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These are modern English translations of Native American poems, proverbs, prayers, blessings and sayings, translated by Michael R. Burch. When Pigs Fly by Michael R. Burch On the Trail of Tears, my Cherokee brothers, why hang your heads? Why shame your mothers? Laugh wildly instead! We will soon be dead. When we lie in our graves, let the white-eyes take the woodlands we loved for the *** and the rake. It is better to die than to live out a lie in so narrow a sty. In October 1838 the Cherokees began to walk the "Trail of Tears." Most of them made the thousand mile journey west to Oklahoma on foot. An estimated 4,000 people, or a quarter of the tribe, died en route. The soldiers "escorting" the Cherokees at bayonet point refused permission for the dead to be buried, threatening to shoot anyone who disobeyed. So the living were forced to carry the corpses of the dead until camp was made for the night. Years after the Cherokees had been rounded up and driven down the Trail of Tears, John G. Burnett reflected on what he and his fellow soldiers had done, saying, "Schoolchildren of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point, to satisfy the white man's greed... ****** is ****** and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country... Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile." Keywords/Tags: Cherokee, Native American, Trail of Tears, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, ****** Evil, Death, March, Death March, Infanticide, Matricide, Racism, Racist, Discrimination, Violence, Fascism, White Supremacists, Horror, Terror, Terrorism, Greed, Gluttony, Avarice, Lust, **** mrbpig, mrbpigs Cherokee Prayer loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As I walk life's trails imperiled by the raging wind and rain, grant, O Great Spirit, that yet I may always walk like a man. This prayer makes me think of Native Americans walking the Trail of Tears with far more courage and dignity than their “civilized” abusers. Native American Prayer loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Help us learn the lessons you have left us in every leaf and rock. Dream Song of the Thunders Chippewa saying translation by Michael R. Burch Sometimes I bemoan my “plight” when all the while the wind bears me across the immense sky. Native American Travelers' Blessing loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let us walk together here among earth's creatures great and small, remembering, our footsteps light, that one wise God created all. Sioux Vision Quest 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. Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I will extract the thorns from your feet. For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together. I will love you like my own brother, my own blood. When you are disconsolate, I will wipe the tears from your eyes. And when you are too sad to live, I will put your aching heart to rest. Published by Better Than Starbucks and Cherokee Native Americans Cherokee Travelers' Blessing II loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Happily may you walk in the paths of the Rainbow.                   Oh, and may it always be beautiful before you, beautiful behind you, beautiful below you, beautiful above you, and beautiful all around you where in Perfection beauty is finished. Published by Better Than Starbucks Cherokee Travelers' Blessing III loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch May Heaven’s warming winds blow gently there, where you reside, and may the Great Spirit bless all those you love, this side of the farthest tide. And wherever you go, whether the journey is fast or slow, may your moccasins leave many cunning footprints in the snow. And when you look over your shoulder, may you always find the Rainbow. Published by Better Than Starbucks What is life? The flash of a firefly. The breath of the winter buffalo. The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset. ―Blackfoot saying, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Warrior's Confession loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Oh my love, how fair you are— far brighter than the fairest star! Cherokee 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. Cherokee Prayer loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As I walk life's trails imperiled by the raging wind and rain, grant, O Great Spirit, that yet I may always walk like a man. When I think of this prayer, I think of Native Americans walking the Trail of Tears. The Receiving of the Flower excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let us sing overflowing with joy as we observe the Receiving of the Flower. The lovely maidens beam; their hearts leap in their ******* Why? Because they will soon yield their virginity to the men they love! The Deflowering excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Remove your clothes; let down your hair; become as naked as the day you were born— virgins! Prelude to ********** excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lay out your most beautiful clothes, maidens! The day of happiness has arrived! Grab your combs, detangle your hair, adorn your earlobes with gaudy pendants. Dress in white as becomes maidens ... Then go, give your lovers the happiness of your laughter! And all the village will rejoice with you, for the day of happiness has arrived! The Flower-Strewn Pool excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You have arrived at last in the woods where no one can see what you do at the flower-strewn pool ... Remove your clothes, unbraid your hair, become as you were when you first arrived here naked and shameless, virgins, maidens! Native American Proverbs The soul would see no Rainbows if not for the eyes’ tears. —loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A woman’s highest calling is to help her man unite with the Source. A man’s highest calling is to help his woman walk the earth unharmed. —loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. —White Elk, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What is life? The flash of a firefly. The breath of a winter buffalo. The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset. —Blackfoot saying, translation by Michael R. Burch Speak less thunder, wield more lightning. — Apache proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch The more we wonder, the more we understand. — Arapaho proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Adults talk, children whine. — Blackfoot proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Don’t be afraid to cry: it will lessen your sorrow. — Hopi proverb One foot in the boat, one foot in the canoe, and you end up in the river. — Tuscarora proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Our enemy's weakness increases our strength. — Cherokee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch We will be remembered tomorrow by the tracks we leave today. — Dakota proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch No sound's as eloquent as a rattlesnake's tail. — Navajo saying, translation by Michael R. Burch The heart is our first teacher. — Cheyenne proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Dreams beget success. — Maricopa proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Knowledge interprets the past, wisdom foresees the future. — Lumbee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch The troublemaker's way is thorny. — Umpqua proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Earthbound an original poem by Michael R. Burch Tashunka Witko, better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse. Earthbound, and yet I now fly through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting ... so high that no sound echoing by below where the mountains are lifting the sky can be heard. Like a bird, but not meek, like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey, I will shriek, not a word, but a screech, and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay— the sheep, the earthbound. Years after the Cherokees had been rounded up and driven down the Trail of Tears, John G. Burnett reflected on what he and his fellow soldiers had done, saying, "Schoolchildren of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point, to satisfy the white man's greed ... ****** is ****** and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country ... Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile." In the same year, 1830, that Stonewall Jackson consigned Native Americans to the ash-heap of history, Georgia Governor George Gilmer said, "Treaties are expedients by which ignorant, intractable, and savage people are induced ... to yield up what civilized people have the right to possess." By "civilized" he apparently meant people willing to brutally dispossess and **** women and children in order to derive economic benefits for themselves. These nights bring dreams of Cherokee shamans whose names are bright verbs and impacted dark nouns, whose memories are indictments of my pallid flesh . . . and I hear, as from a great distance, the cries tortured from their guileless lips, proclaiming the nature of my mutation. ―Michael R. Burch, from "Mongrel Dreams" (my family is part Cherokee, English and Scottish) After Jackson was re-elected with an overwhelming majority in 1832, he strenuously pursued his policy of removing Native Americans, even refusing to accept a Supreme Court ruling which invalidated Georgia's planned annexation of Cherokee land. But in the double-dealing logic of the white supremacists, they had to make the illegal resettlement of the Indians appear to be "legal," so a small group of Cherokees were persuaded to sign the "Treaty of New Echota," which swapped Cherokee land for land in the Oklahoma territory. The Cherokee ringleaders of this infamous plot were later assassinated as traitors. ****** was similarly obsessed with the "legalities" of the **** Holocaust; isn't it strange how mass murderers of women and children can seek to justify their crimes?) Native Americans understood the "circle of life" better than their white oppressors ... When we sit in the Circle of the People, we must be responsible because all Creation is related and the suffering of one is the suffering of all and the joy of one is the joy of all and whatever we do affects everything in the universe. —"Lakota Instructions for Living" by White Buffalo Calf Woman, translated by Michael R. Burch Veiled by Michael R. Burch She has belief without comprehension and in her crutchwork shack she is much like us . . . tamping the bread into edible forms, regarding her children at play with something akin to relief . . . ignoring the towers ablaze in the distance because they are not revelations but things of glass, easily shattered . . . and if you were to ask her, she might say: sometimes God visits his wrath upon an impious nation for its leaders’ sins, and we might agree: seeing her mutilations. Published by Poetry Super Highway and Modern War Poems. Ali’s Song by Michael R. Burch They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so. They say it has a wild, unearthly glow. A man can be more beautiful, more wild. I flung their medal to the river, child. I flung their medal to the river, child. They hung their coin around my neck; they made my name a bridle, “called a ***** a ***** They say their gold is pure. I say defiled. I flung their slave’s name to the river, child. I flung their slave’s name to the river, child. Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong that never called me ****** did me wrong. A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild. I flung their notice to the river, child. I flung their notice to the river, child. They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun, and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.” At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled. I gave their “future” to the river, child. I gave their “future” to the river, child. My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold, a coin God stamped in His own image―BOLD. My blood boiled like that river―strange and wild. I died to hate in that dark river, child, Come, be reborn in this bright river, child. Originally published by Black Medina Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. Confirming his account, the medal was recovered by Robert Bradbury and his wife Pattie in 2014 during the Annual Ohio River Sweep, and the Ali family paid them $200,000 to regain possession of the medal. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying: “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a ****** The notice mentioned in my poem is Ali's draft notice, which metaphorically gets tossed into the river along with his slave name. I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in an Iranian publication called Bashgah. ―Michael R. Burch evol-u-shun by Michael R. Burch does GOD adore the Tyger while it’s ripping ur lamb apart? does GOD applaud the Plague while it’s eating u à la carte? does GOD admire ur intelligence while u pray that IT has a heart? does GOD endorse the Bible you blue-lighted at k-mart? Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name. Lament to the Spirit of War by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch You hack down everything you see, War God! Rising on fearsome wings you rush to destroy the land, descending like a raging storm, howling like a hurricane, screaming like a tempest, thundering, raging, ranting, drumming, whiplashing whirlwinds! Men falter at your approaching footsteps. Tortured dirges scream on your lyre of despair. Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land: growling over the earth like thunder, vegetation collapsing before you, blood gushing down a mountainside. Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance! ********** of heaven and earth! Your ferocious fire consumes our land. Whipping your stallion with furious commands, you decide our fate. You triumph over all human rites and prayers. Who can explain your tirade, why you go on so? Temple Hymn 15 to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch Most ancient and terrible shrine, set deep in the mountain, dark like a mother's womb... Dark shrine, like a mother's wounded breast, blood-red and terrifying... Though approaching through a safe-seeming field, our hair stands on end as we near you! Gishbanda, like a neck-stock, like a fine-eyed fish net, like a foot-shackled prisoner's manacles... your ramparts are massive, like a trap! But once we’re inside, as the sun rises, you yield widespread abundance! Your prince is the pure-handed priest of Inanna, heaven's Holy One, Lord Ningishzida! Oh, see how his thick, lustrous hair cascades down his back! Oh Gishbanda, he has built this beautiful temple to house your radiance! He has placed his throne upon your dais! The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and the high priestess of the Goddess Inanna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lady of all divine powers! Lady of the resplendent light! Righteous Lady adorned in heavenly radiance! Beloved Lady of An and Uraš! Hierodule of An, sun-adorned and bejeweled! Heaven’s Mistress with the holy diadem, Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her own high priestess! Powerful Mistress, seizer of the seven divine powers! My Heavenly Lady, guardian of the seven divine powers! You have seized the seven divine powers! You hold the divine powers in your hand! You have gathered together the seven divine powers! You have clasped the divine powers to your breast! You have flooded the valleys with venom, like a viper; all vegetation vanishes when you thunder like Iškur! You have caused the mountains to flood the valleys! When you roar like that, nothing on earth can withstand you! Like a flood descending on floodplains, O Powerful One, you will teach foreigners to fear Inanna! You have given wings to the storm, O Beloved of Enlil! The storms do your bidding, blasting the unbelievers! Foreign cities cower at the chaos You cause! Entire countries cower in dread of Your deadly South Wind! Men cower before you in their anguished implications, raising their pitiful outcries, weeping and wailing, beseeching Your benevolence with many wild lamentations! But in the van of battle, everything falls before You, O Mighty Queen! My Queen, You are all-conquering, all-devouring! You continue Your attacks like relentless storms! You howl louder than the howling storms! You thunder louder than Iškur! You moan louder than the mournful winds! Your feet never tire from trampling Your enemies! You produce much wailing on the lyres of lamentations! My Queen, all the Anunna, the mightiest Gods, fled before Your approach like fluttering bats! They could not stand in Your awesome Presence nor behold Your awesome Visage! Who can soothe Your infuriated heart? Your baleful heart is beyond being soothed! Uncontrollable Wild Cow, elder daughter of Sin, O Majestic Queen, greater than An, who has ever paid You enough homage? O Life-Giving Goddess, possessor of all powers, Inanna the Exalted! Merciful, Live-Giving Mother! Inanna, the Radiant of Heart! I have exalted You in accordance with Your power! I have bowed before You in my holy garb, I the En, I Enheduanna! Carrying my masab-basket, I once entered and uttered my joyous chants ... But now I no longer dwell in Your sanctuary. The sun rose and scorched me. Night fell and the South Wind overwhelmed me. My laughter was stilled and my honey-sweet voice grew strident. My joy became dust. O Sin, King of Heaven, how bitter my fate! To An, I declared: An will deliver me! I declared it to An: He will deliver me! But now the kingship of heaven has been seized by Inanna, at Whose feet the floodplains lie. Inanna the Exalted, who has made me tremble together with all Ur! Stay Her anger, or let Her heart be soothed by my supplications! I, Enheduanna will offer my supplications to Inanna, my tears flowing like sweet intoxicants! Yes, I will proffer my tears and my prayers to the Holy Inanna, I will greet Her in peace ... O My Queen, I have exalted You, Who alone are worthy to be exalted! O My Queen, Beloved of An, I have laid out Your daises, set fire to the coals, conducted the rites, prepared Your nuptial chamber. Now may Your heart embrace me! These are my innovations, O Mighty Queen, that I made for You! What I composed for You by the dark of night, The cantor will chant by day. Now Inanna’s heart has been restored, and the day became favorable to Her. Clothed in beauty, radiant with joy, she carried herself like the elegant moonlight. Now to the Noble Hierodule, to the Wrecker of foreign lands presented by An with the seven divine powers, and to my Queen garbed in the radiance of heaven ... O Inanna, praise! The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines, an Excerpt Nin-me-šara by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lady of all divine powers, Lady of the all-resplendent light, Righteous Lady clothed in heavenly radiance, Beloved Lady of An and Uraš, Mistress of heaven with the holy diadem, Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her high priestess, Powerful Mistress who has seized all seven divine powers, My lady, you are the guardian of the seven divine powers! You have seized the divine powers, You hold the divine powers in your hand, You have gathered up the divine powers, You have clasped the divine powers to your breast! Like a dragon you have spewed venom on foreign lands that know you not! When you roar like Iškur at the earth, nothing can withstand you! Like a flood descending on alien lands, O Powerful One of heaven and earth, you will teach them to fear Inanna! Temple Hymn 7: an Excerpt to the Kesh Temple of Ninhursag by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O, high-situated Kesh, form-shifting summit, inspiring fear like a venomous viper! O, Lady of the Mountains, Ninhursag’s house was constructed on a terrifying site! O, Kesh, like holy Aratta: your womb dark and deep, your walls high-towering and imposing! O, great lion of the wildlands stalking the high plains!... Temple Hymn 17: an Excerpt to the Badtibira Temple of Dumuzi by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O, house of jeweled lapis illuminating the radiant bed in the peace-inducing palace of our Lady of the Steppe! Temple Hymn 22: an Excerpt to the Sirara Temple of Nanshe by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O, house, you wild cow! Made to conjure signs of the Divine! You arise, beautiful to behold, bedecked for your Mistress! Temple Hymn 26: an Excerpt to the Zabalam Temple of Inanna by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O house illuminated by beams of bright light, dressed in shimmering stone jewels, awakening the world to awe! Temple Hymn 42: an Excerpt to the Eresh Temple of Nisaba by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O, house of brilliant stars bright with lapis stones, you illuminate all lands! ... The person who put this tablet together is Enheduanna. My king: something never created before, did she not give birth to it? Update of "A Litany in Time of Plague" by Michael R. Burch THE PLAGUE has come again To darken lives of men and women, girls and boys; Death proves their bodies toys Too frail to even cry. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us! Tycoons, what use is wealth? You cannot buy good health! Physicians cannot heal Themselves, to Death must kneel. Nuns’ prayers mount to the sky. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us! Beauty’s brightest flower? Devoured in an hour. Kings, Queens and Presidents Are fearful residents Of manors boarded high. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us! We have no means to save Our children from the grave. Though cure-alls line our shelves, We cannot save ourselves. "Come, come!" the sad bells cry. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us! NOTE: This poem is meant to capture the understandable fear and dismay the Plague caused in the Middle Ages, and which the coronavirus has caused in the 21st century. We are better equipped to deal with this modern plague, thanks to advances in science, medicine and sanitation. We do not have to succumb to fear, but it would be wise to have a healthy respect for the nasty bug and heed the advice of medical experts.--MRB Regret by Michael R. Burch Regret, a bitter ache to bear . . . once starlight languished in your hair . . . a shining there as brief as rare. Regret . . . a pain I chose to bear . . . unleash the torrent of your hair . . . and show me once again― how rare. Published by The HyperTexts and The Chained Muse The Stake by Michael R. Burch Love, the heart bets, if not without regrets, will still prove, in the end, worth the light we expend mining the dark for an exquisite heart. Originally published by The Lyric If by Michael R. Burch If I regret fire in the sunset exploding on the horizon, then let me regret loving you. If I forget even for a moment that you are the only one, then let me forget that the sky is blue. If I should yearn in a season of discontentment for the vagabond light of a companionless moon, let dawn remind me that you are my sun. If I should burn―one moment less brightly, one instant less true― then with wild scorching kisses, inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew. Originally published by The HyperTexts The Effects of Memory by Michael R. Burch A black ringlet curls to lie at the nape of her neck, glistening with sweat in the evaporate moonlight ... This is what I remember now that I cannot forget. And tonight, if I have forgotten her name, I remember: rigid wire and white lace half-impressed in her flesh ... our soft cries, like regret, ... the enameled white clips of her bra strap still inscribe dimpled marks that my kisses erase ... now that I have forgotten her face. Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender by Michael R. Burch for Beth She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget," Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren, because her heart is tender, might regret it called the sun to wake her. As I slept, she heard lost names recounted, one by one. She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget," and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept away those words, no tear leaves them undone. Because her heart is tender with regret, bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone that shatter on and on and on and on, she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET," and listens to her heart's emphatic song. The wren might tilt its head and sing along because its heart once understood regret when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond ... its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on. She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET" because her heart is tender with regret. To the boy Elis by Georg Trakl translation by Michael R. Burch Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest, it announces your downfall. Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness. Your brow sweats blood recalling ancient myths and dark interpretations of birds' flight. Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls; the ripe purple grapes hang suspended as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness. A thornbush crackles; where now are your moonlike eyes? How long, oh Elis, have you been dead? A monk dips waxed fingers into your body's hyacinth; Our silence is a black abyss from which sometimes a docile animal emerges slowly lowering its heavy lids. A black dew drips from your temples: the lost gold of vanished stars. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem. Turkish Poetry Translations Attilâ İlhan (1925-2005) was a Turkish poet, translator, novelist, screenwriter, editor, journalist, essayist, reviewer, socialist and intellectual. Ben Sana Mecburum: “You are indispensable” by Attila Ilhan translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch You are indispensable; how can you not know that you’re like nails riveting my brain? I see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions. You are indispensable; how can you not know that I burn within, at the thought of you? Trees prepare themselves for autumn; can this city be our lost Istanbul? Now clouds disintegrate in the darkness as the street lights flicker and the streets reek with rain. You are indispensable, and yet you are absent ... Love sometimes seems akin to terror: a man tires suddenly at nightfall, of living enslaved to the razor at his neck. Sometimes he wrings his hands, expunging other lives from his existence. Sometimes whichever door he knocks echoes back only heartache. A screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih ... a song about some Friday long ago. I stop to listen from a vacant corner, longing to bring you an untouched sky, but time disintegrates in my hands. Whatever I do, wherever I go, you are indispensable, and yet you are absent ... Are you the blue child of June? Ah, no one knows you―no one knows! Your deserted eyes are like distant freighters ... Perhaps you are boarding in Yesilköy? Are you drenched there, shivering with the rain that leaves you blind, beset, broken, with wind-disheveled hair? Whenever I think of life seated at the wolves’ table, shameless, yet without soiling our hands ... Yes, whenever I think of life, I begin with your name, defying the silence, and your secret tides surge within me making this voyage inevitable. You are indispensable; how can you not know? Fragments by Attila Ilhan loose English translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch The night is a cloudy-feathered owl, its quills like fine-spun glass. It gazes out the window, perched on my right shoulder, its wings outspread and huge. If the encroaching darkness seems devastating at first glance, the sovereign of everything, its reach infinite ... Still somewhere within a kernel of light glows secretly creating an enlightened forest of dialectics. In September’s waning days one thinks wanly of the arrival of fall like a ship appearing on the horizon with untrimmed, tattered sails; for some unfathomable reason fall is the time to consider one’s own demise― the body smothered by yellowed leaves like a corpse rotting in a ghoulish photograph ... Bitter words crack like whips snapping across prison yards ... Then there are words like pomegranate trees in bloom, words like the sun igniting the sea beyond mountainous horizons, flashing like mysterious knives ... Such words are the burning roses of an infinite imagination; they are born and they die with the flutterings of butterflies; we carry those words in our hearts like pregnant shotguns until the day we expire, martyred for the words we were prepared to die for ... What I wrote and what you understood? Curious and curiouser! Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem. Snapshot by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased; even when you lie underground, it encompasses you. So, those of you who anticipate the shadows, how long will the darkness remember you? Zulmü Alkislayamam "I Can’t Applaud Tyranny" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I can't condone cruelty; I will never applaud the oppressor; Yet I can't renounce the past for the sake of deluded newcomers. When someone curses my ancestors, I want to strangle them, Even if you don’t. But while I harbor my elders, I refuse to praise their injustices. Above all, I will never glorify evil, by calling injustice “justice.” From the day of my birth, I've loved freedom; The golden tulip never deceived me. If I am nonviolent, does that make me a docile sheep? The blade may slice, but my neck resists! When I see someone else's wound, I suffer a great hardship; To end it, I'll be whipped, I'll be beaten. I can't say, “Never mind, just forget it!” I'll mind, I'll crush, I'll be crushed, I'll uphold justice. I'm the foe of the oppressor, the friend of the oppressed. What the hell do you mean, with your backwardness? Çanakkale Sehitlerine "For the Çanakkale Martyrs" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war?― The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara, Forcing entry between her mountain passes To a triangle of land besieged by countless vessels. Oh, what dishonorable assemblages! Who are these Europeans, come as rapists? Who, these braying hyenas, released from their reeking cages? Why do the Old World, the New World, and all the nations of men now storm her beaches? Is it Armageddon? Truly, the whole world rages! Seven nations marching in unison! Australia goose-stepping with Canada! Different faces, languages, skin tones! Everything so different, but the mindless bludgeons! Some warriors Hindu, some African, some nameless, unknown! This disgraceful invasion, baser than the Black Death! Ah, the 20th century, so noble in its own estimation, But all its favored ones nothing but a parade of worthless wretches! For months now Turkish soldiers have been vomited up Like stomachs’ retched contents regarded with shame. If the masks had not been torn away, the faces would still be admired, But the ***** called civilization is far from blameless. Now the ****** demand the destruction of the doomed And thus bring destruction down on their own heads. Lightning severs horizons! Earthquakes regurgitate the bodies of the dead! Bombs’ thunderbolts explode brains, rupture the ******* of brave soldiers. Underground tunnels writhe like hell Full of the bodies of burn victims. The sky rains down death, the earth swallows the living. A terrible blizzard heaves men violently into the air. Heads, eyes, torsos, legs, arms, chins, fingers, hands, feet ... Body parts rain down everywhere. Coward hands encased in armor callously scatter Floods of thunderbolts, torrents of fire. Men’s chests gape open, Beneath the high, circling vulture-like packs of the air. Cannonballs fly as frequently as bullets Yet the heroic army laughs at the hail. Who needs steel fortresses? Who fears the enemy? How can the shield of faith not prevail? What power can make religious men bow down to their oppressors When their stronghold is established by God? The mountains and the rocks are the bodies of martyrs! ... For the sake of a crescent, oh God, many suns set, undone! Dear soldier, who fell for the sake of this land, How great you are, your blood saves the Muslims! Only the lions of Bedr rival your glory! Who then can dig the grave wide enough to hold you. and your story? If we try to consign you to history, you will not fit! No book can contain the eras you shook! Only eternities can encompass you! ... Oh martyr, son of the martyr, do not ask me about the grave: The prophet awaits you now, his arms flung wide open, to save! Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”) by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch for the refugees The time to weigh anchor has come; a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown, cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts. No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure; the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief, scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring ... Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing! There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life! The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile, for they cannot know where the vanished are bound. Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves, since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey. Full Moon by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch You are so lovely the full moon just might delight in your rising, as curious and bright, to vanquish night. But what can a mortal man do, dear, but hope? I’ll ponder your mysteries and (hmmmm) try to cope. We both know you have every right to say no. The Music of the Snow by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years! This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years! Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery, It rises from a choir of a hundred voices! As the organ’s harmonies resound profoundly, I share the sufferings of Slavic grief. My mind drifts far from this city, this era, To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey. Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear, With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul! Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me; I keep them at bay all night with my dreams! Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer. Thinking of you by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Thinking of you is beautiful, hopeful― like listening to the most beautiful songs sung by the earth's most beautiful voices. But hope is insufficient for me now; I don't want to listen to songs. I want to sing love into birth. I love you by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you― like dipping bread into salt and eating; like waking at night with a raging fever and thirstily lapping up water, my mouth to the silver tap; like unwrapping the unwieldy box the postman delivers, unable to guess what's inside, feeling fluttery, happy, doubtful. I love you― like flying over the sea the first time as something stirs within me while the sky softly darkens over Istanbul. I love you― as men thank God gratefully for life. Sparrow by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Little sparrow, perched on the clothesline, do you regard me with pity? Even so, I will watch you soar away through the white spring leaves. The Divan of the Lover the oldest extant Turkish poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch All the universe as one great sign is shown: God revealed in his creative acts unknown. Who sees or understands them, jinn or men? Such works lie far beyond mere mortals’ ken. Nor can man’s mind or reason reach that strand, Nor mortal tongue name Him who rules that land. Since He chose nothingness with life to vest, who dares to trouble God with worms’ behests? For eighteen thousand worlds, lain end to end, Do not with Him one atom's worth transcend! Fragment by Prince Jem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Behold! The torrent, dashing against the rocks, flails wildly. The entire vast realm of Space and Being oppresses my soul idly. Through bitterness of grief and woe the sky has rent its morning robe. Look! See how in its eastern palace, the sun is a ****** globe! The clouds of heaven rain bright tears on the distant mountain peaks. Oh, hear how the deeply wounded thunder slowly, mournfully speaks! An Ecstasy of Fumbling by Michael R. Burch The poets believe everything resolves to metaphor— a distillation, a vapor beyond filtration, though perhaps not quite as volatile as before. The poets conceive of death in the trenches as the price of art, not war, fumbling with their masque-like dissertations to describe the Hollywood-like gore as something beyond belief, abstracting concrete bunkers to Achaemenid bas-relief. Excerpts from “Travels with Einstein” by Michael R. Burch for Trump I went to Berlin to learn wisdom from Adolph. The wild spittle flew as he screamed at me, with great conviction: “Please despise me! I look like a Jew!” So I flew off to ’Nam to learn wisdom from tall Yankees who cursed “yellow” foes. “If we lose this small square,” they informed me, earth’s nations will fall, dominoes!” I then sat at Christ’s feet to learn wisdom, but his Book, from its genesis to close, said: “Men can enslave their own brothers!” (I soon noticed he lacked any clothes.) So I traveled to bright Tel Aviv where great scholars with lofty IQs informed me that (since I’m an Arab) I’m unfit to lick dirt from their shoes. At last, done with learning, I stumbled to a well where the waters seemed sweet: the mirage of American “justice.” There I wept a real sea, in defeat. Originally published by Café Dissensus The Leveler by Michael R. Burch The nature of Nature is bitter survival from Winter’s bleak fury till Spring’s brief revival. The weak implore Fate; bold men ravish, dishevel her . . . till both are cut down by mere ticks of the Leveler. I believe I wrote this poem around age 20, in 1978 or thereabouts. It has since been published in The Lyric, Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly and The Aurorean. The Hippopotami by Michael R. Burch There’s no seeing eye to eye with the awesomely huge Hippopotami: on the bank, you’re much taller; going under, you’re smaller and assuredly destined to die! Ballade of the Bicameral Camel by Michael R. Burch There once was a camel who loved to **** Please get your lewd minds out of their slump! He loved to give RIDES on his large, lordly lump! The Echoless Green by Michael R. Burch for and after William Blake At dawn, laughter rang on the echoing green as children at play greeted the day. At noon, smiles were seen on the echoing green as, children no more, many fine vows they swore. By twilight, their cries had subsided to sighs. Now night reigns supreme on the echoless green. Unlikely Mike by Michael R. Burch I married someone else’s fantasy; she admired me despite my mutilations. I loved her for her heart’s sake, and for mine. I hid my face and changed its connotations. And in the dark I danced—slight, Chaplinesque— a metaphor myself. How could they know, the undiscerning ones, that in the glow of spotlights, sometimes love becomes burlesque? Disfigured to my soul, I could not lose or choose or name myself; I came to be another of life’s odd dichotomies, like Dickey’s Sheep Boy, Pan, or David Cruse: as pale, as enigmatic. White, or black? My color was a song, a changing track. Spring Was Delayed by Michael R. Burch Winter came early: the driving snows, the delicate frosts that crystallize all we forget or refuse to know, all we regret that makes us wise. Spring was delayed: the nubile rose, the tentative sun, the wind’s soft sighs, all we omit or refuse to show, whatever we shield behind guarded eyes. Originally published by Borderless Journal The Shijing or Shi Jing (“Book of Songs” or “Book of Odes”) is the oldest Chinese poetry collection, with the poems included believed to date from around 1200 BC to 600 BC. According to tradition the poems were selected and edited by Confucius himself. Since most ancient poetry did not rhyme, these may be the world’s oldest extant rhyming poems. Shijing Ode #4: “JIU MU” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches thick with vines that make them shady, we find our lovely princely lady: May she repose in happiness! In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches whose clinging vines make hot days shady, we wish love’s embrace for our lovely lady: May she repose in happiness! In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches whose vines, entwining, make them shady, we wish true love for our lovely lady: May she repose in happiness! Shijing Ode #6: “TAO YAO” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The peach tree is elegant and tender; its flowers are fragrant, and bright. A young lady now enters her future home and will manage it well, day and night. The peach tree is elegant and tender; its fruits are abundant, and sweet. A young lady now enters her future home and will make it welcome to everyone she greets. The peach tree is elegant and tender; it shelters with bough, leaf and flower. A young lady now enters her future home and will make it her family’s bower. Shijing Ode #9: “HAN GUANG” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch In the South tall trees without branches offer men no shelter. By the Han the girls loiter, but it’s vain to entice them. For the breadth of the Han cannot be swum and the length of the Jiang requires more than a raft. When cords of firewood are needed, I would cut down tall thorns to bring them more. Those girls on their way to their future homes? I would feed their horses. But the breadth of the Han cannot be swum and the length of the Jiang requires more than a raft. When cords of firewood are needed, I would cut down tall trees to bring them more. Those girls on their way to their future homes? I would feed their colts. But the breadth of the Han cannot be swum and the length of the Jiang requires more than a raft. Shijing Ode #10: “RU FEN” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch By raised banks of the Ru, I cut down branches in the brake. Not seeing my lord caused me heartache. By raised banks of the Ru, I cut down branches by the tide. When I saw my lord at last, he did not cast me aside. The bream flashes its red tail; the royal court’s a blazing fire. Though it blazes afar, still his loved ones are near ... It was apparently believed that the bream’s tail turned red when it was in danger. Here the term “lord” does not necessarily mean the man in question was a royal himself. Chinese women of that era often called their husbands “lord.” Take, for instance, Ezra Pound’s famous loose translation “The River Merchant’s Wife.” Speaking of Pound, I borrowed the word “brake” from his translation of this poem, although I worked primarily from more accurate translations. In the final line, it may be that the wife or lover is suggesting that no matter what happens, the man in question will have a place to go, or perhaps she is urging him to return regardless. The original poem had “mother and father” rather than “family” or “loved ones,” but in those days young married couples often lived with the husband’s parents. So a suggestion to return to his parents could be a suggestion to return to his wife as well. Shijing Ode #12: “QUE CHAO” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The nest is the magpie's but the dove occupies it. A young lady’s soon heading to her future home; a hundred carriages will attend her. The nest is the magpie's but the dove takes it over. A young lady’s soon heading to her future home; a hundred carriages will escort her. The nest is the magpie's but the dove possesses it. A young lady’s soon heading to her future home; a hundred carriages complete her procession. Shijing Ode #26: “BO ZHOU” from “The Odes of Bei” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This cypress-wood boat floats about, meandering with the current. Meanwhile, I am distraught and sleepless, as if inflicted with a painful wound. Not because I have no wine, and can’t wander aimlessly about! But my mind is not a mirror able to echo all impressions. Yes, I have brothers, but they are undependable. I meet their anger with silence. My mind is not a stone to be easily cast aside. My mind is not a mat to be conveniently rolled up. My conduct so far has been exemplary, with nothing to criticize. Yet my anxious heart hesitates because I’m hated by the herd, inflicted with many distresses, heaped with insults, not a few. Silently I consider my case, until, startled, as if from sleep, I clutch my breast. Consider the sun and the moon: how did the latter exceed the former? Now sorrow clings to my heart like an unwashed dress. Silently I consider my options, but lack the wings to fly away. The Drawer of Mermaids by Michael R. Burch This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out. Although I am only four years old, they say that I have an old soul. I must have been born long, long ago, here, where the eerie mountains glow at night, in the Urals. A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes; now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking fills us with dread. (Still, my momma hopes that I will soon walk with my new legs.) It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss, drawing the mermaids under the ledges. (Observing, Papa will kiss me in all his distracted joy; but why does he cry?) And there is a boy who whispers my name. Then I am not lame; for I leap, and I follow. (G’amma brings a wiseman who says our infirmities are ours, not God’s, that someday a beautiful Child will return from the stars, and then my new fingers will grow if only I trust Him; and so I am preparing to meet Him, to go, should He care to receive me.) Keywords/Tags: mermaid, mermaids, child, children, childhood, Urals, Ural Mountains, soul, soulmate, radiation On the Horns of a Dilemma (I) by Michael R. Burch Love has become preposterous for the over-endowed rhinoceros: when he meets the right miss how the hell can he kiss when his horn is so ***** it lofts her thus? I need an artist or cartoonist to create an image of a male rhino lifting his prospective mate into the air during an abortive kiss. Any takers? On the Horns of a Dilemma (II) by Michael R. Burch Love has become preposterous for the over-endowed rhinoceros: when he meets the right miss how the hell can he kiss when his horn deforms her esophagus? On the Horns of a Dilemma (III) by Michael R. Burch A wino rhino said, “I know! I have a horn I cannot blow! And so, ergo, I’ll watch the lovely spigot flow! The Horns of a Dilemma Solved, if not Solvent by Michael R. Burch A wine-addled rhino debated the prospect of living unmated due to the scorn gals showed for his horn, then lost it to poachers, sedated. The Arrival of the Sea Lions by Michael R. Burch The sound of hounds resounds in the sound. Hounds Impounded by Michael R. Burch The sound of hounds resounds in the pound. Prince Kiwi the Great by Michael R. Burch Kiwi’s a pee-wee but incredibly bright: he sleeps half the day, pretending it’s night! Prince Kiwi commands us with his regal air: “Come, humans, and serve me, or I’ll yank your hair!” Kiwi cries “Kree! Kree!” when he wants to be fed ... suns, preens, flutters, showers, then it’s off to bed. Kiwi’s a pee-wee but incredibly bright: he sleeps half the day, pretending it’s night! Kiwi is our family’s green-cheeked parakeet. Parakeets need to sleep around 12 hours per day, hence the pun on “bright” and “half the day.” Ah! Sunflower by Michael R. Burch after William Blake O little yellow flower like a star ... how beautiful, how wonderful we are! Published as the collection "When Pigs Fly"
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Feb 22, 2020
Feb 22, 2020 at 5:56 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
When Pigs Fly
These are modern English translations of Native American poems, proverbs, prayers, blessings and sayings, translated by Michael R. Burch. When Pigs Fly by Michael R. Burch On the Trail of Tears, my Cherokee brothers, why hang your heads? Why shame your mothers? Laugh wildly instead! We will soon be dead. When we lie in our graves, let the white-eyes take the woodlands we loved for the *** and the rake. It is better to die than to live out a lie in so narrow a sty. In October 1838 the Cherokees began to walk the "Trail of Tears." Most of them made the thousand mile journey west to Oklahoma on foot. An estimated 4,000 people, or a quarter of the tribe, died en route. The soldiers "escorting" the Cherokees at bayonet point refused permission for the dead to be buried, threatening to shoot anyone who disobeyed. So the living were forced to carry the corpses of the dead until camp was made for the night. Years after the Cherokees had been rounded up and driven down the Trail of Tears, John G. Burnett reflected on what he and his fellow soldiers had done, saying, "Schoolchildren of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point, to satisfy the white man's greed... ****** is ****** and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country... Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile." Keywords/Tags: Cherokee, Native American, Trail of Tears, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, ****** Evil, Death, March, Death March, Infanticide, Matricide, Racism, Racist, Discrimination, Violence, Fascism, White Supremacists, Horror, Terror, Terrorism, Greed, Gluttony, Avarice, Lust, **** mrbpig, mrbpigs Cherokee Prayer loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As I walk life's trails imperiled by the raging wind and rain, grant, O Great Spirit, that yet I may always walk like a man. This prayer makes me think of Native Americans walking the Trail of Tears with far more courage and dignity than their “civilized” abusers. Native American Prayer loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Help us learn the lessons you have left us in every leaf and rock. Dream Song of the Thunders Chippewa saying translation by Michael R. Burch Sometimes I bemoan my “plight” when all the while the wind bears me across the immense sky. Native American Travelers' Blessing loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let us walk together here among earth's creatures great and small, remembering, our footsteps light, that one wise God created all. Sioux Vision Quest 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. Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I will extract the thorns from your feet. For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together. I will love you like my own brother, my own blood. When you are disconsolate, I will wipe the tears from your eyes. And when you are too sad to live, I will put your aching heart to rest. Published by Better Than Starbucks and Cherokee Native Americans Cherokee Travelers' Blessing II loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Happily may you walk in the paths of the Rainbow.                   Oh, and may it always be beautiful before you, beautiful behind you, beautiful below you, beautiful above you, and beautiful all around you where in Perfection beauty is finished. Published by Better Than Starbucks Cherokee Travelers' Blessing III loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch May Heaven’s warming winds blow gently there, where you reside, and may the Great Spirit bless all those you love, this side of the farthest tide. And wherever you go, whether the journey is fast or slow, may your moccasins leave many cunning footprints in the snow. And when you look over your shoulder, may you always find the Rainbow. Published by Better Than Starbucks What is life? The flash of a firefly. The breath of the winter buffalo. The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset. ―Blackfoot saying, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Warrior's Confession loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Oh my love, how fair you are— far brighter than the fairest star! Cherokee 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. Cherokee Prayer loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As I walk life's trails imperiled by the raging wind and rain, grant, O Great Spirit, that yet I may always walk like a man. When I think of this prayer, I think of Native Americans walking the Trail of Tears. The Receiving of the Flower excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let us sing overflowing with joy as we observe the Receiving of the Flower. The lovely maidens beam; their hearts leap in their ******* Why? Because they will soon yield their virginity to the men they love! The Deflowering excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Remove your clothes; let down your hair; become as naked as the day you were born— virgins! Prelude to ********** excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lay out your most beautiful clothes, maidens! The day of happiness has arrived! Grab your combs, detangle your hair, adorn your earlobes with gaudy pendants. Dress in white as becomes maidens ... Then go, give your lovers the happiness of your laughter! And all the village will rejoice with you, for the day of happiness has arrived! The Flower-Strewn Pool excerpt from a Mayan love poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You have arrived at last in the woods where no one can see what you do at the flower-strewn pool ... Remove your clothes, unbraid your hair, become as you were when you first arrived here naked and shameless, virgins, maidens! Native American Proverbs The soul would see no Rainbows if not for the eyes’ tears. —loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A woman’s highest calling is to help her man unite with the Source. A man’s highest calling is to help his woman walk the earth unharmed. —loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. —White Elk, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What is life? The flash of a firefly. The breath of a winter buffalo. The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset. —Blackfoot saying, translation by Michael R. Burch Speak less thunder, wield more lightning. — Apache proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch The more we wonder, the more we understand. — Arapaho proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Adults talk, children whine. — Blackfoot proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Don’t be afraid to cry: it will lessen your sorrow. — Hopi proverb One foot in the boat, one foot in the canoe, and you end up in the river. — Tuscarora proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Our enemy's weakness increases our strength. — Cherokee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch We will be remembered tomorrow by the tracks we leave today. — Dakota proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch No sound's as eloquent as a rattlesnake's tail. — Navajo saying, translation by Michael R. Burch The heart is our first teacher. — Cheyenne proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Dreams beget success. — Maricopa proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Knowledge interprets the past, wisdom foresees the future. — Lumbee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch The troublemaker's way is thorny. — Umpqua proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch Earthbound an original poem by Michael R. Burch Tashunka Witko, better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse. Earthbound, and yet I now fly through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting ... so high that no sound echoing by below where the mountains are lifting the sky can be heard. Like a bird, but not meek, like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey, I will shriek, not a word, but a screech, and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay— the sheep, the earthbound. Years after the Cherokees had been rounded up and driven down the Trail of Tears, John G. Burnett reflected on what he and his fellow soldiers had done, saying, "Schoolchildren of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point, to satisfy the white man's greed ... ****** is ****** and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country ... Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile." In the same year, 1830, that Stonewall Jackson consigned Native Americans to the ash-heap of history, Georgia Governor George Gilmer said, "Treaties are expedients by which ignorant, intractable, and savage people are induced ... to yield up what civilized people have the right to possess." By "civilized" he apparently meant people willing to brutally dispossess and **** women and children in order to derive economic benefits for themselves. These nights bring dreams of Cherokee shamans whose names are bright verbs and impacted dark nouns, whose memories are indictments of my pallid flesh . . . and I hear, as from a great distance, the cries tortured from their guileless lips, proclaiming the nature of my mutation. ―Michael R. Burch, from "Mongrel Dreams" (my family is part Cherokee, English and Scottish) After Jackson was re-elected with an overwhelming majority in 1832, he strenuously pursued his policy of removing Native Americans, even refusing to accept a Supreme Court ruling which invalidated Georgia's planned annexation of Cherokee land. But in the double-dealing logic of the white supremacists, they had to make the illegal resettlement of the Indians appear to be "legal," so a small group of Cherokees were persuaded to sign the "Treaty of New Echota," which swapped Cherokee land for land in the Oklahoma territory. The Cherokee ringleaders of this infamous plot were later assassinated as traitors. ****** was similarly obsessed with the "legalities" of the **** Holocaust; isn't it strange how mass murderers of women and children can seek to justify their crimes?) Native Americans understood the "circle of life" better than their white oppressors ... When we sit in the Circle of the People, we must be responsible because all Creation is related and the suffering of one is the suffering of all and the joy of one is the joy of all and whatever we do affects everything in the universe. —"Lakota Instructions for Living" by White Buffalo Calf Woman, translated by Michael R. Burch Veiled by Michael R. Burch She has belief without comprehension and in her crutchwork shack she is much like us . . . tamping the bread into edible forms, regarding her children at play with something akin to relief . . . ignoring the towers ablaze in the distance because they are not revelations but things of glass, easily shattered . . . and if you were to ask her, she might say: sometimes God visits his wrath upon an impious nation for its leaders’ sins, and we might agree: seeing her mutilations. Published by Poetry Super Highway and Modern War Poems. Ali’s Song by Michael R. Burch They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so. They say it has a wild, unearthly glow. A man can be more beautiful, more wild. I flung their medal to the river, child. I flung their medal to the river, child. They hung their coin around my neck; they made my name a bridle, “called a ***** a ***** They say their gold is pure. I say defiled. I flung their slave’s name to the river, child. I flung their slave’s name to the river, child. Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong that never called me ****** did me wrong. A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild. I flung their notice to the river, child. I flung their notice to the river, child. They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun, and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.” At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled. I gave their “future” to the river, child. I gave their “future” to the river, child. My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold, a coin God stamped in His own image―BOLD. My blood boiled like that river―strange and wild. I died to hate in that dark river, child, Come, be reborn in this bright river, child. Originally published by Black Medina Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. Confirming his account, the medal was recovered by Robert Bradbury and his wife Pattie in 2014 during the Annual Ohio River Sweep, and the Ali family paid them $200,000 to regain possession of the medal. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying: “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a ****** The notice mentioned in my poem is Ali's draft notice, which metaphorically gets tossed into the river along with his slave name. I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in an Iranian publication called Bashgah. ―Michael R. Burch evol-u-shun by Michael R. Burch does GOD adore the Tyger while it’s ripping ur lamb apart? does GOD applaud the Plague while it’s eating u à la carte? does GOD admire ur intelligence while u pray that IT has a heart? does GOD endorse the Bible you blue-lighted at k-mart? Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name. Lament to the Spirit of War by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch You hack down everything you see, War God! Rising on fearsome wings you rush to destroy the land, descending like a raging storm, howling like a hurricane, screaming like a tempest, thundering, raging, ranting, drumming, whiplashing whirlwinds! Men falter at your approaching footsteps. Tortured dirges scream on your lyre of despair. Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land: growling over the earth like thunder, vegetation collapsing before you, blood gushing down a mountainside. Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance! ********** of heaven and earth! Your ferocious fire consumes our land. Whipping your stallion with furious commands, you decide our fate. You triumph over all human rites and prayers. Who can explain your tirade, why you go on so? Temple Hymn 15 to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch Most ancient and terrible shrine, set deep in the mountain, dark like a mother's womb... Dark shrine, like a mother's wounded breast, blood-red and terrifying... Though approaching through a safe-seeming field, our hair stands on end as we near you! Gishbanda, like a neck-stock, like a fine-eyed fish net, like a foot-shackled prisoner's manacles... your ramparts are massive, like a trap! But once we’re inside, as the sun rises, you yield widespread abundance! Your prince is the pure-handed priest of Inanna, heaven's Holy One, Lord Ningishzida! Oh, see how his thick, lustrous hair cascades down his back! Oh Gishbanda, he has built this beautiful temple to house your radiance! He has placed his throne upon your dais! The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and the high priestess of the Goddess Inanna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lady of all divine powers! Lady of the resplendent light! Righteous Lady adorned in heavenly radiance! Beloved Lady of An and Uraš! Hierodule of An, sun-adorned and bejeweled! Heaven’s Mistress with the holy diadem, Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her own high priestess! Powerful Mistress, seizer of the seven divine powers! My Heavenly Lady, guardian of the seven divine powers! You have seized the seven divine powers! You hold the divine powers in your hand! You have gathered together the seven divine powers! You have clasped the divine powers to your breast! You have flooded the valleys with venom, like a viper; all vegetation vanishes when you thunder like Iškur! You have caused the mountains to flood the valleys! When you roar like that, nothing on earth can withstand you! Like a flood descending on floodplains, O Powerful One, you will teach foreigners to fear Inanna! You have given wings to the storm, O Beloved of Enlil! The storms do your bidding, blasting the unbelievers! Foreign cities cower at the chaos You cause! Entire countries cower in dread of Your deadly South Wind! Men cower before you in their anguished implications, raising their pitiful outcries, weeping and wailing, beseeching Your benevolence with many wild lamentations! But in the van of battle, everything falls before You, O Mighty Queen! My Queen, You are all-conquering, all-devouring! You continue Your attacks like relentless storms! You howl louder than the howling storms! You thunder louder than Iškur! You moan louder than the mournful winds! Your feet never tire from trampling Your enemies! You produce much wailing on the lyres of lamentations! My Queen, all the Anunna, the mightiest Gods, fled before Your approach like fluttering bats! They could not stand in Your awesome Presence nor behold Your awesome Visage! Who can soothe Your infuriated heart? Your baleful heart is beyond being soothed! Uncontrollable Wild Cow, elder daughter of Sin, O Majestic Queen, greater than An, who has ever paid You enough homage? O Life-Giving Goddess, possessor of all powers, Inanna the Exalted! Merciful, Live-Giving Mother! Inanna, the Radiant of Heart! I have exalted You in accordance with Your power! I have bowed before You in my holy garb, I the En, I Enheduanna! Carrying my masab-basket, I once entered and uttered my joyous chants ... But now I no longer dwell in Your sanctuary. The sun rose and scorched me. Night fell and the South Wind overwhelmed me. My laughter was stilled and my honey-sweet voice grew strident. My joy became dust. O Sin, King of Heaven, how bitter my fate! To An, I declared: An will deliver me! I declared it to An: He will deliver me! But now the kingship of heaven has been seized by Inanna, at Whose feet the floodplains lie. Inanna the Exalted, who has made me tremble together with all Ur! Stay Her anger, or let Her heart be soothed by my supplications! I, Enheduanna will offer my supplications to Inanna, my tears flowing like sweet intoxicants! Yes, I will proffer my tears and my prayers to the Holy Inanna, I will greet Her in peace ... O My Queen, I have exalted You, Who alone are worthy to be exalted! O My Queen, Beloved of An, I have laid out Your daises, set fire to the coals, conducted the rites, prepared Your nuptial chamber. Now may Your heart embrace me! These are my innovations, O Mighty Queen, that I made for You! What I composed for You by the dark of night, The cantor will chant by day. Now Inanna’s heart has been restored, and the day became favorable to Her. Clothed in beauty, radiant with joy, she carried herself like the elegant moonlight. Now to the Noble Hierodule, to the Wrecker of foreign lands presented by An with the seven divine powers, and to my Queen garbed in the radiance of heaven ... O Inanna, praise! The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines, an Excerpt Nin-me-šara by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lady of all divine powers, Lady of the all-resplendent light, Righteous Lady clothed in heavenly radiance, Beloved Lady of An and Uraš, Mistress of heaven with the holy diadem, Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her high priestess, Powerful Mistress who has seized all seven divine powers, My lady, you are the guardian of the seven divine powers! You have seized the divine powers, You hold the divine powers in your hand, You have gathered up the divine powers, You have clasped the divine powers to your breast! Like a dragon you have spewed venom on foreign lands that know you not! When you roar like Iškur at the earth, nothing can withstand you! Like a flood descending on alien lands, O Powerful One of heaven and earth, you will teach them to fear Inanna! Temple Hymn 7: an Excerpt to the Kesh Temple of Ninhursag by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O, high-situated Kesh, form-shifting summit, inspiring fear like a venomous viper! O, Lady of the Mountains, Ninhursag’s house was constructed on a terrifying site! O, Kesh, like holy Aratta: your womb dark and deep, your walls high-towering and imposing! O, great lion of the wildlands stalking the high plains!... Temple Hymn 17: an Excerpt to the Badtibira Temple of Dumuzi by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O, house of jeweled lapis illuminating the radiant bed in the peace-inducing palace of our Lady of the Steppe! Temple Hymn 22: an Excerpt to the Sirara Temple of Nanshe by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O, house, you wild cow! Made to conjure signs of the Divine! You arise, beautiful to behold, bedecked for your Mistress! Temple Hymn 26: an Excerpt to the Zabalam Temple of Inanna by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O house illuminated by beams of bright light, dressed in shimmering stone jewels, awakening the world to awe! Temple Hymn 42: an Excerpt to the Eresh Temple of Nisaba by Enheduanna loose translation by Michael R. Burch O, house of brilliant stars bright with lapis stones, you illuminate all lands! ... The person who put this tablet together is Enheduanna. My king: something never created before, did she not give birth to it? Update of "A Litany in Time of Plague" by Michael R. Burch THE PLAGUE has come again To darken lives of men and women, girls and boys; Death proves their bodies toys Too frail to even cry. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us! Tycoons, what use is wealth? You cannot buy good health! Physicians cannot heal Themselves, to Death must kneel. Nuns’ prayers mount to the sky. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us! Beauty’s brightest flower? Devoured in an hour. Kings, Queens and Presidents Are fearful residents Of manors boarded high. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us! We have no means to save Our children from the grave. Though cure-alls line our shelves, We cannot save ourselves. "Come, come!" the sad bells cry. I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us! NOTE: This poem is meant to capture the understandable fear and dismay the Plague caused in the Middle Ages, and which the coronavirus has caused in the 21st century. We are better equipped to deal with this modern plague, thanks to advances in science, medicine and sanitation. We do not have to succumb to fear, but it would be wise to have a healthy respect for the nasty bug and heed the advice of medical experts.--MRB Regret by Michael R. Burch Regret, a bitter ache to bear . . . once starlight languished in your hair . . . a shining there as brief as rare. Regret . . . a pain I chose to bear . . . unleash the torrent of your hair . . . and show me once again― how rare. Published by The HyperTexts and The Chained Muse The Stake by Michael R. Burch Love, the heart bets, if not without regrets, will still prove, in the end, worth the light we expend mining the dark for an exquisite heart. Originally published by The Lyric If by Michael R. Burch If I regret fire in the sunset exploding on the horizon, then let me regret loving you. If I forget even for a moment that you are the only one, then let me forget that the sky is blue. If I should yearn in a season of discontentment for the vagabond light of a companionless moon, let dawn remind me that you are my sun. If I should burn―one moment less brightly, one instant less true― then with wild scorching kisses, inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew. Originally published by The HyperTexts The Effects of Memory by Michael R. Burch A black ringlet curls to lie at the nape of her neck, glistening with sweat in the evaporate moonlight ... This is what I remember now that I cannot forget. And tonight, if I have forgotten her name, I remember: rigid wire and white lace half-impressed in her flesh ... our soft cries, like regret, ... the enameled white clips of her bra strap still inscribe dimpled marks that my kisses erase ... now that I have forgotten her face. Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender by Michael R. Burch for Beth She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget," Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren, because her heart is tender, might regret it called the sun to wake her. As I slept, she heard lost names recounted, one by one. She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget," and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept away those words, no tear leaves them undone. Because her heart is tender with regret, bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone that shatter on and on and on and on, she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET," and listens to her heart's emphatic song. The wren might tilt its head and sing along because its heart once understood regret when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond ... its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on. She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET" because her heart is tender with regret. To the boy Elis by Georg Trakl translation by Michael R. Burch Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest, it announces your downfall. Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness. Your brow sweats blood recalling ancient myths and dark interpretations of birds' flight. Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls; the ripe purple grapes hang suspended as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness. A thornbush crackles; where now are your moonlike eyes? How long, oh Elis, have you been dead? A monk dips waxed fingers into your body's hyacinth; Our silence is a black abyss from which sometimes a docile animal emerges slowly lowering its heavy lids. A black dew drips from your temples: the lost gold of vanished stars. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem. Turkish Poetry Translations Attilâ İlhan (1925-2005) was a Turkish poet, translator, novelist, screenwriter, editor, journalist, essayist, reviewer, socialist and intellectual. Ben Sana Mecburum: “You are indispensable” by Attila Ilhan translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch You are indispensable; how can you not know that you’re like nails riveting my brain? I see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions. You are indispensable; how can you not know that I burn within, at the thought of you? Trees prepare themselves for autumn; can this city be our lost Istanbul? Now clouds disintegrate in the darkness as the street lights flicker and the streets reek with rain. You are indispensable, and yet you are absent ... Love sometimes seems akin to terror: a man tires suddenly at nightfall, of living enslaved to the razor at his neck. Sometimes he wrings his hands, expunging other lives from his existence. Sometimes whichever door he knocks echoes back only heartache. A screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih ... a song about some Friday long ago. I stop to listen from a vacant corner, longing to bring you an untouched sky, but time disintegrates in my hands. Whatever I do, wherever I go, you are indispensable, and yet you are absent ... Are you the blue child of June? Ah, no one knows you―no one knows! Your deserted eyes are like distant freighters ... Perhaps you are boarding in Yesilköy? Are you drenched there, shivering with the rain that leaves you blind, beset, broken, with wind-disheveled hair? Whenever I think of life seated at the wolves’ table, shameless, yet without soiling our hands ... Yes, whenever I think of life, I begin with your name, defying the silence, and your secret tides surge within me making this voyage inevitable. You are indispensable; how can you not know? Fragments by Attila Ilhan loose English translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch The night is a cloudy-feathered owl, its quills like fine-spun glass. It gazes out the window, perched on my right shoulder, its wings outspread and huge. If the encroaching darkness seems devastating at first glance, the sovereign of everything, its reach infinite ... Still somewhere within a kernel of light glows secretly creating an enlightened forest of dialectics. In September’s waning days one thinks wanly of the arrival of fall like a ship appearing on the horizon with untrimmed, tattered sails; for some unfathomable reason fall is the time to consider one’s own demise― the body smothered by yellowed leaves like a corpse rotting in a ghoulish photograph ... Bitter words crack like whips snapping across prison yards ... Then there are words like pomegranate trees in bloom, words like the sun igniting the sea beyond mountainous horizons, flashing like mysterious knives ... Such words are the burning roses of an infinite imagination; they are born and they die with the flutterings of butterflies; we carry those words in our hearts like pregnant shotguns until the day we expire, martyred for the words we were prepared to die for ... What I wrote and what you understood? Curious and curiouser! Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem. Snapshot by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased; even when you lie underground, it encompasses you. So, those of you who anticipate the shadows, how long will the darkness remember you? Zulmü Alkislayamam "I Can’t Applaud Tyranny" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I can't condone cruelty; I will never applaud the oppressor; Yet I can't renounce the past for the sake of deluded newcomers. When someone curses my ancestors, I want to strangle them, Even if you don’t. But while I harbor my elders, I refuse to praise their injustices. Above all, I will never glorify evil, by calling injustice “justice.” From the day of my birth, I've loved freedom; The golden tulip never deceived me. If I am nonviolent, does that make me a docile sheep? The blade may slice, but my neck resists! When I see someone else's wound, I suffer a great hardship; To end it, I'll be whipped, I'll be beaten. I can't say, “Never mind, just forget it!” I'll mind, I'll crush, I'll be crushed, I'll uphold justice. I'm the foe of the oppressor, the friend of the oppressed. What the hell do you mean, with your backwardness? Çanakkale Sehitlerine "For the Çanakkale Martyrs" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war?― The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara, Forcing entry between her mountain passes To a triangle of land besieged by countless vessels. Oh, what dishonorable assemblages! Who are these Europeans, come as rapists? Who, these braying hyenas, released from their reeking cages? Why do the Old World, the New World, and all the nations of men now storm her beaches? Is it Armageddon? Truly, the whole world rages! Seven nations marching in unison! Australia goose-stepping with Canada! Different faces, languages, skin tones! Everything so different, but the mindless bludgeons! Some warriors Hindu, some African, some nameless, unknown! This disgraceful invasion, baser than the Black Death! Ah, the 20th century, so noble in its own estimation, But all its favored ones nothing but a parade of worthless wretches! For months now Turkish soldiers have been vomited up Like stomachs’ retched contents regarded with shame. If the masks had not been torn away, the faces would still be admired, But the ***** called civilization is far from blameless. Now the ****** demand the destruction of the doomed And thus bring destruction down on their own heads. Lightning severs horizons! Earthquakes regurgitate the bodies of the dead! Bombs’ thunderbolts explode brains, rupture the ******* of brave soldiers. Underground tunnels writhe like hell Full of the bodies of burn victims. The sky rains down death, the earth swallows the living. A terrible blizzard heaves men violently into the air. Heads, eyes, torsos, legs, arms, chins, fingers, hands, feet ... Body parts rain down everywhere. Coward hands encased in armor callously scatter Floods of thunderbolts, torrents of fire. Men’s chests gape open, Beneath the high, circling vulture-like packs of the air. Cannonballs fly as frequently as bullets Yet the heroic army laughs at the hail. Who needs steel fortresses? Who fears the enemy? How can the shield of faith not prevail? What power can make religious men bow down to their oppressors When their stronghold is established by God? The mountains and the rocks are the bodies of martyrs! ... For the sake of a crescent, oh God, many suns set, undone! Dear soldier, who fell for the sake of this land, How great you are, your blood saves the Muslims! Only the lions of Bedr rival your glory! Who then can dig the grave wide enough to hold you. and your story? If we try to consign you to history, you will not fit! No book can contain the eras you shook! Only eternities can encompass you! ... Oh martyr, son of the martyr, do not ask me about the grave: The prophet awaits you now, his arms flung wide open, to save! Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”) by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch for the refugees The time to weigh anchor has come; a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown, cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts. No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure; the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief, scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring ... Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing! There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life! The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile, for they cannot know where the vanished are bound. Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves, since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey. Full Moon by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch You are so lovely the full moon just might delight in your rising, as curious and bright, to vanquish night. But what can a mortal man do, dear, but hope? I’ll ponder your mysteries and (hmmmm) try to cope. We both know you have every right to say no. The Music of the Snow by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years! This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years! Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery, It rises from a choir of a hundred voices! As the organ’s harmonies resound profoundly, I share the sufferings of Slavic grief. My mind drifts far from this city, this era, To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey. Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear, With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul! Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me; I keep them at bay all night with my dreams! Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer. Thinking of you by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Thinking of you is beautiful, hopeful― like listening to the most beautiful songs sung by the earth's most beautiful voices. But hope is insufficient for me now; I don't want to listen to songs. I want to sing love into birth. I love you by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you― like dipping bread into salt and eating; like waking at night with a raging fever and thirstily lapping up water, my mouth to the silver tap; like unwrapping the unwieldy box the postman delivers, unable to guess what's inside, feeling fluttery, happy, doubtful. I love you― like flying over the sea the first time as something stirs within me while the sky softly darkens over Istanbul. I love you― as men thank God gratefully for life. Sparrow by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Little sparrow, perched on the clothesline, do you regard me with pity? Even so, I will watch you soar away through the white spring leaves. The Divan of the Lover the oldest extant Turkish poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch All the universe as one great sign is shown: God revealed in his creative acts unknown. Who sees or understands them, jinn or men? Such works lie far beyond mere mortals’ ken. Nor can man’s mind or reason reach that strand, Nor mortal tongue name Him who rules that land. Since He chose nothingness with life to vest, who dares to trouble God with worms’ behests? For eighteen thousand worlds, lain end to end, Do not with Him one atom's worth transcend! Fragment by Prince Jem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Behold! The torrent, dashing against the rocks, flails wildly. The entire vast realm of Space and Being oppresses my soul idly. Through bitterness of grief and woe the sky has rent its morning robe. Look! See how in its eastern palace, the sun is a ****** globe! The clouds of heaven rain bright tears on the distant mountain peaks. Oh, hear how the deeply wounded thunder slowly, mournfully speaks! An Ecstasy of Fumbling by Michael R. Burch The poets believe everything resolves to metaphor— a distillation, a vapor beyond filtration, though perhaps not quite as volatile as before. The poets conceive of death in the trenches as the price of art, not war, fumbling with their masque-like dissertations to describe the Hollywood-like gore as something beyond belief, abstracting concrete bunkers to Achaemenid bas-relief. Excerpts from “Travels with Einstein” by Michael R. Burch for Trump I went to Berlin to learn wisdom from Adolph. The wild spittle flew as he screamed at me, with great conviction: “Please despise me! I look like a Jew!” So I flew off to ’Nam to learn wisdom from tall Yankees who cursed “yellow” foes. “If we lose this small square,” they informed me, earth’s nations will fall, dominoes!” I then sat at Christ’s feet to learn wisdom, but his Book, from its genesis to close, said: “Men can enslave their own brothers!” (I soon noticed he lacked any clothes.) So I traveled to bright Tel Aviv where great scholars with lofty IQs informed me that (since I’m an Arab) I’m unfit to lick dirt from their shoes. At last, done with learning, I stumbled to a well where the waters seemed sweet: the mirage of American “justice.” There I wept a real sea, in defeat. Originally published by Café Dissensus The Leveler by Michael R. Burch The nature of Nature is bitter survival from Winter’s bleak fury till Spring’s brief revival. The weak implore Fate; bold men ravish, dishevel her . . . till both are cut down by mere ticks of the Leveler. I believe I wrote this poem around age 20, in 1978 or thereabouts. It has since been published in The Lyric, Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly and The Aurorean. The Hippopotami by Michael R. Burch There’s no seeing eye to eye with the awesomely huge Hippopotami: on the bank, you’re much taller; going under, you’re smaller and assuredly destined to die! Ballade of the Bicameral Camel by Michael R. Burch There once was a camel who loved to **** Please get your lewd minds out of their slump! He loved to give RIDES on his large, lordly lump! The Echoless Green by Michael R. Burch for and after William Blake At dawn, laughter rang on the echoing green as children at play greeted the day. At noon, smiles were seen on the echoing green as, children no more, many fine vows they swore. By twilight, their cries had subsided to sighs. Now night reigns supreme on the echoless green. Unlikely Mike by Michael R. Burch I married someone else’s fantasy; she admired me despite my mutilations. I loved her for her heart’s sake, and for mine. I hid my face and changed its connotations. And in the dark I danced—slight, Chaplinesque— a metaphor myself. How could they know, the undiscerning ones, that in the glow of spotlights, sometimes love becomes burlesque? Disfigured to my soul, I could not lose or choose or name myself; I came to be another of life’s odd dichotomies, like Dickey’s Sheep Boy, Pan, or David Cruse: as pale, as enigmatic. White, or black? My color was a song, a changing track. Spring Was Delayed by Michael R. Burch Winter came early: the driving snows, the delicate frosts that crystallize all we forget or refuse to know, all we regret that makes us wise. Spring was delayed: the nubile rose, the tentative sun, the wind’s soft sighs, all we omit or refuse to show, whatever we shield behind guarded eyes. Originally published by Borderless Journal The Shijing or Shi Jing (“Book of Songs” or “Book of Odes”) is the oldest Chinese poetry collection, with the poems included believed to date from around 1200 BC to 600 BC. According to tradition the poems were selected and edited by Confucius himself. Since most ancient poetry did not rhyme, these may be the world’s oldest extant rhyming poems. Shijing Ode #4: “JIU MU” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches thick with vines that make them shady, we find our lovely princely lady: May she repose in happiness! In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches whose clinging vines make hot days shady, we wish love’s embrace for our lovely lady: May she repose in happiness! In the South, beneath trees with drooping branches whose vines, entwining, make them shady, we wish true love for our lovely lady: May she repose in happiness! Shijing Ode #6: “TAO YAO” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The peach tree is elegant and tender; its flowers are fragrant, and bright. A young lady now enters her future home and will manage it well, day and night. The peach tree is elegant and tender; its fruits are abundant, and sweet. A young lady now enters her future home and will make it welcome to everyone she greets. The peach tree is elegant and tender; it shelters with bough, leaf and flower. A young lady now enters her future home and will make it her family’s bower. Shijing Ode #9: “HAN GUANG” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch In the South tall trees without branches offer men no shelter. By the Han the girls loiter, but it’s vain to entice them. For the breadth of the Han cannot be swum and the length of the Jiang requires more than a raft. When cords of firewood are needed, I would cut down tall thorns to bring them more. Those girls on their way to their future homes? I would feed their horses. But the breadth of the Han cannot be swum and the length of the Jiang requires more than a raft. When cords of firewood are needed, I would cut down tall trees to bring them more. Those girls on their way to their future homes? I would feed their colts. But the breadth of the Han cannot be swum and the length of the Jiang requires more than a raft. Shijing Ode #10: “RU FEN” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch By raised banks of the Ru, I cut down branches in the brake. Not seeing my lord caused me heartache. By raised banks of the Ru, I cut down branches by the tide. When I saw my lord at last, he did not cast me aside. The bream flashes its red tail; the royal court’s a blazing fire. Though it blazes afar, still his loved ones are near ... It was apparently believed that the bream’s tail turned red when it was in danger. Here the term “lord” does not necessarily mean the man in question was a royal himself. Chinese women of that era often called their husbands “lord.” Take, for instance, Ezra Pound’s famous loose translation “The River Merchant’s Wife.” Speaking of Pound, I borrowed the word “brake” from his translation of this poem, although I worked primarily from more accurate translations. In the final line, it may be that the wife or lover is suggesting that no matter what happens, the man in question will have a place to go, or perhaps she is urging him to return regardless. The original poem had “mother and father” rather than “family” or “loved ones,” but in those days young married couples often lived with the husband’s parents. So a suggestion to return to his parents could be a suggestion to return to his wife as well. Shijing Ode #12: “QUE CHAO” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The nest is the magpie's but the dove occupies it. A young lady’s soon heading to her future home; a hundred carriages will attend her. The nest is the magpie's but the dove takes it over. A young lady’s soon heading to her future home; a hundred carriages will escort her. The nest is the magpie's but the dove possesses it. A young lady’s soon heading to her future home; a hundred carriages complete her procession. Shijing Ode #26: “BO ZHOU” from “The Odes of Bei” ancient Chinese rhyming poem circa (1200 BC - 600 BC) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This cypress-wood boat floats about, meandering with the current. Meanwhile, I am distraught and sleepless, as if inflicted with a painful wound. Not because I have no wine, and can’t wander aimlessly about! But my mind is not a mirror able to echo all impressions. Yes, I have brothers, but they are undependable. I meet their anger with silence. My mind is not a stone to be easily cast aside. My mind is not a mat to be conveniently rolled up. My conduct so far has been exemplary, with nothing to criticize. Yet my anxious heart hesitates because I’m hated by the herd, inflicted with many distresses, heaped with insults, not a few. Silently I consider my case, until, startled, as if from sleep, I clutch my breast. Consider the sun and the moon: how did the latter exceed the former? Now sorrow clings to my heart like an unwashed dress. Silently I consider my options, but lack the wings to fly away. The Drawer of Mermaids by Michael R. Burch This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out. Although I am only four years old, they say that I have an old soul. I must have been born long, long ago, here, where the eerie mountains glow at night, in the Urals. A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes; now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking fills us with dread. (Still, my momma hopes that I will soon walk with my new legs.) It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss, drawing the mermaids under the ledges. (Observing, Papa will kiss me in all his distracted joy; but why does he cry?) And there is a boy who whispers my name. Then I am not lame; for I leap, and I follow. (G’amma brings a wiseman who says our infirmities are ours, not God’s, that someday a beautiful Child will return from the stars, and then my new fingers will grow if only I trust Him; and so I am preparing to meet Him, to go, should He care to receive me.) Keywords/Tags: mermaid, mermaids, child, children, childhood, Urals, Ural Mountains, soul, soulmate, radiation On the Horns of a Dilemma (I) by Michael R. Burch Love has become preposterous for the over-endowed rhinoceros: when he meets the right miss how the hell can he kiss when his horn is so ***** it lofts her thus? I need an artist or cartoonist to create an image of a male rhino lifting his prospective mate into the air during an abortive kiss. Any takers? On the Horns of a Dilemma (II) by Michael R. Burch Love has become preposterous for the over-endowed rhinoceros: when he meets the right miss how the hell can he kiss when his horn deforms her esophagus? On the Horns of a Dilemma (III) by Michael R. Burch A wino rhino said, “I know! I have a horn I cannot blow! And so, ergo, I’ll watch the lovely spigot flow! The Horns of a Dilemma Solved, if not Solvent by Michael R. Burch A wine-addled rhino debated the prospect of living unmated due to the scorn gals showed for his horn, then lost it to poachers, sedated. The Arrival of the Sea Lions by Michael R. Burch The sound of hounds resounds in the sound. Hounds Impounded by Michael R. Burch The sound of hounds resounds in the pound. Prince Kiwi the Great by Michael R. Burch Kiwi’s a pee-wee but incredibly bright: he sleeps half the day, pretending it’s night! Prince Kiwi commands us with his regal air: “Come, humans, and serve me, or I’ll yank your hair!” Kiwi cries “Kree! Kree!” when he wants to be fed ... suns, preens, flutters, showers, then it’s off to bed. Kiwi’s a pee-wee but incredibly bright: he sleeps half the day, pretending it’s night! Kiwi is our family’s green-cheeked parakeet. Parakeets need to sleep around 12 hours per day, hence the pun on “bright” and “half the day.” Ah! Sunflower by Michael R. Burch after William Blake O little yellow flower like a star ... how beautiful, how wonderful we are! Published as the collection "When Pigs Fly"
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He travelled to Canada's west coast To sit in fields of Mushrooms Magic. Psychoactive effects created rooms Filled with white cognitive static. He returned to his hometown small In Boreal forests of Ontario's Northland. Beyond locked doors now unhinged He sank deeper in grey matter quicksand. No one quite knew Joshua anymore. Disturbance eclipsed his passive way. At the local pub he told Ed and me He was being followed by the C.I.A. In one weeks time he picked up a knife And stabbed his father and mother. His father lay dead on the kitchen floor She played dead and tried not to shudder. Joshua was found just sitting in their car When police came to the scene of the crime. In a hospital for over thirty years now His room has been a static void sealed mind.
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Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 10:37 AM UTC
DanielTucker
Ballad of Joshua McGrath
He travelled to Canada's west coast To sit in fields of Mushrooms Magic. Psychoactive effects created rooms Filled with white cognitive static. He returned to his hometown small In Boreal forests of Ontario's Northland. Beyond locked doors now unhinged He sank deeper in grey matter quicksand. No one quite knew Joshua anymore. Disturbance eclipsed his passive way. At the local pub he told Ed and me He was being followed by the C.I.A. In one weeks time he picked up a knife And stabbed his father and mother. His father lay dead on the kitchen floor She played dead and tried not to shudder. Joshua was found just sitting in their car When police came to the scene of the crime. In a hospital for over thirty years now His room has been a static void sealed mind.
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