My most popular poems on the Internet, according to Google ...
A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds of web pages. That’s a lot of cutting and pasting, which suggests someone likes the writing enough to take the time to share it …
This translation returns over 1,000 results, according to Google:
Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
This translation of a Sappho epigram returns more than 500 results, according to Google:
Sappho, fragment 42
translation by Michael R. Burch
Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains
uprooting oaks.
This original epigram returns more than 400 results:
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.
My translation/interpretation/modernization of Robert Burns’s “To a Mouse” also has more than 400 results.
This epigram returns more than 300 results:
Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
—Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus
This poem, based on a phrase I found in a comic book as a boy, returns more than 300 results:
Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch
for the mothers and children of Gaza
Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...
Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...
Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her Tears ...
Note: The phrase "frail envelope of flesh" was one of my first encounters with the power of poetry, although I read it in a superhero comic book as a young boy (I forget which one). More than thirty years later, the line kept popping into my head, so I wrote this poem. I have dedicated it to the mothers and children of Gaza and the Nakba. The word Nakba is Arabic for "Catastrophe."
Others with more than 100 results:
Speechless
by Ko Un
translation by Michael R. Burch
At Auschwitz
piles of glasses,
mountains of shoes ...
returning, we stared out different windows.
Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.
Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato
The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow low
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Come, investigate loneliness!
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
―Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.—Michael R. Burch
How Long the Night
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa early 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast—
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.
The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.
Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he’d been excluded!
He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power —
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven’t I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!
Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon's, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred fire
to keep her memory exalted flame
unmolested by the thistles and the nettles.
On Auschwitz now the reddening sunset settles!
They sleep alike—diminutive and tall,
the innocent, the "surgeons." Sleeping, all.
Red oxides of her blood, bright crimson petals,
if accidents of coloration, gall
my heart no less. Amid thick weeds and muck
there lies a rose man's crackling lightning struck:
the only Rose I ever longed to pluck.
Soon I'll bed there and bid the world "Good Luck."
Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch
Abbesses’
recesses
are not for excesses!
Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch
If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.
Asstronomical
by Michael R. Burch
Einstein, the frizzy-haired,
proved E equals MC squared.
And so mass decreases
as activity ceases?
Not my mass, my *** declared!
Like Angels, Winged
by Michael R. Burch
Like angels—winged,
shimmering, misunderstood—
they flit beyond our understanding
being neither evil, nor good.
They are as they are ...
and we are their lovers, their prey;
they seek us out when the moon is full;
they dream of us by day.
Their eyes—hypnotic, alluring—
trap ours with their strange appeal
till like flame-drawn moths, we gather ...
to see, to touch, to feel.
And in their arms, enchanted,
we feel their lips, grown old,
till with their gorging kisses
we warm them, growing cold.
Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch
Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot
born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,
dreaming of blood,
her fangs—white—baring,
revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring ...
Neglect
by Michael R. Burch
What good are tears?
Will they spare the dying their anguish?
What use, our concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?
What good, the warm benevolence of tears
without action?
What help, the eloquence of prayers,
or a pleasant benediction?
Before this day is over,
how many more will die
with bellies swollen, emaciate limbs,
and eyes too parched to cry?
I fear for our souls
as I hear the faint lament
of theirs departing ...
mournful, and distant.
How pitiful our "effort,"
yet how fatal its effect.
If they died, then surely we killed them,
if only with neglect.
Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!
Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable place.
Sappho, fragment 58
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Pain
drains
me
to
the
last
drop
.
Sappho, fragment 22
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.
An ancient pond,
the frog leaps:
the silver plop and gurgle of water
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (1460-1525)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.
Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet everywhere, no odor but rue.
I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that, if I could, I would compose her roots again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.
Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons and imagination all steadily increase;
the road whinnies and bucks, neighing; the maned sky gallops;
and you are eternally with me, love, constant amid all the chaos,
glowing within my conscience — incandescent, intense.
Somewhere within me, dear, you abide forever —
still, motionless, mute, like an angel stunned to silence by death
or a beetle hiding in the heart of a rotting tree.
Postcard 2
by Miklós Radnóti
written October 6, 1944 near Crvenka, Serbia
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
A few miles away they're incinerating
the haystacks and the houses,
while squatting here on the fringe of this pleasant meadow,
the shell-shocked peasants sit quietly smoking their pipes.
Now, here, stepping into this still pond, the little shepherd girl
sets the silver water a-ripple
while, leaning over to drink, her flocculent sheep
seem to swim like drifting clouds.
Postcard 3
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
The oxen dribble ****** spittle;
the men pass blood in their ****.
Our stinking regiment halts, a horde of perspiring savages,
adding our aroma to death's repulsive stench.
Postcard 4
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I toppled beside him — his body already taut,
tight as a string just before it snaps,
shot in the back of the head.
"This is how you’ll end too; just lie quietly here,"
I whispered to myself, patience blossoming from dread.
"Der springt noch auf," the voice above me jeered;
I could only dimly hear
through the congealing blood slowly sealing my ear.
This was his final poem, written October 31, 1944 near Szentkirályszabadja, Hungary. "Der springt noch auf" means something like "That one is still twitching."
Letter to My Wife
by Miklós Radnóti
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
This is a poem written during the Holocaust in Lager Heidenau, in the mountains above Zagubica, August-September, 1944
Deep down in the darkness hell awaits—silent, mute.
Silence screams in my ears, so I shout,
but no one hears or answers, wherever they are;
while sad Serbia, astounded by war,
and you are so far,
so incredibly distant.
Still my heart encounters yours in my dreams
and by day I hear yours sound in my heart again;
and so I am still, even as the great mountain
ferns slowly stir and murmur around me,
coldly surrounding me.
When will I see you? How can I know?
You who were calm and weighty as a Psalm,
beautiful as a shadow, more beautiful than light,
the One I could always find, whether deaf, mute, blind,
lie hidden now by this landscape; yet from within
you flash on my sight like flickering images on film.
You once seemed real but now have become a dream;
you have tumbled back into the well of teenage fantasy.
I jealously question whether you'll ever adore me;
whether—speak!—
from youth's highest peak
you will yet be my wife.
I become hopeful again,
as I awaken on this road where I formerly had fallen.
I know now that you are my wife, my friend, my peer—
but, alas, so far! Beyond these three wild frontiers,
fall returns. Will you then depart me?
Yet the memory of our kisses remains clear.
Now sunshine and miracles seem disconnected things.
Above me I see a bomber squadron's wings.
Skies that once matched your eyes' blue sheen
have clouded over, and in each infernal machine
the bombs writhe with their lust to dive.
Despite them, somehow I remain alive.
Miklós Radnóti [1909-1944], a Hungarian Jew and a fierce anti-fascist, is perhaps the greatest of the Holocaust poets. He was born in Budapest in 1909. In 1930, at the age of 21, he published his first collection of poems, Pogány köszönto (Pagan Salute). His next book, Újmódi pásztorok éneke (Modern Shepherd's Song) was confiscated on grounds of "indecency," earning him a light jail sentence. In 1931 he spent two months in Paris, where he visited the "Exposition coloniale" and began translating African poems and folk tales into Hungarian. In 1934 he obtained his Ph.D. in Hungarian literature. The following year he married Fanni (Fifi) Gyarmati; they settled in Budapest. His book Járkálj csa, halálraítélt! (Walk On, Condemned!) won the prestigious Baumgarten Prize in 1937. Also in 1937 he wrote his Cartes Postales (Postcards from France), which were precurors to his darker images of war, Razglednicas (Picture Postcards). During World War II, Radnóti published translations of Virgil, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Eluard, Apollinare and Blaise Cendras in Orpheus nyomában. From 1940 on, he was forced to serve on forced labor battalions, at times arming and disarming explosives on the Ukrainian front. In 1944 he was deported to a compulsory labor camp near Bor, Yugoslavia. As the Nazis retreated from the approaching Russian army, the Bor concentration camp was evacuated and its internees were led on a forced march through Yugoslavia and Hungary. During what became his death march, Radnóti recorded poetic images of what he saw and experienced. After writing his fourth and final "Postcard," Radnóti was badly beaten by a soldier annoyed by his scribblings. Soon thereafter, the weakened poet was shot to death, on November 9, 1944, along with 21 other prisoners who unable to walk. Their mass grave was exhumed after the war and Radnóti's poems were found on his body by his wife, inscribed in pencil in a small Serbian exercise book. Radnóti's posthumous collection, Tajtékos ég (Clouded Sky, or Foaming Sky) contains odes to his wife, letters, poetic fragments and his final Postcards. Unlike his murderers, Miklós Radnóti never lost his humanity, and his empathy continues to live on and shine through his work.
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