consider a Golden Mean when the Golden Rule is employed. Some people are much harder on themselves than on others. — Michael R. Burch

The most dangerous words ever uttered by human lips are “thus saith the LORD.” — Michael R. Burch

We may not be able to find the true God through logic, but we can certainly find false gods through illogic. — Michael R. Burch

Justice may be blind, but does she have to be deaf too?—Michael R. Burch

There is nothing at all supreme, nor anything remotely just, about Clarence Thomas.—Michael R. Burch

Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch

Cassidy Hutchinson is a modern Erin Brockovich except that in her case the well has been poisoned for the whole country. — Michael R. Burch

I will never grok picking a picky rule over a Poem! – Michael R. Burch

Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at great expense. — Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch

Experience is the best teacher but a hard taskmaster.—Michael R. Burch

Heaven and hell seem unreasonable to me: the actions of men do not deserve such extremes.
—Jorge Luis Borges, translation by Michael R. Burch

Reality is neither probable nor likely.
—Jorge Luis Borges, translation by Michael R. Burch

Wayne Gretzky was pure skill poured into skates.—Michael R. Burch

Neither the leaf nor the tree laments karma.—Michael R. Burch

One man's coronation is another man's consternation.—Michael R. Burch

The editors of Poetry know no more about poetry than I do about basket-weaving, except that I know a good basket when I have it in my hands.—Michael R. Burch



Less Heroic Couplets: Word to the Unwise
by Michael R. Burch

I wanted to be good as gold,
but being good, as I’ve been told,
requires something, discipline,
I simply have no interest in!



Less Heroic Couplets: Gilded Silence
by Michael R. Burch

Golden silence reigned supreme
in my nightmare and her dream.



Christ!
by Michael R. Burch

If I knew men could be so dumb,
I would never have come!

Now you lie, cheat and steal in my name
and make it a thing of shame.

Did I heal the huge holes in your heart, in your head?
Isn’t it obvious: I’m dead
and unable to repeal what I never said?



A Further Farewell to Dentistry
by Michael R. Burch

(for and after Richard Moore, from whom I absconded the title)

Lately I've been eschewing
ice chewing
and my indentured dentist’s been boo-hoo-hooing.



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.

(Originally published by The HyperTexts)



Multiplication, Tabled
or Procreation Inflation
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

"Be fruitful and multiply"—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, "WHEN! "

(Originally published by The HyperTexts)



Saving Graces, for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

Life's saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.

(Published by Shot Glass Journal and Poem Today)



A Passing Observation about Thinking Outside the Box
by Michael R. Burch

William Blake had no public, and yet he’s still read.
His critics are dead.



A man may attempt to burnish pure gold, but who can think to improve on his mother?—Mahatma Gandhi, translation by Michael R. Burch



Less Heroic Couplets: ****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

“****** most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.

“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner.

As you fall on my sword,
take it up with the LORD!”

the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.

(Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7)



Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101
by Michael R. Burch

Building her brand, she disrobes,
naked, except for her earlobes.



Less Heroic Couplets: Mini-Ode to Stamina
by Michael R. Burch

When you’ve given so much
that I can’t bear your touch,
then from a safe distance
let me admire your persistence.



The Trouble with Elephants: a Word to the Wise
by Michael R. Burch

An elephant NEVER forgets,
which is why they don’t make the best pets:
Jumbo may well out-live you,
but he’ll NEVER forgive you
so you may as well save your regrets!



The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...)
by Michael R. Burch

Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts
at “meter,” I crossly concluded
I’d use each iamb
in lieu of a lamb,
bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded.



Less Heroic Couplets: Less than Impressed
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M., regarding certain dispensers of lukewarm air

Their volume's impressive, it's true...
but somehow it all seems 'much ado.'



Ars Brevis, Proofreading Longa
by Michael R. Burch

Poets may labor from sun to sun,
but their editor's work is never done.



The First Complete Musical Composition

Shine, while you live;
blaze beyond grief,
for life is brief
and Time, a thief.
—Michael R. Burch, after Seikilos of Euterpes

The so-called Seikilos Epitaph is the oldest known surviving complete musical composition which includes musical notation. It is believed to date to the first or second century AD. The epitaph appears to be signed “Seikilos of Euterpes” or dedicated “Seikilos to Euterpe.” Euterpe was the ancient Greek Muse of music.



Cover Girl
by Michael R. Burch

Cunning
at sunning
and dunning,
the stunning
young woman’s in the running
to be found exposed on the cover
of some patronizing lover.

In this case the cover is a bed cover, where the enterprising young mistress is about to be covered herself.



First Base Freeze
by Michael R. Burch

I find your love unappealing
(no, make that appalling)
because you prefer kissing
then stalling.



Paradoxical Ode to Antinatalism
by Michael R. Burch

A stay on love
would end death’s hateful sway,
someday.

A stay on love
would thus BE love,
I say.

Be true to love
and thus end death’s
fell sway!



Less Heroic Couplets: Crop Duster
by Michael R. Burch

We are dust and to dust we must return ...
but why, then, life’s pointless sojourn?



**** Brevis, Emendacio Longa
by Michael R. Burch

The Donald may tweet from sun to sun,
but his spellchecker’s work is never done.



a passing question for the Moral Majority
by Michael R. Burch

since GOD created u so gullible
how did u conclude HE’s so lovable?



Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts;
today's genteel poets prefer modern ruts.
—Michael R. Burch



Not Elves, Exactly
by Michael R. Burch

Something there is that likes a wall,
that likes it spiked and likes it tall,

that likes its pikes' sharp rows of teeth
and doesn't mind its victims' grief

(wherever they come from, far or wide)
as long as they fall on the other side.

(Originally published by The HyperTexts)



Fahr an’ Ice
by Michael R. Burch

From what I know of death, I’ll side with those
who’d like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker),
and real fahr off, instead of quicker.

(Originally published by Light Quarterly)



Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth and Laura

Bring your particular strength
to the strange nightmarish fray:
wrap up your cherished ones
in the golden light of day.



Self-ish
by Michael R. Burch

Let's not pretend we "understand" other elves
as long as we remain mysteries to ourselves.



Imperfect Perfection
by Michael R. Burch

You’re too perfect for words—
a problem for a poet.



Expert Advice
by Michael R. Burch

Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body.
Please stop making false comparisons your hobby!



Grave Oversight I
by Michael R. Burch

The dead are always with us,
and yet they are naught!



Grave Oversight II
by Michael R. Burch

for Jim Dunlap, who winked and suggested “not”

The dead are either naught
or naughty, being so sought!



Midnight Stairclimber
by Michael R. Burch

Procreation
is at first great sweaty recreation,
then—long, long after the *** dies—
the source of endless exercise.



Accounting
by Michael R. Burch

And so I have loved you, and so I have lost,
accrued disappointment, ledgered its cost,
debited wisdom, credited pain . . .
My assets remaining are liquid again.



Why the Kid Gloves Came Off
by Michael R. Burch
for Lemuel Ibbotson

It's hard to be a man of taste
in such a waste:
hence the lambaste.



Housman was right ...
by Michael R. Burch

It’s true that life’s not much to lose,
so why not hang out on a cloud?
It’s just the bon voyage is hard
and the objections loud.



Biblical Knowledge or “Knowing Coming and Going”
by Michael R. Burch

The wisest man the world has ever seen
had fourscore concubines and threescore queens?
This gives us pause, and so we venture hence—
he “knew” them, wisely, in the wider sense.



Descent
by Michael R. Burch

I have listened to the rain all this morning
and it has a certain gravity,
as if it knows its destination,
perhaps even its particular destiny.
I do not believe mine is to be uplifted,
although I, too, may be flung precipitously
and from a great height.



Reading between the lines
by Michael R. Burch

Who could have read so much, as we?
Having the time, but not the inclination,
TV has become our philosophy,
sheer boredom, our recreation.



Early Warning System

A hairy thick troglodyte, Mary,
squinched dingles excessively airy.
To her family’s deep shame,
their condo became
the first cave to employ a canary!



Untitled
by Michael R. Burch

I sampled honeysuckle
and it made my taste buds buckle.



Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they’ll soon conjugate).

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there’s decent *** in jail.
Don’t fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We’ll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don’t make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)



Eerie Dearie
by Michael R. Burch

A trembling young auditor, white
as a sheet, like a ghost in the night,
saw his dreams, his career
in a ****!, disappear,
and then, strangely Enronic, his wife.



Gore-dom Boredom
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a candidate, Gore,
whose campaign had become quite a bore.
“He’s much too stiff,”
sighed his publicist,
“but not like his predecessor!”



Translations

Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!

Raise your words, not their volume.
Rain grows flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch

The imbecile constructs cages for everyone he knows,
while the sage
(who has to duck his head whenever the moon glows)
keeps dispensing keys all night long
to the beautiful, rowdy, prison gang.
—Hafiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An unbending tree
breaks easily.
—Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Little sparks may ignite great Infernos.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch

Love distills the eyes’ desires, love bewitches the heart with its grace.―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Once fanaticism has gangrened brains
the incurable malady invariably remains.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.
—Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction.
—Seneca the Younger, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch

To know what we do know, and to know what we don't, is true knowledge.—Confucius, sometimes incorrectly attributed to Nicolaus Copernicus, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Where our senses fail,
reason must prevail.
—Galileo Galilei, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hypocrisy may deceive the most perceptive adult, but the dullest child recognizes and is revolted by it, however ingeniously disguised.
—Leo Tolstoy translation by Michael R. Burch

Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel,
or a house when it's time to change residences,
even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life.
—Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch

Improve yourself through others' writings, attaining freely what they acquired at great expense.—Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch

Experience is the best teacher but a hard taskmaster.—Michael R. Burch

Fools call wisdom foolishness.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

One true friend is worth ten thousand kin.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Not to speak one’s mind is slavery.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

To live without philosophizing is to close one's eyes and never attempt to open them.
—René Descartes, translation by Michael R. Burch

We who left behind the Aegean’s bellowings
Now sleep peacefully here on the mid-plains of Ecbatan:
Farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea,
Farewell, dear sea!
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato



Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Before you judge
a man for his sins
be sure to trudge
many moons in his moccasins.



Native American Proverb
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.



Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us walk respectfully here
among earth's creatures, great and small,
remembering, our footsteps light,
that one wise God created all.



Farewell to Faith I
by Michael R. Burch

What we want is relief
from life’s grief and despair:
what we want’s not “belief”
but just not to be there.



Farewell to Faith II
by Michael R. Burch

Confronted by the awesome thought of death,
to never suffer, and be free of grief,
we wonder: "What’s the use of drawing breath?
Why seek relief
from the bible’s Thief,
who ripped off Eve then offered her a leaf?"



Less Heroic Couplets: Miss Bliss
by Michael R. Burch

Domestic “bliss”?
Best to swing and miss!



Less Heroic Couplets: Then and Now
by Michael R. Burch

BEFORE: Thanks to Brexit, our lives will be plush! ...
AFTER: Crap, we’re going broke! What the hell is the rush?



Less Heroic Couplets: Dear Pleader
by Michael R. Burch

Is our Dear Pleader, as he claims, heroic?
I prefer my presidents a bit more stoic.



Less Heroic Couplets: Less than Impressed
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M., regarding certain dispensers of lukewarm air

Their volume’s impressive, it’s true ...
but somehow it all seems “much ado.”



Less Heroic Couplets: Poetry I
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry is the heart’s caged rhythm,
the soul’s frantic tappings at the panes of mortality.



Less Heroic Couplets: Poetry II
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry is the trapped soul’s frantic tappings
at the panes of mortality.



Less Heroic Couplets: Seesaw
by Michael R. Burch

A poem is the mind teetering between fact and fiction,
momentarily elevated.



Less Heroic Couplets: Passions
by Michael R. Burch

Passions are the heart’s qualms,
the soul’s squalls, the brain’s storms.



I didn’t mean to love you,
but I did.
Best leave the rest unsaid,
hid-
den
and unbidden.
—Michael R. Burch

You imagine life is good,
but have you actually understood?
—Michael R. Burch

Living with a body ain’t much fun.
Harder, still, to live without one.
Whatever happened to our day in the sun?
—Michael R. Burch

How little remains of our joys and our pains.
How little remains of our losses and gains.
How little remains of whatever remains.
—Michael R. Burch

Sometimes I feel better, it’s true,
but mostly I’m still not over you.
—Michael R. Burch

Don’t let the past defeat you.
Learn from it, but don’t dwell.
Have no regrets at “farewell.”
—Michael R. Burch

Haughty moon,
when did I ever trouble you,
insomnia’s co-conspirator!
—Michael R. Burch

Every day’s a new chance to lose weight,
but most likely,
I’ll
... procrastinate ...
—Michael R. Burch



Big Ben *****
by Michael R. Burch

Early to bed, hurriedly to rise
makes a man stealthy,
and that’s why he’s wealthy:
what the hell is he doing behind your closed eyes?

Friend, how you’ll squirm
when you belatedly learn
that you’re the worm!



Pecking Disorder
by Michael R. Burch

Love has a pecking order,
or maybe a dis-order,
a hell we recognize
if we merely open our eyes:
the attractive win at birth,
while those of ample girth
are deemed of little worth
from Nottingham to Perth.

Nottingham is said to have the most beautiful women in the world.



Tease
by Michael R. Burch

It’s what you always say, okay?
It’s what you always say:
C’mon let’s play,
roll in the hay,
It’s what you always say. Ole!

But little do you do, it’s true.
But little do you do.
A little ******, run to piddle ...
we never really *****!
That’s you!



Observance (II)
by Michael R. Burch

fifty years later...

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
majestic to the eye.
Whoever felt as I,
                             whoever
felt them doomed to die
despite their flamboyant colors?

They seem like knights of dismal countenance ...
as if, windmills themselves,
they might tilt with the ****** sky.

And yet their favors gaily fly!

KEYWORDS/TAGS: epigram, epigrams, love, life, living, fun, sun, joy, pain, past, sad, sadness




Anyte Epigrams

Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms;
hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches;
then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain;
for this is welcome shade from the burning sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here I stand, Hermes, in the crossroads
by the windswept elms near the breezy beach,
providing rest to sunburned travelers,
and cold and brisk is my fountain’s abundance.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sit here, quietly shaded by the luxuriant foliage,
and drink cool water from the sprightly spring,
so that your weary breast, panting with summer’s labors,
may take rest from the blazing sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is the grove of Cypris,
for it is fair for her to look out over the land to the bright deep,
that she may make the sailors’ voyages happy,
as the sea trembles, observing her brilliant image.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Nossis Epigrams

There is nothing sweeter than love.
All other delights are secondary.
Thus, I spit out even honey.
This is what Gnossis says:
Whom Aphrodite does not love,
Is bereft of her roses.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most revered Hera, the oft-descending from heaven,
behold your Lacinian shrine fragrant with incense
and receive the linen robe your noble child Nossis,
daughter of Theophilis and Cleocha, has woven for you.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, my homeland of beautiful dances,
to indulge in the most exquisite graces of Sappho,
remember I also was loved by the Muses, who bore me and reared me there.
My name, never forget it!, is Nossis. Now go!
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pass me with ringing laughter, then award me
a friendly word: I am Rinthon, scion of Syracuse,
a small nightingale of the Muses; from their tragedies
I was able to pluck an ivy, unique, for my own use.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Excerpts from “Distaff”
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

… the moon rising …
      … leaves falling …
           … waves lapping a windswept shore …

… and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ...

... Leaping from white horses,
running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.  
“You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!”
But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers,
you darted beyond the courtyard,
dashed out deep into the waves,
splashing far beyond us …

… My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial,
these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart
for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash …

… Do you remember how, as girls,
we played at weddings with our dolls,
pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ...

... How sometimes I was your mother,
allotting wool to the weaver-women,
calling for you to unreel the thread? ...

… Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo
with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue,
her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ...

... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ...

... But when you mounted your husband’s bed,
dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings!
Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ...

... Desire becomes oblivion ...

... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend.
I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt.
I can’t bring myself to leave the house.
I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes.
I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound?
I blush with shame at the thought of you! …

... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis,
My deep grief is ripping me apart.
Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen,
I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ...

O *****! . . . O Hymenaeus! . . .
Alas, my poor Baucis!



On a Betrothed Girl
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of Baucis the bride.
Observing her tear-stained crypt
say this to Death who dwells underground:
"Thou art envious, O Death!"

Her vivid monument tells passers-by
of the bitter misfortune of Baucis —
how her father-in-law burned the poor ******* a pyre
lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home.
While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges.

*****! O Hymenaeus!



Sophocles Epigrams

Not to have been born is best,
and blessed
beyond the ability of words to express.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s a hundred times better not be born;
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night!
—Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Never to be born may be the biggest boon of all.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oblivion: What a blessing, to lie untouched by pain!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The happiest life is one empty of thought.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Consider no man happy till he lies dead, free of pain at last.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What is worse than death? When death is desired but denied.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When a man endures nothing but endless miseries, what is the use of hanging on day after day,
edging closer and closer toward death? Anyone who warms his heart with the false glow of flickering hope is a wretch! The noble man should live with honor and die with honor. That's all that can be said.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Children anchor their mothers to life.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How terrible, to see the truth when the truth brings only pain to the seer!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wisdom outweighs all the world's wealth.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fortune never favors the faint-hearted.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wait for evening to appreciate the day's splendor.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Homer Epigrams

For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they themselves are sorrowless.
—Homer, Iliad 24.525-526, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“It is best not to be born or, having been born, to pass on as swiftly as possible.”
—attributed to Homer (circa 800 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Ancient Roman Epigrams

Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
—Ancient Roman graffiti, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

There is nothing so pointless, so perfidious as human life! ... The ultimate bliss is not to be born; otherwise we should speedily slip back into the original Nothingness.
—Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Wayne Gretzky was pure skill poured into skates.—Michael R. Burch



"Lu Zhai" ("Deer Park")
by **** Wei (699-759)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Uninhabited hills ...
except that now and again the silence is broken
by something like the sound of distant voices
as the sun's sinking rays illuminate lichens ...

**** Wei (699-759) was a Chinese poet, musician, painter, and politician during the Tang dynasty. He had 29 poems included in the 18th-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. "Lu Zhai" ("Deer Park") is one of his best-known poems.

Keywords/Tags: epigram, epigrams, **** Wei, Chinese, translation, nature, animal, deer, park, hills, silence, sound, voices, wind, voice, sun, rays, illuminate, peace, growth, wisdom


Keywords/Tags: elegy, eulogy, child, childhood, death, death of a friend, lament, lamentation, epitaph, grave, funeral, epigram, ***, procreation, accounting, fire, ice, housman, bible, heaven, mrbepi, mrbepig, mrbepigram

Published as the collection "Epigrams V"

So he's back ...
George 'Second Iraq
Massacre' Bush,

& I was wondering if or when
it would actually happen
this rising from the foggy
miasma of retirement,

& you do question whether
there's a publicist or it
was discussed around
the family table,
"Well .. its been 8 years now,"
"Is it time yet?"

& apart from a truly puzzling
dancing & swaying appearance
at a black-suit memorial where
he grabbed Michelle's hand &
looked more like a 5 year old
at a birthday party,
well, he's been very quiet,

but of course we've also
been granted the opportunity
to view his oh so charming
paintings,

to see him at work in his studio,
producing dog portraits & simple
naive sincerely primitive famous
people faces akin to art-day at the
old-folks home or a pre-school
honors wall,

& it seems no one wanted his opinion
on anything at all these last years,
but now, oh now he's with us again,
all bashful & "aw shucks" when he's
asked by some obsequious host
about his fondness for Michelle,
& becoming near front-page news
after a mild rebuke of Trump,

& no doubt soon he'll be on Late Night
& such, where Jimmy Kimmel can rustle
his hair & be all smitten & oh so grateful
for the privilege of his company,
& perhaps when Kimmel does chuckle
so sweetly at their dazzling repartee
that night someone could shout out
from the audience ... "Remember the
War Dead",

for its seems America soon forgives
& forgets & its war criminals &
Oliver North & George W. Bush
are allowed to grin & pontificate
& nothing is remembered & isn't
he just aging so well & don't we
just hang on every word & oh
how he matters still.

Next week maybe Kissinger will
come on to entertain us awhile,
sandwiched between cute pet
tricks & some giggling 20 year old
Hollywood starlet hawking her
new blockbuster.

America forgets very, very quickly
doesn't it,
so so quickly.