#regime
I’ve heard their lies. I heard them all.
I read the names carved in the wall.
I saw the soldiers clear the hall
and sort the shoes by size.
I ate. I worked. The day was long.
I learned the nation’s favored song.
I signed my name. I moved along
and left you there in hunger
I went to find the name I sold.
I walked at night between the folds.
and there were phantoms on the road
who died in ash and wanting.
I traded bread, I looked for clues,
seeking victims I could use.
I stole a coat that you would choose
and wore it through the winter.
I spread the map across the ground,
the river bend where you were found.
I knelt beside your fallen gown.
I'd lost my only witness.
I'm taking back my broken life,
my spoon, my tin, my sacred night,
the hand I’ll need to gently write
my song of ash and wanting.
They haven’t found me. Never will.
Footsteps silent. Breath so still
to move through shadows, choose the hills.
A ledger line is there to fill
the name of one surviving.
Jan 11
Jan 11, 2026 at 5:29 PM UTC
Let's fight over dirt about what's underground
Let's work on bombing hospitals so we can play a few rounds
Let's ****** one thousand children just to take out one
Let's liberate the people by sneaking them under our thumb
Let's make the world better after we purposely made it worse
Let's spread the good word using an orange hearse
Let's die for Isreal so Jesus can come back down
(Who's gonna tell Hegseth that he's poor and brown)
Let's use hideous creations to decimate beautiful things
We can rebuild civilization on top of dead human beings
Let's start a war for peace so the oil tycoons get rich
Just send the poor to die for money and **** two birds with one whip
Mar 16
Mar 16, 2026 at 5:10 PM UTC
The bird sings
He cries
He screams
The words of the great and free
Of the one.
He who took it all
And he the one who cried
"I am the one!
The one to end it all
And begin the new time
Of me."
Screams disappear into the forests
His eyes glimmer
He fights in stone
And sets in metal
The iron gaze to the right
By the disgrace of God
The people are gone
Never to tell their tales
Of this suffering
In his hands
Señores, this is all we have left
It won't buy you a loaf of bread
But it may buy him a heart
for him to feast on.
Sep 8, 2021
Sep 8, 2021 at 10:20 AM UTC
Die Bücherverbrennung ("The Burning of the Books")
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.
Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he’d been excluded!
He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power —
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven’t I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!
German text:
Die Bücherverbrennung
Als das Regime befahl, Bücher mit schädlichem Wissen
Öffentlich zu verbrennen, und allenthalben
Ochsen gezwungen wurden, Karren mit Büchern
Zu den Scheiterhaufen zu ziehen, entdeckte
Ein verjagter Dichter, einer der besten, die Liste der
Verbrannten studierend, entsetzt, daß seine
Bücher vergessen waren. Er eilte zum Schreibtisch
Zornbeflügelt, und schrieb einen Brief an die Machthaber.
Verbrennt mich! schrieb er mit fliegender Feder, verbrennt mich!
Tut mir das nicht an! Laßt mich nicht übrig! Habe ich nicht
Immer die Wahrheit berichtet in meinen Büchern? Und jetzt
Werd ich von euch wie ein Lügner behandelt! Ich befehle euch:
Verbrennt mich!
Published by Poetry Super Highway, The Hindu, The Tory, Chicago Sun-Times (excerpt), Poemist, Poetry on Demand and Convivium
Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, German, translation, burning, books, banned, harmful, unlawful, **** regime, fires, bonfires, oxen, carts, cartloads, Adolph ****** writer, writers, excommunicated, exiled, burn, truth, pen, blazing, fiery, liar
Bertolt Brecht Epigrams and Quotations
These are my modern English translations of epigrams and quotations by Bertolt Brecht.
Everyone chases the way happiness feels,
unaware how it nips at their heels.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The world of learning takes a crazy turn
when teachers are taught to discern!
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Unhappy, the land that lacks heroes.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Hungry man, reach for the book:
it's a hook,
a harpoon.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
War is like love; true ...
it finds a way through.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
What happens to the hole
when the cheese is no longer whole?
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
It is easier to rob by setting up a bank
than by threatening the poor clerk.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Do not fear death so much, or strife,
but rather fear the inadequate life.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, translation, translations, German, modern English, epigram, epigrams, quote, quotes, quotations
Mar 9, 2020
Mar 9, 2020 at 10:43 PM UTC
One hundred men gather to decide their king.
They bring their minds and gold together;
They weave a crown of rope with gilded string,
Then, quietly, it lay before them in the grass
The first man moves to seize the rope,
"See your king with rope in grasp!"
Another comes and yanks it back, "I brought more gold than you!"
Another comes, and another still, 'till every man has seized the rope,
Until it wrapped around the throat of someone in the feud.
"Hold! We've gone too far," said the man whose throat was caught.
The rabble of the hundred men ended as it came,
And each the golden rope held firm; one-hundred men had pulled the knots.
The man who brought the most gold said to the one who seized it first,
"I'd rather you, the first to take the rope, be king!"
The first to lift it said back,
"And I that it were any of you!"
Feb 8, 2020
Feb 8, 2020 at 6:41 PM UTC
There is no space for you in this regime
I had thought once and for all that I might truly be queen
but now I am forced to share my throne with a beast
now only the silence meets my screams
it sits me down for a meal that I must eat
my throne at the end of the table no longer my seat
the hand of night seldom brings
the rest and beauty of the now lost dream
my mind is only sieged in sleep
nothing I say will bring me peace
saving, no longer, can be decreed
not as long as you can speak
and as I weep
for your feet are those of a thief
yet you are not the one to flee
you have made your story one to believe
no, no, you are not welcome in this regime
there is only one crown and only one queen
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 8:52 PM UTC
What happened?
Oh wait I remember
A president was elected
But we didn't get him
Instead we a got a dictatorial regime.
Freedom of speech was the first right to go
Slowly but surely
Prisoners of war
Accumulated in the prisons.
College kids and Activists
Beaten, ***** shot, ridiculed.
They might as well have been tarred and feathered
How sick do you have to be to shoot at a girl
Sitting
With her eyes closed
Crying for her country?
How sick do you have to be to paralyze a 15 year old boy
Walking
With the rest of us
For his future?
And don't get me started on the grandpa
Who was marching
with his grandchildren
Or the violinist
Dedicating a tune to his country
All trying
To escape from this country
Plagued by insecurity, inflation, and corruption.
The only thing we have left
Is a small scrap of hope.
Jul 31, 2017
Jul 31, 2017 at 1:09 PM UTC
Allow me to flow my water in your stream
My beloved take every ray of the light beam
Your beauty is my asset my love is your theme
Let us being supreme enjoy our real regime
Take me to your garden to taste your ever fruit
Being cute allow me to sing song on your flute
Allow my love to pay your beauty proper tribute
I am of no consequence you are beauty of repute
Let me take all your taste and flavor in trance
My sweetheart give me time and again a chance
I can sacrifice my love for the sake of a glance
I love you I love you this but my real valid stance
Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Jan 14, 2017
Jan 14, 2017 at 10:37 AM UTC
O handsome thrill, immodest in measure:
the red death upon which I cast my infamy
is visible in the village square.
No judge shall restore bleached skulls to dignity
now that I unlace my boots at leisure.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 3:31 PM UTC