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Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Negligibles by Michael R. Burch Show me your most intimate items of apparel; begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ... Negotiables by Michael R. Burch Love should be more than the sum of its parts― of its potions and pills and subterranean arts. Her Answer (Sappho, fragment 155) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A short revealing frock? It's just my luck your lips were made to mock! 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. 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! Sudden Shower by Michael R. Burch The day’s eyes were blue until you appeared and they wept at your beauty. Incompatibles by Michael R. Burch Reason’s treason! cries the Heart. Love’s insane, replies the Brain. (Originally published by Light) Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Conformists of a feather flock together. —Michael R. Burch (Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition) Prose Epigrams My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch As a general rule of thumb, ignore naysayers unless you agree with their criticism.—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 Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — 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 God and his "profits" could never agree on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea. —Michael R. Burch 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 and 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. 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 and 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 and translated into Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Macedonian) *** Hex by Michael R. Burch Love's full of cute paradoxes (and highly acute poxes) . (Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up) 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 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 epigram.) Fahr an' Ice by Michael R. Burch (apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash) 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. Lance-Lot by Michael R. Burch Preposterous bird! Inelegant! Absurd! Until the great & mighty heron brandishes his fearsome sword. 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! " The Whole of Wit by Michael R. Burch If brevity is the soul of wit then brevity and levity are the whole of it. (Published by Shot Glass Journal) Nun Fun Undone by Michael R. Burch Abbesses' recesses are not for excesses! (Published by Brief Poems) 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) 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. 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. Grave Oversight by Michael R. Burch The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught! 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 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 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. Excerpt from Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth’s incandescent white flame; I love you as obscure things are embraced in the dark ... secretly, in shadows, unrevealed & unnamed. Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity’s rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands ... I love you only because I love you by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, Between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation by Michael R. Burch While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, "The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light..." Duet, Minor Key by Michael R. Burch Without the drama of cymbals or the fanfare and snares of drums, I present my case stripped of its fine veneer: Behold, thy instrument. Play, for the night is long. Inconstant Temptress by Michael R. Burch Love, beautiful but fatal to many bewildered hearts, commands us to be faithful, then tempts us with sweets and tarts. Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ by Michael R. Burch Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise in a dizzy circle of two. Oh, when I’m with you, I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too! Warming Her Pearls by Michael R. Burch Warming her pearls, her ******* gleam like constellations. Her belly is a bit rotund ... she might have stepped out of a Rubens. Dark Cloud, Silver Lining from “Love in the Time of the Coronavirus” by Michael R. Burch Despite my stormy demeanor, my hands have never been cleaner! Questionable Credentials by Michael R. Burch Poet? Critic? Dilettante? Do you know what's good, or do you merely flaunt? Published by ***** of Parnassus Delicacy by Michael R. Burch for all good mothers Your love is as delicate as a butterfly cleaning its wings, as soft as the predicate the hummingbird sings to itself, gently murmuring― “Fly! Fly! Fly!” Your love is the string soaring kites untie. The Greatest of These ... by Michael R. Burch The hands that held me tremble. The arms that lifted fall. Angelic flesh, now parchment, is held together with gauze. But her undimmed eyes still embrace me; there infinity can be found. I can almost believe such love will reach me, underground. Haiku Translations of the Oriental Masters Grasses wilt: the braking locomotive grinds to a halt ― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, fallen camellias, if I were you, I'd leap into the torrent! ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first soft snow: leaves of the awed jonquil bow low ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Come, investigate loneliness! a solitary leaf clings to the Kiri tree ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lightning shatters the darkness― the night heron's shriek ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch One apple, alone in the abandoned orchard reddens for winter ― Patrick Blanche, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The poem above is by a French poet; it illustrates how the poetry of Oriental masters like Basho has influenced poets around the world. Graven images of long-departed gods, dry spiritless leaves: companions of the temple porch ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch See: whose surviving sons visit the ancestral graves white-bearded, with trembling canes? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I remove my beautiful kimono: its varied braids surround and entwine my body ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This day of chrysanthemums I shake and comb my wet hair, as their petals shed rain ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This darkening autumn: my neighbor, how does he continue? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Let us arrange these lovely flowers in the bowl since there's no rice ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An ancient pond, the frog leaps: the silver plop and gurgle of water ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The butterfly perfuming its wings fans the orchid ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pausing between clouds the moon rests in the eyes of its beholders ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first chill rain: poor monkey, you too could use a woven cape of straw ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This snowy morning: cries of the crow I despise (ah, but so beautiful!) ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Like a heavy fragrance snow-flakes settle: lilies on the rocks ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The cheerful-chirping cricket contends gray autumn's gay, contemptuous of frost ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill, solemn evangelist of loneliness ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The sea darkening, the voices of the wild ducks: my mysterious companions! ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Will we meet again? Here at your flowering grave: two white butterflies ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Fever-felled mid-path my dreams resurrect, to trek into a hollow land ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Too ill to travel, now only my autumn dreams survey these withering fields ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this has been called Basho's death poem These brown summer grasses? The only remains of "invincible" warriors... ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An empty road lonelier than abandonment: this autumn evening ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring has come: the nameless hill lies shrouded in mist ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The Oldest Haiku These are my translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into poetic forms such as tanka, renga and haiku over time. My translations are excerpts from the Kojiki (the "Record of Ancient Matters"), a book composed around 711-712 A.D. by the historian and poet Ō no Yasumaro. The Kojiki relates Japan’s mythological beginnings and the history of its imperial line. Like Virgil's Aeneid, the Kojiki seeks to legitimize rulers by recounting their roots. These are lines from one of the oldest Japanese poems, found in the oldest Japanese book: While you decline to cry, high on the mountainside a single stalk of plumegrass wilts. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another excerpt, with a humorous twist, from the Kojiki: Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make! Heaven's indignant messengers, you remind me of wordsmiths! ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another, this one a poem of love and longing: Onyx, this gem-black night. Downcast, I await your return like the rising sun, unrivaled in splendor. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch More Haiku by Various Poets Right at my feet! When did you arrive here, snail? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Our world of dew is a world of dew indeed; and yet, and yet... ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, brilliant moon can it be true that even you must rush off, like us, tardy? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch A kite floats at the same place in the sky where yesterday it floated... ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pigeon's behavior is beyond reproach, but the mountain cuckoo's? ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Plowing, not a single bird sings in the mountain's shadow ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pear tree flowers whitely― a young woman reads his letter by moonlight ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch On adjacent branches the plum tree blossoms bloom petal by petal―love! ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Picking autumn plums my wrinkled hands once again grow fragrant ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Dawn! The brilliant sun illuminates sardine heads. ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The abandoned willow shines between rains ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch White plum blossoms― though the hour grows late, a glimpse of dawn ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this is believed to be Buson's death poem and he is said to have died before dawn I thought I felt a dewdrop plop on me as I lay in bed! ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot see the moon and yet the waves still rise ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first morning of autumn: the mirror I investigate reflects my father’s face ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Wild geese pass leaving the emptiness of heaven revealed ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Silently observing the bottomless mountain lake: water lilies ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Cranes flapping ceaselessly test the sky's upper limits ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Falling snowflakes' glitter tinsels the sea ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Blizzards here on earth, blizzards of stars in the sky ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Completely encircled in emerald: the glittering swamp! ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The new calendar!: as if tomorrow is assured... ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Ah butterfly, what dreams do you ply with your beautiful wings? ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because morning glories hold my well-bucket hostage I go begging for water ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring stirs the clouds in the sky's teabowl ― Kikusha-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I saw how the peony crumples in the fire's embers ― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch It fills me with anger, this moon; it fills me and makes me whole ― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch War stood at the end of the hall in the long shadows ― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because he is slow to wrath, I tackle him, then wring his neck in the long grass ― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pale mountain sky: cherry petals play as they tumble earthward ― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The frozen moon, the frozen lake: two oval mirrors reflecting each other. ― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The bitter winter wind ends here with the frozen sea ― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, bitter winter wind, why bellow so when there's no leaves to fell? ― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Winter waves roil their own shadows ― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation by Michael R. Burch No sky, no land: just snow eternally falling... ― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Along with spring leaves my child's teeth take root, blossom ― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Stillness: a single chestnut leaf glides on brilliant water ― Ryuin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch As thunder recedes a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight: applauded by cicadas ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The snake slipped away but his eyes, having held mine, still stare in the grass ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Girls gather sprouts of rice: reflections of the water flicker on the backs of their hats ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Murmurs follow the hay cart this blossoming summer day ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The wet nurse paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins then walked away ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch May I be with my mother wearing her summer kimono by the morning window ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The hands of a woman exist to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The moon hovering above the snow-capped mountains rained down hailstones ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly: a puff of white snow cresting mountains ― Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring snow cascades over fences in white waves ― Suju Takano, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tanka and Waka translations: If fields of autumn flowers can shed their blossoms, shameless, why can’t I also frolic here — as fearless, and as blameless? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Submit to you — is that what you advise? The way the ripples do whenever ill winds arise? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Watching wan moonlight illuminate trees, my heart also brims, overflowing with autumn. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I had thought to pluck the flower of forgetfulness only to find it already blossoming in his heart. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch That which men call "love" — is it not merely the chain preventing our escape from this world of pain? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Once-colorful flowers faded, while in my drab cell life’s impulse also abated as the long rains fell. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I set off at the shore of the seaside of Tago, where I saw the high, illuminated peak of Fuji―white, aglow― through flakes of drifting downy snow. ― Akahito Yamabe, loose translation by 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 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. EPIGRAM TRANSLATIONS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH Speechless at Auschwitz by Ko Un loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch At Auschwitz piles of glasses mountains of shoes ... returning, we stared out different windows. Ko Un speaks for all of us, by not knowing what to say about the evidence of the Holocaust, and man's inhumanity to man. Ko Un was speechless at Auschwitz. Someday, when it’s too late, will we be speechless at Gaza? —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 A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy? —Albert Einstein, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Elevate your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Why should I brood when every petal of my being is blossoming?—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What you seek also pursues you.—Rumi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This is love: to fly toward a mysterious sky, to cause ten thousand veils to fall. First, to stop clinging to life, then to step out, without feet ... —Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love renders reason senseless. —Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I test the tightrope balancing a child in each arm. —Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let me live with joy today, since tomorrow is unforeseeable. —Palladas of Alexandria, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch To live without philosophizing is to close one's eyes and never attempt to open them. – Rene Descartes, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch How happy the soul who speeds back to the Source, but crowned with peace is the one who never came. —a Sophoclean passage from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at great expense. —Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch EPIGRAMS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH Brief Fling by Michael R. Burch “Epigram” means cram, then scram! Published by Brief Poems, Poem Today and The HyperTexts Brief Fling II by Michael R. Burch To write an epigram, cram. If you lack wit, scram! Published by Brief Poems, Ethnu Couplet and The HyperTexts Brief Fling III by Michael R. Burch No one gives a **** about my epigram? And yet they’ll spend billions on Boy George and Wham! Do they have any idea just how hard I cram? Nod to the Master by Michael R. Burch for the Divine Oscar Wilde If every witty thing that’s said were true, Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You! Stage Fright by Michael R. Burch To be or not to be? In the end Hamlet opted for naught. ****** Errata by Michael R. Burch I didn’t mean to love you; if I did, it came unbid- en, and should’ve remained hid- den! Dry **** by Michael R. Burch You came to me as rain breaks on the desert when every flower springs to life at once. But joys are wan illusions to the expert: the Bedouin has learned how not to want. Love is either wholly folly, or fully holy. —Michael R. Burch Intimations by Michael R. Burch Let mercy surround us with a sweet persistence. Let love propound to us that life is infinitely more than existence. Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101 by Michael R. Burch Building her brand, she disrobes, naked, except for her earlobes. Less Heroic Couplets: Shell Game by Michael R. Burch I saw a turtle squirtle! Before you ask, “How fertile?” The squirt came from its mouth. Why do your thoughts fly south? The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch I will never grok picking a picky rule over a Poem!—Michael R. Burch Experience is the best teacher but a hard taskmaster.—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 Less Heroic Couplets: Gilded Silence by Michael R. Burch Golden silence reigned supreme in my nightmare and her dream. Villanelle of an Opportunist by Michael R. Burch I’m not looking for someone to save. A gal has to do what a gal has to do: I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. How many highways to hell must I pave with intentions imagined, not true? I’m not looking for someone to save. Fools praise compassion while weaklings rave, but a gal has to do what a gal has to do. I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. Some praise the Lord but the Devil’s my fave because he has led me to you! I’m not looking for someone to save. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, a gal has to do what a gal has to do. I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. Every day without meds becomes a close shave and the razor keeps tempting me too. I’m not looking for someone to save: I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. She is brighter than dawn by Michael R. Burch for Beth There’s a light about her like the moon through a mist: a bright incandescence with which she is blessed and my heart to her light like the tide now is pulled . . . she is fair, O, and bright like the moon silver-veiled. There’s a fire within her like the sun’s leaping forth to lap up the darkness of night from earth's hearth and my eyes to her flame like twin moths now are drawn till my heart is consumed. She is brighter than dawn. The Difference by Michael R. Burch The chimneysweeps will weep for Blake, who wrote his poems for their dear sake. The critics clap, polite, for you. Another poem for poets, Whooo! Crunch by Michael R. Burch for Trump A cockroach could live nine months on the dried mucous you scrounge from your nose then fling like seedplants to the slowly greening floor ... You claim to be the advanced life form, but, mon frere, sometimes as you ****** encrusted kinks of hair from your Leviathan *** and muse softly on zits, icebergs snap off the Antarctic. You’re an evolutionary quandary, in need of a sacral ganglion to control your enlarged, contradictory hindquarters: surely the brain should migrate closer to its primary source of information, in order to ensure the survival of the species. Cockroaches thrive on eyeboogers and feces; their exoskeletons expand and gleam like burnished armor in the presence of uranium. But your cranium      is not nearly so adaptable. “Crunch” is a poem about evolution and survival of the fittest which questions where human beings really are the planet earth’s most advanced life forms. Keywords/Tags: evolution, global warming, insects, cockroaches, advance life form, survival of the fittest, adaptability Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.—Michael R. Burch Viral Donald (I) by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition" Donald Trump is coronaviral: his brain's in a downward spiral. His pale nimbus of hair proves there's nothing up there but an empty skull, fluff and denial. Viral Donald (II) by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition" Why didn't Herr Trump, the POTUS, protect us from the Coronavirus? That weird orange corona of hair's an alarm: Trump is the Virus in Human Form! Limerick-Ode to a Much-Eaten *** by Michael R. Burch There wonst wus a president, Trump, whose greatest *** (et) wus his **** It was padded ’n’ shiny, that great orange hiney, but to drain it we’d need a sump pump! The Less-Than-Divine Results of My Prayers to be Saved from Televangelists by Michael R. Burch I’m old, no longer bold, just cold, and (truth be told), been bought and sold, rolled by the wolves and the lambs in the fold. Who’s to be told by this worn-out scold? The complaint department is always on hold. Poets laud Justice’s high principles. Trump just gropes her raw genitals. —Michael R. Burch Teeter Tots by Michael R. Burch For your spuds to become Tater Tots, first, artfully cut out the knots, then dice them to cubes deep-fried, served to rubes, (but not if they’re acting like snots). 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 The Blobfish by Michael R. Burch You can call me a "blob" with your oversized gob, but what's your excuse, great gargantuan Zeus whose once-chiseled abs are now marbleized flab? But what really alarms me (how I wish you'd abstain) is when you start using that oversized "brain." Consider the planet! Refrain! The Secret of Her Clothes by Michael R. Burch The secret of her clothes is that they whisper a little mysteriously of things unseen in the language of nylon and cotton, so that when she walks to her amorous drawers to rummage among the embroidered hearts and rumors of pastel slips for a white wisp of Victorian lace, the delicate rustle of fabric on fabric, the slightest whisper of telltale static, electrifies me. Published by Erosha, Velvet Avalanche (Anthology) and Poetry Life & Times Dee Light Full by Michael R. Burch A cross-dressing dancer, “Dee Lite,” wore gowns luciferously bright till he washed them one day the old-fashioned way ... in bleach. Now he’s “Sister Off-White.” Severance by Michael R. Burch There once was a bubbly bartender, a transvestite who went on a ****** “So I cut myself off,” she cried with a sob, “There’s the evidence, there in the blender!” Pablo Neruda Translations You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As if you were set on fire from within, the moon whitens your skin. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I'm no longer in love with her, that's certain... yet perhaps I love her still. Love is so short, forgetting so long! —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, Between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. I love you only because you're the one I love; I hate you deeply, but hatred Bends me all the more toward you, so that the measure of my variableness Is that I do not see you, but love you blindly. Perhaps January's frigid light will consume my heart with its cruel rays, robbing me of any hope of peace. In this tragic plot, I am the one who dies, Love's only victim, And I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, my Love, in fire and blood. Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth's incandescent white flame: I love you as obscure things are loved in the dark, secretly, in shadows, unnamed. I love you like shrubs that refuse to bloom while pregnant with the radiance of mysterious flowers; now thanks to your love an earthy fragrance lives dimly in my body's odors. I love you without knowing how, when, why or where; I love you forthrightly, without complications or care: I love you this way because I know no other. Here, where "I" no longer exists, nor "you"... so close that your hand on my chest is my own, so close that your eyes close gently on my dreams. Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity's rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands... Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. I long for your liquid laughter, for your sunburned hands like savage harvests. I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles. I want to devour your ******* like almonds, whole. I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty, to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face, to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade. I pursue you, snuffing the shadows, seeking your heart's scorching heat like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue. The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Is the rose **** or is that just how she dresses? Why do trees conceal their spectacular roots? Who hears the confession of the getaway car? Is there anything sadder than a train standing motionless in the rain? In El Salvador, Death by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death still surveils El Salvador. The blood of murdered peasants has never clotted; time cannot congeal it, nor does the rain erase it from the roads. Fifteen thousand were machine-gunned dead by Martinez, the murderer. To this day the coppery taste of blood still flavors the land, bread and wine of El Salvador. If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I need you to know one thing... You know how it goes: if I gaze up at the glowing moon, if observe the blazing autumn's reddening branches from my window, if I touch the impalpable ash of the charred log's wrinkled body... everything returns me to you, as if everything that exists ―all aromas, sights, solids― were small boats sailing toward those isles of yours that await me. However... if little by little you stop loving me then I shall stop loving you, little by little. And if you suddenly forget me, do not bother to investigate, for I shall have immediately forgotten you also. If you think my love strange and mad― this whirlwind of streaming banners gusting through me, so that you elect to leave me at the shore where my heart lacks roots, just remember that, on that very day, at that very hour, I shall raise my arms and my roots will sail off to find some more favorable land. But if each day and every hour, you feel destined to be with me, if you greet me with implacable sweetness, and if each day and every hour flowers blossom on your lips to entice me, ... then ah my love, oh my only, my own, all that fire will be reinfernoed in me and nothing within me will be extinguished or forgotten; my love will feed on your love, my beloved, and as long as you live it will be me in your arms... as long as you never leave mine. Sonnet XLV by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Don't wander far away, not even for a day, because― how can I explain? A day is too long... and I'll be waiting for you, like a man in an empty station where the trains all stand motionless. Don't leave me, my dear, not even for an hour, because― then despair's raindrops will all run blurrily together, and the smoke that drifts lazily in search of a home will descend hazily on me, suffocating my heart. Darling, may your lovely silhouette never dissolve in the surf; may your lashes never flutter at an indecipherable distance. Please don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because then you'll have gone far too far and I'll wander aimlessly, amazed, asking all the earth: Will she ever return? Will she spurn me, dying? My Dog Died by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My dog died; so I buried him in the backyard garden next to some rusted machine. One day I'll rejoin him, over there, but for now he's gone with his shaggy mane, his crude manners and his cold, clammy nose, while I, the atheist who never believed in any heaven for human beings, now believe in a paradise I'm unfit to enter. Yes, I somehow now believe in a heavenly kennel where my dog awaits my arrival wagging his tail in furious friendship! But I'll not indulge in sadness here: why bewail a companion who was never servile? His friendship was more like that of a porcupine preserving its prickly autonomy. His was the friendship of a distant star with no more intimacy than true friendship called for and no false demonstrations: he never clambered over me coating my clothes with mange; he never assaulted my knee like dogs obsessed with *** But he used to gaze up at me, giving me the attention my ego demanded, while helping this vainglorious man understand my concerns were none of his. Aye, and with those bright eyes so much purer than mine, he'd gaze up at me contentedly; it was a look he reserved for me alone all his entire sweet, gentle life, always merely there, never troubling me, never demanding anything. Aye, and often I envied his energetic tail as we strode the shores of Isla Negra together, in winter weather, wild birds swarming skyward as my golden-maned friend leapt about, supercharged by the sea's electric surges, sniffing away wildly, his tail held ***** his face suffused with the salt spray. Joy! Joy! Joy! As only dogs experience joy in the shameless exuberance of their guiltless spirits. Thus there are no sad good-byes for my dog who died; we never once lied to each other. He died, he's gone, I buried him; that's all there is to it. Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, "The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light..." Tonight I will write her the saddest lines: that I loved her as she loved me too, sometimes, all those long, lonely nights when I held her tight and filled her ears with indecipherable rhymes... Then she loved me too, as I also loved her, compelled by the spell of her enormous eyes. Tonight I will write her the saddest lines as I ponder love's death and our mutual crimes. Outside I hear night―silent, cold, dark, immense― as these delicate words fall, useless as dew. Oh, what does it matter that love came to naught if love was false, or perhaps even true? And yet I hear songs being sung in the distance. How can I forget her, so soon since I lost her? I seek to regain her, somehow bring her closer. But my heart has been blinded; she will not appear! Now moonlight and starlight whiten dark trees. We also are ghosts, by love's failing light. My love has failed me, but how I once loved her! My voice... this cursed wind... what use to recite? Another's. She will soon be another's. Her body, her voice, her infinite eyes. I no longer love her! And why should I love her when love is sad, short, mad, fickle, unwise? Because of cold nights we clung through so closely, I'm not satisfied to know she is gone. And while I must end this hell I now suffer, It's sad to remember all love left undone. Keywords/Tags: epigram, epigrams, love, *** intimacy, intimate, apparel, clothes, dress, mrbepi, mrbhaiku, clothing, dresses, body, ******* heart, hearts, desire, passion, longing, short, brief, poems, poetry, epitaph, eulogy, death, obituary, introspection
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Jun 4, 2020
Jun 4, 2020 at 3:34 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Short Stuff (epigrams)
Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Negligibles by Michael R. Burch Show me your most intimate items of apparel; begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ... Negotiables by Michael R. Burch Love should be more than the sum of its parts― of its potions and pills and subterranean arts. Her Answer (Sappho, fragment 155) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A short revealing frock? It's just my luck your lips were made to mock! 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. 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! Sudden Shower by Michael R. Burch The day’s eyes were blue until you appeared and they wept at your beauty. Incompatibles by Michael R. Burch Reason’s treason! cries the Heart. Love’s insane, replies the Brain. (Originally published by Light) Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Conformists of a feather flock together. —Michael R. Burch (Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition) Prose Epigrams My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch As a general rule of thumb, ignore naysayers unless you agree with their criticism.—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 Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — 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 God and his "profits" could never agree on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea. —Michael R. Burch 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 and 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. 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 and 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 and translated into Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Macedonian) *** Hex by Michael R. Burch Love's full of cute paradoxes (and highly acute poxes) . (Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up) 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 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 epigram.) Fahr an' Ice by Michael R. Burch (apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash) 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. Lance-Lot by Michael R. Burch Preposterous bird! Inelegant! Absurd! Until the great & mighty heron brandishes his fearsome sword. 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! " The Whole of Wit by Michael R. Burch If brevity is the soul of wit then brevity and levity are the whole of it. (Published by Shot Glass Journal) Nun Fun Undone by Michael R. Burch Abbesses' recesses are not for excesses! (Published by Brief Poems) 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) 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. 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. Grave Oversight by Michael R. Burch The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught! 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 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 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. Excerpt from Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth’s incandescent white flame; I love you as obscure things are embraced in the dark ... secretly, in shadows, unrevealed & unnamed. Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity’s rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands ... I love you only because I love you by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, Between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation by Michael R. Burch While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, "The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light..." Duet, Minor Key by Michael R. Burch Without the drama of cymbals or the fanfare and snares of drums, I present my case stripped of its fine veneer: Behold, thy instrument. Play, for the night is long. Inconstant Temptress by Michael R. Burch Love, beautiful but fatal to many bewildered hearts, commands us to be faithful, then tempts us with sweets and tarts. Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ by Michael R. Burch Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise in a dizzy circle of two. Oh, when I’m with you, I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too! Warming Her Pearls by Michael R. Burch Warming her pearls, her ******* gleam like constellations. Her belly is a bit rotund ... she might have stepped out of a Rubens. Dark Cloud, Silver Lining from “Love in the Time of the Coronavirus” by Michael R. Burch Despite my stormy demeanor, my hands have never been cleaner! Questionable Credentials by Michael R. Burch Poet? Critic? Dilettante? Do you know what's good, or do you merely flaunt? Published by ***** of Parnassus Delicacy by Michael R. Burch for all good mothers Your love is as delicate as a butterfly cleaning its wings, as soft as the predicate the hummingbird sings to itself, gently murmuring― “Fly! Fly! Fly!” Your love is the string soaring kites untie. The Greatest of These ... by Michael R. Burch The hands that held me tremble. The arms that lifted fall. Angelic flesh, now parchment, is held together with gauze. But her undimmed eyes still embrace me; there infinity can be found. I can almost believe such love will reach me, underground. Haiku Translations of the Oriental Masters Grasses wilt: the braking locomotive grinds to a halt ― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, fallen camellias, if I were you, I'd leap into the torrent! ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first soft snow: leaves of the awed jonquil bow low ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Come, investigate loneliness! a solitary leaf clings to the Kiri tree ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lightning shatters the darkness― the night heron's shriek ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch One apple, alone in the abandoned orchard reddens for winter ― Patrick Blanche, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The poem above is by a French poet; it illustrates how the poetry of Oriental masters like Basho has influenced poets around the world. Graven images of long-departed gods, dry spiritless leaves: companions of the temple porch ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch See: whose surviving sons visit the ancestral graves white-bearded, with trembling canes? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I remove my beautiful kimono: its varied braids surround and entwine my body ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This day of chrysanthemums I shake and comb my wet hair, as their petals shed rain ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This darkening autumn: my neighbor, how does he continue? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Let us arrange these lovely flowers in the bowl since there's no rice ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An ancient pond, the frog leaps: the silver plop and gurgle of water ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The butterfly perfuming its wings fans the orchid ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pausing between clouds the moon rests in the eyes of its beholders ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first chill rain: poor monkey, you too could use a woven cape of straw ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This snowy morning: cries of the crow I despise (ah, but so beautiful!) ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Like a heavy fragrance snow-flakes settle: lilies on the rocks ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The cheerful-chirping cricket contends gray autumn's gay, contemptuous of frost ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill, solemn evangelist of loneliness ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The sea darkening, the voices of the wild ducks: my mysterious companions! ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Will we meet again? Here at your flowering grave: two white butterflies ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Fever-felled mid-path my dreams resurrect, to trek into a hollow land ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Too ill to travel, now only my autumn dreams survey these withering fields ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this has been called Basho's death poem These brown summer grasses? The only remains of "invincible" warriors... ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An empty road lonelier than abandonment: this autumn evening ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring has come: the nameless hill lies shrouded in mist ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The Oldest Haiku These are my translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into poetic forms such as tanka, renga and haiku over time. My translations are excerpts from the Kojiki (the "Record of Ancient Matters"), a book composed around 711-712 A.D. by the historian and poet Ō no Yasumaro. The Kojiki relates Japan’s mythological beginnings and the history of its imperial line. Like Virgil's Aeneid, the Kojiki seeks to legitimize rulers by recounting their roots. These are lines from one of the oldest Japanese poems, found in the oldest Japanese book: While you decline to cry, high on the mountainside a single stalk of plumegrass wilts. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another excerpt, with a humorous twist, from the Kojiki: Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make! Heaven's indignant messengers, you remind me of wordsmiths! ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another, this one a poem of love and longing: Onyx, this gem-black night. Downcast, I await your return like the rising sun, unrivaled in splendor. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch More Haiku by Various Poets Right at my feet! When did you arrive here, snail? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Our world of dew is a world of dew indeed; and yet, and yet... ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, brilliant moon can it be true that even you must rush off, like us, tardy? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch A kite floats at the same place in the sky where yesterday it floated... ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pigeon's behavior is beyond reproach, but the mountain cuckoo's? ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Plowing, not a single bird sings in the mountain's shadow ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pear tree flowers whitely― a young woman reads his letter by moonlight ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch On adjacent branches the plum tree blossoms bloom petal by petal―love! ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Picking autumn plums my wrinkled hands once again grow fragrant ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Dawn! The brilliant sun illuminates sardine heads. ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The abandoned willow shines between rains ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch White plum blossoms― though the hour grows late, a glimpse of dawn ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this is believed to be Buson's death poem and he is said to have died before dawn I thought I felt a dewdrop plop on me as I lay in bed! ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot see the moon and yet the waves still rise ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first morning of autumn: the mirror I investigate reflects my father’s face ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Wild geese pass leaving the emptiness of heaven revealed ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Silently observing the bottomless mountain lake: water lilies ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Cranes flapping ceaselessly test the sky's upper limits ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Falling snowflakes' glitter tinsels the sea ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Blizzards here on earth, blizzards of stars in the sky ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Completely encircled in emerald: the glittering swamp! ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The new calendar!: as if tomorrow is assured... ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Ah butterfly, what dreams do you ply with your beautiful wings? ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because morning glories hold my well-bucket hostage I go begging for water ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring stirs the clouds in the sky's teabowl ― Kikusha-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I saw how the peony crumples in the fire's embers ― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch It fills me with anger, this moon; it fills me and makes me whole ― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch War stood at the end of the hall in the long shadows ― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because he is slow to wrath, I tackle him, then wring his neck in the long grass ― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pale mountain sky: cherry petals play as they tumble earthward ― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The frozen moon, the frozen lake: two oval mirrors reflecting each other. ― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The bitter winter wind ends here with the frozen sea ― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, bitter winter wind, why bellow so when there's no leaves to fell? ― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Winter waves roil their own shadows ― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation by Michael R. Burch No sky, no land: just snow eternally falling... ― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Along with spring leaves my child's teeth take root, blossom ― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Stillness: a single chestnut leaf glides on brilliant water ― Ryuin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch As thunder recedes a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight: applauded by cicadas ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The snake slipped away but his eyes, having held mine, still stare in the grass ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Girls gather sprouts of rice: reflections of the water flicker on the backs of their hats ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Murmurs follow the hay cart this blossoming summer day ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The wet nurse paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins then walked away ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch May I be with my mother wearing her summer kimono by the morning window ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The hands of a woman exist to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The moon hovering above the snow-capped mountains rained down hailstones ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly: a puff of white snow cresting mountains ― Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring snow cascades over fences in white waves ― Suju Takano, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tanka and Waka translations: If fields of autumn flowers can shed their blossoms, shameless, why can’t I also frolic here — as fearless, and as blameless? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Submit to you — is that what you advise? The way the ripples do whenever ill winds arise? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Watching wan moonlight illuminate trees, my heart also brims, overflowing with autumn. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I had thought to pluck the flower of forgetfulness only to find it already blossoming in his heart. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch That which men call "love" — is it not merely the chain preventing our escape from this world of pain? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Once-colorful flowers faded, while in my drab cell life’s impulse also abated as the long rains fell. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I set off at the shore of the seaside of Tago, where I saw the high, illuminated peak of Fuji―white, aglow― through flakes of drifting downy snow. ― Akahito Yamabe, loose translation by 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 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. EPIGRAM TRANSLATIONS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH Speechless at Auschwitz by Ko Un loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch At Auschwitz piles of glasses mountains of shoes ... returning, we stared out different windows. Ko Un speaks for all of us, by not knowing what to say about the evidence of the Holocaust, and man's inhumanity to man. Ko Un was speechless at Auschwitz. Someday, when it’s too late, will we be speechless at Gaza? —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 A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy? —Albert Einstein, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Elevate your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Why should I brood when every petal of my being is blossoming?—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What you seek also pursues you.—Rumi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This is love: to fly toward a mysterious sky, to cause ten thousand veils to fall. First, to stop clinging to life, then to step out, without feet ... —Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love renders reason senseless. —Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I test the tightrope balancing a child in each arm. —Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let me live with joy today, since tomorrow is unforeseeable. —Palladas of Alexandria, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch To live without philosophizing is to close one's eyes and never attempt to open them. – Rene Descartes, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch How happy the soul who speeds back to the Source, but crowned with peace is the one who never came. —a Sophoclean passage from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at great expense. —Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch EPIGRAMS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH Brief Fling by Michael R. Burch “Epigram” means cram, then scram! Published by Brief Poems, Poem Today and The HyperTexts Brief Fling II by Michael R. Burch To write an epigram, cram. If you lack wit, scram! Published by Brief Poems, Ethnu Couplet and The HyperTexts Brief Fling III by Michael R. Burch No one gives a **** about my epigram? And yet they’ll spend billions on Boy George and Wham! Do they have any idea just how hard I cram? Nod to the Master by Michael R. Burch for the Divine Oscar Wilde If every witty thing that’s said were true, Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You! Stage Fright by Michael R. Burch To be or not to be? In the end Hamlet opted for naught. ****** Errata by Michael R. Burch I didn’t mean to love you; if I did, it came unbid- en, and should’ve remained hid- den! Dry **** by Michael R. Burch You came to me as rain breaks on the desert when every flower springs to life at once. But joys are wan illusions to the expert: the Bedouin has learned how not to want. Love is either wholly folly, or fully holy. —Michael R. Burch Intimations by Michael R. Burch Let mercy surround us with a sweet persistence. Let love propound to us that life is infinitely more than existence. Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101 by Michael R. Burch Building her brand, she disrobes, naked, except for her earlobes. Less Heroic Couplets: Shell Game by Michael R. Burch I saw a turtle squirtle! Before you ask, “How fertile?” The squirt came from its mouth. Why do your thoughts fly south? The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch I will never grok picking a picky rule over a Poem!—Michael R. Burch Experience is the best teacher but a hard taskmaster.—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 Less Heroic Couplets: Gilded Silence by Michael R. Burch Golden silence reigned supreme in my nightmare and her dream. Villanelle of an Opportunist by Michael R. Burch I’m not looking for someone to save. A gal has to do what a gal has to do: I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. How many highways to hell must I pave with intentions imagined, not true? I’m not looking for someone to save. Fools praise compassion while weaklings rave, but a gal has to do what a gal has to do. I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. Some praise the Lord but the Devil’s my fave because he has led me to you! I’m not looking for someone to save. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, a gal has to do what a gal has to do. I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. Every day without meds becomes a close shave and the razor keeps tempting me too. I’m not looking for someone to save: I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. She is brighter than dawn by Michael R. Burch for Beth There’s a light about her like the moon through a mist: a bright incandescence with which she is blessed and my heart to her light like the tide now is pulled . . . she is fair, O, and bright like the moon silver-veiled. There’s a fire within her like the sun’s leaping forth to lap up the darkness of night from earth's hearth and my eyes to her flame like twin moths now are drawn till my heart is consumed. She is brighter than dawn. The Difference by Michael R. Burch The chimneysweeps will weep for Blake, who wrote his poems for their dear sake. The critics clap, polite, for you. Another poem for poets, Whooo! Crunch by Michael R. Burch for Trump A cockroach could live nine months on the dried mucous you scrounge from your nose then fling like seedplants to the slowly greening floor ... You claim to be the advanced life form, but, mon frere, sometimes as you ****** encrusted kinks of hair from your Leviathan *** and muse softly on zits, icebergs snap off the Antarctic. You’re an evolutionary quandary, in need of a sacral ganglion to control your enlarged, contradictory hindquarters: surely the brain should migrate closer to its primary source of information, in order to ensure the survival of the species. Cockroaches thrive on eyeboogers and feces; their exoskeletons expand and gleam like burnished armor in the presence of uranium. But your cranium      is not nearly so adaptable. “Crunch” is a poem about evolution and survival of the fittest which questions where human beings really are the planet earth’s most advanced life forms. Keywords/Tags: evolution, global warming, insects, cockroaches, advance life form, survival of the fittest, adaptability Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.—Michael R. Burch Viral Donald (I) by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition" Donald Trump is coronaviral: his brain's in a downward spiral. His pale nimbus of hair proves there's nothing up there but an empty skull, fluff and denial. Viral Donald (II) by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition" Why didn't Herr Trump, the POTUS, protect us from the Coronavirus? That weird orange corona of hair's an alarm: Trump is the Virus in Human Form! Limerick-Ode to a Much-Eaten *** by Michael R. Burch There wonst wus a president, Trump, whose greatest *** (et) wus his **** It was padded ’n’ shiny, that great orange hiney, but to drain it we’d need a sump pump! The Less-Than-Divine Results of My Prayers to be Saved from Televangelists by Michael R. Burch I’m old, no longer bold, just cold, and (truth be told), been bought and sold, rolled by the wolves and the lambs in the fold. Who’s to be told by this worn-out scold? The complaint department is always on hold. Poets laud Justice’s high principles. Trump just gropes her raw genitals. —Michael R. Burch Teeter Tots by Michael R. Burch For your spuds to become Tater Tots, first, artfully cut out the knots, then dice them to cubes deep-fried, served to rubes, (but not if they’re acting like snots). 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 The Blobfish by Michael R. Burch You can call me a "blob" with your oversized gob, but what's your excuse, great gargantuan Zeus whose once-chiseled abs are now marbleized flab? But what really alarms me (how I wish you'd abstain) is when you start using that oversized "brain." Consider the planet! Refrain! The Secret of Her Clothes by Michael R. Burch The secret of her clothes is that they whisper a little mysteriously of things unseen in the language of nylon and cotton, so that when she walks to her amorous drawers to rummage among the embroidered hearts and rumors of pastel slips for a white wisp of Victorian lace, the delicate rustle of fabric on fabric, the slightest whisper of telltale static, electrifies me. Published by Erosha, Velvet Avalanche (Anthology) and Poetry Life & Times Dee Light Full by Michael R. Burch A cross-dressing dancer, “Dee Lite,” wore gowns luciferously bright till he washed them one day the old-fashioned way ... in bleach. Now he’s “Sister Off-White.” Severance by Michael R. Burch There once was a bubbly bartender, a transvestite who went on a ****** “So I cut myself off,” she cried with a sob, “There’s the evidence, there in the blender!” Pablo Neruda Translations You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As if you were set on fire from within, the moon whitens your skin. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I'm no longer in love with her, that's certain... yet perhaps I love her still. Love is so short, forgetting so long! —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, Between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. I love you only because you're the one I love; I hate you deeply, but hatred Bends me all the more toward you, so that the measure of my variableness Is that I do not see you, but love you blindly. Perhaps January's frigid light will consume my heart with its cruel rays, robbing me of any hope of peace. In this tragic plot, I am the one who dies, Love's only victim, And I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, my Love, in fire and blood. Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth's incandescent white flame: I love you as obscure things are loved in the dark, secretly, in shadows, unnamed. I love you like shrubs that refuse to bloom while pregnant with the radiance of mysterious flowers; now thanks to your love an earthy fragrance lives dimly in my body's odors. I love you without knowing how, when, why or where; I love you forthrightly, without complications or care: I love you this way because I know no other. Here, where "I" no longer exists, nor "you"... so close that your hand on my chest is my own, so close that your eyes close gently on my dreams. Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity's rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands... Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. I long for your liquid laughter, for your sunburned hands like savage harvests. I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles. I want to devour your ******* like almonds, whole. I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty, to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face, to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade. I pursue you, snuffing the shadows, seeking your heart's scorching heat like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue. The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Is the rose **** or is that just how she dresses? Why do trees conceal their spectacular roots? Who hears the confession of the getaway car? Is there anything sadder than a train standing motionless in the rain? In El Salvador, Death by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death still surveils El Salvador. The blood of murdered peasants has never clotted; time cannot congeal it, nor does the rain erase it from the roads. Fifteen thousand were machine-gunned dead by Martinez, the murderer. To this day the coppery taste of blood still flavors the land, bread and wine of El Salvador. If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I need you to know one thing... You know how it goes: if I gaze up at the glowing moon, if observe the blazing autumn's reddening branches from my window, if I touch the impalpable ash of the charred log's wrinkled body... everything returns me to you, as if everything that exists ―all aromas, sights, solids― were small boats sailing toward those isles of yours that await me. However... if little by little you stop loving me then I shall stop loving you, little by little. And if you suddenly forget me, do not bother to investigate, for I shall have immediately forgotten you also. If you think my love strange and mad― this whirlwind of streaming banners gusting through me, so that you elect to leave me at the shore where my heart lacks roots, just remember that, on that very day, at that very hour, I shall raise my arms and my roots will sail off to find some more favorable land. But if each day and every hour, you feel destined to be with me, if you greet me with implacable sweetness, and if each day and every hour flowers blossom on your lips to entice me, ... then ah my love, oh my only, my own, all that fire will be reinfernoed in me and nothing within me will be extinguished or forgotten; my love will feed on your love, my beloved, and as long as you live it will be me in your arms... as long as you never leave mine. Sonnet XLV by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Don't wander far away, not even for a day, because― how can I explain? A day is too long... and I'll be waiting for you, like a man in an empty station where the trains all stand motionless. Don't leave me, my dear, not even for an hour, because― then despair's raindrops will all run blurrily together, and the smoke that drifts lazily in search of a home will descend hazily on me, suffocating my heart. Darling, may your lovely silhouette never dissolve in the surf; may your lashes never flutter at an indecipherable distance. Please don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because then you'll have gone far too far and I'll wander aimlessly, amazed, asking all the earth: Will she ever return? Will she spurn me, dying? My Dog Died by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My dog died; so I buried him in the backyard garden next to some rusted machine. One day I'll rejoin him, over there, but for now he's gone with his shaggy mane, his crude manners and his cold, clammy nose, while I, the atheist who never believed in any heaven for human beings, now believe in a paradise I'm unfit to enter. Yes, I somehow now believe in a heavenly kennel where my dog awaits my arrival wagging his tail in furious friendship! But I'll not indulge in sadness here: why bewail a companion who was never servile? His friendship was more like that of a porcupine preserving its prickly autonomy. His was the friendship of a distant star with no more intimacy than true friendship called for and no false demonstrations: he never clambered over me coating my clothes with mange; he never assaulted my knee like dogs obsessed with *** But he used to gaze up at me, giving me the attention my ego demanded, while helping this vainglorious man understand my concerns were none of his. Aye, and with those bright eyes so much purer than mine, he'd gaze up at me contentedly; it was a look he reserved for me alone all his entire sweet, gentle life, always merely there, never troubling me, never demanding anything. Aye, and often I envied his energetic tail as we strode the shores of Isla Negra together, in winter weather, wild birds swarming skyward as my golden-maned friend leapt about, supercharged by the sea's electric surges, sniffing away wildly, his tail held ***** his face suffused with the salt spray. Joy! Joy! Joy! As only dogs experience joy in the shameless exuberance of their guiltless spirits. Thus there are no sad good-byes for my dog who died; we never once lied to each other. He died, he's gone, I buried him; that's all there is to it. Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, "The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light..." Tonight I will write her the saddest lines: that I loved her as she loved me too, sometimes, all those long, lonely nights when I held her tight and filled her ears with indecipherable rhymes... Then she loved me too, as I also loved her, compelled by the spell of her enormous eyes. Tonight I will write her the saddest lines as I ponder love's death and our mutual crimes. Outside I hear night―silent, cold, dark, immense― as these delicate words fall, useless as dew. Oh, what does it matter that love came to naught if love was false, or perhaps even true? And yet I hear songs being sung in the distance. How can I forget her, so soon since I lost her? I seek to regain her, somehow bring her closer. But my heart has been blinded; she will not appear! Now moonlight and starlight whiten dark trees. We also are ghosts, by love's failing light. My love has failed me, but how I once loved her! My voice... this cursed wind... what use to recite? Another's. She will soon be another's. Her body, her voice, her infinite eyes. I no longer love her! And why should I love her when love is sad, short, mad, fickle, unwise? Because of cold nights we clung through so closely, I'm not satisfied to know she is gone. And while I must end this hell I now suffer, It's sad to remember all love left undone. Keywords/Tags: epigram, epigrams, love, *** intimacy, intimate, apparel, clothes, dress, mrbepi, mrbhaiku, clothing, dresses, body, ******* heart, hearts, desire, passion, longing, short, brief, poems, poetry, epitaph, eulogy, death, obituary, introspection
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You are fashion Mrs. Juniper Some days a fitted skirt Others, a skinny jeans ensemble The summertime catcalls and whistles Over the length of your legs And a slinky polka dot bikini You pay no mind to If fact, you don't even blink Even when they lick the glass It's a job to you Plain and simple And no matter how stiff it becomes You're always willing To lend a helping hand
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Dec 20, 2019
Dec 20, 2019 at 9:16 PM UTC
Carlo-C-Gomez
Mrs. Juniper
You are fashion Mrs. Juniper Some days a fitted skirt Others, a skinny jeans ensemble The summertime catcalls and whistles Over the length of your legs And a slinky polka dot bikini You pay no mind to If fact, you don't even blink Even when they lick the glass It's a job to you Plain and simple And no matter how stiff it becomes You're always willing To lend a helping hand
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That simple shade Became something else. Chemical manipulation Of myself. The alternative style Of the simple apparel. To be displayed and destroyed, Put through peril. This one of a kind, Unavailable in stores. Resulted from a craft, Through friendship, And something more. We bore the fumes Unfaltered by the work. Our heads were light, and we prevailed with a smirk. The counter was stained, And so were the shorts. But they were better now, and have since been worn. And worn. And worn.
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Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 5:00 PM UTC
brycasey99
Alternative style
That simple shade Became something else. Chemical manipulation Of myself. The alternative style Of the simple apparel. To be displayed and destroyed, Put through peril. This one of a kind, Unavailable in stores. Resulted from a craft, Through friendship, And something more. We bore the fumes Unfaltered by the work. Our heads were light, and we prevailed with a smirk. The counter was stained, And so were the shorts. But they were better now, and have since been worn. And worn. And worn.
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