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Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Negligibles by Michael R. Burch Show me your most intimate items of apparel; begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ... Negotiables by Michael R. Burch Love should be more than the sum of its parts― of its potions and pills and subterranean arts. Her Answer (Sappho, fragment 155) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A short revealing frock? It's just my luck your lips were made to mock! Sappho, fragment 22 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch That enticing girl's clinging dresses leave me trembling, overcome by happiness, as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers eclipsing Cyprus. Imperfect Perfection by Michael R. Burch You’re too perfect for words― a problem for a poet. Expert Advice by Michael R. Burch Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body. Please stop making false comparisons your hobby! Sudden Shower by Michael R. Burch The day’s eyes were blue until you appeared and they wept at your beauty. Incompatibles by Michael R. Burch Reason’s treason! cries the Heart. Love’s insane, replies the Brain. (Originally published by Light) Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Conformists of a feather flock together. —Michael R. Burch (Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition) Prose Epigrams My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch As a general rule of thumb, ignore naysayers unless you agree with their criticism.—Michael R. Burch The Golden Rule is much easier to recite than observe. — Michael R. Burch The Golden Rule is much easier to recite for others' benefit than to observe oneself. — Michael R. Burch Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch The editors of Poetry know no more about poetry than I do about basket-weaving, except that I know a good basket when I have it in my hands.—Michael R. Burch God and his "profits" could never agree on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea. —Michael R. Burch Epitaph for a Palestinian Child by Michael R. Burch I lived as best I could, and then I died. Be careful where you step: the grave is wide. (Published by Romantics Quarterly and translated into Czech, Indonesian, Romanian and Turkish) Childless by Michael R. Burch How can she bear her grief? Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight of one fallen star. Stormfront by Michael R. Burch Our distance is frightening: a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning. Laughter's Cry by Michael R. Burch Because life is a mystery, we laugh and do not know the half. Because death is a mystery, we cry when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry. (Originally published by Angelwing) Autumn Conundrum by Michael R. Burch It's not that every leaf must finally fall, it's just that we can never catch them all. (Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea and translated into Russian, Macedonian, Turkish and Romanian) Piercing the Shell by Michael R. Burch If we strip away all the accouterments of war, perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for. (Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea and translated into Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Macedonian) *** Hex by Michael R. Burch Love's full of cute paradoxes (and highly acute poxes) . (Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up) Styx by Michael R. Burch Black waters—deep and dark and still. All men have passed this way, or will. (Published by The Raintown Review and translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager. I believe it was my first epigram.) Fahr an' Ice by Michael R. Burch (apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash) From what I know of death, I'll side with those who'd like to have a say in how it goes: just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker) , and real fahr off, instead of quicker. Lance-Lot by Michael R. Burch Preposterous bird! Inelegant! Absurd! Until the great & mighty heron brandishes his fearsome sword. Multiplication, Tabled or Procreation Inflation by Michael R. Burch for the Religious Right "Be fruitful and multiply"— great advice, for a fruitfly! But for women and men, simple Simons, say, "WHEN! " The Whole of Wit by Michael R. Burch If brevity is the soul of wit then brevity and levity are the whole of it. (Published by Shot Glass Journal) Nun Fun Undone by Michael R. Burch Abbesses' recesses are not for excesses! (Published by Brief Poems) Saving Graces, for the Religious Right by Michael R. Burch Life's saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter... wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter. (Published by Shot Glass Journal and Poem Today) Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts; today's genteel poets prefer modern ruts. —Michael R. Burch Not Elves, Exactly by Michael R. Burch Something there is that likes a wall, that likes it spiked and likes it tall, that likes its pikes' sharp rows of teeth and doesn't mind its victims' grief (wherever they come from, far or wide) as long as they fall on the other side. Dawn by Michael R. Burch for Beth and Laura Bring your particular strength to the strange nightmarish fray: wrap up your cherished ones in the golden light of day. Self-ish by Michael R. Burch Let's not pretend we "understand" other elves as long as we remain mysteries to ourselves. Grave Oversight by Michael R. Burch The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught! Translations Birdsong by Rumi loose translation by Michael R. Burch Birdsong relieves my deepest griefs: now I'm just as ecstatic as they, but with nothing to say! Please universe, rehearse your poetry through me! Raise your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder. —Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch The imbecile constructs cages for everyone he knows, while the sage (who has to duck his head whenever the moon glows) keeps dispensing keys all night long to the beautiful, rowdy, prison gang. —Hafiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch An unbending tree breaks easily. —Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Little sparks ignite great flames.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch Once fanaticism has gangrened brains the incurable malady invariably remains. —Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Booksellers laud authors for novel editions as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions. —Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction. —Seneca the Younger, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Hypocrisy may deceive the most perceptive adult, but the dullest child recognizes and is revolted by it, however ingeniously disguised. —Leo Tolstoy translation by Michael R. Burch Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel, or a house when it's time to change residences, even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life. —Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch Improve yourself through others' writings, thus attaining more easily what they acquired through great difficulty. —Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch Fools call wisdom foolishness. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch One true friend is worth ten thousand kin. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Not to speak one’s mind is slavery. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Native American Proverb loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Before you judge a man for his sins be sure to trudge many moons in his moccasins. Native American Proverb by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A man must pursue his Vision as the eagle explores the sky's deepest blues. Native American Proverb loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let us walk respectfully here among earth's creatures, great and small, remembering, our footsteps light, that one wise God created all. Excerpt from Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth’s incandescent white flame; I love you as obscure things are embraced in the dark ... secretly, in shadows, unrevealed & unnamed. Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity’s rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands ... I love you only because I love you by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, Between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation by Michael R. Burch While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, "The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light..." Duet, Minor Key by Michael R. Burch Without the drama of cymbals or the fanfare and snares of drums, I present my case stripped of its fine veneer: Behold, thy instrument. Play, for the night is long. Inconstant Temptress by Michael R. Burch Love, beautiful but fatal to many bewildered hearts, commands us to be faithful, then tempts us with sweets and tarts. Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ by Michael R. Burch Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise in a dizzy circle of two. Oh, when I’m with you, I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too! Warming Her Pearls by Michael R. Burch Warming her pearls, her ******* gleam like constellations. Her belly is a bit rotund ... she might have stepped out of a Rubens. Dark Cloud, Silver Lining from “Love in the Time of the Coronavirus” by Michael R. Burch Despite my stormy demeanor, my hands have never been cleaner! Questionable Credentials by Michael R. Burch Poet? Critic? Dilettante? Do you know what's good, or do you merely flaunt? Published by ***** of Parnassus Delicacy by Michael R. Burch for all good mothers Your love is as delicate as a butterfly cleaning its wings, as soft as the predicate the hummingbird sings to itself, gently murmuring― “Fly! Fly! Fly!” Your love is the string soaring kites untie. The Greatest of These ... by Michael R. Burch The hands that held me tremble. The arms that lifted fall. Angelic flesh, now parchment, is held together with gauze. But her undimmed eyes still embrace me; there infinity can be found. I can almost believe such love will reach me, underground. Haiku Translations of the Oriental Masters Grasses wilt: the braking locomotive grinds to a halt ― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, fallen camellias, if I were you, I'd leap into the torrent! ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first soft snow: leaves of the awed jonquil bow low ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Come, investigate loneliness! a solitary leaf clings to the Kiri tree ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lightning shatters the darkness― the night heron's shriek ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch One apple, alone in the abandoned orchard reddens for winter ― Patrick Blanche, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The poem above is by a French poet; it illustrates how the poetry of Oriental masters like Basho has influenced poets around the world. Graven images of long-departed gods, dry spiritless leaves: companions of the temple porch ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch See: whose surviving sons visit the ancestral graves white-bearded, with trembling canes? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I remove my beautiful kimono: its varied braids surround and entwine my body ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This day of chrysanthemums I shake and comb my wet hair, as their petals shed rain ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This darkening autumn: my neighbor, how does he continue? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Let us arrange these lovely flowers in the bowl since there's no rice ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An ancient pond, the frog leaps: the silver plop and gurgle of water ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The butterfly perfuming its wings fans the orchid ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pausing between clouds the moon rests in the eyes of its beholders ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first chill rain: poor monkey, you too could use a woven cape of straw ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This snowy morning: cries of the crow I despise (ah, but so beautiful!) ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Like a heavy fragrance snow-flakes settle: lilies on the rocks ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The cheerful-chirping cricket contends gray autumn's gay, contemptuous of frost ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill, solemn evangelist of loneliness ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The sea darkening, the voices of the wild ducks: my mysterious companions! ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Will we meet again? Here at your flowering grave: two white butterflies ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Fever-felled mid-path my dreams resurrect, to trek into a hollow land ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Too ill to travel, now only my autumn dreams survey these withering fields ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this has been called Basho's death poem These brown summer grasses? The only remains of "invincible" warriors... ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An empty road lonelier than abandonment: this autumn evening ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring has come: the nameless hill lies shrouded in mist ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The Oldest Haiku These are my translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into poetic forms such as tanka, renga and haiku over time. My translations are excerpts from the Kojiki (the "Record of Ancient Matters"), a book composed around 711-712 A.D. by the historian and poet Ō no Yasumaro. The Kojiki relates Japan’s mythological beginnings and the history of its imperial line. Like Virgil's Aeneid, the Kojiki seeks to legitimize rulers by recounting their roots. These are lines from one of the oldest Japanese poems, found in the oldest Japanese book: While you decline to cry, high on the mountainside a single stalk of plumegrass wilts. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another excerpt, with a humorous twist, from the Kojiki: Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make! Heaven's indignant messengers, you remind me of wordsmiths! ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another, this one a poem of love and longing: Onyx, this gem-black night. Downcast, I await your return like the rising sun, unrivaled in splendor. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch More Haiku by Various Poets Right at my feet! When did you arrive here, snail? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Our world of dew is a world of dew indeed; and yet, and yet... ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, brilliant moon can it be true that even you must rush off, like us, tardy? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch A kite floats at the same place in the sky where yesterday it floated... ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pigeon's behavior is beyond reproach, but the mountain cuckoo's? ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Plowing, not a single bird sings in the mountain's shadow ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pear tree flowers whitely― a young woman reads his letter by moonlight ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch On adjacent branches the plum tree blossoms bloom petal by petal―love! ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Picking autumn plums my wrinkled hands once again grow fragrant ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Dawn! The brilliant sun illuminates sardine heads. ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The abandoned willow shines between rains ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch White plum blossoms― though the hour grows late, a glimpse of dawn ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this is believed to be Buson's death poem and he is said to have died before dawn I thought I felt a dewdrop plop on me as I lay in bed! ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot see the moon and yet the waves still rise ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first morning of autumn: the mirror I investigate reflects my father’s face ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Wild geese pass leaving the emptiness of heaven revealed ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Silently observing the bottomless mountain lake: water lilies ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Cranes flapping ceaselessly test the sky's upper limits ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Falling snowflakes' glitter tinsels the sea ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Blizzards here on earth, blizzards of stars in the sky ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Completely encircled in emerald: the glittering swamp! ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The new calendar!: as if tomorrow is assured... ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Ah butterfly, what dreams do you ply with your beautiful wings? ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because morning glories hold my well-bucket hostage I go begging for water ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring stirs the clouds in the sky's teabowl ― Kikusha-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I saw how the peony crumples in the fire's embers ― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch It fills me with anger, this moon; it fills me and makes me whole ― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch War stood at the end of the hall in the long shadows ― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because he is slow to wrath, I tackle him, then wring his neck in the long grass ― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pale mountain sky: cherry petals play as they tumble earthward ― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The frozen moon, the frozen lake: two oval mirrors reflecting each other. ― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The bitter winter wind ends here with the frozen sea ― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, bitter winter wind, why bellow so when there's no leaves to fell? ― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Winter waves roil their own shadows ― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation by Michael R. Burch No sky, no land: just snow eternally falling... ― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Along with spring leaves my child's teeth take root, blossom ― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Stillness: a single chestnut leaf glides on brilliant water ― Ryuin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch As thunder recedes a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight: applauded by cicadas ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The snake slipped away but his eyes, having held mine, still stare in the grass ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Girls gather sprouts of rice: reflections of the water flicker on the backs of their hats ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Murmurs follow the hay cart this blossoming summer day ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The wet nurse paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins then walked away ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch May I be with my mother wearing her summer kimono by the morning window ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The hands of a woman exist to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The moon hovering above the snow-capped mountains rained down hailstones ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly: a puff of white snow cresting mountains ― Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring snow cascades over fences in white waves ― Suju Takano, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tanka and Waka translations: If fields of autumn flowers can shed their blossoms, shameless, why can’t I also frolic here — as fearless, and as blameless? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Submit to you — is that what you advise? The way the ripples do whenever ill winds arise? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Watching wan moonlight illuminate trees, my heart also brims, overflowing with autumn. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I had thought to pluck the flower of forgetfulness only to find it already blossoming in his heart. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch That which men call "love" — is it not merely the chain preventing our escape from this world of pain? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Once-colorful flowers faded, while in my drab cell life’s impulse also abated as the long rains fell. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I set off at the shore of the seaside of Tago, where I saw the high, illuminated peak of Fuji―white, aglow― through flakes of drifting downy snow. ― Akahito Yamabe, loose translation by Michael R. Burch "Lu Zhai" ("Deer Park") by **** Wei (699-759) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Uninhabited hills ... except that now and again the silence is broken by something like the sound of distant voices as the sun's sinking rays illuminate lichens ... **** Wei (699-759) was a Chinese poet, musician, painter, and politician during the Tang dynasty. He had 29 poems included in the 18th-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. "Lu Zhai" ("Deer Park") is one of his best-known poems. Keywords/Tags: epigram, epigrams, **** Wei, Chinese, translation, nature, animal, deer, park, hills, silence, sound, voices, wind, voice, sun, rays, illuminate, peace, growth, wisdom Less Heroic Couplets: Miss Bliss by Michael R. Burch Domestic “bliss”? Best to swing and miss! Less Heroic Couplets: Then and Now by Michael R. Burch BEFORE: Thanks to Brexit, our lives will be plush! ... AFTER: Crap, we’re going broke! What the hell is the rush? Less Heroic Couplets: Dear Pleader by Michael R. Burch Is our Dear Pleader, as he claims, heroic? I prefer my presidents a bit more stoic. Less Heroic Couplets: Less than Impressed by Michael R. Burch for T. M., regarding certain dispensers of lukewarm air Their volume’s impressive, it’s true ... but somehow it all seems “much ado.” Less Heroic Couplets: Poetry I by Michael R. Burch Poetry is the heart’s caged rhythm, the soul’s frantic tappings at the panes of mortality. Less Heroic Couplets: Poetry II by Michael R. Burch Poetry is the trapped soul’s frantic tappings at the panes of mortality. Less Heroic Couplets: Seesaw by Michael R. Burch A poem is the mind teetering between fact and fiction, momentarily elevated. Less Heroic Couplets: Passions by Michael R. Burch Passions are the heart’s qualms, the soul’s squalls, the brain’s storms. EPIGRAM TRANSLATIONS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH Speechless at Auschwitz by Ko Un loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch At Auschwitz piles of glasses mountains of shoes ... returning, we stared out different windows. Ko Un speaks for all of us, by not knowing what to say about the evidence of the Holocaust, and man's inhumanity to man. Ko Un was speechless at Auschwitz. Someday, when it’s too late, will we be speechless at Gaza? —Michael R. Burch Booksellers laud authors for novel editions as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions. —Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy? —Albert Einstein, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Elevate your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Why should I brood when every petal of my being is blossoming?—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What you seek also pursues you.—Rumi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This is love: to fly toward a mysterious sky, to cause ten thousand veils to fall. First, to stop clinging to life, then to step out, without feet ... —Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love renders reason senseless. —Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I test the tightrope balancing a child in each arm. —Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let me live with joy today, since tomorrow is unforeseeable. —Palladas of Alexandria, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch To live without philosophizing is to close one's eyes and never attempt to open them. – Rene Descartes, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch How happy the soul who speeds back to the Source, but crowned with peace is the one who never came. —a Sophoclean passage from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at great expense. —Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch EPIGRAMS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH Brief Fling by Michael R. Burch “Epigram” means cram, then scram! Published by Brief Poems, Poem Today and The HyperTexts Brief Fling II by Michael R. Burch To write an epigram, cram. If you lack wit, scram! Published by Brief Poems, Ethnu Couplet and The HyperTexts Brief Fling III by Michael R. Burch No one gives a **** about my epigram? And yet they’ll spend billions on Boy George and Wham! Do they have any idea just how hard I cram? Nod to the Master by Michael R. Burch for the Divine Oscar Wilde If every witty thing that’s said were true, Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You! Stage Fright by Michael R. Burch To be or not to be? In the end Hamlet opted for naught. ****** Errata by Michael R. Burch I didn’t mean to love you; if I did, it came unbid- en, and should’ve remained hid- den! Dry **** by Michael R. Burch You came to me as rain breaks on the desert when every flower springs to life at once. But joys are wan illusions to the expert: the Bedouin has learned how not to want. Love is either wholly folly, or fully holy. —Michael R. Burch Intimations by Michael R. Burch Let mercy surround us with a sweet persistence. Let love propound to us that life is infinitely more than existence. Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101 by Michael R. Burch Building her brand, she disrobes, naked, except for her earlobes. Less Heroic Couplets: Shell Game by Michael R. Burch I saw a turtle squirtle! Before you ask, “How fertile?” The squirt came from its mouth. Why do your thoughts fly south? The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch I will never grok picking a picky rule over a Poem!—Michael R. Burch Experience is the best teacher but a hard taskmaster.—Michael R. Burch Wayne Gretzky was pure skill poured into skates.—Michael R. Burch Neither the leaf nor the tree laments karma.—Michael R. Burch Less Heroic Couplets: Gilded Silence by Michael R. Burch Golden silence reigned supreme in my nightmare and her dream. Villanelle of an Opportunist by Michael R. Burch I’m not looking for someone to save. A gal has to do what a gal has to do: I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. How many highways to hell must I pave with intentions imagined, not true? I’m not looking for someone to save. Fools praise compassion while weaklings rave, but a gal has to do what a gal has to do. I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. Some praise the Lord but the Devil’s my fave because he has led me to you! I’m not looking for someone to save. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, a gal has to do what a gal has to do. I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. Every day without meds becomes a close shave and the razor keeps tempting me too. I’m not looking for someone to save: I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. She is brighter than dawn by Michael R. Burch for Beth There’s a light about her like the moon through a mist: a bright incandescence with which she is blessed and my heart to her light like the tide now is pulled . . . she is fair, O, and bright like the moon silver-veiled. There’s a fire within her like the sun’s leaping forth to lap up the darkness of night from earth's hearth and my eyes to her flame like twin moths now are drawn till my heart is consumed. She is brighter than dawn. The Difference by Michael R. Burch The chimneysweeps will weep for Blake, who wrote his poems for their dear sake. The critics clap, polite, for you. Another poem for poets, Whooo! Crunch by Michael R. Burch for Trump A cockroach could live nine months on the dried mucous you scrounge from your nose then fling like seedplants to the slowly greening floor ... You claim to be the advanced life form, but, mon frere, sometimes as you ****** encrusted kinks of hair from your Leviathan *** and muse softly on zits, icebergs snap off the Antarctic. You’re an evolutionary quandary, in need of a sacral ganglion to control your enlarged, contradictory hindquarters: surely the brain should migrate closer to its primary source of information, in order to ensure the survival of the species. Cockroaches thrive on eyeboogers and feces; their exoskeletons expand and gleam like burnished armor in the presence of uranium. But your cranium      is not nearly so adaptable. “Crunch” is a poem about evolution and survival of the fittest which questions where human beings really are the planet earth’s most advanced life forms. Keywords/Tags: evolution, global warming, insects, cockroaches, advance life form, survival of the fittest, adaptability Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.—Michael R. Burch Viral Donald (I) by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition" Donald Trump is coronaviral: his brain's in a downward spiral. His pale nimbus of hair proves there's nothing up there but an empty skull, fluff and denial. Viral Donald (II) by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition" Why didn't Herr Trump, the POTUS, protect us from the Coronavirus? That weird orange corona of hair's an alarm: Trump is the Virus in Human Form! Limerick-Ode to a Much-Eaten *** by Michael R. Burch There wonst wus a president, Trump, whose greatest *** (et) wus his **** It was padded ’n’ shiny, that great orange hiney, but to drain it we’d need a sump pump! The Less-Than-Divine Results of My Prayers to be Saved from Televangelists by Michael R. Burch I’m old, no longer bold, just cold, and (truth be told), been bought and sold, rolled by the wolves and the lambs in the fold. Who’s to be told by this worn-out scold? The complaint department is always on hold. Poets laud Justice’s high principles. Trump just gropes her raw genitals. —Michael R. Burch Teeter Tots by Michael R. Burch For your spuds to become Tater Tots, first, artfully cut out the knots, then dice them to cubes deep-fried, served to rubes, (but not if they’re acting like snots). I didn’t mean to love you, but I did. Best leave the rest unsaid, hid- den and unbidden. —Michael R. Burch You imagine life is good, but have you actually understood? —Michael R. Burch Living with a body ain’t much fun. Harder, still, to live without one. Whatever happened to our day in the sun? —Michael R. Burch How little remains of our joys and our pains. How little remains of our losses and gains. How little remains of whatever remains. —Michael R. Burch Sometimes I feel better, it’s true, but mostly I’m still not over you. —Michael R. Burch Don’t let the past defeat you. Learn from it, but don’t dwell. Have no regrets at “farewell.” —Michael R. Burch Haughty moon, when did I ever trouble you, insomnia’s co-conspirator! —Michael R. Burch Every day’s a new chance to lose weight, but most likely, I’ll ... procrastinate ... —Michael R. Burch Big Ben ***** by Michael R. Burch Early to bed, hurriedly to rise makes a man stealthy, and that’s why he’s wealthy: what the hell is he doing behind your closed eyes? Friend, how you’ll squirm when you belatedly learn that you’re the worm! Pecking Disorder by Michael R. Burch Love has a pecking order, or maybe a dis-order, a hell we recognize if we merely open our eyes: the attractive win at birth, while those of ample girth are deemed of little worth from Nottingham to Perth. Nottingham is said to have the most beautiful women in the world. Tease by Michael R. Burch It’s what you always say, okay? It’s what you always say: C’mon let’s play, roll in the hay, It’s what you always say. Ole! But little do you do, it’s true. But little do you do. A little ****** run to piddle ... we never really ***** That’s you! Observance (II) by Michael R. Burch fifty years later... The trees are in their autumn beauty, majestic to the eye. Whoever felt as I, whoever felt them doomed to die despite their flamboyant colors? They seem like knights of dismal countenance ... as if, windmills themselves, they might tilt with the ****** sky. And yet their favors gaily fly! KEYWORDS/TAGS: epigram, epigrams, love, life, living, fun, sun, joy, pain, past, sad, sadness The Blobfish by Michael R. Burch You can call me a "blob" with your oversized gob, but what's your excuse, great gargantuan Zeus whose once-chiseled abs are now marbleized flab? But what really alarms me (how I wish you'd abstain) is when you start using that oversized "brain." Consider the planet! Refrain! The Secret of Her Clothes by Michael R. Burch The secret of her clothes is that they whisper a little mysteriously of things unseen in the language of nylon and cotton, so that when she walks to her amorous drawers to rummage among the embroidered hearts and rumors of pastel slips for a white wisp of Victorian lace, the delicate rustle of fabric on fabric, the slightest whisper of telltale static, electrifies me. Published by Erosha, Velvet Avalanche (Anthology) and Poetry Life & Times Dee Light Full by Michael R. Burch A cross-dressing dancer, “Dee Lite,” wore gowns luciferously bright till he washed them one day the old-fashioned way ... in bleach. Now he’s “Sister Off-White.” Severance by Michael R. Burch There once was a bubbly bartender, a transvestite who went on a ****** “So I cut myself off,” she cried with a sob, “There’s the evidence, there in the blender!” Pablo Neruda Translations You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As if you were set on fire from within, the moon whitens your skin. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I'm no longer in love with her, that's certain... yet perhaps I love her still. Love is so short, forgetting so long! —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, Between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. I love you only because you're the one I love; I hate you deeply, but hatred Bends me all the more toward you, so that the measure of my variableness Is that I do not see you, but love you blindly. Perhaps January's frigid light will consume my heart with its cruel rays, robbing me of any hope of peace. In this tragic plot, I am the one who dies, Love's only victim, And I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, my Love, in fire and blood. Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth's incandescent white flame: I love you as obscure things are loved in the dark, secretly, in shadows, unnamed. I love you like shrubs that refuse to bloom while pregnant with the radiance of mysterious flowers; now thanks to your love an earthy fragrance lives dimly in my body's odors. I love you without knowing how, when, why or where; I love you forthrightly, without complications or care: I love you this way because I know no other. Here, where "I" no longer exists, nor "you"... so close that your hand on my chest is my own, so close that your eyes close gently on my dreams. Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity's rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands... Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. I long for your liquid laughter, for your sunburned hands like savage harvests. I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles. I want to devour your ******* like almonds, whole. I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty, to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face, to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade. I pursue you, snuffing the shadows, seeking your heart's scorching heat like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue. The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Is the rose **** or is that just how she dresses? Why do trees conceal their spectacular roots? Who hears the confession of the getaway car? Is there anything sadder than a train standing motionless in the rain? In El Salvador, Death by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death still surveils El Salvador. The blood of murdered peasants has never clotted; time cannot congeal it, nor does the rain erase it from the roads. Fifteen thousand were machine-gunned dead by Martinez, the murderer. To this day the coppery taste of blood still flavors the land, bread and wine of El Salvador. If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I need you to know one thing... You know how it goes: if I gaze up at the glowing moon, if observe the blazing autumn's reddening branches from my window, if I touch the impalpable ash of the charred log's wrinkled body... everything returns me to you, as if everything that exists ―all aromas, sights, solids― were small boats sailing toward those isles of yours that await me. However... if little by little you stop loving me then I shall stop loving you, little by little. And if you suddenly forget me, do not bother to investigate, for I shall have immediately forgotten you also. If you think my love strange and mad― this whirlwind of streaming banners gusting through me, so that you elect to leave me at the shore where my heart lacks roots, just remember that, on that very day, at that very hour, I shall raise my arms and my roots will sail off to find some more favorable land. But if each day and every hour, you feel destined to be with me, if you greet me with implacable sweetness, and if each day and every hour flowers blossom on your lips to entice me, ... then ah my love, oh my only, my own, all that fire will be reinfernoed in me and nothing within me will be extinguished or forgotten; my love will feed on your love, my beloved, and as long as you live it will be me in your arms... as long as you never leave mine. Sonnet XLV by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Don't wander far away, not even for a day, because― how can I explain? A day is too long... and I'll be waiting for you, like a man in an empty station where the trains all stand motionless. Don't leave me, my dear, not even for an hour, because― then despair's raindrops will all run blurrily together, and the smoke that drifts lazily in search of a home will descend hazily on me, suffocating my heart. Darling, may your lovely silhouette never dissolve in the surf; may your lashes never flutter at an indecipherable distance. Please don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because then you'll have gone far too far and I'll wander aimlessly, amazed, asking all the earth: Will she ever return? Will she spurn me, dying? My Dog Died by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My dog died; so I buried him in the backyard garden next to some rusted machine. One day I'll rejoin him, over there, but for now he's gone with his shaggy mane, his crude manners and his cold, clammy nose, while I, the atheist who never believed in any heaven for human beings, now believe in a paradise I'm unfit to enter. Yes, I somehow now believe in a heavenly kennel where my dog awaits my arrival wagging his tail in furious friendship! But I'll not indulge in sadness here: why bewail a companion who was never servile? His friendship was more like that of a porcupine preserving its prickly autonomy. His was the friendship of a distant star with no more intimacy than true friendship called for and no false demonstrations: he never clambered over me coating my clothes with mange; he never assaulted my knee like dogs obsessed with *** But he used to gaze up at me, giving me the attention my ego demanded, while helping this vainglorious man understand my concerns were none of his. Aye, and with those bright eyes so much purer than mine, he'd gaze up at me contentedly; it was a look he reserved for me alone all his entire sweet, gentle life, always merely there, never troubling me, never demanding anything. Aye, and often I envied his energetic tail as we strode the shores of Isla Negra together, in winter weather, wild birds swarming skyward as my golden-maned friend leapt about, supercharged by the sea's electric surges, sniffing away wildly, his tail held ***** his face suffused with the salt spray. Joy! Joy! Joy! As only dogs experience joy in the shameless exuberance of their guiltless spirits. Thus there are no sad good-byes for my dog who died; we never once lied to each other. He died, he's gone, I buried him; that's all there is to it. Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, "The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light..." Tonight I will write her the saddest lines: that I loved her as she loved me too, sometimes, all those long, lonely nights when I held her tight and filled her ears with indecipherable rhymes... Then she loved me too, as I also loved her, compelled by the spell of her enormous eyes. Tonight I will write her the saddest lines as I ponder love's death and our mutual crimes. Outside I hear night―silent, cold, dark, immense― as these delicate words fall, useless as dew. Oh, what does it matter that love came to naught if love was false, or perhaps even true? And yet I hear songs being sung in the distance. How can I forget her, so soon since I lost her? I seek to regain her, somehow bring her closer. But my heart has been blinded; she will not appear! Now moonlight and starlight whiten dark trees. We also are ghosts, by love's failing light. My love has failed me, but how I once loved her! My voice... this cursed wind... what use to recite? Another's. She will soon be another's. Her body, her voice, her infinite eyes. I no longer love her! And why should I love her when love is sad, short, mad, fickle, unwise? Because of cold nights we clung through so closely, I'm not satisfied to know she is gone. And while I must end this hell I now suffer, It's sad to remember all love left undone. Keywords/Tags: epigram, epigrams, love, *** intimacy, intimate, apparel, clothes, dress, mrbepi, mrbhaiku, clothing, dresses, body, ******* heart, hearts, desire, passion, longing, short, brief, poems, poetry, epitaph, eulogy, death, obituary, introspection
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Jun 4, 2020
Jun 4, 2020 at 3:34 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Short Stuff (epigrams)
Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Negligibles by Michael R. Burch Show me your most intimate items of apparel; begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ... Negotiables by Michael R. Burch Love should be more than the sum of its parts― of its potions and pills and subterranean arts. Her Answer (Sappho, fragment 155) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A short revealing frock? It's just my luck your lips were made to mock! Sappho, fragment 22 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch That enticing girl's clinging dresses leave me trembling, overcome by happiness, as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers eclipsing Cyprus. Imperfect Perfection by Michael R. Burch You’re too perfect for words― a problem for a poet. Expert Advice by Michael R. Burch Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body. Please stop making false comparisons your hobby! Sudden Shower by Michael R. Burch The day’s eyes were blue until you appeared and they wept at your beauty. Incompatibles by Michael R. Burch Reason’s treason! cries the Heart. Love’s insane, replies the Brain. (Originally published by Light) Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Conformists of a feather flock together. —Michael R. Burch (Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition) Prose Epigrams My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch As a general rule of thumb, ignore naysayers unless you agree with their criticism.—Michael R. Burch The Golden Rule is much easier to recite than observe. — Michael R. Burch The Golden Rule is much easier to recite for others' benefit than to observe oneself. — Michael R. Burch Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch The editors of Poetry know no more about poetry than I do about basket-weaving, except that I know a good basket when I have it in my hands.—Michael R. Burch God and his "profits" could never agree on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea. —Michael R. Burch Epitaph for a Palestinian Child by Michael R. Burch I lived as best I could, and then I died. Be careful where you step: the grave is wide. (Published by Romantics Quarterly and translated into Czech, Indonesian, Romanian and Turkish) Childless by Michael R. Burch How can she bear her grief? Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight of one fallen star. Stormfront by Michael R. Burch Our distance is frightening: a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning. Laughter's Cry by Michael R. Burch Because life is a mystery, we laugh and do not know the half. Because death is a mystery, we cry when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry. (Originally published by Angelwing) Autumn Conundrum by Michael R. Burch It's not that every leaf must finally fall, it's just that we can never catch them all. (Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea and translated into Russian, Macedonian, Turkish and Romanian) Piercing the Shell by Michael R. Burch If we strip away all the accouterments of war, perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for. (Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea and translated into Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Macedonian) *** Hex by Michael R. Burch Love's full of cute paradoxes (and highly acute poxes) . (Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up) Styx by Michael R. Burch Black waters—deep and dark and still. All men have passed this way, or will. (Published by The Raintown Review and translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager. I believe it was my first epigram.) Fahr an' Ice by Michael R. Burch (apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash) From what I know of death, I'll side with those who'd like to have a say in how it goes: just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker) , and real fahr off, instead of quicker. Lance-Lot by Michael R. Burch Preposterous bird! Inelegant! Absurd! Until the great & mighty heron brandishes his fearsome sword. Multiplication, Tabled or Procreation Inflation by Michael R. Burch for the Religious Right "Be fruitful and multiply"— great advice, for a fruitfly! But for women and men, simple Simons, say, "WHEN! " The Whole of Wit by Michael R. Burch If brevity is the soul of wit then brevity and levity are the whole of it. (Published by Shot Glass Journal) Nun Fun Undone by Michael R. Burch Abbesses' recesses are not for excesses! (Published by Brief Poems) Saving Graces, for the Religious Right by Michael R. Burch Life's saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter... wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter. (Published by Shot Glass Journal and Poem Today) Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts; today's genteel poets prefer modern ruts. —Michael R. Burch Not Elves, Exactly by Michael R. Burch Something there is that likes a wall, that likes it spiked and likes it tall, that likes its pikes' sharp rows of teeth and doesn't mind its victims' grief (wherever they come from, far or wide) as long as they fall on the other side. Dawn by Michael R. Burch for Beth and Laura Bring your particular strength to the strange nightmarish fray: wrap up your cherished ones in the golden light of day. Self-ish by Michael R. Burch Let's not pretend we "understand" other elves as long as we remain mysteries to ourselves. Grave Oversight by Michael R. Burch The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught! Translations Birdsong by Rumi loose translation by Michael R. Burch Birdsong relieves my deepest griefs: now I'm just as ecstatic as they, but with nothing to say! Please universe, rehearse your poetry through me! Raise your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder. —Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch The imbecile constructs cages for everyone he knows, while the sage (who has to duck his head whenever the moon glows) keeps dispensing keys all night long to the beautiful, rowdy, prison gang. —Hafiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch An unbending tree breaks easily. —Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Little sparks ignite great flames.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch Once fanaticism has gangrened brains the incurable malady invariably remains. —Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Booksellers laud authors for novel editions as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions. —Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction. —Seneca the Younger, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Hypocrisy may deceive the most perceptive adult, but the dullest child recognizes and is revolted by it, however ingeniously disguised. —Leo Tolstoy translation by Michael R. Burch Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel, or a house when it's time to change residences, even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life. —Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch Improve yourself through others' writings, thus attaining more easily what they acquired through great difficulty. —Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch Fools call wisdom foolishness. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch One true friend is worth ten thousand kin. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Not to speak one’s mind is slavery. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Native American Proverb loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Before you judge a man for his sins be sure to trudge many moons in his moccasins. Native American Proverb by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A man must pursue his Vision as the eagle explores the sky's deepest blues. Native American Proverb loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let us walk respectfully here among earth's creatures, great and small, remembering, our footsteps light, that one wise God created all. Excerpt from Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth’s incandescent white flame; I love you as obscure things are embraced in the dark ... secretly, in shadows, unrevealed & unnamed. Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity’s rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands ... I love you only because I love you by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, Between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation by Michael R. Burch While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, "The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light..." Duet, Minor Key by Michael R. Burch Without the drama of cymbals or the fanfare and snares of drums, I present my case stripped of its fine veneer: Behold, thy instrument. Play, for the night is long. Inconstant Temptress by Michael R. Burch Love, beautiful but fatal to many bewildered hearts, commands us to be faithful, then tempts us with sweets and tarts. Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ by Michael R. Burch Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise in a dizzy circle of two. Oh, when I’m with you, I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too! Warming Her Pearls by Michael R. Burch Warming her pearls, her ******* gleam like constellations. Her belly is a bit rotund ... she might have stepped out of a Rubens. Dark Cloud, Silver Lining from “Love in the Time of the Coronavirus” by Michael R. Burch Despite my stormy demeanor, my hands have never been cleaner! Questionable Credentials by Michael R. Burch Poet? Critic? Dilettante? Do you know what's good, or do you merely flaunt? Published by ***** of Parnassus Delicacy by Michael R. Burch for all good mothers Your love is as delicate as a butterfly cleaning its wings, as soft as the predicate the hummingbird sings to itself, gently murmuring― “Fly! Fly! Fly!” Your love is the string soaring kites untie. The Greatest of These ... by Michael R. Burch The hands that held me tremble. The arms that lifted fall. Angelic flesh, now parchment, is held together with gauze. But her undimmed eyes still embrace me; there infinity can be found. I can almost believe such love will reach me, underground. Haiku Translations of the Oriental Masters Grasses wilt: the braking locomotive grinds to a halt ― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, fallen camellias, if I were you, I'd leap into the torrent! ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first soft snow: leaves of the awed jonquil bow low ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Come, investigate loneliness! a solitary leaf clings to the Kiri tree ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lightning shatters the darkness― the night heron's shriek ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch One apple, alone in the abandoned orchard reddens for winter ― Patrick Blanche, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The poem above is by a French poet; it illustrates how the poetry of Oriental masters like Basho has influenced poets around the world. Graven images of long-departed gods, dry spiritless leaves: companions of the temple porch ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch See: whose surviving sons visit the ancestral graves white-bearded, with trembling canes? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I remove my beautiful kimono: its varied braids surround and entwine my body ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This day of chrysanthemums I shake and comb my wet hair, as their petals shed rain ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This darkening autumn: my neighbor, how does he continue? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Let us arrange these lovely flowers in the bowl since there's no rice ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An ancient pond, the frog leaps: the silver plop and gurgle of water ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The butterfly perfuming its wings fans the orchid ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pausing between clouds the moon rests in the eyes of its beholders ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first chill rain: poor monkey, you too could use a woven cape of straw ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This snowy morning: cries of the crow I despise (ah, but so beautiful!) ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Like a heavy fragrance snow-flakes settle: lilies on the rocks ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The cheerful-chirping cricket contends gray autumn's gay, contemptuous of frost ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill, solemn evangelist of loneliness ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The sea darkening, the voices of the wild ducks: my mysterious companions! ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Will we meet again? Here at your flowering grave: two white butterflies ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Fever-felled mid-path my dreams resurrect, to trek into a hollow land ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Too ill to travel, now only my autumn dreams survey these withering fields ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this has been called Basho's death poem These brown summer grasses? The only remains of "invincible" warriors... ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An empty road lonelier than abandonment: this autumn evening ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring has come: the nameless hill lies shrouded in mist ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The Oldest Haiku These are my translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into poetic forms such as tanka, renga and haiku over time. My translations are excerpts from the Kojiki (the "Record of Ancient Matters"), a book composed around 711-712 A.D. by the historian and poet Ō no Yasumaro. The Kojiki relates Japan’s mythological beginnings and the history of its imperial line. Like Virgil's Aeneid, the Kojiki seeks to legitimize rulers by recounting their roots. These are lines from one of the oldest Japanese poems, found in the oldest Japanese book: While you decline to cry, high on the mountainside a single stalk of plumegrass wilts. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another excerpt, with a humorous twist, from the Kojiki: Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make! Heaven's indignant messengers, you remind me of wordsmiths! ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another, this one a poem of love and longing: Onyx, this gem-black night. Downcast, I await your return like the rising sun, unrivaled in splendor. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch More Haiku by Various Poets Right at my feet! When did you arrive here, snail? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Our world of dew is a world of dew indeed; and yet, and yet... ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, brilliant moon can it be true that even you must rush off, like us, tardy? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch A kite floats at the same place in the sky where yesterday it floated... ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pigeon's behavior is beyond reproach, but the mountain cuckoo's? ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Plowing, not a single bird sings in the mountain's shadow ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pear tree flowers whitely― a young woman reads his letter by moonlight ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch On adjacent branches the plum tree blossoms bloom petal by petal―love! ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Picking autumn plums my wrinkled hands once again grow fragrant ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Dawn! The brilliant sun illuminates sardine heads. ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The abandoned willow shines between rains ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch White plum blossoms― though the hour grows late, a glimpse of dawn ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this is believed to be Buson's death poem and he is said to have died before dawn I thought I felt a dewdrop plop on me as I lay in bed! ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot see the moon and yet the waves still rise ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first morning of autumn: the mirror I investigate reflects my father’s face ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Wild geese pass leaving the emptiness of heaven revealed ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Silently observing the bottomless mountain lake: water lilies ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Cranes flapping ceaselessly test the sky's upper limits ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Falling snowflakes' glitter tinsels the sea ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Blizzards here on earth, blizzards of stars in the sky ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Completely encircled in emerald: the glittering swamp! ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The new calendar!: as if tomorrow is assured... ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Ah butterfly, what dreams do you ply with your beautiful wings? ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because morning glories hold my well-bucket hostage I go begging for water ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring stirs the clouds in the sky's teabowl ― Kikusha-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I saw how the peony crumples in the fire's embers ― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch It fills me with anger, this moon; it fills me and makes me whole ― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch War stood at the end of the hall in the long shadows ― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because he is slow to wrath, I tackle him, then wring his neck in the long grass ― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pale mountain sky: cherry petals play as they tumble earthward ― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The frozen moon, the frozen lake: two oval mirrors reflecting each other. ― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The bitter winter wind ends here with the frozen sea ― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, bitter winter wind, why bellow so when there's no leaves to fell? ― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Winter waves roil their own shadows ― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation by Michael R. Burch No sky, no land: just snow eternally falling... ― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Along with spring leaves my child's teeth take root, blossom ― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Stillness: a single chestnut leaf glides on brilliant water ― Ryuin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch As thunder recedes a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight: applauded by cicadas ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The snake slipped away but his eyes, having held mine, still stare in the grass ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Girls gather sprouts of rice: reflections of the water flicker on the backs of their hats ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Murmurs follow the hay cart this blossoming summer day ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The wet nurse paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins then walked away ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch May I be with my mother wearing her summer kimono by the morning window ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The hands of a woman exist to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The moon hovering above the snow-capped mountains rained down hailstones ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly: a puff of white snow cresting mountains ― Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring snow cascades over fences in white waves ― Suju Takano, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tanka and Waka translations: If fields of autumn flowers can shed their blossoms, shameless, why can’t I also frolic here — as fearless, and as blameless? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Submit to you — is that what you advise? The way the ripples do whenever ill winds arise? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Watching wan moonlight illuminate trees, my heart also brims, overflowing with autumn. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I had thought to pluck the flower of forgetfulness only to find it already blossoming in his heart. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch That which men call "love" — is it not merely the chain preventing our escape from this world of pain? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Once-colorful flowers faded, while in my drab cell life’s impulse also abated as the long rains fell. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I set off at the shore of the seaside of Tago, where I saw the high, illuminated peak of Fuji―white, aglow― through flakes of drifting downy snow. ― Akahito Yamabe, loose translation by Michael R. Burch "Lu Zhai" ("Deer Park") by **** Wei (699-759) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Uninhabited hills ... except that now and again the silence is broken by something like the sound of distant voices as the sun's sinking rays illuminate lichens ... **** Wei (699-759) was a Chinese poet, musician, painter, and politician during the Tang dynasty. He had 29 poems included in the 18th-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. "Lu Zhai" ("Deer Park") is one of his best-known poems. Keywords/Tags: epigram, epigrams, **** Wei, Chinese, translation, nature, animal, deer, park, hills, silence, sound, voices, wind, voice, sun, rays, illuminate, peace, growth, wisdom Less Heroic Couplets: Miss Bliss by Michael R. Burch Domestic “bliss”? Best to swing and miss! Less Heroic Couplets: Then and Now by Michael R. Burch BEFORE: Thanks to Brexit, our lives will be plush! ... AFTER: Crap, we’re going broke! What the hell is the rush? Less Heroic Couplets: Dear Pleader by Michael R. Burch Is our Dear Pleader, as he claims, heroic? I prefer my presidents a bit more stoic. Less Heroic Couplets: Less than Impressed by Michael R. Burch for T. M., regarding certain dispensers of lukewarm air Their volume’s impressive, it’s true ... but somehow it all seems “much ado.” Less Heroic Couplets: Poetry I by Michael R. Burch Poetry is the heart’s caged rhythm, the soul’s frantic tappings at the panes of mortality. Less Heroic Couplets: Poetry II by Michael R. Burch Poetry is the trapped soul’s frantic tappings at the panes of mortality. Less Heroic Couplets: Seesaw by Michael R. Burch A poem is the mind teetering between fact and fiction, momentarily elevated. Less Heroic Couplets: Passions by Michael R. Burch Passions are the heart’s qualms, the soul’s squalls, the brain’s storms. EPIGRAM TRANSLATIONS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH Speechless at Auschwitz by Ko Un loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch At Auschwitz piles of glasses mountains of shoes ... returning, we stared out different windows. Ko Un speaks for all of us, by not knowing what to say about the evidence of the Holocaust, and man's inhumanity to man. Ko Un was speechless at Auschwitz. Someday, when it’s too late, will we be speechless at Gaza? —Michael R. Burch Booksellers laud authors for novel editions as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions. —Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy? —Albert Einstein, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Elevate your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Why should I brood when every petal of my being is blossoming?—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What you seek also pursues you.—Rumi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This is love: to fly toward a mysterious sky, to cause ten thousand veils to fall. First, to stop clinging to life, then to step out, without feet ... —Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Love renders reason senseless. —Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I test the tightrope balancing a child in each arm. —Vera Pavlova, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let me live with joy today, since tomorrow is unforeseeable. —Palladas of Alexandria, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch To live without philosophizing is to close one's eyes and never attempt to open them. – Rene Descartes, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch How happy the soul who speeds back to the Source, but crowned with peace is the one who never came. —a Sophoclean passage from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at great expense. —Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch EPIGRAMS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH Brief Fling by Michael R. Burch “Epigram” means cram, then scram! Published by Brief Poems, Poem Today and The HyperTexts Brief Fling II by Michael R. Burch To write an epigram, cram. If you lack wit, scram! Published by Brief Poems, Ethnu Couplet and The HyperTexts Brief Fling III by Michael R. Burch No one gives a **** about my epigram? And yet they’ll spend billions on Boy George and Wham! Do they have any idea just how hard I cram? Nod to the Master by Michael R. Burch for the Divine Oscar Wilde If every witty thing that’s said were true, Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You! Stage Fright by Michael R. Burch To be or not to be? In the end Hamlet opted for naught. ****** Errata by Michael R. Burch I didn’t mean to love you; if I did, it came unbid- en, and should’ve remained hid- den! Dry **** by Michael R. Burch You came to me as rain breaks on the desert when every flower springs to life at once. But joys are wan illusions to the expert: the Bedouin has learned how not to want. Love is either wholly folly, or fully holy. —Michael R. Burch Intimations by Michael R. Burch Let mercy surround us with a sweet persistence. Let love propound to us that life is infinitely more than existence. Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101 by Michael R. Burch Building her brand, she disrobes, naked, except for her earlobes. Less Heroic Couplets: Shell Game by Michael R. Burch I saw a turtle squirtle! Before you ask, “How fertile?” The squirt came from its mouth. Why do your thoughts fly south? The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch I will never grok picking a picky rule over a Poem!—Michael R. Burch Experience is the best teacher but a hard taskmaster.—Michael R. Burch Wayne Gretzky was pure skill poured into skates.—Michael R. Burch Neither the leaf nor the tree laments karma.—Michael R. Burch Less Heroic Couplets: Gilded Silence by Michael R. Burch Golden silence reigned supreme in my nightmare and her dream. Villanelle of an Opportunist by Michael R. Burch I’m not looking for someone to save. A gal has to do what a gal has to do: I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. How many highways to hell must I pave with intentions imagined, not true? I’m not looking for someone to save. Fools praise compassion while weaklings rave, but a gal has to do what a gal has to do. I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. Some praise the Lord but the Devil’s my fave because he has led me to you! I’m not looking for someone to save. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, a gal has to do what a gal has to do. I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. Every day without meds becomes a close shave and the razor keeps tempting me too. I’m not looking for someone to save: I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave. She is brighter than dawn by Michael R. Burch for Beth There’s a light about her like the moon through a mist: a bright incandescence with which she is blessed and my heart to her light like the tide now is pulled . . . she is fair, O, and bright like the moon silver-veiled. There’s a fire within her like the sun’s leaping forth to lap up the darkness of night from earth's hearth and my eyes to her flame like twin moths now are drawn till my heart is consumed. She is brighter than dawn. The Difference by Michael R. Burch The chimneysweeps will weep for Blake, who wrote his poems for their dear sake. The critics clap, polite, for you. Another poem for poets, Whooo! Crunch by Michael R. Burch for Trump A cockroach could live nine months on the dried mucous you scrounge from your nose then fling like seedplants to the slowly greening floor ... You claim to be the advanced life form, but, mon frere, sometimes as you ****** encrusted kinks of hair from your Leviathan *** and muse softly on zits, icebergs snap off the Antarctic. You’re an evolutionary quandary, in need of a sacral ganglion to control your enlarged, contradictory hindquarters: surely the brain should migrate closer to its primary source of information, in order to ensure the survival of the species. Cockroaches thrive on eyeboogers and feces; their exoskeletons expand and gleam like burnished armor in the presence of uranium. But your cranium      is not nearly so adaptable. “Crunch” is a poem about evolution and survival of the fittest which questions where human beings really are the planet earth’s most advanced life forms. Keywords/Tags: evolution, global warming, insects, cockroaches, advance life form, survival of the fittest, adaptability Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.—Michael R. Burch Viral Donald (I) by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition" Donald Trump is coronaviral: his brain's in a downward spiral. His pale nimbus of hair proves there's nothing up there but an empty skull, fluff and denial. Viral Donald (II) by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition" Why didn't Herr Trump, the POTUS, protect us from the Coronavirus? That weird orange corona of hair's an alarm: Trump is the Virus in Human Form! Limerick-Ode to a Much-Eaten *** by Michael R. Burch There wonst wus a president, Trump, whose greatest *** (et) wus his **** It was padded ’n’ shiny, that great orange hiney, but to drain it we’d need a sump pump! The Less-Than-Divine Results of My Prayers to be Saved from Televangelists by Michael R. Burch I’m old, no longer bold, just cold, and (truth be told), been bought and sold, rolled by the wolves and the lambs in the fold. Who’s to be told by this worn-out scold? The complaint department is always on hold. Poets laud Justice’s high principles. Trump just gropes her raw genitals. —Michael R. Burch Teeter Tots by Michael R. Burch For your spuds to become Tater Tots, first, artfully cut out the knots, then dice them to cubes deep-fried, served to rubes, (but not if they’re acting like snots). I didn’t mean to love you, but I did. Best leave the rest unsaid, hid- den and unbidden. —Michael R. Burch You imagine life is good, but have you actually understood? —Michael R. Burch Living with a body ain’t much fun. Harder, still, to live without one. Whatever happened to our day in the sun? —Michael R. Burch How little remains of our joys and our pains. How little remains of our losses and gains. How little remains of whatever remains. —Michael R. Burch Sometimes I feel better, it’s true, but mostly I’m still not over you. —Michael R. Burch Don’t let the past defeat you. Learn from it, but don’t dwell. Have no regrets at “farewell.” —Michael R. Burch Haughty moon, when did I ever trouble you, insomnia’s co-conspirator! —Michael R. Burch Every day’s a new chance to lose weight, but most likely, I’ll ... procrastinate ... —Michael R. Burch Big Ben ***** by Michael R. Burch Early to bed, hurriedly to rise makes a man stealthy, and that’s why he’s wealthy: what the hell is he doing behind your closed eyes? Friend, how you’ll squirm when you belatedly learn that you’re the worm! Pecking Disorder by Michael R. Burch Love has a pecking order, or maybe a dis-order, a hell we recognize if we merely open our eyes: the attractive win at birth, while those of ample girth are deemed of little worth from Nottingham to Perth. Nottingham is said to have the most beautiful women in the world. Tease by Michael R. Burch It’s what you always say, okay? It’s what you always say: C’mon let’s play, roll in the hay, It’s what you always say. Ole! But little do you do, it’s true. But little do you do. A little ****** run to piddle ... we never really ***** That’s you! Observance (II) by Michael R. Burch fifty years later... The trees are in their autumn beauty, majestic to the eye. Whoever felt as I, whoever felt them doomed to die despite their flamboyant colors? They seem like knights of dismal countenance ... as if, windmills themselves, they might tilt with the ****** sky. And yet their favors gaily fly! KEYWORDS/TAGS: epigram, epigrams, love, life, living, fun, sun, joy, pain, past, sad, sadness The Blobfish by Michael R. Burch You can call me a "blob" with your oversized gob, but what's your excuse, great gargantuan Zeus whose once-chiseled abs are now marbleized flab? But what really alarms me (how I wish you'd abstain) is when you start using that oversized "brain." Consider the planet! Refrain! The Secret of Her Clothes by Michael R. Burch The secret of her clothes is that they whisper a little mysteriously of things unseen in the language of nylon and cotton, so that when she walks to her amorous drawers to rummage among the embroidered hearts and rumors of pastel slips for a white wisp of Victorian lace, the delicate rustle of fabric on fabric, the slightest whisper of telltale static, electrifies me. Published by Erosha, Velvet Avalanche (Anthology) and Poetry Life & Times Dee Light Full by Michael R. Burch A cross-dressing dancer, “Dee Lite,” wore gowns luciferously bright till he washed them one day the old-fashioned way ... in bleach. Now he’s “Sister Off-White.” Severance by Michael R. Burch There once was a bubbly bartender, a transvestite who went on a ****** “So I cut myself off,” she cried with a sob, “There’s the evidence, there in the blender!” Pablo Neruda Translations You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch While nothing can save us from death, still love can redeem each breath. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As if you were set on fire from within, the moon whitens your skin. —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Please understand that when I awaken weeping it's because I dreamed I was a lost child searching the leaf-heaps for your hands in the darkness. ―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I'm no longer in love with her, that's certain... yet perhaps I love her still. Love is so short, forgetting so long! —Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch I love you only because I love you; I am torn between loving and not loving you, Between apathy and desire. My heart vacillates between ice and fire. I love you only because you're the one I love; I hate you deeply, but hatred Bends me all the more toward you, so that the measure of my variableness Is that I do not see you, but love you blindly. Perhaps January's frigid light will consume my heart with its cruel rays, robbing me of any hope of peace. In this tragic plot, I am the one who dies, Love's only victim, And I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, my Love, in fire and blood. Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth's incandescent white flame: I love you as obscure things are loved in the dark, secretly, in shadows, unnamed. I love you like shrubs that refuse to bloom while pregnant with the radiance of mysterious flowers; now thanks to your love an earthy fragrance lives dimly in my body's odors. I love you without knowing how, when, why or where; I love you forthrightly, without complications or care: I love you this way because I know no other. Here, where "I" no longer exists, nor "you"... so close that your hand on my chest is my own, so close that your eyes close gently on my dreams. Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch Every day you play with Infinity's rays. Exquisite visitor, you arrive with the flowers and the water. You are vastly more than this immaculate head I clasp tightly like a cornucopia, every day, between my hands... Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. I long for your liquid laughter, for your sunburned hands like savage harvests. I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles. I want to devour your ******* like almonds, whole. I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty, to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face, to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade. I pursue you, snuffing the shadows, seeking your heart's scorching heat like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue. The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Is the rose **** or is that just how she dresses? Why do trees conceal their spectacular roots? Who hears the confession of the getaway car? Is there anything sadder than a train standing motionless in the rain? In El Salvador, Death by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death still surveils El Salvador. The blood of murdered peasants has never clotted; time cannot congeal it, nor does the rain erase it from the roads. Fifteen thousand were machine-gunned dead by Martinez, the murderer. To this day the coppery taste of blood still flavors the land, bread and wine of El Salvador. If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I need you to know one thing... You know how it goes: if I gaze up at the glowing moon, if observe the blazing autumn's reddening branches from my window, if I touch the impalpable ash of the charred log's wrinkled body... everything returns me to you, as if everything that exists ―all aromas, sights, solids― were small boats sailing toward those isles of yours that await me. However... if little by little you stop loving me then I shall stop loving you, little by little. And if you suddenly forget me, do not bother to investigate, for I shall have immediately forgotten you also. If you think my love strange and mad― this whirlwind of streaming banners gusting through me, so that you elect to leave me at the shore where my heart lacks roots, just remember that, on that very day, at that very hour, I shall raise my arms and my roots will sail off to find some more favorable land. But if each day and every hour, you feel destined to be with me, if you greet me with implacable sweetness, and if each day and every hour flowers blossom on your lips to entice me, ... then ah my love, oh my only, my own, all that fire will be reinfernoed in me and nothing within me will be extinguished or forgotten; my love will feed on your love, my beloved, and as long as you live it will be me in your arms... as long as you never leave mine. Sonnet XLV by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Don't wander far away, not even for a day, because― how can I explain? A day is too long... and I'll be waiting for you, like a man in an empty station where the trains all stand motionless. Don't leave me, my dear, not even for an hour, because― then despair's raindrops will all run blurrily together, and the smoke that drifts lazily in search of a home will descend hazily on me, suffocating my heart. Darling, may your lovely silhouette never dissolve in the surf; may your lashes never flutter at an indecipherable distance. Please don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because then you'll have gone far too far and I'll wander aimlessly, amazed, asking all the earth: Will she ever return? Will she spurn me, dying? My Dog Died by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch My dog died; so I buried him in the backyard garden next to some rusted machine. One day I'll rejoin him, over there, but for now he's gone with his shaggy mane, his crude manners and his cold, clammy nose, while I, the atheist who never believed in any heaven for human beings, now believe in a paradise I'm unfit to enter. Yes, I somehow now believe in a heavenly kennel where my dog awaits my arrival wagging his tail in furious friendship! But I'll not indulge in sadness here: why bewail a companion who was never servile? His friendship was more like that of a porcupine preserving its prickly autonomy. His was the friendship of a distant star with no more intimacy than true friendship called for and no false demonstrations: he never clambered over me coating my clothes with mange; he never assaulted my knee like dogs obsessed with *** But he used to gaze up at me, giving me the attention my ego demanded, while helping this vainglorious man understand my concerns were none of his. Aye, and with those bright eyes so much purer than mine, he'd gaze up at me contentedly; it was a look he reserved for me alone all his entire sweet, gentle life, always merely there, never troubling me, never demanding anything. Aye, and often I envied his energetic tail as we strode the shores of Isla Negra together, in winter weather, wild birds swarming skyward as my golden-maned friend leapt about, supercharged by the sea's electric surges, sniffing away wildly, his tail held ***** his face suffused with the salt spray. Joy! Joy! Joy! As only dogs experience joy in the shameless exuberance of their guiltless spirits. Thus there are no sad good-byes for my dog who died; we never once lied to each other. He died, he's gone, I buried him; that's all there is to it. Tonight I will write the saddest lines by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I will write the saddest lines. I will write, for example, "The night is less bright and a few stars shiver in the distance as I remember her unwarranted light..." Tonight I will write her the saddest lines: that I loved her as she loved me too, sometimes, all those long, lonely nights when I held her tight and filled her ears with indecipherable rhymes... Then she loved me too, as I also loved her, compelled by the spell of her enormous eyes. Tonight I will write her the saddest lines as I ponder love's death and our mutual crimes. Outside I hear night―silent, cold, dark, immense― as these delicate words fall, useless as dew. Oh, what does it matter that love came to naught if love was false, or perhaps even true? And yet I hear songs being sung in the distance. How can I forget her, so soon since I lost her? I seek to regain her, somehow bring her closer. But my heart has been blinded; she will not appear! Now moonlight and starlight whiten dark trees. We also are ghosts, by love's failing light. My love has failed me, but how I once loved her! My voice... this cursed wind... what use to recite? Another's. She will soon be another's. Her body, her voice, her infinite eyes. I no longer love her! And why should I love her when love is sad, short, mad, fickle, unwise? Because of cold nights we clung through so closely, I'm not satisfied to know she is gone. And while I must end this hell I now suffer, It's sad to remember all love left undone. Keywords/Tags: epigram, epigrams, love, *** intimacy, intimate, apparel, clothes, dress, mrbepi, mrbhaiku, clothing, dresses, body, ******* heart, hearts, desire, passion, longing, short, brief, poems, poetry, epitaph, eulogy, death, obituary, introspection
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Athenian Epitaphs by Michael R. Burch These are my modern English translations of ancient Greek epitaphs placed on gravestones and monuments by the ancient Greeks in remembrance of their dead. Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell? Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell. —Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus Passerby, Tell the Spartans we lie Lifeless at Thermopylae: Dead at their word, Obedient to their command. Have they heard? Do they understand? —Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Since I'm dead sea-enclosed Cyzicus shrouds my bones. Faretheewell, O my adoptive land that suckled and nurtured me; Once again I take rest at your breast. —Michael R. Burch, after Erycius These men earned a crown of imperishable glory, nor did the maelstrom of death obscure their story. —Michael R. Burch, after Simonides He lies in state tonight: great is his Monument! Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent. —Michael R. Burch, after Anacreon They observed our fearful fetters, marched to confront the surrounding darkness; now we gratefully commemorate their excellence. Bravely, they died for us. —Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas Be ashamed, O mountains and seas, that these valorous men lack breath. Assume, like pale chattels, an ashen silence at death. —Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she'd confess: "I am now less than nothingness." —Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends' tardiness, mariner! Just man's foolhardiness. —Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum Stranger, flee! But may Fortune grant you all the prosperity she denied me. —Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum I am loyal to you, master, even in the grave: just as you now are death's slave. —Michael R. Burch, after Dioscorides Having never earned a penny nor seen a bridal gown address the floor, still I lie here with the love of many, to be the love of yet one more. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Little I knew—a child of five— of what it means to be alive and all life's little thrills; but little also—(I was glad not to know)— of life's great ills. —Michael R. Burch, after Lucian I lie by stark Icarian rocks and only speak when the sea talks. Please tell my dear father I gave up the ghost on the Aegean coast. —Michael R. Burch, after Theatetus Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead. What difference to me—where I rest my head? The sea knows I'm buried. —Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon Pity this boy who was beautiful, but died. Pity his monument, overlooking this hillside. Pity the world that bore him, then foolishly survived. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Insatiable Death! I was only a child! Why did you ****** me away, in my infancy, from those destined to love me? —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Tell Nicagoras that Strymonias at the setting of the Kids lost his. —Michael R. Burch, after Nicaenetus Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night: his owner's faithful Maltese... but will he still bark again, on sight? —Michael R. Burch, after Tymnes Poor partridge, poor partridge, lately migrated from the rocks; our cat bit off your unlucky head; my offended heart still balks! I put you back together again and buried you, so unsightly! May the dark earth cover you heavily: heavily, not lightly... so she shan't get at you again! —Michael R. Burch, after Agathias Dead as you are, though you lie still as stone, huntress Lycas, my great Thessalonian hound, the wild beasts still fear your white bones; craggy Pelion remembers your valor, splendid Ossa, the way you would bound and bay at the moon for its whiteness, bellowing as below we heard valleys resound. And how brightly with joy you would canter and run the strange lonely peaks of high Cithaeron! —Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Aeschylus, graybeard, son of Euphorion, died far away in wheat-bearing Gela; still, the groves of Marathon may murmur of his valor and the black-haired Mede, with his mournful clarion. —Michael R. Burch, after Aeschylus Not Rocky Trachis, nor the thirsty herbage of Dryophis, nor this albescent stone with its dark blue lettering shielding your white bones, nor the wild Icarian sea dashing against the steep shingles of Doliche and Dracanon, nor the empty earth, nor anything essential of me since birth, nor anything now mingles here with the perplexing absence of you, with what death forces us to abandon... —Michael R. Burch, after Euphorion Though they were steadfast among spears, dark Fate destroyed them as they defended their native land, rich in sheep; now Ossa's dust seems all the more woeful, where they now sleep. —Michael R. Burch, after Aeschylus Sail on, mariner, sail on, for when we were perishing, greater ships sailed on. —Michael R. Burch, after Theodorides We who left the thunderous surge of the Aegean of old, now lie here on the mid-plain of Ecbatan: farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea, farewell, dear sea! —Michael R. Burch, after Plato My friend found me here, a shipwrecked corpse on the beach. He heaped these strange boulders above me. Oh, how he would wail that he "loved" me, with many bright tears for his own calamitous life! Now he sleeps with my wife and flits like a gull in a gale —beyond reach— while my broken bones bleach. —Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus All this vast sea is his Monument. Where does he lie—whether heaven, or hell? Well friend, perhaps when the gulls repent— their shriekings may tell. —Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus Cloud-capped Geraneia, cruel mountain! If only you had looked no further than Ister and Scythian Tanais, had not aided the surge of the Scironian sea's wild-spurting fountain filling the dark ravines of snowy Meluriad! But now he is dead: a chill corpse in a chillier ocean—moon led— and only an empty tomb now speaks of the long, windy voyage ahead. —Michael R. Burch, after Simonides His white bones lie shining on some inhospitable shore: a son lost to his father, his tomb empty; the poor- est beggars have happier mothers! —Michael R. Burch, after Damegtus The light of a single morning exterminated the sacred offspring of Lysidice. Nor do the angels sing. Nor do we seek the gods' advice. This is the grave of Nicander's lost children. We merely weep at its bitter price. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Pluto, delighting in tears, why did you bring our son, Ariston, to the laughterless abyss of death? Why—why? —did the gods grant him breath, if only for seven years? —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Although I had to leave the sweet sun, only nineteen—Diogenes, hail! — beneath the earth, let's have lots more fun: till human desire seems weak and pale. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Once sweetest of the workfellows, our shy teller of tall tales —fleet Crethis! —who excelled at every childhood game... now you sleep among long shadows where everyone's the same... —Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus Passing by, passing by my oft-bewailed pillar, shudder, my new friend to hear my tragic story: of how my pyre was lit by the same fiery torch meant to lead the procession to my nuptials in glory! O Hymenaeus, why did you did change my bridal song to a dirge? Strange! —Michael R. Burch, after Erinna Suddenly this grave holds our nightingale speechless; now she lies here like a stone, who voice was so marvelous; while sunlight illumining dust proves the gods all reachless, as our prayers prove them also unhearing or beseechless. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet I, Homenea, the chattering bright sparrow, lie here in the hollow of a great affliction, leaving tears to Atimetus and all scattered—that great affection. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Wert thou, O Artemis, overbusy with thy beast-slaying hounds when the Beast embraced me? —Michael R. Burch, after Diodorus of Sardis A mother only as far as the birth pangs, my life cut short at the height of life's play: only eighteen years old, so brief was my day. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet We mourn Polyanthus, whose wife placed him newly-wedded in an unmarked grave, having received his luckless corpse back from the green Aegean wave that deposited his fleshless skeleton gruesomely in the harbor of Torone. —Michael R. Burch, after Phaedimus Here Saon, son of Dicon, now rests in holy sleep: say not that the good die, friend, lest gods and mortals weep. —Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus Keywords/Tags: translation, epitaph, epitaphs, eulogy, Ancient Greek, epigram, epigrams, death, mrbepi, grave, funeral, spirit, ghost, memorial, tribute, praise Epigrams on Life You begrudge men your virginity? Why? To what purpose? You will find no one to embrace you in the grave. The joys of love are for the living. But in Acheron, dear ****** we shall all lie dust and ashes. —Michael R. Burch, after Asclepiades of Samos Let me live with joy today, since tomorrow is unforeseeable. —Michael R. Burch, after Palladas of Alexandria Ibykos/Ibycus Epigrams Ibycus has been called the most love-mad of poets. Euryalus, born of the blue-eyed Graces, scion of the bright-tressed Seasons, son of the Cyprian, whom dew-lidded Persuasion birthed among rose-blossoms. —Ibykos/Ibycus (circa 540 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ibykos/Ibycus Fragment 286, circa 564 B.C. this poem has been titled "The Influence of Spring" loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Come spring, the grand apple trees stand watered by a gushing river where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver and the blossoming grape vine swells in the gathering shadows. Unfortunately for me Eros never rests but like a Thracian tempest ablaze with lightning emanates from Aphrodite; the results are frightening— black, bleak, astonishing, violently jolting me from my soles to my soul. Originally published by The Chained Muse Ibykos/Ibycus Fragment 282, circa 540 B.C. Ibykos fragment 282, Oxyrhynchus papyrus, lines 1-32 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch ... They also destroyed the glorious city of Priam, son of Dardanus, after leaving Argos due to the devices of death-dealing Zeus, encountering much-sung strife over the striking beauty of auburn-haired Helen, waging woeful war when destruction rained down on longsuffering Pergamum thanks to the machinations of golden-haired Aphrodite ... But now it is not my intention to sing of Paris, the host-deceiver, nor of slender-ankled Cassandra, nor of Priam’s other children, nor of the nameless day of the downfall of high-towered Troy, nor even of the valour of the heroes who hid in the hollow, many-bolted horse ... Such was the destruction of Troy. They were heroic men and Agamemnon was their king, a king from Pleisthenes, a son of Atreus, son of a noble father. The all-wise Muses of Helicon might recount such tales accurately, but no mortal man, unblessed, could ever number those innumerable ships Menelaus led across the Aegean from Aulos ... "From Argos they came, the bronze-speared sons of the Achaeans ..." Anacreon Epigrams Yes, bring me Homer’s lyre, no doubt, but first yank the bloodstained strings out! —Anacreon, translation by Michael R. Burch Here we find Anacreon, an elderly lover of boys and wine. His harp still sings in lonely Acheron as he thinks of the lads he left behind ... —Anacreon or the Anacreontea, translation by Michael R. Burch He lies in state tonight: great is his Monument! Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent. —Michael R. Burch, after Anacreon Plato Epigrams These epitaphs and other epigrams have been ascribed to Plato ... Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato We left the thunderous Aegean to sleep peacefully here on the plains of Ecbatan. Farewell, renowned Eretria, our homeland! Farewell, Athens, Euboea's neighbor! Farewell, dear Sea! —Michael R. Burch, after Plato We who navigated the Aegean’s thunderous storm-surge now sleep peacefully here on the mid-plains of Ecbatan: Farewell, renowned Eretria, our homeland! Farewell, Athens, nigh to Euboea! Farewell, dear Sea! —Michael R. Burch, after Plato This poet was pleasing to foreigners and even more delightful to his countrymen: Pindar, beloved of the melodious Muses. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Some say the Muses are nine. Foolish critics, count again! Sappho of ****** makes ten. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Even as you once shone, the Star of Morning, vastly above our heads, even so you now shine, the Star of Evening, eclipsing the dead. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Why do you gaze up at the stars? Oh, my Star, that I were Heaven, to gaze at you with many eyes! —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Every heart sings an incomplete song, until another heart sings along. Those who would love long to join in the chorus. At a lover’s touch, everyone becomes a poet. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato The Apple ascribed to Plato loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here’s an apple; if you’re able to love me, catch it and chuck me your cherry in exchange. But if you hesitate, as I hope you won’t, take the apple, examine it carefully, and consider how briefly its beauty will last. HOMER TRANSLATIONS Surrender to sleep at last! What an ordeal, keeping watch all night, wide awake. Soon you’ll succumb to sleep and escape all your troubles. Sleep. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Any moment might be our last. Earth’s magnificence? Magnified because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than at this moment. We will never pass this way again. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let’s hope the gods are willing. They rule the vaulting skies. They’re stronger than men to plan, execute and realize their ambitions.—Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Passage home? Impossible! Surely you have something else in mind, Goddess, urging me to cross the ocean’s endless expanse in a raft. So vast, so full of danger! Hell, sometimes not even the sea-worthiest ships can prevail, aided as they are by Zeus’s mighty breath! I’ll never set foot on a raft, Goddess, until you swear by all that’s holy you’re not plotting some new intrigue! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Few sons surpass their fathers; most fall short, all too few overachieve. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Beauty! Ah, Terrible Beauty! A deathless Goddess, she startles our eyes! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Many dread seas and many dark mountain ranges lie between us. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The lives of mortal men? Like the leaves’ generations. Now the old leaves fall, blown and scattered by the wind. Soon the living timber bursts forth green buds as spring returns. Even so with men: as one generation is born, another expires. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Since I’m attempting to temper my anger, it does not behoove me to rage unrelentingly on. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Overpowering memories subsided to grief. Priam wept freely for Hector, who had died crouching at Achilles’ feet, while Achilles wept himself, first for his father, then for Patroclus, as their mutual sobbing filled the house. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch “Genius is discovered in adversity, not prosperity.” — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ruin, the eldest daughter of Zeus, blinds us all with her fatal madness. With those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, she glides over our heads, trapping us all. First she entangles you, then me, in her lethal net. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death and Fate await us all. Soon comes a dawn or noon or sunset when someone takes my life in battle, with a well-flung spear or by whipping a deadly arrow from his bow. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust.—Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Antipater Epigrams Mnemosyne was stunned into astonishment when she heard honey-tongued Sappho, wondering how mortal men merited a tenth Muse. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch O Aeolian land, you lightly cover Sappho, the mortal Muse who joined the Immortals, whom Cypris and Eros fostered, with whom Peitho wove undying wreaths, who was the joy of Hellas and your glory. O Fates who twine the spindle's triple thread, why did you not spin undying life for the singer whose deathless gifts enchanted the Muses of Helicon? —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here, O stranger, the sea-crashed earth covers Homer, herald of heroes' valour, spokesman of the Olympians, second sun to the Greeks, light of the immortal Muses, the Voice that never diminishes. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This herald of heroes, this interpreter of the Immortals, this second sun shedding light on the life of Greece, Homer, the delight of the Muses, the ageless voice of the world, lies dead, O stranger, washed away with the sea-washed sand ... —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As high as the trumpet's cry exceeds the thin flute's, so high above all others your lyre rang; so much the sweeter your honey than the waxen-celled swarm's. O Pindar, with your tender lips witness how the horned god Pan forgot his pastoral reeds when he sang your hymns. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here lies Pindar, the Pierian trumpet, the heavy-smiting smith of well-stuck hymns. Hearing his melodies, one might believe the immortal Muses possessed bees to produce heavenly harmonies in the bridal chamber of Cadmus. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Harmonia, the goddess of Harmony, was the bride of Cadmus, so his bridal chamber would have been full of pleasant sounds. Praise the well-wrought verses of tireless Antimachus, a man worthy of the majesty of ancient demigods, whose words were forged on the Muses' anvils. If you are gifted with a keen ear, if you aspire to weighty words, if you would pursue a path less traveled, if Homer holds the scepter of song, and yet Zeus is greater than Poseidon, even so Poseidon his inferior exceeds all other Immortals; and even so the Colophonian bows before Homer, but exceeds all other singers. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I, the trumpet that once blew the ****** battle-notes and the sweet truce-tunes, now hang here, Pherenicus, your gift to Athena, quieted from my clamorous music. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Behold Anacreon's tomb; here the Teian swan sleeps with the unmitigated madness of his love for lads. Still he sings songs of longing on the lyre of Bathyllus and the albescent marble is perfumed with ivy. Death has not quenched his desire and the house of Acheron still burns with the fevers of Cypris. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch May the four-clustered clover, Anacreon, grow here by your grave, ringed by the tender petals of the purple meadow-flowers, and may fountains of white milk bubble up, and the sweet-scented wine gush forth from the earth, so that your ashes and bones may experience joy, if indeed the dead know any delight. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Stranger passing by the simple tomb of Anacreon, if you found any profit in my books, please pour drops of your libation on my ashes, so that my bones, refreshed by wine, may rejoice that I, who so delighted in the boisterous revels of Dionysus, and who played such manic music, as wine-drinkers do, even in death may not travel without Bacchus in my sojourn to that land to which all men must come. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Anacreon, glory of Ionia, even in the land of the lost may you never be without your beloved revels, or your well-loved lyre, and may you still sing with glistening eyes, shaking the braided flowers from your hair, turning always towards Eurypyle, Megisteus, or the locks of Thracian Smerdies, sipping sweet wine, your robes drenched with the juices of grapes, wringing intoxicating nectar from its folds ... For all your life, old friend, was poured out as an offering to these three: the Muses, Bacchus, and Love. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Smerdies, also mentioned by the poet Simonides, was a Thracian boy loved by Anacreon. Simonides also mentioned Megisteus. Eurypyle was a girl also mentioned by the poet Dioscorides. So these seem to be names associated with Anacreon. The reference to "locks" apparently has to do with Smerdies having his hair cut by Anacreon's rival for his affections, in a jealous rage. You sleep amid the dead, Anacreon, your day-labor done, your well-loved lyre's sweet tongue silenced that once sang incessantly all night long. And Smerdies also sleeps, the spring-tide of your loves, for whom, tuning and turning you lyre, you made music like sweetest nectar. For you were Love's bullseye, the lover of lads, and he had the bow and the subtle archer's craft to never miss his target. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Erinna's verses were few, nor were her songs overlong, but her smallest works were inspired. Therefore she cannot fail to be remembered and is never lost beneath the shadowy wings of bleak night. While we, the estranged, the innumerable throngs of tardy singers, lie in pale corpse-heaps wasting into oblivion. The moaned song of the lone swan outdoes the cawings of countless jackdaws echoing far and wide through darkening clouds. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who hung these glittering shields here, these unstained spears and unruptured helmets, dedicating to murderous Ares ornaments of no value? Will no one cast these virginal weapons out of my armory? Their proper place is in the peaceful halls of placid men, not within the wild walls of Enyalius. I delight in hacked heads and the blood of dying berserkers, if, indeed, I am Ares the Destroyer. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch May good Fortune, O stranger, keep you on course all your life before a fair breeze! —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Docile doves may coo for cowards, but we delight in dauntless men. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here by the threshing-room floor, little ant, you relentless toiler, I built you a mound of liquid-absorbing earth, so that even in death you may partake of the droughts of Demeter, as you lie in the grave my plough burrowed. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This is your mother’s lament, Artemidorus, weeping over your tomb, bewailing your twelve brief years: "All the fruit of my labor has gone up in smoke, all your heartbroken father's endeavors are ash, all your childish passion an extinguished flame. For you have entered the land of the lost, from which there is no return, never a home-coming. You failed to reach your prime, my darling, and now we have nothing but your headstone and dumb dust." —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead. What difference to me—where I rest my head? The sea knows I’m buried. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Everywhere the Sea is the Sea by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Everywhere the Sea is the same; why then do we idly blame the Cyclades or the harrowing waves of narrow Helle? To protest is vain! Justly, they have earned their fame. Why then, after I had escaped them, did the harbor of Scarphe engulf me? I advise whoever finds a fair passage home: accept that the sea's way is its own. Man is foam. Aristagoras knows who's buried here. Orpheus, mute your bewitching strains by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Orpheus, mute your bewitching strains; Leave beasts to wander stony plains; No longer sing fierce winds to sleep, Nor seek to enchant the tumultuous deep; For you are dead; each Muse, forlorn, Strums anguished strings as your mother mourns. Mind, mere mortals, mind—no use to moan, When even a Goddess could not save her own! Orpheus, now you will never again enchant by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Orpheus, now you will never again enchant the charmed oaks, never again mesmerize shepherdless herds of wild beasts, never again lull the roaring winds, never again tame the tumultuous hail nor the sweeping snowstorms nor the crashing sea, for you have perished and the daughters of Mnemosyne weep for you, and your mother Calliope above all. Why do mortals mourn their dead sons, when not even the gods can protect their children from Hades? —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The High Road to Death by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Men skilled in the stars call me brief-lifed; I am, but what do I care, O Seleucus? All men descend to Hades and if our demise comes quicker, the sooner we shall we look on Minos. Let us drink then, for surely wine is a steed for the high-road, when pedestrians march sadly to Death. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I have set my eyes upon the lofty walls of Babylon with its elevated road for chariots ... and upon the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus ... ... and upon the hanging gardens ... ... upon the Colossus of the Sun ... ... upon the massive edifices of the towering pyramids ... ... even upon the vast tomb of Mausolus ... but when I saw the mansion of Artemis disappearing into the cirri, those other marvels lost their brilliancy and I said, "Setting aside Olympus, the Sun never shone on anything so fabulous!" Erinna Epigrams This portrait is the work of sensitive, artistic hands. See, noble Prometheus, you have human equals! For if whoever painted this girl had only added a voice, she would have been Agatharkhis entirely. —Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Erinna is generally considered to be second only to Sappho as an ancient Greek female poet. Little is known about her life; Erinna has been called a contemporary of Sappho and her most gifted student, but she may have lived up to a few hundred years later. This poem, about a portrait of a girl or young woman named Agatharkhis, has been called the earliest Greek ekphrastic epigram (an epigram describing a work of art). Passing by, passing by my oft-bewailed pillar, shudder, my new friend to hear my tragic story: of how my pyre was lit by the same fiery torch meant to lead the procession to my nuptials in glory! O Hymenaeus, why did you did change my bridal song to a dirge? Strange! —Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You, my tall Columns, and you, my small Urn, the receptacle of Hades’ tiny pittance of ash— remember me to those who pass by my grave, as they dash. Tell them my story, as sad as it is: that this grave sealed a young bride’s womb; that my name was Baucis and Telos my land; and that Erinna, my friend, etched this poem on my Tomb. —Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Translator’s note: Baucis is also spelled Baukis. Erinna has been attributed to different locations, including ****** Rhodes, Teos, Telos and Tenos. Telos seems the most likely because of her Dorian dialect. Erinna wrote in a mixture of Aeolic and Doric Greek. In 1928, Italian archaeologists excavating at Oxyrhynchus discovered a tattered piece of papyrus which contained 54 lines Erinna’s lost epic, the poem “Distaff.” This work, like the epigram above, was also about her friend Baucis. Excerpts from “Distaff” by Erinna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch … the moon rising … … leaves falling … … waves lapping a windswept shore … … and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ... ... Leaping from white horses, running on reckless feet through the great courtyard. “You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!” But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers, you darted beyond the courtyard, dashed out deep into the waves, splashing far beyond us … … My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial, these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash … … Do you remember how, as girls, we played at weddings with our dolls, pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ... ... How sometimes I was your mother, allotting wool to the weaver-women, calling for you to unreel the thread? ... … Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue, her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ... ... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ... ... But when you mounted your husband’s bed, dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings! Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ... ... Desire becomes oblivion ... ... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend. I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt. I can’t bring myself to leave the house. I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes. I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound? I blush with shame at the thought of you! … ... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis, My deep grief is ripping me apart. Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen, I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ... O ***** . . . O Hymenaeus! . . . Alas, my poor Baucis! On a Betrothed Girl by Erinna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I sing of Baucis the bride. Observing her tear-stained crypt say this to Death who dwells underground: "Thou art envious, O Death!" Her vivid monument tells passers-by of the bitter misfortune of Baucis — how her father-in-law burned the poor girl on a pyre lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home. While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges. ***** O Hymenaeus! Sappho Epigrams Sappho, fragment 155 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A short revealing frock? It's just my luck your lips were made to mock! (Pollux wrote: "Sappho used the word beudos [Βεῦδοσ] for a woman's dress, a kimbericon, a kind of short transparent frock.") Sappho, fragment 156 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch She keeps her scents in a dressing-case. And her sense? In some undiscoverable place. (Phrynichus wrote: "Sappho calls a woman's dressing-case, where she keeps her scents and such things, grutê [γρύτη].") Sappho, fragment 47 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Eros harrows my heart: wild winds whipping desolate mountains, uprooting oaks. The poem above is my favorite Sappho epigram. The metaphor of Eros ****** desire) harrowing mountain slopes, leveling oaks and leaving them desolate, is really something―truly powerful and evocative. According to Edwin Marion *** this Sapphic epigram was "Quoted by Maximus Tyrius about 150 B.C. He speaks of Socrates exciting Phaedus to madness, when he speaks of love." Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at the expense of experience. — Socrates, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ancient Roman Epigrams Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed, since you're holding up verses so prolapsed! —Ancient Roman graffiti, translation by Michael R. Burch Incompatibles by Michael R. Burch Reason’s treason! cries the Heart. Love’s insane, replies the Brain. Originally published by Light The Greatest of These ... by Michael R. Burch The hands that held me tremble. The arms that lifted   fall. Angelic flesh, now parchment, is held together with gauze. But her undimmed eyes still embrace me; there infinity can be found. I can almost believe such love will reach me, underground. PRINCESS DIANA POEMS Fairest Diana by Michael R. Burch Fairest Diana, princess of dreams, born to be loved and yet distant and lone, why did you linger―so solemn, so lovely― an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone? Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions? Surely your lips―for wild kisses, not vows! Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming a pearl of enchantment cast before sows? Fairest Diana, as fragile as lilac, as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose; how did a stanza of silver-bright verse come to be bound in a book of dull prose? Published by Tucumcari Literary Journal and Night Roses Will There Be Starlight for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch Will there be starlight tonight while she gathers damask and lilac and sweet-scented heathers? And will she find flowers, or will she find thorns guarding the petals of roses unborn? Will there be starlight tonight while she gathers seashells and mussels and albatross feathers? And will she find treasure or will she find pain at the end of this rainbow of moonlight on rain? She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch She was very strange, and beautiful, like a violet mist enshrouding hills before night falls when the hoot owl calls and the cricket trills and the envapored moon hangs low and full. She was very strange, in a pleasant way, as the hummingbird flies madly still, so I drank my fill of her every word. What she knew of love, she demurred to say. She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow, as the sun must set, as the rain must fall. Though she gave her all, we had nothing left... yet we smiled, bereft, in her receding glow. The Peripheries of Love for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch Through waning afternoons we glide the watery peripheries of love. A silence, a quietude falls. Above us―the sagging pavilions of clouds. Below us―rough pebbles slowly worn smooth grate in the gentle turbulence of yesterday’s forgotten rains. Later, the moon like a ****** lifts her stricken white face and the waters rise toward some unfathomable shore. We sway gently in the wake of what stirs beneath us, yet leaves us unmoved... curiously motionless, as though twilight might blur the effects of proximity and distance, as though love might be near― as near as a single cupped tear of resilient dew or a long-awaited face. The Aery Faery Princess for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch There once was a princess lighter than fluff made of such gossamer stuff― the down of a thistle, butterflies’ wings, the faintest high note the hummingbird sings, moonbeams on garlands, stands of bright hair... I think she’s just you when you’re floating on air. I Pray Tonight for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch I pray tonight the starry light might surround you. I pray by day that, come what may, no dark thing confound you. I pray ere tomorrow an end to your sorrow. May angels' white chorales sing, and astound you. Sweet Rose of Virtue by William Dunbar 1460-1525 loose translation by Michael R. Burch Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness, delightful lily of youthful wantonness, richest in bounty and in beauty clear and in every virtue that is held most dear― except only that death is merciless. Into your garden, today, I followed you; there I saw flowers of freshest hue, both white and red, delightful to see, and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently― yet everywhere, no odor but rue. I fear that March with his last arctic blast has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast, whose piteous death does my heart such pain that, if I could, I would compose her roots again― so comforting her bowering leaves have been.
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May 25, 2020
May 25, 2020 at 4:19 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Athenian Epitaphs
Athenian Epitaphs by Michael R. Burch These are my modern English translations of ancient Greek epitaphs placed on gravestones and monuments by the ancient Greeks in remembrance of their dead. Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell? Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell. —Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus Passerby, Tell the Spartans we lie Lifeless at Thermopylae: Dead at their word, Obedient to their command. Have they heard? Do they understand? —Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Since I'm dead sea-enclosed Cyzicus shrouds my bones. Faretheewell, O my adoptive land that suckled and nurtured me; Once again I take rest at your breast. —Michael R. Burch, after Erycius These men earned a crown of imperishable glory, nor did the maelstrom of death obscure their story. —Michael R. Burch, after Simonides He lies in state tonight: great is his Monument! Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent. —Michael R. Burch, after Anacreon They observed our fearful fetters, marched to confront the surrounding darkness; now we gratefully commemorate their excellence. Bravely, they died for us. —Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas Be ashamed, O mountains and seas, that these valorous men lack breath. Assume, like pale chattels, an ashen silence at death. —Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she'd confess: "I am now less than nothingness." —Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends' tardiness, mariner! Just man's foolhardiness. —Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum Stranger, flee! But may Fortune grant you all the prosperity she denied me. —Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum I am loyal to you, master, even in the grave: just as you now are death's slave. —Michael R. Burch, after Dioscorides Having never earned a penny nor seen a bridal gown address the floor, still I lie here with the love of many, to be the love of yet one more. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Little I knew—a child of five— of what it means to be alive and all life's little thrills; but little also—(I was glad not to know)— of life's great ills. —Michael R. Burch, after Lucian I lie by stark Icarian rocks and only speak when the sea talks. Please tell my dear father I gave up the ghost on the Aegean coast. —Michael R. Burch, after Theatetus Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead. What difference to me—where I rest my head? The sea knows I'm buried. —Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon Pity this boy who was beautiful, but died. Pity his monument, overlooking this hillside. Pity the world that bore him, then foolishly survived. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Insatiable Death! I was only a child! Why did you ****** me away, in my infancy, from those destined to love me? —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Tell Nicagoras that Strymonias at the setting of the Kids lost his. —Michael R. Burch, after Nicaenetus Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night: his owner's faithful Maltese... but will he still bark again, on sight? —Michael R. Burch, after Tymnes Poor partridge, poor partridge, lately migrated from the rocks; our cat bit off your unlucky head; my offended heart still balks! I put you back together again and buried you, so unsightly! May the dark earth cover you heavily: heavily, not lightly... so she shan't get at you again! —Michael R. Burch, after Agathias Dead as you are, though you lie still as stone, huntress Lycas, my great Thessalonian hound, the wild beasts still fear your white bones; craggy Pelion remembers your valor, splendid Ossa, the way you would bound and bay at the moon for its whiteness, bellowing as below we heard valleys resound. And how brightly with joy you would canter and run the strange lonely peaks of high Cithaeron! —Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Aeschylus, graybeard, son of Euphorion, died far away in wheat-bearing Gela; still, the groves of Marathon may murmur of his valor and the black-haired Mede, with his mournful clarion. —Michael R. Burch, after Aeschylus Not Rocky Trachis, nor the thirsty herbage of Dryophis, nor this albescent stone with its dark blue lettering shielding your white bones, nor the wild Icarian sea dashing against the steep shingles of Doliche and Dracanon, nor the empty earth, nor anything essential of me since birth, nor anything now mingles here with the perplexing absence of you, with what death forces us to abandon... —Michael R. Burch, after Euphorion Though they were steadfast among spears, dark Fate destroyed them as they defended their native land, rich in sheep; now Ossa's dust seems all the more woeful, where they now sleep. —Michael R. Burch, after Aeschylus Sail on, mariner, sail on, for when we were perishing, greater ships sailed on. —Michael R. Burch, after Theodorides We who left the thunderous surge of the Aegean of old, now lie here on the mid-plain of Ecbatan: farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea, farewell, dear sea! —Michael R. Burch, after Plato My friend found me here, a shipwrecked corpse on the beach. He heaped these strange boulders above me. Oh, how he would wail that he "loved" me, with many bright tears for his own calamitous life! Now he sleeps with my wife and flits like a gull in a gale —beyond reach— while my broken bones bleach. —Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus All this vast sea is his Monument. Where does he lie—whether heaven, or hell? Well friend, perhaps when the gulls repent— their shriekings may tell. —Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus Cloud-capped Geraneia, cruel mountain! If only you had looked no further than Ister and Scythian Tanais, had not aided the surge of the Scironian sea's wild-spurting fountain filling the dark ravines of snowy Meluriad! But now he is dead: a chill corpse in a chillier ocean—moon led— and only an empty tomb now speaks of the long, windy voyage ahead. —Michael R. Burch, after Simonides His white bones lie shining on some inhospitable shore: a son lost to his father, his tomb empty; the poor- est beggars have happier mothers! —Michael R. Burch, after Damegtus The light of a single morning exterminated the sacred offspring of Lysidice. Nor do the angels sing. Nor do we seek the gods' advice. This is the grave of Nicander's lost children. We merely weep at its bitter price. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Pluto, delighting in tears, why did you bring our son, Ariston, to the laughterless abyss of death? Why—why? —did the gods grant him breath, if only for seven years? —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Although I had to leave the sweet sun, only nineteen—Diogenes, hail! — beneath the earth, let's have lots more fun: till human desire seems weak and pale. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Once sweetest of the workfellows, our shy teller of tall tales —fleet Crethis! —who excelled at every childhood game... now you sleep among long shadows where everyone's the same... —Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus Passing by, passing by my oft-bewailed pillar, shudder, my new friend to hear my tragic story: of how my pyre was lit by the same fiery torch meant to lead the procession to my nuptials in glory! O Hymenaeus, why did you did change my bridal song to a dirge? Strange! —Michael R. Burch, after Erinna Suddenly this grave holds our nightingale speechless; now she lies here like a stone, who voice was so marvelous; while sunlight illumining dust proves the gods all reachless, as our prayers prove them also unhearing or beseechless. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet I, Homenea, the chattering bright sparrow, lie here in the hollow of a great affliction, leaving tears to Atimetus and all scattered—that great affection. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet Wert thou, O Artemis, overbusy with thy beast-slaying hounds when the Beast embraced me? —Michael R. Burch, after Diodorus of Sardis A mother only as far as the birth pangs, my life cut short at the height of life's play: only eighteen years old, so brief was my day. —Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet We mourn Polyanthus, whose wife placed him newly-wedded in an unmarked grave, having received his luckless corpse back from the green Aegean wave that deposited his fleshless skeleton gruesomely in the harbor of Torone. —Michael R. Burch, after Phaedimus Here Saon, son of Dicon, now rests in holy sleep: say not that the good die, friend, lest gods and mortals weep. —Michael R. Burch, after Callimachus Keywords/Tags: translation, epitaph, epitaphs, eulogy, Ancient Greek, epigram, epigrams, death, mrbepi, grave, funeral, spirit, ghost, memorial, tribute, praise Epigrams on Life You begrudge men your virginity? Why? To what purpose? You will find no one to embrace you in the grave. The joys of love are for the living. But in Acheron, dear ****** we shall all lie dust and ashes. —Michael R. Burch, after Asclepiades of Samos Let me live with joy today, since tomorrow is unforeseeable. —Michael R. Burch, after Palladas of Alexandria Ibykos/Ibycus Epigrams Ibycus has been called the most love-mad of poets. Euryalus, born of the blue-eyed Graces, scion of the bright-tressed Seasons, son of the Cyprian, whom dew-lidded Persuasion birthed among rose-blossoms. —Ibykos/Ibycus (circa 540 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ibykos/Ibycus Fragment 286, circa 564 B.C. this poem has been titled "The Influence of Spring" loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Come spring, the grand apple trees stand watered by a gushing river where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver and the blossoming grape vine swells in the gathering shadows. Unfortunately for me Eros never rests but like a Thracian tempest ablaze with lightning emanates from Aphrodite; the results are frightening— black, bleak, astonishing, violently jolting me from my soles to my soul. Originally published by The Chained Muse Ibykos/Ibycus Fragment 282, circa 540 B.C. Ibykos fragment 282, Oxyrhynchus papyrus, lines 1-32 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch ... They also destroyed the glorious city of Priam, son of Dardanus, after leaving Argos due to the devices of death-dealing Zeus, encountering much-sung strife over the striking beauty of auburn-haired Helen, waging woeful war when destruction rained down on longsuffering Pergamum thanks to the machinations of golden-haired Aphrodite ... But now it is not my intention to sing of Paris, the host-deceiver, nor of slender-ankled Cassandra, nor of Priam’s other children, nor of the nameless day of the downfall of high-towered Troy, nor even of the valour of the heroes who hid in the hollow, many-bolted horse ... Such was the destruction of Troy. They were heroic men and Agamemnon was their king, a king from Pleisthenes, a son of Atreus, son of a noble father. The all-wise Muses of Helicon might recount such tales accurately, but no mortal man, unblessed, could ever number those innumerable ships Menelaus led across the Aegean from Aulos ... "From Argos they came, the bronze-speared sons of the Achaeans ..." Anacreon Epigrams Yes, bring me Homer’s lyre, no doubt, but first yank the bloodstained strings out! —Anacreon, translation by Michael R. Burch Here we find Anacreon, an elderly lover of boys and wine. His harp still sings in lonely Acheron as he thinks of the lads he left behind ... —Anacreon or the Anacreontea, translation by Michael R. Burch He lies in state tonight: great is his Monument! Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent. —Michael R. Burch, after Anacreon Plato Epigrams These epitaphs and other epigrams have been ascribed to Plato ... Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato We left the thunderous Aegean to sleep peacefully here on the plains of Ecbatan. Farewell, renowned Eretria, our homeland! Farewell, Athens, Euboea's neighbor! Farewell, dear Sea! —Michael R. Burch, after Plato We who navigated the Aegean’s thunderous storm-surge now sleep peacefully here on the mid-plains of Ecbatan: Farewell, renowned Eretria, our homeland! Farewell, Athens, nigh to Euboea! Farewell, dear Sea! —Michael R. Burch, after Plato This poet was pleasing to foreigners and even more delightful to his countrymen: Pindar, beloved of the melodious Muses. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Some say the Muses are nine. Foolish critics, count again! Sappho of ****** makes ten. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Even as you once shone, the Star of Morning, vastly above our heads, even so you now shine, the Star of Evening, eclipsing the dead. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Why do you gaze up at the stars? Oh, my Star, that I were Heaven, to gaze at you with many eyes! —Michael R. Burch, after Plato Every heart sings an incomplete song, until another heart sings along. Those who would love long to join in the chorus. At a lover’s touch, everyone becomes a poet. —Michael R. Burch, after Plato The Apple ascribed to Plato loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here’s an apple; if you’re able to love me, catch it and chuck me your cherry in exchange. But if you hesitate, as I hope you won’t, take the apple, examine it carefully, and consider how briefly its beauty will last. HOMER TRANSLATIONS Surrender to sleep at last! What an ordeal, keeping watch all night, wide awake. Soon you’ll succumb to sleep and escape all your troubles. Sleep. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Any moment might be our last. Earth’s magnificence? Magnified because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than at this moment. We will never pass this way again. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let’s hope the gods are willing. They rule the vaulting skies. They’re stronger than men to plan, execute and realize their ambitions.—Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Passage home? Impossible! Surely you have something else in mind, Goddess, urging me to cross the ocean’s endless expanse in a raft. So vast, so full of danger! Hell, sometimes not even the sea-worthiest ships can prevail, aided as they are by Zeus’s mighty breath! I’ll never set foot on a raft, Goddess, until you swear by all that’s holy you’re not plotting some new intrigue! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Few sons surpass their fathers; most fall short, all too few overachieve. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Beauty! Ah, Terrible Beauty! A deathless Goddess, she startles our eyes! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Many dread seas and many dark mountain ranges lie between us. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The lives of mortal men? Like the leaves’ generations. Now the old leaves fall, blown and scattered by the wind. Soon the living timber bursts forth green buds as spring returns. Even so with men: as one generation is born, another expires. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Since I’m attempting to temper my anger, it does not behoove me to rage unrelentingly on. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Overpowering memories subsided to grief. Priam wept freely for Hector, who had died crouching at Achilles’ feet, while Achilles wept himself, first for his father, then for Patroclus, as their mutual sobbing filled the house. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch “Genius is discovered in adversity, not prosperity.” — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ruin, the eldest daughter of Zeus, blinds us all with her fatal madness. With those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, she glides over our heads, trapping us all. First she entangles you, then me, in her lethal net. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death and Fate await us all. Soon comes a dawn or noon or sunset when someone takes my life in battle, with a well-flung spear or by whipping a deadly arrow from his bow. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust.—Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Antipater Epigrams Mnemosyne was stunned into astonishment when she heard honey-tongued Sappho, wondering how mortal men merited a tenth Muse. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch O Aeolian land, you lightly cover Sappho, the mortal Muse who joined the Immortals, whom Cypris and Eros fostered, with whom Peitho wove undying wreaths, who was the joy of Hellas and your glory. O Fates who twine the spindle's triple thread, why did you not spin undying life for the singer whose deathless gifts enchanted the Muses of Helicon? —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here, O stranger, the sea-crashed earth covers Homer, herald of heroes' valour, spokesman of the Olympians, second sun to the Greeks, light of the immortal Muses, the Voice that never diminishes. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This herald of heroes, this interpreter of the Immortals, this second sun shedding light on the life of Greece, Homer, the delight of the Muses, the ageless voice of the world, lies dead, O stranger, washed away with the sea-washed sand ... —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As high as the trumpet's cry exceeds the thin flute's, so high above all others your lyre rang; so much the sweeter your honey than the waxen-celled swarm's. O Pindar, with your tender lips witness how the horned god Pan forgot his pastoral reeds when he sang your hymns. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here lies Pindar, the Pierian trumpet, the heavy-smiting smith of well-stuck hymns. Hearing his melodies, one might believe the immortal Muses possessed bees to produce heavenly harmonies in the bridal chamber of Cadmus. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Harmonia, the goddess of Harmony, was the bride of Cadmus, so his bridal chamber would have been full of pleasant sounds. Praise the well-wrought verses of tireless Antimachus, a man worthy of the majesty of ancient demigods, whose words were forged on the Muses' anvils. If you are gifted with a keen ear, if you aspire to weighty words, if you would pursue a path less traveled, if Homer holds the scepter of song, and yet Zeus is greater than Poseidon, even so Poseidon his inferior exceeds all other Immortals; and even so the Colophonian bows before Homer, but exceeds all other singers. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I, the trumpet that once blew the ****** battle-notes and the sweet truce-tunes, now hang here, Pherenicus, your gift to Athena, quieted from my clamorous music. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Behold Anacreon's tomb; here the Teian swan sleeps with the unmitigated madness of his love for lads. Still he sings songs of longing on the lyre of Bathyllus and the albescent marble is perfumed with ivy. Death has not quenched his desire and the house of Acheron still burns with the fevers of Cypris. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch May the four-clustered clover, Anacreon, grow here by your grave, ringed by the tender petals of the purple meadow-flowers, and may fountains of white milk bubble up, and the sweet-scented wine gush forth from the earth, so that your ashes and bones may experience joy, if indeed the dead know any delight. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Stranger passing by the simple tomb of Anacreon, if you found any profit in my books, please pour drops of your libation on my ashes, so that my bones, refreshed by wine, may rejoice that I, who so delighted in the boisterous revels of Dionysus, and who played such manic music, as wine-drinkers do, even in death may not travel without Bacchus in my sojourn to that land to which all men must come. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Anacreon, glory of Ionia, even in the land of the lost may you never be without your beloved revels, or your well-loved lyre, and may you still sing with glistening eyes, shaking the braided flowers from your hair, turning always towards Eurypyle, Megisteus, or the locks of Thracian Smerdies, sipping sweet wine, your robes drenched with the juices of grapes, wringing intoxicating nectar from its folds ... For all your life, old friend, was poured out as an offering to these three: the Muses, Bacchus, and Love. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Smerdies, also mentioned by the poet Simonides, was a Thracian boy loved by Anacreon. Simonides also mentioned Megisteus. Eurypyle was a girl also mentioned by the poet Dioscorides. So these seem to be names associated with Anacreon. The reference to "locks" apparently has to do with Smerdies having his hair cut by Anacreon's rival for his affections, in a jealous rage. You sleep amid the dead, Anacreon, your day-labor done, your well-loved lyre's sweet tongue silenced that once sang incessantly all night long. And Smerdies also sleeps, the spring-tide of your loves, for whom, tuning and turning you lyre, you made music like sweetest nectar. For you were Love's bullseye, the lover of lads, and he had the bow and the subtle archer's craft to never miss his target. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Erinna's verses were few, nor were her songs overlong, but her smallest works were inspired. Therefore she cannot fail to be remembered and is never lost beneath the shadowy wings of bleak night. While we, the estranged, the innumerable throngs of tardy singers, lie in pale corpse-heaps wasting into oblivion. The moaned song of the lone swan outdoes the cawings of countless jackdaws echoing far and wide through darkening clouds. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Who hung these glittering shields here, these unstained spears and unruptured helmets, dedicating to murderous Ares ornaments of no value? Will no one cast these virginal weapons out of my armory? Their proper place is in the peaceful halls of placid men, not within the wild walls of Enyalius. I delight in hacked heads and the blood of dying berserkers, if, indeed, I am Ares the Destroyer. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch May good Fortune, O stranger, keep you on course all your life before a fair breeze! —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Docile doves may coo for cowards, but we delight in dauntless men. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here by the threshing-room floor, little ant, you relentless toiler, I built you a mound of liquid-absorbing earth, so that even in death you may partake of the droughts of Demeter, as you lie in the grave my plough burrowed. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This is your mother’s lament, Artemidorus, weeping over your tomb, bewailing your twelve brief years: "All the fruit of my labor has gone up in smoke, all your heartbroken father's endeavors are ash, all your childish passion an extinguished flame. For you have entered the land of the lost, from which there is no return, never a home-coming. You failed to reach your prime, my darling, and now we have nothing but your headstone and dumb dust." —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead. What difference to me—where I rest my head? The sea knows I’m buried. —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Everywhere the Sea is the Sea by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Everywhere the Sea is the same; why then do we idly blame the Cyclades or the harrowing waves of narrow Helle? To protest is vain! Justly, they have earned their fame. Why then, after I had escaped them, did the harbor of Scarphe engulf me? I advise whoever finds a fair passage home: accept that the sea's way is its own. Man is foam. Aristagoras knows who's buried here. Orpheus, mute your bewitching strains by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Orpheus, mute your bewitching strains; Leave beasts to wander stony plains; No longer sing fierce winds to sleep, Nor seek to enchant the tumultuous deep; For you are dead; each Muse, forlorn, Strums anguished strings as your mother mourns. Mind, mere mortals, mind—no use to moan, When even a Goddess could not save her own! Orpheus, now you will never again enchant by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Orpheus, now you will never again enchant the charmed oaks, never again mesmerize shepherdless herds of wild beasts, never again lull the roaring winds, never again tame the tumultuous hail nor the sweeping snowstorms nor the crashing sea, for you have perished and the daughters of Mnemosyne weep for you, and your mother Calliope above all. Why do mortals mourn their dead sons, when not even the gods can protect their children from Hades? —Antipater of Sidon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The High Road to Death by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Men skilled in the stars call me brief-lifed; I am, but what do I care, O Seleucus? All men descend to Hades and if our demise comes quicker, the sooner we shall we look on Minos. Let us drink then, for surely wine is a steed for the high-road, when pedestrians march sadly to Death. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Antipater of Sidon loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I have set my eyes upon the lofty walls of Babylon with its elevated road for chariots ... and upon the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus ... ... and upon the hanging gardens ... ... upon the Colossus of the Sun ... ... upon the massive edifices of the towering pyramids ... ... even upon the vast tomb of Mausolus ... but when I saw the mansion of Artemis disappearing into the cirri, those other marvels lost their brilliancy and I said, "Setting aside Olympus, the Sun never shone on anything so fabulous!" Erinna Epigrams This portrait is the work of sensitive, artistic hands. See, noble Prometheus, you have human equals! For if whoever painted this girl had only added a voice, she would have been Agatharkhis entirely. —Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Erinna is generally considered to be second only to Sappho as an ancient Greek female poet. Little is known about her life; Erinna has been called a contemporary of Sappho and her most gifted student, but she may have lived up to a few hundred years later. This poem, about a portrait of a girl or young woman named Agatharkhis, has been called the earliest Greek ekphrastic epigram (an epigram describing a work of art). Passing by, passing by my oft-bewailed pillar, shudder, my new friend to hear my tragic story: of how my pyre was lit by the same fiery torch meant to lead the procession to my nuptials in glory! O Hymenaeus, why did you did change my bridal song to a dirge? Strange! —Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch You, my tall Columns, and you, my small Urn, the receptacle of Hades’ tiny pittance of ash— remember me to those who pass by my grave, as they dash. Tell them my story, as sad as it is: that this grave sealed a young bride’s womb; that my name was Baucis and Telos my land; and that Erinna, my friend, etched this poem on my Tomb. —Erinna, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Translator’s note: Baucis is also spelled Baukis. Erinna has been attributed to different locations, including ****** Rhodes, Teos, Telos and Tenos. Telos seems the most likely because of her Dorian dialect. Erinna wrote in a mixture of Aeolic and Doric Greek. In 1928, Italian archaeologists excavating at Oxyrhynchus discovered a tattered piece of papyrus which contained 54 lines Erinna’s lost epic, the poem “Distaff.” This work, like the epigram above, was also about her friend Baucis. Excerpts from “Distaff” by Erinna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch … the moon rising … … leaves falling … … waves lapping a windswept shore … … and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ... ... Leaping from white horses, running on reckless feet through the great courtyard. “You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!” But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers, you darted beyond the courtyard, dashed out deep into the waves, splashing far beyond us … … My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial, these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash … … Do you remember how, as girls, we played at weddings with our dolls, pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ... ... How sometimes I was your mother, allotting wool to the weaver-women, calling for you to unreel the thread? ... … Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue, her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ... ... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ... ... But when you mounted your husband’s bed, dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings! Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ... ... Desire becomes oblivion ... ... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend. I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt. I can’t bring myself to leave the house. I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes. I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound? I blush with shame at the thought of you! … ... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis, My deep grief is ripping me apart. Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen, I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ... O ***** . . . O Hymenaeus! . . . Alas, my poor Baucis! On a Betrothed Girl by Erinna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I sing of Baucis the bride. Observing her tear-stained crypt say this to Death who dwells underground: "Thou art envious, O Death!" Her vivid monument tells passers-by of the bitter misfortune of Baucis — how her father-in-law burned the poor girl on a pyre lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home. While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges. ***** O Hymenaeus! Sappho Epigrams Sappho, fragment 155 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A short revealing frock? It's just my luck your lips were made to mock! (Pollux wrote: "Sappho used the word beudos [Βεῦδοσ] for a woman's dress, a kimbericon, a kind of short transparent frock.") Sappho, fragment 156 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch She keeps her scents in a dressing-case. And her sense? In some undiscoverable place. (Phrynichus wrote: "Sappho calls a woman's dressing-case, where she keeps her scents and such things, grutê [γρύτη].") Sappho, fragment 47 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Eros harrows my heart: wild winds whipping desolate mountains, uprooting oaks. The poem above is my favorite Sappho epigram. The metaphor of Eros ****** desire) harrowing mountain slopes, leveling oaks and leaving them desolate, is really something―truly powerful and evocative. According to Edwin Marion *** this Sapphic epigram was "Quoted by Maximus Tyrius about 150 B.C. He speaks of Socrates exciting Phaedus to madness, when he speaks of love." Improve yourself by others' writings, attaining freely what they purchased at the expense of experience. — Socrates, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ancient Roman Epigrams Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed, since you're holding up verses so prolapsed! —Ancient Roman graffiti, translation by Michael R. Burch Incompatibles by Michael R. Burch Reason’s treason! cries the Heart. Love’s insane, replies the Brain. Originally published by Light The Greatest of These ... by Michael R. Burch The hands that held me tremble. The arms that lifted   fall. Angelic flesh, now parchment, is held together with gauze. But her undimmed eyes still embrace me; there infinity can be found. I can almost believe such love will reach me, underground. PRINCESS DIANA POEMS Fairest Diana by Michael R. Burch Fairest Diana, princess of dreams, born to be loved and yet distant and lone, why did you linger―so solemn, so lovely― an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone? Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions? Surely your lips―for wild kisses, not vows! Why then did you languish, though lustrous, becoming a pearl of enchantment cast before sows? Fairest Diana, as fragile as lilac, as willful as rainfall, as true as the rose; how did a stanza of silver-bright verse come to be bound in a book of dull prose? Published by Tucumcari Literary Journal and Night Roses Will There Be Starlight for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch Will there be starlight tonight while she gathers damask and lilac and sweet-scented heathers? And will she find flowers, or will she find thorns guarding the petals of roses unborn? Will there be starlight tonight while she gathers seashells and mussels and albatross feathers? And will she find treasure or will she find pain at the end of this rainbow of moonlight on rain? She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch She was very strange, and beautiful, like a violet mist enshrouding hills before night falls when the hoot owl calls and the cricket trills and the envapored moon hangs low and full. She was very strange, in a pleasant way, as the hummingbird flies madly still, so I drank my fill of her every word. What she knew of love, she demurred to say. She was meant to leave, as the wind must blow, as the sun must set, as the rain must fall. Though she gave her all, we had nothing left... yet we smiled, bereft, in her receding glow. The Peripheries of Love for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch Through waning afternoons we glide the watery peripheries of love. A silence, a quietude falls. Above us―the sagging pavilions of clouds. Below us―rough pebbles slowly worn smooth grate in the gentle turbulence of yesterday’s forgotten rains. Later, the moon like a ****** lifts her stricken white face and the waters rise toward some unfathomable shore. We sway gently in the wake of what stirs beneath us, yet leaves us unmoved... curiously motionless, as though twilight might blur the effects of proximity and distance, as though love might be near― as near as a single cupped tear of resilient dew or a long-awaited face. The Aery Faery Princess for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch There once was a princess lighter than fluff made of such gossamer stuff― the down of a thistle, butterflies’ wings, the faintest high note the hummingbird sings, moonbeams on garlands, stands of bright hair... I think she’s just you when you’re floating on air. I Pray Tonight for Princess Diana by Michael R. Burch I pray tonight the starry light might surround you. I pray by day that, come what may, no dark thing confound you. I pray ere tomorrow an end to your sorrow. May angels' white chorales sing, and astound you. Sweet Rose of Virtue by William Dunbar 1460-1525 loose translation by Michael R. Burch Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness, delightful lily of youthful wantonness, richest in bounty and in beauty clear and in every virtue that is held most dear― except only that death is merciless. Into your garden, today, I followed you; there I saw flowers of freshest hue, both white and red, delightful to see, and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently― yet everywhere, no odor but rue. I fear that March with his last arctic blast has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast, whose piteous death does my heart such pain that, if I could, I would compose her roots again― so comforting her bowering leaves have been.
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Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Conformists of a feather flock together. —Michael R. Burch (Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition) My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch Epitaph for a Palestinian Child by Michael R. Burch I lived as best I could, and then I died. Be careful where you step: the grave is wide. (Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Super Highway, Poets for Humanity, Daily Kos, Katutura English, Genocide Awareness, Darfur Awareness Shabbat, Viewing Genocide in Sudan, Better Than Starbucks, Art Villa, Setu, Angle, AZquotes, QuoteMaster; also translated into Czech, Indonesian, Romanian and Turkish) Childless by Michael R. Burch How can she bear her grief? Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight of one fallen star. Stormfront by Michael R. Burch Our distance is frightening: a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning. Laughter's Cry by Michael R. Burch Because life is a mystery, we laugh and do not know the half. Because death is a mystery, we cry when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry. (Originally published by Angelwing) Autumn Conundrum by Michael R. Burch It's not that every leaf must finally fall, it's just that we can never catch them all. (Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, this poem has been translated into Russian, Macedonian, Turkish and Romanian) Piercing the Shell by Michael R. Burch If we strip away all the accouterments of war, perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for. (Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, this poem has been translated into Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Macedonian) *** Hex by Michael R. Burch Love's full of cute paradoxes (and highly acute poxes) . (Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up) Styx by Michael R. Burch Black waters—deep and dark and still. All men have passed this way, or will. (Published by The Raintown Review and Blue Unicorn; also translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager. I believe it was my first epigram.) Fahr an' Ice by Michael R. Burch (apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash) From what I know of death, I'll side with those who'd like to have a say in how it goes: just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker) , and real fahr off, instead of quicker. Lance-Lot by Michael R. Burch Preposterous bird! Inelegant! Absurd! Until the great & mighty heron brandishes his fearsome sword. Multiplication, Tabled or Procreation Inflation by Michael R. Burch for the Religious Right "Be fruitful and multiply"— great advice, for a fruitfly! But for women and men, simple Simons, say, "WHEN! " The Whole of Wit by Michael R. Burch If brevity is the soul of wit then brevity and levity are the whole of it. (Published by Shot Glass Journal) Nun Fun Undone by Michael R. Burch Abbesses' recesses are not for excesses! (Published by Brief Poems) Saving Graces, for the Religious Right by Michael R. Burch Life's saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter... wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter. (Published by Shot Glass Journal and Poem Today) Skalded by Michael R. Burch Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts; today's genteel poets prefer modern ruts. Not Elves, Exactly by Michael R. Burch Something there is that likes a wall, that likes it spiked and likes it tall, that likes its pikes' sharp rows of teeth and doesn't mind its victims' grief (wherever they come from, far or wide) as long as they fall on the other side. Self-ish by Michael R. Burch Let's not pretend we "understand" other elves as long as we remain mysteries to ourselves. Piecemeal by Michael R. Burch And so it begins—the ending. The narrowing veins, the soft tissues rending. Your final solution is pending. (A pale Piggy-Wiggy will discount your demise as no biggie.) Liquid Assets by Michael R. Burch And so I have loved you, and so I have lost, accrued disappointment, ledgered its cost, debited wisdom, credited pain... My assets remaining are liquid again. **** Brevis, Emendacio Longa by Michael R. Burch The Donald may tweet from sun to sun, but his spellchecker’s work is never done. Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch Brief Fling by Michael R. Burch Epigram means cram, then scram! To write an epigram, cram. If you lack wit, scram! —Michael R. Burch Fleet Tweet: Apologies to Shakespeare by Michael R. Burch A tweet by any other name would be as fleet. @mikerburch (Michael R. Burch) Fleet Tweet II: Further Apologies to Shakespeare by Michael R. Burch Remember, doggonit, heroic verse crowns the Shakespearean sonnet! So if you intend to write a couplet, please do it on the doublet! @mikerburch (Michael R. Burch) Love is either wholly folly, or fully holy. —Michael R. Burch Civility is the ability to disagree agreeably. —Michael R. Burch ****** Most Fowl! by Michael R. Burch ****** most foul!” cried the mouse to the owl. “Friend, I’m no sinner; you’re merely my dinner. As you fall on my sword, take it up with the LORD!” the wise owl replied as the tasty snack died. (Published by Lighten Up Online and Potcake Chapbooks) The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...) by Michael R. Burch Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts at “meter,” I crossly concluded I’d use each iamb in lieu of a lamb, bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded. (Originally published by Grand Little Things) Midnight Stairclimber by Michael R. Burch Procreation is at first great sweaty recreation, then—long, long after the *** dies— the source of endless exercise. (Published by Angelwing and Brief Poems) Love has the value of gold, if it's true; if not, of rue. —Michael R. Burch Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick. —Michael R. Burch Nonsense Verse for a Nonsensical White House Resident by Michael R. Burch Roses are red, Daffodils are yellow, But not half as daffy As that taffy-colored fellow! There's no need to rant about Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The cruelty of "civilization" suffices: our ordinary vices. —Michael R. Burch Sumer is icumen in a modern English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch (this update of an ancient classic is dedicated to everyone who suffers with hay fever and other allergies) Sumer is icumen in Lhude sing achu! Groweth sed And bloweth hed And buyeth med? Cuccu! Originally published by Lighten Up Online (as Kim Cherub) NOTE: I kept the medieval spellings of “sumer” (summer), “lhude” (loud), “sed” (seed) and “hed” (head). I then slipped in the modern slang term “med” for medication. The first line means something like “Summer’s a-comin’ in!” In the original poem the cuckoo bird was considered to be a harbinger of spring, but here “cuccu” simply means “crazy!” The Complete Redefinitions Faith: falling into the same old claptrap.—Michael R. Burch Religion: the ties that blind.—Michael R. Burch Salvation: falling for allure —hook, line and stinker.—Michael R. Burch Trickle down economics: an especially pungent golden shower.—Michael R. Burch Canned political applause: clap track for the claptrap.—Michael R. Burch Baseball: lots of spittin' mixed with occasional hittin'.—Michael R. Burch Lingerie: visual foreplay.—Michael R. Burch A straight flush is a winning hand. A straight-faced flush is when you don't give it away.—Michael R. Burch Lust: a chemical affair.—Michael R. Burch Believer: A speck of dust / animated by lust / brief as a mayfly / and yet full of trust.—Michael R. Burch Theologian: someone who wants life to “make sense” / by believing in a “god” infinitely dense.—Michael R. Burch Skepticism: The murderer of Eve / cannot be believed.—Michael R. Burch Death: This dream of nothingness we fear / is salvation clear.—Michael R. Burch Insuresurrection: The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught!—Michael R. Burch Marriage: a seldom-observed truce / during wars over money / and a red-faced papoose.—Michael R. Burch Is “natural affection” affliction? / Is “love” nature’s sleight-of-hand trick / to get us to reproduce / whenever she feels the itch?—Michael R. Burch Translations Birdsong by Rumi loose translation by Michael R. Burch Birdsong relieves my deepest griefs: now I'm just as ecstatic as they, but with nothing to say! Please universe, rehearse your poetry through me! Raise your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder. —Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch The imbecile constructs cages for everyone he knows, while the sage (who has to duck his head whenever the moon glows) keeps dispensing keys all night long to the beautiful, rowdy, prison gang. —Hafiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch An unbending tree breaks easily. —Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Little sparks ignite great Infernos.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch Love distills the eyes’ desires, love bewitches the heart with its grace.―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Once fanaticism has gangrened brains the incurable malady invariably remains. —Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Booksellers laud authors for novel editions as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions. —Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction. —Seneca the Younger, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Hypocrisy may deceive the most perceptive adult, but the dullest child recognizes and is revolted by it, however ingeniously disguised. —Leo Tolstoy translation by Michael R. Burch Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel, or a house when it's time to change residences, even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life. —Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch Improve yourself through others' writings, thus attaining more easily what they acquired through great difficulty. —Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch Fools call wisdom foolishness. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch One true friend is worth ten thousand kin. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Not to speak one’s mind is slavery. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Native American Proverb loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Before you judge a man for his sins be sure to trudge many moons in his moccasins. Native American Proverb by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A man must pursue his Vision as the eagle explores the sky's deepest blues. Native American Proverb loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let us walk respectfully here among earth's creatures, great and small, remembering, our footsteps light, that one wise God created all. The Least of These... What you do to the refugee you do unto Me! —Jesus Christ, translation/paraphrase by Michael R. Burch The Church Gets the Burch Rod The most dangerous words ever uttered by human lips are “thus saith the LORD.” — Michael R. Burch How can the Bible be "infallible" when from Genesis to Revelation slavery is commanded and condoned, but never condemned? —Michael R. Burch If God is good half the Bible is libel. —Michael R. Burch I have my doubts about your God and his "love": If one screams below, what the hell is "Above"? —Michael R. Burch If God has the cattle on a thousand hills, why does he need my tithes to pay his bills? —Michael R. Burch The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch Hell hath no fury like a fundamentalist whose God condemned him for having "impure thoughts."—Michael R. Burch Religion is the difficult process of choosing the least malevolent invisible friends.—Michael R. Burch Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch An ideal that cannot be realized is, in the end, just wishful thinking.—Michael R. Burch God and his "profits" could never agree on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea. —Michael R. Burch To fall an inch short of infinity is to fall infinitely short.—Michael R. Burch Most Christians make God seem like the Devil. Atheists and agnostics at least give him the "benefit of the doubt."—Michael R. Burch Hell has been hellishly overdone. Why blame such horrors on God's only Son when Jehovah and his prophets never mentioned it once? —Michael R. Burch (Bible scholars agree: the word "hell" has been removed from the Old Testaments of the more accurate modern Bible translations. And the few New Testament verses that mention "hell" are obvious mistranslations.) Clodhoppers by Michael R. Burch If you trust the Christian "god" you're—like Adumb—a clod. If every witty thing that's said were true, Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You! —Michael R. Burch Questionable Credentials by Michael R. Burch Poet? Critic? Dilettante? Do you know what's good, or do you merely flaunt? (Published by ***** of Parnassus, the first poem in the April 2017 issue) Dry **** by Michael R. Burch You came to me as rain breaks on the desert when every flower springs to life at once, but joy is an illusion to the expert: the Bedouin has learned how not to want. Lines in Favor of Female Muses by Michael R. Burch I guess ***** of Parnassus are okay... But those Lasses of Parnassus? My! Olé! (Published by ***** of Parnassus) Meal Deal by Michael R. Burch Love is a splendid ideal (at least till it costs us a meal) . Long Division by Michael R. Burch as Kim Cherub All things become one Through death's long division And perfect precision. i o u by mrb i might have said it but i didn't u might have noticed but u wouldn't we might have been us but we couldn't u might respond but probably shouldn't Mate Check by Michael R. Burch Love is an ache hearts willingly secure then break the bank to cure. Incompatibles by Michael R. Burch Reason's treason! cries the Heart. Love's insane, replies the Brain. (Originally published by Light) Death is the ultimate finality of reality. —Michael R. Burch Stage Fright by Michael R. Burch To be or not to be? In the end Hamlet opted for naught. Grave Oversight by Michael R. Burch The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught! Feathered Fiends by Michael R. Burch Fascists of a feather flock together. Why the Kid Gloves Came Off by Michael R. Burch for Lemuel Ibbotson It's hard to be a man of taste in such a waste: hence the lambaste. Housman was right... by Michael R. Burch It's true that life's not much to lose, so why not hang out on a cloud? It's just the bon voyage is hard and the objections loud. Ah! Sunflower by Michael R. Burch after William Blake O little yellow flower like a star ... how beautiful, how wonderful we are! Descent by Michael R. Burch I have listened to the rain all this morning and it has a certain gravity, as if it knows its destination, perhaps even its particular destiny. I do not believe mine is to be uplifted, although I, too, may be flung precipitously and from a great height. Reading between the lines by Michael R. Burch Who could have read so much, as we? Having the time, but not the inclination, TV has become our philosophy, sheer boredom, our recreation. Ironic Vacation by Michael R. Burch Salzburg. Seeing Mozart's baby grand piano. Standing in the presence of sheer incalculable genius. Grabbing my childish pen to write a poem & challenge the Immortals. Next stop, the catacombs! Imperfect Perfection by Michael R. Burch You're too perfect for words— a problem for a poet. Expert Advice by Michael R. Burch Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body. Please stop making false comparisons your hobby! Thirty by Michael R. Burch Thirty crept upon me slowly with feline caution and a slowly-twitching tail; patiently she waited for the winds to shift; now, claws unsheathed, she lies seething to assail her helpless prey. Biblical Knowledge or "Knowing Coming and Going" by Michael R. Burch The wisest man the world has ever seen had fourscore concubines and threescore queens? This gives us pause, and so we venture hence— he "knew" them, wisely, in the wider sense. Snap Shots by Michael R. Burch Our daughters must be celibate, die virgins. We triangulate their early paths to heaven (for the martyrs they'll soon conjugate) . We like to hook a little tail. We hope there's decent *** in jail. Don't fool with us; our bombs are smart! (We'll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.) The soul is all that matters; why hoard gold if it offends the eye? A pension plan? Don't make us laugh! We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.) I sampled honeysuckle and it made my taste buds buckle. —Michael R. Burch The Editor A poet may work from sun to sun, but his editor's work is never done. The Critic The editor's work is never done. The critic adjusts his cummerbund. The Audience While the critic adjusts his cummerbund, the audience exits to mingle and slum. The Anthologist As the audience exits to mingle and slum, the anthologist rules, a pale jury of one. Athenian Epitaphs How valiant he lies tonight: great is his Monument! Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent. by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument! Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent. by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea. Michael R. Burch, after Plato We who left behind the Aegean’s bellowings Now sleep peacefully here on the mid-plains of Ecbatan: Farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea, Farewell, dear sea! Michael R. Burch, after Plato Passerby, Tell the Spartans we lie Lifeless at Thermopylae: Dead at their word, Obedient to their command. Have they heard? Do they understand? Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell? Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell. Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus They observed our fearful fetters, braved the overwhelming darkness. Now we extol their excellence: bravely, they died for us. Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends’ tardiness, Mariner! Just man’s foolhardiness. Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum Be ashamed, O mountains and seas: these were men of valorous breath. Assume, like pale chattels, an ashen silence at death. Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio These men earned a crown of imperishable glory, Nor did the maelstrom of death obscure their story. Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Stranger, flee! But may Fortune grant you all the prosperity she denied me. Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum Now that I am dead sea-enclosed Cyzicus shrouds my bones. Faretheewell, O my adoptive land that nurtured me, that held me; I take rest at your breast. Michael R. Burch, after Erycius I am loyal to you master, even in the grave: Just as you now are death’s slave. Michael R. Burch, after Dioscorides Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she’d confess: “I am now less than nothingness.” Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus Dead as you are, though you lie still as stone, huntress Lycas, my great Thessalonian hound, the wild beasts still fear your white bones; craggy Pelion remembers your valor, splendid Ossa, the way you would bound and bay at the moon for its whiteness, bellowing as below we heard valleys resound. And how brightly with joy you would canter and run the strange lonely peaks of high Cithaeron! Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Having never earned a penny, nor seen a bridal gown slip to the floor, still I lie here with the love of many, to be the love of yet one more. Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet I lie by stark Icarian rocks and only speak when the sea talks. Please tell my dear father that I gave up the ghost on the Aegean coast. Michael R. Burch, after Theatetus Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead. What difference to me—where I rest my head? The sea knows I’m buried. Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon Constantina, inconstant one! Once I thought your name beautiful but I was a fool and now you are more bitter to me than death! You flee someone who loves you with baited breath to pursue someone who’s untrue. But if you manage to make him love you, tomorrow you'll flee him too! Michael R. Burch, after Macedonius Sunset by Michael R. Burch This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Between the prophesies of morning and twilight’s revelations of wonder, the sky is ripped asunder. The moon lurks in the clouds, waiting, as if to plunder the dusk of its lilac iridescence, and in the bright-tentacled sunset we imagine a presence full of the fury of lost innocence. What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame, brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim, we recognize at once, but cannot name. The Greatest of These ... by Michael R. Burch for my mother, Christine Ena Burch The hands that held me tremble. The arms that lifted   fall. Angelic flesh, now parchment, is held together with gauze. But her undimmed eyes still embrace me; there infinity can be found. I can almost believe such love will reach me, underground. Love Is Not Love by Michael R. Burch for Beth Love is not love that never looked within itself and questioned all, curled up like a zygote in a ball, throbbed, sobbed and shook. (Or went on a binge at a nearby mall, then would not cook.) Love is not love that never winced, then smiled, convinced that soar’s the prerequisite of fall. When all its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed, where does Love find the wherewithal to try again, endeavor, when all that it knows is: O, because! Stay With Me Tonight by Michael R. Burch Stay with me tonight; be gentle with me as the leaves are gentle falling to the earth. And whisper, O my love, how that every bright thing, though scattered afar, retains yet its worth. Stay with me tonight; be as a petal long-awaited blooming in my hand. Lift your face to mine and touch me with your lips till I feel the warm benevolence of your breath’s heady fragrance like wine. That which we had when pale and waning as the dying moon at dawn, outshone the sun. And so lead me back tonight through bright waterfalls of light to where we shine as one. Originally published by The Lyric 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 The Folly of Wisdom by Michael R. Burch She is wise in the way that children are wise, looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must bend down to her to understand. But she only smiles, and takes my hand. We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go, so I smile, and I follow ... And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves that flutter above us, and what she believes― I can almost remember―goes something like this: the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss. She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree that once was a fortress to someone like me rings wildly above us. Some things that we know we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly Departed by Michael R. Burch Already, I miss you, though your parting kiss is still warm on my lips. Now the floor is not strewn with your stockings and slips and the dishes are all stacked away. You left me today ... and each word left unspoken now whispers regrets. Roses for a Lover, Idealized by Michael R. Burch When you have become to me as roses bloom, in memory, exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot, will I recall―yours made me bleed? When winter makes me think of you, whorls petrified in frozen dew, bright promises blithe spring forgot, will I recall your words―barbed, cruel? Ibykos Fragment 286, Circa 564 B.C. loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Come spring, the grand apple trees stand watered by a gushing river where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver and the blossoming grape vine swells in the gathering shadows. Unfortunately for me Eros never rests but like a Thracian tempest ablaze with lightning emanates from Aphrodite; the results are frightening— black, bleak, astonishing, violently jolting me from my soles to my soul. Deor's Lament (circa the 10th century AD) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Weland endured the agony of exile: an indomitable smith wracked by grief. He suffered countless sorrows; indeed, such sorrows were his ***** companions in that frozen island dungeon where Nithad fettered him: so many strong-but-supple sinew-bands binding the better man. That passed away; this also may. Beadohild mourned her brothers' deaths, bemoaning also her own sad state once she discovered herself with child. She knew nothing good could ever come of it. That passed away; this also may. We have heard the Geat's moans for Matilda, his lovely lady, waxed limitless, that his sorrowful love for her robbed him of regretless sleep. That passed away; this also may. For thirty winters Theodric ruled the Mæring stronghold with an iron hand; many acknowledged his mastery and moaned. That passed away; this also may. We have heard too of Ermanaric's wolfish ways, of how he cruelly ruled the Goths' realms. That was a grim king! Many a warrior sat, full of cares and maladies of the mind, wishing constantly that his crown might be overthrown. That passed away; this also may. If a man sits long enough, sorrowful and anxious, bereft of joy, his mind constantly darkening, soon it seems to him that his troubles are limitless. Then he must consider that the wise Lord often moves through the earth granting some men honor, glory and fame, but others only shame and hardship. This I can say for myself: that for awhile I was the Heodeninga's scop, dear to my lord. My name was Deor. For many winters I held a fine office, faithfully serving a just king. But now Heorrenda a man skilful in songs, has received the estate the protector of warriors had promised me. That passed away; this also may. Infatuate, or Sweet Centerless Sixteen by Michael R. Burch Inconsolable as “love” had left your heart, you woke this morning eager to pursue warm lips again, or something “really cool” on which to press your lips and leave their mark. As breath upon a windowpane at dawn soon glows, a spreading halo full of sun, your thought of love blinks wildly ... on and on ... then fizzles at the center, and is gone. The Toast by Michael R. Burch For longings warmed by tepid suns (brief lusts that animated clay), for passions wilted at the bud and skies grown desolate and gray, for stars that fell from tinseled heights and mountains bleak and scarred and lone, for seas reflecting distant suns and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown, for waltzes ending in a hush and rhymes that fade as pages close, for flames’ exhausted, graying ash, and petals falling from the rose, I raise my cup before I drink in reverence to a love long dead, and silently propose a toast— to passages, to time that fled. Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme 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. Twice by Michael R. Burch Now twice she has left me and twice I have listened and taken her back, remembering days when love lay upon us and sparkled and glistened with the brightness of dew through a gathering haze. But twice she has left me to start my life over, and twice I have gathered up embers, to learn: rekindle a fire from ash, soot and cinder and softly it sputters, refusing to burn. Originally published by The Lyric Prose Epigrams We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it.—Michael R. Burch When I was being bullied, I had to learn not to judge myself by the opinions of intolerant morons. Then I felt much better.—Michael R. Burch How can we predict the future, when tomorrow is as uncertain as Trump's next tweet? —Michael R. Burch Poetry moves the heart as well as the reason.—Michael R. Burch Poetry is the art of finding the right word at the right time.—Michael R. Burch The State of the Art (?) by Michael R. Burch Has rhyme lost all its reason and rhythm, renascence? Are sonnets out of season and poems but poor pretense? Are poets lacking fire, their words too trite and forced? What happened to desire? Has passion been coerced? Shall poetry fade slowly, like Latin, to past tense? Are the bards too high and holy, or their readers merely dense? Your e-Verse by Michael R. Burch —for the posters and posers on www.fillintheblank.com I cannot understand a word you’ve said (and this despite an adequate I.Q.); it must be some exotic new haiku combined with Latin suddenly undead. It must be hieroglyphics mixed with Greek. Have Pound and T. S. Eliot been cloned? Perhaps you wrote it on the *** so ****** you spelled it backwards, just to be oblique. I think you’re very funny—so, “Yuk! Yuk!” I know you must be kidding; didn’t we write crap like this and call it “poetry,” a form of verbal exercise, P.E., in kindergarten, when we ran “amuck?” Oh, sorry, I forgot to “make it new.” Perhaps I still can learn a thing or two from someone tres original, like you. Haiku Translations of the Oriental Masters Grasses wilt: the braking locomotive grinds to a halt ― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, fallen camellias, if I were you, I'd leap into the torrent! ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first soft snow: leaves of the awed jonquil bow low ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Come, investigate loneliness! a solitary leaf clings to the Kiri tree ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lightning shatters the darkness― the night heron's shriek ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch One apple, alone in the abandoned orchard reddens for winter ― Patrick Blanche, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The poem above is by a French poet; it illustrates how the poetry of Oriental masters like Basho has influenced poets around the world. Graven images of long-departed gods, dry spiritless leaves: companions of the temple porch ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch See: whose surviving sons visit the ancestral graves white-bearded, with trembling canes? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I remove my beautiful kimono: its varied braids surround and entwine my body ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This day of chrysanthemums I shake and comb my wet hair, as their petals shed rain ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This darkening autumn: my neighbor, how does he continue? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Let us arrange these lovely flowers in the bowl since there's no rice ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An ancient pond, the frog leaps: the silver plop and gurgle of water ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The butterfly perfuming its wings fans the orchid ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pausing between clouds the moon rests in the eyes of its beholders ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first chill rain: poor monkey, you too could use a woven cape of straw ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This snowy morning: cries of the crow I despise (ah, but so beautiful!) ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Like a heavy fragrance snow-flakes settle: lilies on the rocks ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The cheerful-chirping cricket contends gray autumn's gay, contemptuous of frost ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill, solemn evangelist of loneliness ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The sea darkening, the voices of the wild ducks: my mysterious companions! ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Will we meet again? Here at your flowering grave: two white butterflies ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Fever-felled mid-path my dreams resurrect, to trek into a hollow land ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Too ill to travel, now only my autumn dreams survey these withering fields ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this has been called Basho's death poem These brown summer grasses? The only remains of "invincible" warriors... ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An empty road lonelier than abandonment: this autumn evening ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring has come: the nameless hill lies shrouded in mist ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The Oldest Haiku These are my translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into poetic forms such as tanka, renga and haiku over time. My translations are excerpts from the Kojiki (the "Record of Ancient Matters"), a book composed around 711-712 A.D. by the historian and poet Ō no Yasumaro. The Kojiki relates Japan’s mythological beginnings and the history of its imperial line. Like Virgil's Aeneid, the Kojiki seeks to legitimize rulers by recounting their roots. These are lines from one of the oldest Japanese poems, found in the oldest Japanese book: While you decline to cry, high on the mountainside a single stalk of plumegrass wilts. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another excerpt, with a humorous twist, from the Kojiki: Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make! Heaven's indignant messengers, you remind me of wordsmiths! ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another, this one a poem of love and longing: Onyx, this gem-black night. Downcast, I await your return like the rising sun, unrivaled in splendor. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch More Haiku by Various Poets Right at my feet! When did you arrive here, snail? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Our world of dew is a world of dew indeed; and yet, and yet... ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, brilliant moon can it be true that even you must rush off, like us, tardy? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch A kite floats at the same place in the sky where yesterday it floated... ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pigeon's behavior is beyond reproach, but the mountain cuckoo's? ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Plowing, not a single bird sings in the mountain's shadow ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pear tree flowers whitely― a young woman reads his letter by moonlight ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch On adjacent branches the plum tree blossoms bloom petal by petal―love! ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Picking autumn plums my wrinkled hands once again grow fragrant ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Dawn! The brilliant sun illuminates sardine heads. ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The abandoned willow shines between rains ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch White plum blossoms― though the hour grows late, a glimpse of dawn ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this is believed to be Buson's death poem and he is said to have died before dawn I thought I felt a dewdrop plop on me as I lay in bed! ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot see the moon and yet the waves still rise ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first morning of autumn: the mirror I investigate reflects my father’s face ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Wild geese pass leaving the emptiness of heaven revealed ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Silently observing the bottomless mountain lake: water lilies ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Cranes flapping ceaselessly test the sky's upper limits ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Falling snowflakes' glitter tinsels the sea ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Blizzards here on earth, blizzards of stars in the sky ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Completely encircled in emerald: the glittering swamp! ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The new calendar!: as if tomorrow is assured... ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Ah butterfly, what dreams do you ply with your beautiful wings? ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because morning glories hold my well-bucket hostage I go begging for water ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring stirs the clouds in the sky's teabowl ― Kikusha-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I saw how the peony crumples in the fire's embers ― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch It fills me with anger, this moon; it fills me and makes me whole ― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch War stood at the end of the hall in the long shadows ― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because he is slow to wrath, I tackle him, then wring his neck in the long grass ― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pale mountain sky: cherry petals play as they tumble earthward ― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The frozen moon, the frozen lake: two oval mirrors reflecting each other. ― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The bitter winter wind ends here with the frozen sea ― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, bitter winter wind, why bellow so when there's no leaves to fell? ― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Winter waves roil their own shadows ― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation by Michael R. Burch No sky, no land: just snow eternally falling... ― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Along with spring leaves my child's teeth take root, blossom ― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Stillness: a single chestnut leaf glides on brilliant water ― Ryuin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch As thunder recedes a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight: applauded by cicadas ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The snake slipped away but his eyes, having held mine, still stare in the grass ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Girls gather sprouts of rice: reflections of the water flicker on the backs of their hats ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Murmurs follow the hay cart this blossoming summer day ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The wet nurse paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins then walked away ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch May I be with my mother wearing her summer kimono by the morning window ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The hands of a woman exist to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The moon hovering above the snow-capped mountains rained down hailstones ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly: a puff of white snow cresting mountains ― Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring snow cascades over fences in white waves ― Suju Takano, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tanka and Waka translations: If fields of autumn flowers can shed their blossoms, shameless, why can’t I also frolic here — as fearless, and as blameless? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Submit to you — is that what you advise? The way the ripples do whenever ill winds arise? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Watching wan moonlight illuminate trees, my heart also brims, overflowing with autumn. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I had thought to pluck the flower of forgetfulness only to find it already blossoming in his heart. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch That which men call "love" — is it not merely the chain preventing our escape from this world of pain? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Once-colorful flowers faded, while in my drab cell life’s impulse also abated as the long rains fell. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I set off at the shore of the seaside of Tago, where I saw the high, illuminated peak of Fuji―white, aglow― through flakes of drifting downy snow. ― Akahito Yamabe, loose translation by Michael R. Burch ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones, like yesteryear’s fading souvenirs, I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows. Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers, packed tightly here despite once repellent hate? Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state. These arms and hands, they once were so delicate! How articulately they moved! Ah me! What athletes once paced about on these padded feet? Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls! Deprived of graves, forced here like slaves to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls! Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained? Except for me; reader, hear my plea: I know the grandeur of the mind it contained! Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir here, where I stand in this alien land surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer! Even in this cold, in this dust and mould I am startled by an a strange, ancient reverie, … as if this shrine to death could quicken me! One shape out of the past keeps calling me with its mystery! Still retaining its former angelic grace! And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ... Swept by that current to where immortals race. O secret vessel, you gave Life its truth. It falls on me now to recall your expressive face. I turn away, abashed here by what I see: this mould was worth more than all the earth. Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free! What is there better in this dark Life than he who gives us a sense of man’s divinity, of his place in the universe? A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse! 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. Farewell to Faith I by Michael R. Burch What we want is relief from life’s grief and despair: what we want’s not “belief” but just not to be there. Farewell to Faith II by Michael R. Burch Confronted by the awesome thought of death, to never suffer, and be free of grief, we wonder: "What’s the use of drawing breath? Why seek relief from the bible’s Thief, who ripped off Eve then offered her a leaf?" Anyte Epigrams Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms; hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches; then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain; for this is welcome shade from the burning sun. —Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here I stand, Hermes, in the crossroads by the windswept elms near the breezy beach, providing rest to sunburned travelers, and cold and brisk is my fountain’s abundance. —Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Sit here, quietly shaded by the luxuriant foliage, and drink cool water from the sprightly spring, so that your weary breast, panting with summer’s labors, may take rest from the blazing sun. —Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This is the grove of Cypris, for it is fair for her to look out over the land to the bright deep, that she may make the sailors’ voyages happy, as the sea trembles, observing her brilliant image. —Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Nossis Epigrams There is nothing sweeter than love. All other delights are secondary. Thus, I spit out even honey. This is what Gnossis says: Whom Aphrodite does not love, Is bereft of her roses. —Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Most revered Hera, the oft-descending from heaven, behold your Lacinian shrine fragrant with incense and receive the linen robe your noble child Nossis, daughter of Theophilis and Cleocha, has woven for you. —Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, my homeland of beautiful dances, to indulge in the most exquisite graces of Sappho, remember I also was loved by the Muses, who bore me and reared me there. My name, never forget it!, is Nossis. Now go! —Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Pass me with ringing laughter, then award me a friendly word: I am Rinthon, scion of Syracuse, a small nightingale of the Muses; from their tragedies I was able to pluck an ivy, unique, for my own use. —Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Excerpts from “Distaff” by Erinna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch … the moon rising …       … leaves falling …            … waves lapping a windswept shore … … and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ... ... Leaping from white horses, running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.   “You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!” But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers, you darted beyond the courtyard, dashed out deep into the waves, splashing far beyond us … … My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial, these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash … … Do you remember how, as girls, we played at weddings with our dolls, pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ... ... How sometimes I was your mother, allotting wool to the weaver-women, calling for you to unreel the thread? ... … Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue, her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ... ... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ... ... But when you mounted your husband’s bed, dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings! Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ... ... Desire becomes oblivion ... ... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend. I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt. I can’t bring myself to leave the house. I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes. I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound? I blush with shame at the thought of you! … ... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis, My deep grief is ripping me apart. Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen, I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ... O ***** . . . O Hymenaeus! . . . Alas, my poor Baucis! On a Betrothed Girl by Erinna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I sing of Baucis the bride. Observing her tear-stained crypt say this to Death who dwells underground: "Thou art envious, O Death!" Her vivid monument tells passers-by of the bitter misfortune of Baucis — how her father-in-law burned the poor girl on a pyre lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home. While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges. ***** O Hymenaeus! Sophocles Epigrams Not to have been born is best, and blessed beyond the ability of words to express. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch It’s a hundred times better not be born; but if we cannot avoid the light, the path of least harm is swiftly to return to death’s eternal night! —Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Never to be born may be the biggest boon of all. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Oblivion: What a blessing, to lie untouched by pain! —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The happiest life is one empty of thought. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Consider no man happy till he lies dead, free of pain at last. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What is worse than death? When death is desired but denied. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch When a man endures nothing but endless miseries, what is the use of hanging on day after day, edging closer and closer toward death? Anyone who warms his heart with the false glow of flickering hope is a wretch! The noble man should live with honor and die with honor. That's all that can be said. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Children anchor their mothers to life. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How terrible, to see the truth when the truth brings only pain to the seer! —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Wisdom outweighs all the world's wealth. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Fortune never favors the faint-hearted. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Wait for evening to appreciate the day's splendor. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Homer Epigrams For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they themselves are sorrowless. —Homer, Iliad 24.525-526, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch “It is best not to be born or, having been born, to pass on as swiftly as possible.” —attributed to Homer (circa 800 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ancient Roman Epigrams Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed, since you're holding up verses so prolapsed! —Ancient Roman graffiti, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch There is nothing so pointless, so perfidious as human life! ... The ultimate bliss is not to be born; otherwise we should speedily slip back into the original Nothingness. —Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Keywords/Tags: elegy, eulogy, child, childhood, death, death of a friend, lament, lamentation, epitaph, grave, funeral, epigram, epigrams, short, brief, concise, aphorism, adage, proverb, quote, mrbepi, mrbepig, mrbepigram, mrbhaiku Published as the collection "Epigrams"
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May 15, 2020
May 15, 2020 at 5:38 AM UTC
michael-r-burch
Epigrams
Epigrams by Michael R. Burch Conformists of a feather flock together. —Michael R. Burch (Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition) My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch Epitaph for a Palestinian Child by Michael R. Burch I lived as best I could, and then I died. Be careful where you step: the grave is wide. (Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Super Highway, Poets for Humanity, Daily Kos, Katutura English, Genocide Awareness, Darfur Awareness Shabbat, Viewing Genocide in Sudan, Better Than Starbucks, Art Villa, Setu, Angle, AZquotes, QuoteMaster; also translated into Czech, Indonesian, Romanian and Turkish) Childless by Michael R. Burch How can she bear her grief? Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight of one fallen star. Stormfront by Michael R. Burch Our distance is frightening: a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning. Laughter's Cry by Michael R. Burch Because life is a mystery, we laugh and do not know the half. Because death is a mystery, we cry when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry. (Originally published by Angelwing) Autumn Conundrum by Michael R. Burch It's not that every leaf must finally fall, it's just that we can never catch them all. (Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, this poem has been translated into Russian, Macedonian, Turkish and Romanian) Piercing the Shell by Michael R. Burch If we strip away all the accouterments of war, perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for. (Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, this poem has been translated into Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Macedonian) *** Hex by Michael R. Burch Love's full of cute paradoxes (and highly acute poxes) . (Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up) Styx by Michael R. Burch Black waters—deep and dark and still. All men have passed this way, or will. (Published by The Raintown Review and Blue Unicorn; also translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager. I believe it was my first epigram.) Fahr an' Ice by Michael R. Burch (apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash) From what I know of death, I'll side with those who'd like to have a say in how it goes: just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker) , and real fahr off, instead of quicker. Lance-Lot by Michael R. Burch Preposterous bird! Inelegant! Absurd! Until the great & mighty heron brandishes his fearsome sword. Multiplication, Tabled or Procreation Inflation by Michael R. Burch for the Religious Right "Be fruitful and multiply"— great advice, for a fruitfly! But for women and men, simple Simons, say, "WHEN! " The Whole of Wit by Michael R. Burch If brevity is the soul of wit then brevity and levity are the whole of it. (Published by Shot Glass Journal) Nun Fun Undone by Michael R. Burch Abbesses' recesses are not for excesses! (Published by Brief Poems) Saving Graces, for the Religious Right by Michael R. Burch Life's saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter... wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter. (Published by Shot Glass Journal and Poem Today) Skalded by Michael R. Burch Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts; today's genteel poets prefer modern ruts. Not Elves, Exactly by Michael R. Burch Something there is that likes a wall, that likes it spiked and likes it tall, that likes its pikes' sharp rows of teeth and doesn't mind its victims' grief (wherever they come from, far or wide) as long as they fall on the other side. Self-ish by Michael R. Burch Let's not pretend we "understand" other elves as long as we remain mysteries to ourselves. Piecemeal by Michael R. Burch And so it begins—the ending. The narrowing veins, the soft tissues rending. Your final solution is pending. (A pale Piggy-Wiggy will discount your demise as no biggie.) Liquid Assets by Michael R. Burch And so I have loved you, and so I have lost, accrued disappointment, ledgered its cost, debited wisdom, credited pain... My assets remaining are liquid again. **** Brevis, Emendacio Longa by Michael R. Burch The Donald may tweet from sun to sun, but his spellchecker’s work is never done. Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch Brief Fling by Michael R. Burch Epigram means cram, then scram! To write an epigram, cram. If you lack wit, scram! —Michael R. Burch Fleet Tweet: Apologies to Shakespeare by Michael R. Burch A tweet by any other name would be as fleet. @mikerburch (Michael R. Burch) Fleet Tweet II: Further Apologies to Shakespeare by Michael R. Burch Remember, doggonit, heroic verse crowns the Shakespearean sonnet! So if you intend to write a couplet, please do it on the doublet! @mikerburch (Michael R. Burch) Love is either wholly folly, or fully holy. —Michael R. Burch Civility is the ability to disagree agreeably. —Michael R. Burch ****** Most Fowl! by Michael R. Burch ****** most foul!” cried the mouse to the owl. “Friend, I’m no sinner; you’re merely my dinner. As you fall on my sword, take it up with the LORD!” the wise owl replied as the tasty snack died. (Published by Lighten Up Online and Potcake Chapbooks) The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...) by Michael R. Burch Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts at “meter,” I crossly concluded I’d use each iamb in lieu of a lamb, bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded. (Originally published by Grand Little Things) Midnight Stairclimber by Michael R. Burch Procreation is at first great sweaty recreation, then—long, long after the *** dies— the source of endless exercise. (Published by Angelwing and Brief Poems) Love has the value of gold, if it's true; if not, of rue. —Michael R. Burch Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick; Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick. —Michael R. Burch Nonsense Verse for a Nonsensical White House Resident by Michael R. Burch Roses are red, Daffodils are yellow, But not half as daffy As that taffy-colored fellow! There's no need to rant about Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The cruelty of "civilization" suffices: our ordinary vices. —Michael R. Burch Sumer is icumen in a modern English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch (this update of an ancient classic is dedicated to everyone who suffers with hay fever and other allergies) Sumer is icumen in Lhude sing achu! Groweth sed And bloweth hed And buyeth med? Cuccu! Originally published by Lighten Up Online (as Kim Cherub) NOTE: I kept the medieval spellings of “sumer” (summer), “lhude” (loud), “sed” (seed) and “hed” (head). I then slipped in the modern slang term “med” for medication. The first line means something like “Summer’s a-comin’ in!” In the original poem the cuckoo bird was considered to be a harbinger of spring, but here “cuccu” simply means “crazy!” The Complete Redefinitions Faith: falling into the same old claptrap.—Michael R. Burch Religion: the ties that blind.—Michael R. Burch Salvation: falling for allure —hook, line and stinker.—Michael R. Burch Trickle down economics: an especially pungent golden shower.—Michael R. Burch Canned political applause: clap track for the claptrap.—Michael R. Burch Baseball: lots of spittin' mixed with occasional hittin'.—Michael R. Burch Lingerie: visual foreplay.—Michael R. Burch A straight flush is a winning hand. A straight-faced flush is when you don't give it away.—Michael R. Burch Lust: a chemical affair.—Michael R. Burch Believer: A speck of dust / animated by lust / brief as a mayfly / and yet full of trust.—Michael R. Burch Theologian: someone who wants life to “make sense” / by believing in a “god” infinitely dense.—Michael R. Burch Skepticism: The murderer of Eve / cannot be believed.—Michael R. Burch Death: This dream of nothingness we fear / is salvation clear.—Michael R. Burch Insuresurrection: The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught!—Michael R. Burch Marriage: a seldom-observed truce / during wars over money / and a red-faced papoose.—Michael R. Burch Is “natural affection” affliction? / Is “love” nature’s sleight-of-hand trick / to get us to reproduce / whenever she feels the itch?—Michael R. Burch Translations Birdsong by Rumi loose translation by Michael R. Burch Birdsong relieves my deepest griefs: now I'm just as ecstatic as they, but with nothing to say! Please universe, rehearse your poetry through me! Raise your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder. —Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch The imbecile constructs cages for everyone he knows, while the sage (who has to duck his head whenever the moon glows) keeps dispensing keys all night long to the beautiful, rowdy, prison gang. —Hafiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch An unbending tree breaks easily. —Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Little sparks ignite great Infernos.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch Love distills the eyes’ desires, love bewitches the heart with its grace.―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Once fanaticism has gangrened brains the incurable malady invariably remains. —Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Booksellers laud authors for novel editions as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions. —Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction. —Seneca the Younger, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Hypocrisy may deceive the most perceptive adult, but the dullest child recognizes and is revolted by it, however ingeniously disguised. —Leo Tolstoy translation by Michael R. Burch Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel, or a house when it's time to change residences, even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life. —Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch Improve yourself through others' writings, thus attaining more easily what they acquired through great difficulty. —Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch Fools call wisdom foolishness. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch One true friend is worth ten thousand kin. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Not to speak one’s mind is slavery. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs. ―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch Native American Proverb loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Before you judge a man for his sins be sure to trudge many moons in his moccasins. Native American Proverb by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch A man must pursue his Vision as the eagle explores the sky's deepest blues. Native American Proverb loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let us walk respectfully here among earth's creatures, great and small, remembering, our footsteps light, that one wise God created all. The Least of These... What you do to the refugee you do unto Me! —Jesus Christ, translation/paraphrase by Michael R. Burch The Church Gets the Burch Rod The most dangerous words ever uttered by human lips are “thus saith the LORD.” — Michael R. Burch How can the Bible be "infallible" when from Genesis to Revelation slavery is commanded and condoned, but never condemned? —Michael R. Burch If God is good half the Bible is libel. —Michael R. Burch I have my doubts about your God and his "love": If one screams below, what the hell is "Above"? —Michael R. Burch If God has the cattle on a thousand hills, why does he need my tithes to pay his bills? —Michael R. Burch The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch Hell hath no fury like a fundamentalist whose God condemned him for having "impure thoughts."—Michael R. Burch Religion is the difficult process of choosing the least malevolent invisible friends.—Michael R. Burch Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch An ideal that cannot be realized is, in the end, just wishful thinking.—Michael R. Burch God and his "profits" could never agree on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea. —Michael R. Burch To fall an inch short of infinity is to fall infinitely short.—Michael R. Burch Most Christians make God seem like the Devil. Atheists and agnostics at least give him the "benefit of the doubt."—Michael R. Burch Hell has been hellishly overdone. Why blame such horrors on God's only Son when Jehovah and his prophets never mentioned it once? —Michael R. Burch (Bible scholars agree: the word "hell" has been removed from the Old Testaments of the more accurate modern Bible translations. And the few New Testament verses that mention "hell" are obvious mistranslations.) Clodhoppers by Michael R. Burch If you trust the Christian "god" you're—like Adumb—a clod. If every witty thing that's said were true, Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You! —Michael R. Burch Questionable Credentials by Michael R. Burch Poet? Critic? Dilettante? Do you know what's good, or do you merely flaunt? (Published by ***** of Parnassus, the first poem in the April 2017 issue) Dry **** by Michael R. Burch You came to me as rain breaks on the desert when every flower springs to life at once, but joy is an illusion to the expert: the Bedouin has learned how not to want. Lines in Favor of Female Muses by Michael R. Burch I guess ***** of Parnassus are okay... But those Lasses of Parnassus? My! Olé! (Published by ***** of Parnassus) Meal Deal by Michael R. Burch Love is a splendid ideal (at least till it costs us a meal) . Long Division by Michael R. Burch as Kim Cherub All things become one Through death's long division And perfect precision. i o u by mrb i might have said it but i didn't u might have noticed but u wouldn't we might have been us but we couldn't u might respond but probably shouldn't Mate Check by Michael R. Burch Love is an ache hearts willingly secure then break the bank to cure. Incompatibles by Michael R. Burch Reason's treason! cries the Heart. Love's insane, replies the Brain. (Originally published by Light) Death is the ultimate finality of reality. —Michael R. Burch Stage Fright by Michael R. Burch To be or not to be? In the end Hamlet opted for naught. Grave Oversight by Michael R. Burch The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught! Feathered Fiends by Michael R. Burch Fascists of a feather flock together. Why the Kid Gloves Came Off by Michael R. Burch for Lemuel Ibbotson It's hard to be a man of taste in such a waste: hence the lambaste. Housman was right... by Michael R. Burch It's true that life's not much to lose, so why not hang out on a cloud? It's just the bon voyage is hard and the objections loud. Ah! Sunflower by Michael R. Burch after William Blake O little yellow flower like a star ... how beautiful, how wonderful we are! Descent by Michael R. Burch I have listened to the rain all this morning and it has a certain gravity, as if it knows its destination, perhaps even its particular destiny. I do not believe mine is to be uplifted, although I, too, may be flung precipitously and from a great height. Reading between the lines by Michael R. Burch Who could have read so much, as we? Having the time, but not the inclination, TV has become our philosophy, sheer boredom, our recreation. Ironic Vacation by Michael R. Burch Salzburg. Seeing Mozart's baby grand piano. Standing in the presence of sheer incalculable genius. Grabbing my childish pen to write a poem & challenge the Immortals. Next stop, the catacombs! Imperfect Perfection by Michael R. Burch You're too perfect for words— a problem for a poet. Expert Advice by Michael R. Burch Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body. Please stop making false comparisons your hobby! Thirty by Michael R. Burch Thirty crept upon me slowly with feline caution and a slowly-twitching tail; patiently she waited for the winds to shift; now, claws unsheathed, she lies seething to assail her helpless prey. Biblical Knowledge or "Knowing Coming and Going" by Michael R. Burch The wisest man the world has ever seen had fourscore concubines and threescore queens? This gives us pause, and so we venture hence— he "knew" them, wisely, in the wider sense. Snap Shots by Michael R. Burch Our daughters must be celibate, die virgins. We triangulate their early paths to heaven (for the martyrs they'll soon conjugate) . We like to hook a little tail. We hope there's decent *** in jail. Don't fool with us; our bombs are smart! (We'll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.) The soul is all that matters; why hoard gold if it offends the eye? A pension plan? Don't make us laugh! We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.) I sampled honeysuckle and it made my taste buds buckle. —Michael R. Burch The Editor A poet may work from sun to sun, but his editor's work is never done. The Critic The editor's work is never done. The critic adjusts his cummerbund. The Audience While the critic adjusts his cummerbund, the audience exits to mingle and slum. The Anthologist As the audience exits to mingle and slum, the anthologist rules, a pale jury of one. Athenian Epitaphs How valiant he lies tonight: great is his Monument! Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent. by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument! Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent. by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea. Michael R. Burch, after Plato We who left behind the Aegean’s bellowings Now sleep peacefully here on the mid-plains of Ecbatan: Farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea, Farewell, dear sea! Michael R. Burch, after Plato Passerby, Tell the Spartans we lie Lifeless at Thermopylae: Dead at their word, Obedient to their command. Have they heard? Do they understand? Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell? Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell. Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus They observed our fearful fetters, braved the overwhelming darkness. Now we extol their excellence: bravely, they died for us. Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends’ tardiness, Mariner! Just man’s foolhardiness. Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum Be ashamed, O mountains and seas: these were men of valorous breath. Assume, like pale chattels, an ashen silence at death. Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio These men earned a crown of imperishable glory, Nor did the maelstrom of death obscure their story. Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Stranger, flee! But may Fortune grant you all the prosperity she denied me. Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum Now that I am dead sea-enclosed Cyzicus shrouds my bones. Faretheewell, O my adoptive land that nurtured me, that held me; I take rest at your breast. Michael R. Burch, after Erycius I am loyal to you master, even in the grave: Just as you now are death’s slave. Michael R. Burch, after Dioscorides Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she’d confess: “I am now less than nothingness.” Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus Dead as you are, though you lie still as stone, huntress Lycas, my great Thessalonian hound, the wild beasts still fear your white bones; craggy Pelion remembers your valor, splendid Ossa, the way you would bound and bay at the moon for its whiteness, bellowing as below we heard valleys resound. And how brightly with joy you would canter and run the strange lonely peaks of high Cithaeron! Michael R. Burch, after Simonides Having never earned a penny, nor seen a bridal gown slip to the floor, still I lie here with the love of many, to be the love of yet one more. Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet I lie by stark Icarian rocks and only speak when the sea talks. Please tell my dear father that I gave up the ghost on the Aegean coast. Michael R. Burch, after Theatetus Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead. What difference to me—where I rest my head? The sea knows I’m buried. Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon Constantina, inconstant one! Once I thought your name beautiful but I was a fool and now you are more bitter to me than death! You flee someone who loves you with baited breath to pursue someone who’s untrue. But if you manage to make him love you, tomorrow you'll flee him too! Michael R. Burch, after Macedonius Sunset by Michael R. Burch This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Between the prophesies of morning and twilight’s revelations of wonder, the sky is ripped asunder. The moon lurks in the clouds, waiting, as if to plunder the dusk of its lilac iridescence, and in the bright-tentacled sunset we imagine a presence full of the fury of lost innocence. What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame, brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim, we recognize at once, but cannot name. The Greatest of These ... by Michael R. Burch for my mother, Christine Ena Burch The hands that held me tremble. The arms that lifted   fall. Angelic flesh, now parchment, is held together with gauze. But her undimmed eyes still embrace me; there infinity can be found. I can almost believe such love will reach me, underground. Love Is Not Love by Michael R. Burch for Beth Love is not love that never looked within itself and questioned all, curled up like a zygote in a ball, throbbed, sobbed and shook. (Or went on a binge at a nearby mall, then would not cook.) Love is not love that never winced, then smiled, convinced that soar’s the prerequisite of fall. When all its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed, where does Love find the wherewithal to try again, endeavor, when all that it knows is: O, because! Stay With Me Tonight by Michael R. Burch Stay with me tonight; be gentle with me as the leaves are gentle falling to the earth. And whisper, O my love, how that every bright thing, though scattered afar, retains yet its worth. Stay with me tonight; be as a petal long-awaited blooming in my hand. Lift your face to mine and touch me with your lips till I feel the warm benevolence of your breath’s heady fragrance like wine. That which we had when pale and waning as the dying moon at dawn, outshone the sun. And so lead me back tonight through bright waterfalls of light to where we shine as one. Originally published by The Lyric 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 The Folly of Wisdom by Michael R. Burch She is wise in the way that children are wise, looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes I must bend down to her to understand. But she only smiles, and takes my hand. We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go, so I smile, and I follow ... And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves that flutter above us, and what she believes― I can almost remember―goes something like this: the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss. She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree that once was a fortress to someone like me rings wildly above us. Some things that we know we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow. Originally published by Romantics Quarterly Departed by Michael R. Burch Already, I miss you, though your parting kiss is still warm on my lips. Now the floor is not strewn with your stockings and slips and the dishes are all stacked away. You left me today ... and each word left unspoken now whispers regrets. Roses for a Lover, Idealized by Michael R. Burch When you have become to me as roses bloom, in memory, exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot, will I recall―yours made me bleed? When winter makes me think of you, whorls petrified in frozen dew, bright promises blithe spring forgot, will I recall your words―barbed, cruel? Ibykos Fragment 286, Circa 564 B.C. loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Come spring, the grand apple trees stand watered by a gushing river where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver and the blossoming grape vine swells in the gathering shadows. Unfortunately for me Eros never rests but like a Thracian tempest ablaze with lightning emanates from Aphrodite; the results are frightening— black, bleak, astonishing, violently jolting me from my soles to my soul. Deor's Lament (circa the 10th century AD) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Weland endured the agony of exile: an indomitable smith wracked by grief. He suffered countless sorrows; indeed, such sorrows were his ***** companions in that frozen island dungeon where Nithad fettered him: so many strong-but-supple sinew-bands binding the better man. That passed away; this also may. Beadohild mourned her brothers' deaths, bemoaning also her own sad state once she discovered herself with child. She knew nothing good could ever come of it. That passed away; this also may. We have heard the Geat's moans for Matilda, his lovely lady, waxed limitless, that his sorrowful love for her robbed him of regretless sleep. That passed away; this also may. For thirty winters Theodric ruled the Mæring stronghold with an iron hand; many acknowledged his mastery and moaned. That passed away; this also may. We have heard too of Ermanaric's wolfish ways, of how he cruelly ruled the Goths' realms. That was a grim king! Many a warrior sat, full of cares and maladies of the mind, wishing constantly that his crown might be overthrown. That passed away; this also may. If a man sits long enough, sorrowful and anxious, bereft of joy, his mind constantly darkening, soon it seems to him that his troubles are limitless. Then he must consider that the wise Lord often moves through the earth granting some men honor, glory and fame, but others only shame and hardship. This I can say for myself: that for awhile I was the Heodeninga's scop, dear to my lord. My name was Deor. For many winters I held a fine office, faithfully serving a just king. But now Heorrenda a man skilful in songs, has received the estate the protector of warriors had promised me. That passed away; this also may. Infatuate, or Sweet Centerless Sixteen by Michael R. Burch Inconsolable as “love” had left your heart, you woke this morning eager to pursue warm lips again, or something “really cool” on which to press your lips and leave their mark. As breath upon a windowpane at dawn soon glows, a spreading halo full of sun, your thought of love blinks wildly ... on and on ... then fizzles at the center, and is gone. The Toast by Michael R. Burch For longings warmed by tepid suns (brief lusts that animated clay), for passions wilted at the bud and skies grown desolate and gray, for stars that fell from tinseled heights and mountains bleak and scarred and lone, for seas reflecting distant suns and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown, for waltzes ending in a hush and rhymes that fade as pages close, for flames’ exhausted, graying ash, and petals falling from the rose, I raise my cup before I drink in reverence to a love long dead, and silently propose a toast— to passages, to time that fled. Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme 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. Twice by Michael R. Burch Now twice she has left me and twice I have listened and taken her back, remembering days when love lay upon us and sparkled and glistened with the brightness of dew through a gathering haze. But twice she has left me to start my life over, and twice I have gathered up embers, to learn: rekindle a fire from ash, soot and cinder and softly it sputters, refusing to burn. Originally published by The Lyric Prose Epigrams We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it.—Michael R. Burch When I was being bullied, I had to learn not to judge myself by the opinions of intolerant morons. Then I felt much better.—Michael R. Burch How can we predict the future, when tomorrow is as uncertain as Trump's next tweet? —Michael R. Burch Poetry moves the heart as well as the reason.—Michael R. Burch Poetry is the art of finding the right word at the right time.—Michael R. Burch The State of the Art (?) by Michael R. Burch Has rhyme lost all its reason and rhythm, renascence? Are sonnets out of season and poems but poor pretense? Are poets lacking fire, their words too trite and forced? What happened to desire? Has passion been coerced? Shall poetry fade slowly, like Latin, to past tense? Are the bards too high and holy, or their readers merely dense? Your e-Verse by Michael R. Burch —for the posters and posers on www.fillintheblank.com I cannot understand a word you’ve said (and this despite an adequate I.Q.); it must be some exotic new haiku combined with Latin suddenly undead. It must be hieroglyphics mixed with Greek. Have Pound and T. S. Eliot been cloned? Perhaps you wrote it on the *** so ****** you spelled it backwards, just to be oblique. I think you’re very funny—so, “Yuk! Yuk!” I know you must be kidding; didn’t we write crap like this and call it “poetry,” a form of verbal exercise, P.E., in kindergarten, when we ran “amuck?” Oh, sorry, I forgot to “make it new.” Perhaps I still can learn a thing or two from someone tres original, like you. Haiku Translations of the Oriental Masters Grasses wilt: the braking locomotive grinds to a halt ― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, fallen camellias, if I were you, I'd leap into the torrent! ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first soft snow: leaves of the awed jonquil bow low ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Come, investigate loneliness! a solitary leaf clings to the Kiri tree ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Lightning shatters the darkness― the night heron's shriek ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch One apple, alone in the abandoned orchard reddens for winter ― Patrick Blanche, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The poem above is by a French poet; it illustrates how the poetry of Oriental masters like Basho has influenced poets around the world. Graven images of long-departed gods, dry spiritless leaves: companions of the temple porch ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch See: whose surviving sons visit the ancestral graves white-bearded, with trembling canes? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I remove my beautiful kimono: its varied braids surround and entwine my body ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This day of chrysanthemums I shake and comb my wet hair, as their petals shed rain ― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This darkening autumn: my neighbor, how does he continue? ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Let us arrange these lovely flowers in the bowl since there's no rice ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An ancient pond, the frog leaps: the silver plop and gurgle of water ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The butterfly perfuming its wings fans the orchid ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pausing between clouds the moon rests in the eyes of its beholders ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first chill rain: poor monkey, you too could use a woven cape of straw ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch This snowy morning: cries of the crow I despise (ah, but so beautiful!) ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Like a heavy fragrance snow-flakes settle: lilies on the rocks ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The cheerful-chirping cricket contends gray autumn's gay, contemptuous of frost ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill, solemn evangelist of loneliness ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The sea darkening, the voices of the wild ducks: my mysterious companions! ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Will we meet again? Here at your flowering grave: two white butterflies ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Fever-felled mid-path my dreams resurrect, to trek into a hollow land ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Too ill to travel, now only my autumn dreams survey these withering fields ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this has been called Basho's death poem These brown summer grasses? The only remains of "invincible" warriors... ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch An empty road lonelier than abandonment: this autumn evening ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring has come: the nameless hill lies shrouded in mist ― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The Oldest Haiku These are my translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into poetic forms such as tanka, renga and haiku over time. My translations are excerpts from the Kojiki (the "Record of Ancient Matters"), a book composed around 711-712 A.D. by the historian and poet Ō no Yasumaro. The Kojiki relates Japan’s mythological beginnings and the history of its imperial line. Like Virgil's Aeneid, the Kojiki seeks to legitimize rulers by recounting their roots. These are lines from one of the oldest Japanese poems, found in the oldest Japanese book: While you decline to cry, high on the mountainside a single stalk of plumegrass wilts. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another excerpt, with a humorous twist, from the Kojiki: Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make! Heaven's indignant messengers, you remind me of wordsmiths! ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch Here's another, this one a poem of love and longing: Onyx, this gem-black night. Downcast, I await your return like the rising sun, unrivaled in splendor. ― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch More Haiku by Various Poets Right at my feet! When did you arrive here, snail? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Our world of dew is a world of dew indeed; and yet, and yet... ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, brilliant moon can it be true that even you must rush off, like us, tardy? ― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch A kite floats at the same place in the sky where yesterday it floated... ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pigeon's behavior is beyond reproach, but the mountain cuckoo's? ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Plowing, not a single bird sings in the mountain's shadow ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The pear tree flowers whitely― a young woman reads his letter by moonlight ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch On adjacent branches the plum tree blossoms bloom petal by petal―love! ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Picking autumn plums my wrinkled hands once again grow fragrant ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Dawn! The brilliant sun illuminates sardine heads. ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The abandoned willow shines between rains ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch White plum blossoms― though the hour grows late, a glimpse of dawn ― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this is believed to be Buson's death poem and he is said to have died before dawn I thought I felt a dewdrop plop on me as I lay in bed! ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch We cannot see the moon and yet the waves still rise ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The first morning of autumn: the mirror I investigate reflects my father’s face ― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Wild geese pass leaving the emptiness of heaven revealed ― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Silently observing the bottomless mountain lake: water lilies ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Cranes flapping ceaselessly test the sky's upper limits ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Falling snowflakes' glitter tinsels the sea ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Blizzards here on earth, blizzards of stars in the sky ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Completely encircled in emerald: the glittering swamp! ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The new calendar!: as if tomorrow is assured... ― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Ah butterfly, what dreams do you ply with your beautiful wings? ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because morning glories hold my well-bucket hostage I go begging for water ― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring stirs the clouds in the sky's teabowl ― Kikusha-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tonight I saw how the peony crumples in the fire's embers ― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch It fills me with anger, this moon; it fills me and makes me whole ― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch War stood at the end of the hall in the long shadows ― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Because he is slow to wrath, I tackle him, then wring his neck in the long grass ― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Pale mountain sky: cherry petals play as they tumble earthward ― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The frozen moon, the frozen lake: two oval mirrors reflecting each other. ― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The bitter winter wind ends here with the frozen sea ― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, bitter winter wind, why bellow so when there's no leaves to fell? ― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Winter waves roil their own shadows ― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation by Michael R. Burch No sky, no land: just snow eternally falling... ― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Along with spring leaves my child's teeth take root, blossom ― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Stillness: a single chestnut leaf glides on brilliant water ― Ryuin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch As thunder recedes a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight: applauded by cicadas ― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The snake slipped away but his eyes, having held mine, still stare in the grass ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Girls gather sprouts of rice: reflections of the water flicker on the backs of their hats ― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Murmurs follow the hay cart this blossoming summer day ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The wet nurse paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins then walked away ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch May I be with my mother wearing her summer kimono by the morning window ― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch The hands of a woman exist to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch The moon hovering above the snow-capped mountains rained down hailstones ― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly: a puff of white snow cresting mountains ― Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Spring snow cascades over fences in white waves ― Suju Takano, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Tanka and Waka translations: If fields of autumn flowers can shed their blossoms, shameless, why can’t I also frolic here — as fearless, and as blameless? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Submit to you — is that what you advise? The way the ripples do whenever ill winds arise? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Watching wan moonlight illuminate trees, my heart also brims, overflowing with autumn. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I had thought to pluck the flower of forgetfulness only to find it already blossoming in his heart. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch That which men call "love" — is it not merely the chain preventing our escape from this world of pain? —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch Once-colorful flowers faded, while in my drab cell life’s impulse also abated as the long rains fell. —Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch I set off at the shore of the seaside of Tago, where I saw the high, illuminated peak of Fuji―white, aglow― through flakes of drifting downy snow. ― Akahito Yamabe, loose translation by Michael R. Burch ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones, like yesteryear’s fading souvenirs, I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows. Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers, packed tightly here despite once repellent hate? Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state. These arms and hands, they once were so delicate! How articulately they moved! Ah me! What athletes once paced about on these padded feet? Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls! Deprived of graves, forced here like slaves to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls! Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained? Except for me; reader, hear my plea: I know the grandeur of the mind it contained! Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir here, where I stand in this alien land surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer! Even in this cold, in this dust and mould I am startled by an a strange, ancient reverie, … as if this shrine to death could quicken me! One shape out of the past keeps calling me with its mystery! Still retaining its former angelic grace! And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ... Swept by that current to where immortals race. O secret vessel, you gave Life its truth. It falls on me now to recall your expressive face. I turn away, abashed here by what I see: this mould was worth more than all the earth. Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free! What is there better in this dark Life than he who gives us a sense of man’s divinity, of his place in the universe? A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse! 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. Farewell to Faith I by Michael R. Burch What we want is relief from life’s grief and despair: what we want’s not “belief” but just not to be there. Farewell to Faith II by Michael R. Burch Confronted by the awesome thought of death, to never suffer, and be free of grief, we wonder: "What’s the use of drawing breath? Why seek relief from the bible’s Thief, who ripped off Eve then offered her a leaf?" Anyte Epigrams Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms; hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches; then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain; for this is welcome shade from the burning sun. —Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Here I stand, Hermes, in the crossroads by the windswept elms near the breezy beach, providing rest to sunburned travelers, and cold and brisk is my fountain’s abundance. —Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Sit here, quietly shaded by the luxuriant foliage, and drink cool water from the sprightly spring, so that your weary breast, panting with summer’s labors, may take rest from the blazing sun. —Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This is the grove of Cypris, for it is fair for her to look out over the land to the bright deep, that she may make the sailors’ voyages happy, as the sea trembles, observing her brilliant image. —Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Nossis Epigrams There is nothing sweeter than love. All other delights are secondary. Thus, I spit out even honey. This is what Gnossis says: Whom Aphrodite does not love, Is bereft of her roses. —Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Most revered Hera, the oft-descending from heaven, behold your Lacinian shrine fragrant with incense and receive the linen robe your noble child Nossis, daughter of Theophilis and Cleocha, has woven for you. —Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, my homeland of beautiful dances, to indulge in the most exquisite graces of Sappho, remember I also was loved by the Muses, who bore me and reared me there. My name, never forget it!, is Nossis. Now go! —Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Pass me with ringing laughter, then award me a friendly word: I am Rinthon, scion of Syracuse, a small nightingale of the Muses; from their tragedies I was able to pluck an ivy, unique, for my own use. —Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Excerpts from “Distaff” by Erinna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch … the moon rising …       … leaves falling …            … waves lapping a windswept shore … … and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ... ... Leaping from white horses, running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.   “You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!” But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers, you darted beyond the courtyard, dashed out deep into the waves, splashing far beyond us … … My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial, these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash … … Do you remember how, as girls, we played at weddings with our dolls, pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ... ... How sometimes I was your mother, allotting wool to the weaver-women, calling for you to unreel the thread? ... … Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue, her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ... ... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ... ... But when you mounted your husband’s bed, dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings! Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ... ... Desire becomes oblivion ... ... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend. I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt. I can’t bring myself to leave the house. I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes. I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound? I blush with shame at the thought of you! … ... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis, My deep grief is ripping me apart. Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen, I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ... O ***** . . . O Hymenaeus! . . . Alas, my poor Baucis! On a Betrothed Girl by Erinna loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I sing of Baucis the bride. Observing her tear-stained crypt say this to Death who dwells underground: "Thou art envious, O Death!" Her vivid monument tells passers-by of the bitter misfortune of Baucis — how her father-in-law burned the poor girl on a pyre lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home. While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges. ***** O Hymenaeus! Sophocles Epigrams Not to have been born is best, and blessed beyond the ability of words to express. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch It’s a hundred times better not be born; but if we cannot avoid the light, the path of least harm is swiftly to return to death’s eternal night! —Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Never to be born may be the biggest boon of all. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Oblivion: What a blessing, to lie untouched by pain! —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The happiest life is one empty of thought. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Consider no man happy till he lies dead, free of pain at last. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch What is worse than death? When death is desired but denied. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch When a man endures nothing but endless miseries, what is the use of hanging on day after day, edging closer and closer toward death? Anyone who warms his heart with the false glow of flickering hope is a wretch! The noble man should live with honor and die with honor. That's all that can be said. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Children anchor their mothers to life. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How terrible, to see the truth when the truth brings only pain to the seer! —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Wisdom outweighs all the world's wealth. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Fortune never favors the faint-hearted. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Wait for evening to appreciate the day's splendor. —Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Homer Epigrams For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they themselves are sorrowless. —Homer, Iliad 24.525-526, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch “It is best not to be born or, having been born, to pass on as swiftly as possible.” —attributed to Homer (circa 800 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Ancient Roman Epigrams Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed, since you're holding up verses so prolapsed! —Ancient Roman graffiti, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch There is nothing so pointless, so perfidious as human life! ... The ultimate bliss is not to be born; otherwise we should speedily slip back into the original Nothingness. —Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Keywords/Tags: elegy, eulogy, child, childhood, death, death of a friend, lament, lamentation, epitaph, grave, funeral, epigram, epigrams, short, brief, concise, aphorism, adage, proverb, quote, mrbepi, mrbepig, mrbepigram, mrbhaiku Published as the collection "Epigrams"
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