Epigrams IV
Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch
Abbesses’
recesses
are not for excesses!
*** Hex
by Michael R. Burch
Love’s full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes).
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).
The Whole of Wit
by Michael R. Burch
for and after Richard 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)
Conformists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael R. Burch
Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition
Feathered Fiends
by Michael R. Burch
Fascists of a feather
flock together.
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.
If every witty thing that’s said were true,
Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You!
—Michael R. Burch
Multiplication, Tabled
for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch
“Be fruitful and multiply”—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, “WHEN!”
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.
Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts;
today’s genteel poets prefer modern ruts.
—Michael R. Burch
Long Division
by Kim Cherub
after Laura Riding Jackson
All things become one
Through death’s long division
And perfect precision.
Meal Deal
by Michael R. Burch
Love is a splendid ideal
(at least till it costs us a meal).
Vice Grip
by Michael R. Burch
There’s no need to rant about Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The cruelty of “civilization” suffices:
our ordinary vices.
Self-ish
by Kim Cherub
Let’s not pretend we “understand” other elves
As long as we remain mysteries to ourselves.
Piecemeal
by Kim Cherub
And so it begins—the ending.
The narrowing veins, the soft tissues rending.
Your final solution is pending.
Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch
Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!
Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.
Fleet Tweet: Apologies to Shakespeare
@mikerburch (Michael R. Burch)
A tweet
by any other name
would be as fleet.
Fleet Tweet II: Further Apologies to Shakespeare
@mikerburch (Michael R. Burch)
Remember, doggonit,
heroic verse crowns the Shakespearean sonnet!
So if you intend to write a couplet,
please do it on the doublet!
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.
Ars Brevis, Proofreading Longa
by Michael R. Burch
Poets may labor from sun to sun,
but their editor's work is never done.
15 Seconds
by Michael R. Burch
Our president’s *** life—atrocious!
Asian markets are all hocus-pocus.
Politics—a shell game.
My brief moment of fame
flashed by before Oprah could notice.
Death
by Michael R. Burch
Death is the ultimate finality
and banality
of reality.
Translations
Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.
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 ignite great flames.—Dante, 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
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, thus attaining more easily what they acquired through great difficulty.
—Socrates, translation by 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
Truths are more likely discovered by one man than by nations.
—Rene Descartes, translation by Michael R. Burch
Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch
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.
The Least of These...
What you
do
to
the refugee
you
do
unto
Me!
—Jesus Christ, translation/paraphrase by Michael R. Burch
The Church Gets the Burch Rod
How can the Bible be "infallible" when from Genesis to Revelation slavery is commanded and condoned, but never condemned? —Michael R. Burch
If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
—Michael R. Burch
I have my doubts about your God and his "love":
If one screams below, what the hell is "Above"?
—Michael R. Burch
If God has the cattle on a thousand hills,
why does he need my tithes to pay his bills?
—Michael R. Burch
The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch
Hell hath no fury like a fundamentalist whose God condemned him for having "impure thoughts."—Michael R. Burch
Religion is the difficult process of choosing the least malevolent invisible friends.—Michael R. Burch
Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx
Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch
An ideal that cannot be realized is, in the end, just wishful thinking.—Michael R. Burch
God and his "profits" could never agree
on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea.
—Michael R. Burch
To fall an inch short of infinity is to fall infinitely short.—Michael R. Burch
Most Christians make God seem like the Devil. Atheists and agnostics at least give him the "benefit of the doubt."—Michael R. Burch
Hell has been hellishly overdone
since Jehovah and his prophets never mentioned it once.
—Michael R. Burch
(Bible scholars agree: the word "hell" has been removed from the Old Testaments of the more accurate modern Bible translations. And the few New Testament verses that mention "hell" are obvious mistranslations.)
If every witty thing that's said were true,
Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You!
—Michael R. Burch
Wayne Gretzky was pure skill poured into skates.—Michael R. Burch
You ask me why I love fresh country air?
You're not befouling it, mon frère.
—Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
You’ll find good poems, but mostly poor and worse,
my peers being “diverse” in their verse.
2.
Some good poems here, but most not worth a curse:
such is the crapshoot of a book of verse.
Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura
quae legis hic: aliter non fit, Auite, liber.
He undertook to be a doctor
but turned out to be an undertaker.
Chirurgus fuerat, nunc est uispillo Diaulus:
coepit quo poterat clinicus esse modo.
1.
The book you recite from, Fidentinus, was my own,
till your butchering made it yours alone.
2.
The book you recite from I once called my own,
but you read it so badly, it’s now yours alone.
3.
You read my book as if you wrote it,
but you read it so badly I’ve come to hate it.
Quem recitas meus est, o Fidentine, libellus:
sed male *** recitas, incipit esse tuus.
Recite my epigrams? I decline,
for then they’d be yours, not mine.
Ut recitem tibi nostra rogas epigrammata. Nolo:
non audire, Celer, sed recitare cupis.
I do not love you, but cannot say why.
I do not love you: no reason, no lie.
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare:
hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.
You’re young and lovely, wealthy too,
but that changes nothing: you’re a shrew.
Bella es, nouimus, et puella, uerum est,
et diues, quis enim potest negare?
Sed *** te nimium, Fabulla, laudas,
nec diues neque bella nec puella es.
