The Grey

On slow-light morns
I meet the grey,
An absent sky,
It’s light, afraid.
It heralds the bleak
The tired, mundane,
Most loathsome, most
Despairing of days.

And yet this day, though bleak,
Though vision frayed
And blue sky strangled
By the 'gulfing grey,
After a shower and an eye-shut shave
The bleakest day,
Is realised.

I am awake.

I want to know what kind of man you are beneath
the surface.
I want to understand what makes your heart beat faster
and what you love. What makes you mad, and why it has
that power over you.
I want to learn if your anger is hot and quick like mine, or
a lingering coldness that freezes those who invoke your
wrath. Do you forgive them when the red mist subsides,
or do you hold a grudge through all of eternity?
I wish I could know how you see me through those quiet
eyes of yours. I want you to tell me if you long to stroke
my hair as we drift off to sleep, or if it’s my curves that
your hands ache for. I wonder if you would message me
goodnight before bed, so that I would never close my eyes
without knowing that I was loved. Perhaps you would
expect my heart to know that already, simply by the way
your face lights up at the sight of mine.
What do you dream of when you close your eyes? Do you
sleep peacefully until the light dapples your skin through
the blinds, or do the tigers prowl around your head,
leaving you shivering in fear in the darkness?
When you are lonely, do you ever think about my smile, or
the way that I always know how to still the demons that
scream inside you? I wonder if I am still vivid in your
awareness, or a distant memory now; a spectre bathed in
the gentle lustre of nostalgia.
Do you chase sunsets or sunrises? I love both. Does the
promise of a shimmering new dawn appeal to you more
than the glow of another day closing in a riot of colour? I
wonder where peace finds you. Will you drink hot tea with
me as the sun blazes through the horizon, reminding us
of the fleeting nature of this life? I think I would like that.
I want to learn if you prefer the bright crackle of a
burning log fire, snuggled up in blankets against the cold,
or the way that the sun plays upon warm limbs, making
them glow golden in the afternoon light. Is it summer that
brings a smile to those lips I covet, or would you
rather turn your face up to taste the snowflakes as they
fall?
I watch to see if you curse the fact that you cannot get to
work in the snow, or if you roll up your sleeves joyfully to
build a snowman. And if you do, I notice whether you give
him a stone mouth so that he might smile upon the
children that wave as they pass him by.
Do you ever fantasise about losing yourself, out there, in
the world? Do you seek the quiet solitude of a wooden log
cabin on the edge of a lake, or do you prefer the lights
and glamour of cocktail dresses in a fancy room full of
raucous laughter?Where do you want to go? What do you
want to see?
Do you hear it when adventure calls out your name and
more importantly, do you answer?
I want to know where you hide, when the world becomes
too much to bear.
Where do you take your freedom?
Is there space for another in your haven, or can I follow
you only so far, then settle patiently to await your return
to me; the reunion all the sweeter for your absence.
See, I wanna know if you have hurt people. Did their tears
rain on your heart, each drop a sharp stinging torment? I
try to imagine if you wear a mask of hardness in the face
of another’s pain, or if you are gentle as you ask for
forgiveness. Do you bleed through another’s wounds?
Can you?
Tell me how you have broken someone you loved, and
whether you were able to fix them again. Did they love
you still when the pieces were put back together? What
horrors live in the bleakest corners of your soul? What do
you think about when you go there?
I want to know the very worst of you.
Share with me the music that plays in your heart, and
whether you dance to the beat of your own drum.
Show me the colour of your love. If you could splash its
brightness onto a waiting canvas, would it burn with
passionate reds and oranges, or would it run still and
strong in a cool turquoise calm?
Tell me if you kiss softly, your lips singing mine a gentle
lullaby, or whether they would rage intently,
scorching new pathways to my heart with a desire that
refuses be stilled. I want to feel it either way.
Show me if you want a sweet girl, or a ***** one. Or a
little of each. What makes you cry out in ecstasy? Is it a
woman that makes you laugh until your stomach hurts, or
one whose beauty takes your breath away with a single
look? Do you look for the quirky ones, perhaps? The ones
who are too easily overlooked, the hidden treasures?
Tell me, would you risk it all for love? Would you fight for
what you truly want, or would you let it slip away into
nothing, never knowing what might have been, because
you never told her that your heart beat only for her? Did
you ever realise she was waiting for you to fight for her?
Will you watch someone else love her because you were
too afraid to be vulnerable with her?
Will you settle for next best, the girl you could maybe
grow to love someday, instead of the one that haunts your
thoughts today? Is that enough for you? Maybe it is.
Could you live with yourself knowing that she got away?
Tell me about a time that you cried until you couldn’t
breathe anymore. Or where you lived through a day where
you prayed for the sweet release of death. Did you make
it through? I have been there. Has your heart been broken
into a million tiny pieces and, if it has, has it made you
hard? Or are you are still open to the beauty that the
world holds for you?
Show me your pain and I will show you mine. I hope it
does not scare you. It has helped me to grow.
I want to know if you talk to the glittering stars above us,
and which one is special to you. What do you think
happens when we die? Do we join their shining ranks in
heaven or is there nothing left for us? Are you afraid of
death? I am. Will you hold my hand if I leave you first? If
you whisper to me that love knows no boundaries, not
even death, will you mean it?
Tell me about your childhood. I want to know the way
your mother’s hair smelled when you crawled exhausted
into her lap, and the way your bedroom looked when you
were 10. Did your father cry when you curled a tiny fist
around his finger for the very first time? I bet he did. I
want to know all the people that you have loved
throughout your life, so that I might love them through
you and with you.
Do you write? Do you draw? I want to know whether you
ache to capture my face with your pencil, preserving the
wonder that lingers softly there. Do you like to express
yourself through words, or action best? Will your hands
illustrate your story as you speak and will I know that you
are lying from the way your lips tremble gently as the
words tumble guiltily from them?
What is your favourite book? Explain to me why it
enraptures you so. Please? It tells me a lot about you. I
love the way people cry when their favourite character
breaks their heart, as though they are an old friend to be
adored. Who is yours? I will seek them out and befriend
them to understand why they have moved you so much.
Lend me your secrets. I’ll keep them safe and I’ll return
them when my picture of you is complete. Whisper into
my ear so that only us two may share them. Do you
believe in magic? I do, now that I have met you.
Tell me your story, for it might well become part of my
story. Let me in. Let me see you. All of you.
I want to know you.*

-Jojo Roden

On those drawn out summer evenings, all manner of characters would fill the coffee shops and spill outside. An interesting cross section of society would be provided for anyone willing to sit and watch, for an hour or two atleast. This particular evening will always stand out for me as representative of those carefree folly filled evenings. I was sat alone, with a copy of the evening news and an espresso across the street from a boisterous coffee shop which remained opened deep into the evening, long after others were closed. I often sat and watched people in those early few months, Id decided against socialising with colleagues. I would go to great lengths to prearranged fictitious plans and engagements in order so that I could sit alone each evening, pleasing myself. It's always far easier to enjoy food alone, without any distractions. After considering my options I settled for a steak, and a glass of wine. The waiter seemingly unconcerned failed to take note as I gave my order, with a shrug of his head he returned to the kitchen inside to place the order. The cafe I watched was perched almost perfectly across the street from the train station. As commuters and young couples in love poured out of the station, and onto the bright expanse which was the street before them. The popularity of this particular cafe is hard to convey correctly, it's frantic nature remained even on the bleakest of midwinter evenings. Now though months of bread and water were long gone, as seasonal waiters hurried arms filled will all manner of snacks and drinks.  All manner of agricultural workers would congregate in early march, eager to snap up work in the best hotels and cafes thus ensuring a healthy wage and generous tips. The waiters from the mountains always stood out. It was as if they retained the innocence of there previous surroundings, smiling all coy when taking orders from female customers. They retained the physical attributes of the mountains which they had left, towering above others and maintaining a mystique which often meant they would return in November with wives and child aswell.




By now it was half past eight atleast, and I had finished my steak and wine. The traffic was in the process of slowing down, although it was not uncommon here for traffic jams to form at any hour of the evening. Car horns echoed and ricocheted off old architecture which gave an impression of immense movement all around.  The owner was a beast of a man standing six foot high atleast, with a beard which gave away his rugged beginnings. It was impossible to estimate his origin correctly, Id always imagined he was from somewhere in Northern Europe although by now I had learnt that assumptions were the preserve of fools. He could most often be found pacing up and down the pavement adjacent to his cafe, smoking his camel blue cigarettes and staring deep into the night sky. As if preoccupied with some great moral dilemma this could go on for hours of end, without him breathing a word to anyone.  Under a great mane of curly brown hair, lay the most enthralling blue eyes imaginable. They had a softness which would not seem out of place upon the face of some Parisian muse. Although I must confess when first confronted with this gentleman an his almost childlike appearance, I was adamant I had him figured. He seemed the kind of man who blundered through life, although successful still seemed to be scraping an unenviable existence for himself.

By now I had stuck around long enough to get some feel for the pitter patter of life in just such a place. The transient nature of the customers ensured a bravado unseen in any old small town watering hole, women driven wild by spontaneous desire stared sultry at the mysterious visitors.
A crew of sailors who had no doubt been granted shore leave, and were soaking up the atmosphere just across the road from me. They could have been from any South American nation, or Spain. It really was impossible to tell from my distance, a few had clearly cultivated moustaches whilst at sea. It was common for sea faring people's to grow ****** hair in such a manner. Almost as if by magic, a story told by someone without a beard holds subtle undertones of irrelevance. I had learned this over the many months I had spent smoking and talking to locals, and travellers alike. I must confess I had fallen hook line and sinker, I was currently locked in the process of cursing my genetics and dreaming of a more rugged appeal.

By now the black coffees had petered out, and had been replaced by glasses and in some cases bottles of what I can only assume was Spanish red wine. The noise had steadily increased as the drinks flowed, and the crowd of sailors had gradually grown more and more boisterous in there escapades . A few feet away the manager stared intently at the revellers, as if the warn them without words of being too careless in a foreign city. The ever present owner done very little to deter the actions of the pack, who's numbers by now had been swelled from another dozen or so sailors who happened to be walking in the right direction.  The sailors leered shamelessly at the local women, whilst the more forward of them made there own advances. Still the manager stood smoking and staring as if to catch the sight of one of them. Now to the wary eyes of a man returned from a long voyage this would seem like a place, where desire became a priority above all else. This would be an entirely accurate assumption although, if the surface was scratched significantly an underbelly of immorality could be found. For the sailors though, whom were just passing through unlikely to ever return this mattered very little. There only concern was draining themselves on some unsuspecting women, or if so required a *******.

It's hard to say exactly how the altercation was initiated, although I suspect the cat calls of a few sailors had pushed one local over the edge. Whilst the promise of conflict ensured a crowd would gather the bar owner remained just away from the ruckus as if picking his moment. The sailors numbered in 20 or so, and fuelled by red wine and continental beer seemed more than willing to put up a fight. A waiter who had tried to act as mediator between the parties had given up, and left for the roadside and had lit up a cigarette. For a few minutes atleast it looked as though the scuffle would be forgotten and laughed about over eggs at breakfast. There was a barrage of shouting and pulling as the locals slowly lost their temper. By now many people had stopped to stare at the spectacle, this is where I must confess things got really strange. As I have previously stated I have no real idea what brought all of this on, that is to say I have no idea what set the process in motion. It was a well known fact that in times of violence the locals would protect each other with a ferocity and loyalty which could see the most able bodied men come unstuck. I had ordered myself a cream cake, and was skimming through the news from London when I heard a blood chilling yell. I spied the previously placid manager leaving the door which lead to his apartment above the cafe. With the confidence of a man without obligation he sauntered toward the group of sailors. I did not see the knife, I must confess I assumed this old man would take quite a beating at the hands of these sailors. Oh I was wrong, a young sailor fell to the ground silent, as his green shirt went claret with blood. In disbelief his comrades stood around, unsure exactly what to do. The crowd assembled gasped as if to share collective disbelief, the manager had managed to slip off somewhere without provoking any attention. Over the next twenty five minutes an ambulance arrived although I feel even the paramedics knew that this was more an exercise in keeping up appearances than saving any lives. They surely knew that there was very little they could do for this poor boy away from home. Police officers milled around, It was safe to say the bar owner would never be brought to anything like justice for this although, the general consensus was that anyone who got stabbed more than likely deserved it in someway or another. As for the manager  he had long been bundled into the back of some old pre war car and taken far beyond the cries and disdain of world weary sailors. No doubt to reappear a week or so later.

Days pass, my love, and I'm afraid of t'ese feelings,
Which at first startled and surprised me,
Solidified but threatened me,
Hastened my heartbeat-and lingered stubbornly, at my wit.

I was treading down in my stilettos;
And all, today, had been silent hitherto-
Whenst I but caught about thee;
More charming than the breezy day itself, and more free.

Ah, thee! How I longest to silence thee forever,
Thee to whom delights my shelter;
Thee to whom every lie shalt be truth,
and to whom all dreary ages shalt be youth.

How I longest to ****** thee;
to strangle and behead thee,
so that thou shalt no more haunt me-
just like these feelings that twitch, and dazzle me-
forever and ever; like a bewitching, yet sadistic misery.

Shalt I hate them, my love?
Shalt I depict but mock all them?
Ah, tease me-o, tease me, my love!
Catch me about those rippling grass,
Which like a bucket of green water,
Bloom and flirt with the startled bush in mass,
before autumn greets, and their brightness shalt alter.

Alter to falseness, and die in paleness;
Before they scramble up again in vain,
And retreat to my dreams like a dizzy villain;
In a wail of discord, and its lake of cold madness.

Ah! They hate me! And whenst thou seest not,
They seethe at me, they floweth in my brain;
they corrupt me vilely, and ruineth my restraint;
And my loving heart shalt they never defend,
for instead of hate, they grant it love;
and tempt it to kiss-t'is tiny heirloom of mine-
of thy picture, all repeatedly; over and over again.

Ah, thee, to whom my heart shalt only be a burden;
to whom the bleakest of winds only bounces, and goes;
to whom that this earth seems to have no throes-
Just like all those ****** birds who chirp about in yon garden.

Oh, thee, who looketh pristine in whichever garment,
and looketh still a darling atop whatever mute soil,
but safely comeliest amongst t'is Thursday night's infallible moonlight;
and altogether stirring to every glance-whilst inviting to each lurking sight.

Ah, thee, whose heart still, that lucky lady possesses,
and whose smiles she salutes and gladly welcomes;
I wonder whether thou shalt ever know how my heart is obsessed-
and that how thy love for her is my karma, my devil,
and the most undesirable-yet resentful, total sham!
Oh, for the gracious is ungracious indeed, in her eyes,
and peace is but to her a mere tempest of fights;
for to her, immortal are her shallow rights,
And eternal are her breaths, and thus, her tidiest lies.
I hope she shalt be soon swallowed into this earth,
and bludgeoned to death, within its eternal, whining hearth.
She shalt be sent to Hell, for all her discordant sins,
poor creature, as poor she was, whenst alive-to her kin.
But still poorer, poorer me who adoreth thee like this,
Who forever longs to taste thy sweet breaths-and kisses,
I am like an infant who seeks to walk and drink of the stars;
Without knowing the sky is indeed boundless, and strenuously far.
I am who never grows, but stupidly screams, and urges for the most
I, myself, who shall always be strangely desolate, and lost.
Ah, t'is poor self of mine! For canst I only dreamest, and seekest, and whine
Whilst her hair is in thy arms, smelling like sweet-and dreamless sleep,
Buried deep in thy charms, with her heart engaged in thine,
And unawakened by the night, as to one delight so deep.
I am envious, envious, envious-and for thy know, t'is envy is perilous,
and should I die, my spirit wouldst remain awake, and forever curious.
I shalt be wand'ring voicelessly like a fishy ghost,
Be unseen foliage in autumn, and be winter's plodded frost,
I shalt be confined in my own confinement,
and flustered away, in my own unblessed, refinement.

Yet still, nothing is more stately than my feelings;
and this picture of thee-ah, as always, solemn and so honoured in my arms.
Ah, thee, let me invite thee here-and show thee how tears are in fact, the truest charms;
and how pains are undeniably our breath-though faked, and dried away-
by unceremonious adoration and hate-
but still alive like we are, among th' very livings.

Ah, and so my feelings are dangerous-
for they have no soul; are bound not by wings.
As thou smileth to me-they smile not, but groweth serious-
and their seriousness, in return, bringst not one single uttering.
My thee, my thee, but if thou art not my fate,
how couldst I call thee always, my salvation?
In my heart thou art not merely my mate;
thou art worth all my warmth, regrets, and thus holiest temptation.
How am I to procure advancements, my sweet lad-
Should we hath been 'lone, had we never met?

With thee I hath been in love,
and for whom my feelings are tough.
Still I believe loyalty is in thee,
and honour in me-is whenst I loveth thee only.
My thee!
O-my thee, by whom these long-living trepidations
shalt no more be meaningful,
as how all other's admirations
shalt become unfelt, and sorrowful.

Feelings, feelings, o my incarcerated feelings
My tears are thy soul; that shape and form thy whole
To live and love whilst these flames are strong,
to whose lips only, I am insane-but clearly belong.

Meanest
Bleakest
Blackest
Dryest
We are the meanest, bleakest race.
Hail from the blackest, dryest place.

To see a dwindling tree in the forest
is not to know its bleakest
but to know its earnest

The decay is shown outwardly as despair
by means of deforested ensnare
Forlornness seems its welfare

Externally the forest is declared undeserved eternally
Beauty is unsecured directly
And hope comes seldomly

Whole,
is a forest,
alive as a unit
Spaciousness is created with the tree's covet
Restored are the longing of nutrients
in a sacrificed facet

"Whose life is the most meager,
the monkey or the *****?"

To screech and wind the
same dreadful tune
a mildew forming on your screws
What a way to grind your gears,
counter-happy through the years

Or

To pantaloon a penny nearer,
wearing outfits scavenged
from old graves
To jingle shackles,
worship Cesar's
To have a smile filled with nails,
a heart fashioned of broken stares

"But who has the most meager existence?
The undertaker or the priest?
The coffin or the corpse?"

To love the man who appoints the pain
to the monkey and the box
To praise the God that has made love
a traitorous paradox
To be the one that bears the wounds
of every ******, child, or sage

That is to live the worst of lives,
                                                    the bleakest death
That is to understand the blackest hole

Uyghur Poetry Translations

With my translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets and their people, who are being sent in large numbers to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps which have been praised by Trump as "exactly" what is "needed."

Perhat Tursun (1969-????) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Unfortunately, Tursun was "disappeared" into a Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. Apparently no one knows his present whereabouts or condition.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Your soul is the entire world."
―Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Asylum seekers, will you recognize me among the mountain passes' frozen corpses?
Can you identify me here among our Exodus's exiled brothers?
We begged for shelter but they lashed us bare; consider our naked corpses.
When they compel us to accept their massacres, do you know that I am with you?

Three centuries later they resurrect, not recognizing each other,
Their former greatness forgotten.
I happily ingested poison, like a fine wine.
When they search the streets and cannot locate our corpses, do you know that I am with you?

In that tower constructed of skulls you will find my dome as well:
They removed my head to more accurately test their swords' temper.
When before their swords our relationship flees like a flighty lover,
Do you know that I am with you?

When men in fur hats are used for target practice in the marketplace
Where a dying man's face expresses his agony as a bullet cleaves his brain
While the executioner's eyes fail to comprehend why his victim vanishes,...
Seeing my form reflected in that bullet-pierced brain's erratic thoughts,
Do you know that I am with you?

In those days when drinking wine was considered worse than drinking blood,
did you taste the flour ground out in that blood-turned churning mill?
Now, when you sip the wine Ali-Shir Nava'i imagined to be my blood
In that mystical tavern's dark abyssal chambers,
Do you know that I am with you?

TRANSLATOR NOTES: This is my interpretation (not necessarily correct) of the poem's frozen corpses left 300 years in the past. For the Uyghur people the Mongol period ended around 1760 when the Qing dynasty invaded their homeland, then called Dzungaria. Around a million people were slaughtered during the Qing takeover, and the Dzungaria territory was renamed Xinjiang. I imagine many Uyghurs fleeing the slaughters would have attempted to navigate treacherous mountain passes. Many of them may have died from starvation and/or exposure, while others may have been caught and murdered by their pursuers.



The Fog and the Shadows
adapted from a novel by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“I began to realize the fog was similar to the shadows.”

I began to realize that, just as the exact shape of darkness is a shadow,
even so the exact shape of fog is disappearance
and the exact shape of a human being is also disappearance.
At this moment it seemed my body was vanishing into the human form’s final state.

After I arrived here,
it was as if the danger of getting lost
and the desire to lose myself
were merging strangely inside me.

While everything in that distant, gargantuan city where I spent my five college years felt strange to me; and even though the skyscrapers, highways, ditches and canals were built according to a single standard and shape, so that it wasn’t easy to differentiate them, still I never had the feeling of being lost. Everyone there felt like one person and they were all folded into each other. It was as if their faces, voices and figures had been gathered together like a shaman’s jumbled-up hair.

Even the men and women seemed identical.
You could only tell them apart by stripping off their clothes and examining them.
The men’s faces were beardless like women’s and their skin was very delicate and unadorned.
I was always surprised that they could tell each other apart.
Later I realized it wasn’t just me: many others were also confused.

For instance, when we went to watch the campus’s only TV in a corridor of a building where the seniors stayed when they came to improve their knowledge. Those elderly Uyghurs always argued about whether someone who had done something unusual in an earlier episode was the same person they were seeing now. They would argue from the beginning of the show to the end. Other people, who couldn’t stand such endless nonsense, would leave the TV to us and stalk off.

Then, when the classes began, we couldn’t tell the teachers apart.
Gradually we became able to tell the men from the women
and eventually we able to recognize individuals.
But other people remained identical for us.

The most surprising thing for me was that the natives couldn’t differentiate us either.
For instance, two police came looking for someone who had broken windows during a fight at a restaurant and had then run away.
They ordered us line up, then asked the restaurant owner to identify the culprit.
He couldn’t tell us apart even though he inspected us very carefully.
He said we all looked so much alike that it was impossible to tell us apart.
Sighing heavily, he left.



The Encounter
by Abdurehim Otkur
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I asked her, why aren’t you afraid? She said her God.
I asked her, anything else? She said her People.
I asked her, anything more? She said her Soul.
I asked her if she was content? She said, I am Not.



The Distance
by Tahir Hamut
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We can’t exclude the cicadas’ serenades.
Behind the convex glass of the distant hospital building
the nurses watch our outlandish party
with their absurdly distorted faces.

Drinking watered-down liquor,
half-****, descanting through the open window,
we speak sneeringly of life, love, girls.
The cicadas’ serenades keep breaking in,
wrecking critical parts of our dissertations.

The others dream up excuses to ditch me
and I’m left here alone.

The cosmopolitan pyramid
of drained bottles
makes me feel
like I’m in a Turkish bath.

I lock the door:
Time to get back to work!

I feel like doing cartwheels.
I feel like self-annihilation.



Refuge of a Refugee
by Ablet Abdurishit Berqi aka Tarim
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I lack a passport,
so I can’t leave legally.
All that’s left is for me to smuggle myself to safety,
but I’m afraid I’ll be beaten black and blue at the border
and I can’t afford the trafficker.

I’m a smuggler of love,
though love has no national identity.
Poetry is my refuge,
where a refugee is most free.

The following excerpts, translated by Anne Henochowicz, come from an essay written by Tang Danhong about her final meeting with Dr. Ablet Abdurishit Berqi, aka Tarim. Tarim is a reference to the Tarim Basin and its Uyghur inhabitants...

I’m convinced that the poet Tarim Ablet Berqi the associate professor at the Xinjiang Education Institute, has been sent to a “concentration camp for educational transformation.” This scholar of Uyghur literature who conducted postdoctoral research at Israel’s top university, what kind of “educational transformation” is he being put through?

Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, has said it’s “like the instruction at school, the order of the military, and the security of prison. We have to break their blood relations, their networks, and their roots.”

On a scorching summer day, Tarim came to Tel Aviv from Haifa. In a few days he would go back to Urumqi. I invited him to come say goodbye and once again prepared Sichuan cold noodles for him. He had already unfriended me on Facebook. He said he couldn’t eat, he was busy, and had to hurry back to Haifa. He didn’t even stay for twenty minutes. I can’t even remember, did he sit down? Did he have a glass of water? Yet this farewell shook me to my bones.

He said, “Maybe when I get off the plane, before I enter the airport, they’ll take me to a separate room and beat me up, and I’ll disappear.”

Looking at my shocked face, he then said, “And maybe nothing will happen …”

His expression was sincere. To be honest, the Tarim I saw rarely smiled. Still, layer upon layer blocked my powers of comprehension: he’s a poet, a writer, and a scholar. He’s an associate professor at the Xinjiang Education Institute. He can get a passport and come to Israel for advanced studies. When he goes back he’ll have an offer from Sichuan University to be a professor of literature … I asked, “Beat you up at the airport? Disappear? On what grounds?”

“That’s how Xinjiang is,” he said without any surprise in his voice. “When a Uyghur comes back from being abroad, that can happen.”…



This poem helps us understand the nomadic lifestyle of many Uyghurs, the hardships they endure, and the character it builds...

Iz (“Traces”)
by Abdurehim Otkur
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We were children when we set out on this journey;
Now our grandchildren ride horses.

We were just a few when we set out on this arduous journey;
Now we're a large caravan leaving traces in the desert.

We leave our traces scattered in desert dunes' valleys
Where many of our heroes lie buried in sandy graves.

But don't say they were abandoned: amid the cedars
their resting places are decorated by springtime flowers!

We left the tracks, the station... the crowds recede in the distance;
The wind blows, the sand swirls, but here our indelible trace remains.

The caravan continues, we and our horses become thin,
But our great-grand-children will one day rediscover those traces.

The original Uyghur poem:

Yax iduq muxkul seperge atlinip mangghanda biz,
Emdi atqa mingidek bolup qaldi ene nevrimiz.
Az iduq muxkul seperge atlinip chiqanda biz,
Emdi chong karvan atalduq, qaldurup chollerde iz.
Qaldi iz choller ara, gayi davanlarda yene,
Qaldi ni-ni arslanlar dexit cholde qevrisiz.
Qevrisiz qaldi dimeng yulghun qizarghan dalida,
Gul-chichekke pukinur tangna baharda qevrimiz.
Qaldi iz, qaldi menzil, qaldi yiraqta hemmisi,
Chiqsa boran, kochse qumlar, hem komulmes izimiz.
Tohtimas karvan yolida gerche atlar bek oruq,
Tapqus hichbolmisa, bu izni bizning nevrimiz, ya chevrimiz.

Other poems of note by Abdurehim Otkur include "I Call Forth Spring" and "Waste, You Traitors, Waste!"



My Feelings
by Dolqun Yasin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The light sinking through the ice and snow,
The hollyhock blossoms reddening the hills like blood,
The proud peaks revealing their ******* to the stars,
The morning-glories embroidering the earth’s greenery,
Are not light,
Not hollyhocks,
Not peaks,
Not morning-glories;
They are my feelings.

The tears washing the mothers’ wizened faces,
The flower-like smiles suddenly brightening the girls’ visages,
The hair turning white before age thirty,
The night which longs for light despite the sun’s laughter,
Are not tears,
Not smiles,
Not hair,
Not night;
They are my nomadic feelings.

Now turning all my sorrow to passion,
Bequeathing to my people all my griefs and joys,
Scattering my excitement like flowers festooning fields,
I harvest all these, then tenderly glean my poem.

Therefore the world is this poem of mine,
And my poem is the world itself.



To My Brother the Warrior
by Téyipjan Éliyow
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I accompanied you,
the commissioners called me a child.
If only I had been a bit taller
I might have proved myself in battle!

The commission could not have known
my commitment, despite my youth.
If only they had overlooked my age and enlisted me,
I'd have given that enemy rabble hell!

Now, brother, I’m an adult.
Doubtless, I’ll join the service soon.
Soon enough, I’ll be by your side,
battling the enemy: I’ll never surrender!

Another poem of note by Téyipjan Éliyow is "Neverending Song."

Keywords/Tags: Uyghur, translation, Uighur, Xinjiang, elegy, Kafka, China, Chinese, reeducation, prison, concentration camp, desert, nomad, nomadic, race, racism, discrimination, Islam, Islamic, Muslim, mrbuyghur



Chinese Poets: English Translations

These are modern English translations of poems by some of the greatest Chinese poets of all time, including Du Fu, Huang E, Huang O, Li Bai, Li Ching-jau, Li Qingzhao, Po Chu-I, Tzu Yeh, Yau Ywe-Hwa and Xu Zhimo.



Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion
by Li Bai (701-762)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring breeze knows partings are bitter;
The willow twig knows it will never be green again.



A Toast to Uncle Yun
by Li Bai (701-762)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water reforms, though we slice it with our swords;
Sorrow returns, though we drown it with our wine.

Li Bai (701-762)    was a romantic figure who has been called the Lord Byron of Chinese poetry. He and his friend Du Fu (712-770)    were the leading poets of the Tang Dynasty era, which has been called the 'Golden Age of Chinese poetry.' Li Bai is also known as Li Po, Li Pai, Li T'ai-po, and Li T'ai-pai.



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alone in your bedchamber
you gaze out at the Fu-Chou moon.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an...

A perfumed mist, your hair's damp ringlets!
In the moonlight, your arms' exquisite jade!

Oh, when can we meet again within your bed's drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the Fu-Chou moon
watches your lonely bedroom.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an...

By now your hair will be damp from your bath
and fall in perfumed ringlets;
your jade-white arms so exquisite in the moonlight!

Oh, when can we meet again within those drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



Lone Wild Goose
by Du Fu (712-770)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned goose refuses food and drink;
he cries querulously for his companions.

Who feels kinship for that strange wraith
as he vanishes eerily into the heavens?

You watch it as it disappears;
its plaintive calls cut through you.

The indignant crows ignore you both:
the bickering, bantering multitudes.

Du Fu (712-770)    is also known as Tu Fu. The first poem is addressed to the poet's wife, who had fled war with their children. Ch'ang-an is an ironic pun because it means 'Long-peace.'



The Red Cockatoo
by Po Chu-I (772-846)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A marvelous gift from Annam—
a red cockatoo,
bright as peach blossom,
fluent in men's language.

So they did what they always do
to the erudite and eloquent:
they created a thick-barred cage
and shut it up.

Po Chu-I (772-846)    is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi.



The Migrant Songbird
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c.1084-1155)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The migrant songbird on the nearby yew
brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills;
this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills:
another spring gone, and still no word from you...



The Plum Blossoms
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c.1084-1155)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This year with the end of autumn
I find my reflection graying at the edges.
Now evening gales hammer these ledges...
what shall become of the plum blossoms?

Li Qingzhao was a poet and essayist during the Song dynasty. She is generally considered to be one of the greatest Chinese poets. In English she is known as Li Qingzhao, Li Ching-chao and The Householder of Yi'an.



Star Gauge
Sui Hui (c.351-394 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So much lost so far away
on that distant rutted road.

That distant rutted road
wounds me to the heart.

Grief coupled with longing,
so much lost so far away.

Grief coupled with longing
wounds me to the heart.

This house without its master;
the bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils.

The bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils,
and you are not here.

Such loneliness! My adorned face
lacks the mirror's clarity.

I see by the mirror's clarity
my Lord is not here. Such loneliness!

Sui Hui, also known as Su Hui and Lady Su, appears to be the first female Chinese poet of note. And her 'Star Gauge' or 'Sphere Map' may be the most impressive poem written in any language to this day, in terms of complexity. 'Star Gauge' has been described as a palindrome or 'reversible' poem, but it goes far beyond that. According to contemporary sources, the original poem was shuttle-woven on brocade, in a circle, so that it could be read in multiple directions. Due to its shape the poem is also called Xuanji Tu ('Picture of the Turning Sphere') . The poem is now generally placed in a grid or matrix so that the Chinese characters can be read horizontally, vertically and diagonally. The story behind the poem is that Sui Hui's husband, Dou Tao, the governor of Qinzhou, was exiled to the desert. When leaving his wife, Dou swore to remain faithful. However, after arriving at his new post, he took a concubine. Lady Su then composed a circular poem, wove it into a piece of silk embroidery, and sent it to him. Upon receiving the masterwork, he repented. It has been claimed that there are up to 7,940 ways to read the poem. My translation above is just one of many possible readings of a portion of the poem.



Reflection
Xu Hui (627-650)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Confronting the morning she faces her mirror;
Her makeup done at last, she paces back and forth awhile.
It would take vast mountains of gold to earn one contemptuous smile,
So why would she answer a man's summons?

Due to the similarities in names, it seems possible that Sui Hui and Xu Hui were the same poet, with some of her poems being discovered later, or that poems written later by other poets were attributed to her.



Waves
Zhai Yongming (1955-)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The waves manhandle me like a midwife pounding my back relentlessly,
and so the world abuses my body—
accosting me, bewildering me, according me a certain ecstasy...



Monologue
Zhai Yongming (1955-)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am a wild thought, born of the abyss
and—only incidentally—of you. The earth and sky
combine in me—their concubine—they consolidate in my body.

I am an ordinary embryo, encased in pale, watery flesh,
and yet in the sunlight I dazzle and amaze you.

I am the gentlest, the most understanding of women.
Yet I long for winter, the interminable black night, drawn out to my heart's bleakest limit.

When you leave, my pain makes me want to ***** my heart up through my mouth—
to destroy you through love—where's the taboo in that?

The sun rises for the rest of the world, but only for you do I focus the hostile tenderness of my body.
I have my ways.

A chorus of cries rises. The sea screams in my blood but who remembers me?
What is life?

Zhai Yongming is a contemporary Chinese poet, born in Chengdu in 1955. She was one of the instigators and prime movers of the 'Black Tornado' of women's poetry that swept China in 1986-1989. Since then Zhai has been regarded as one of China's most prominent poets.



Pyre
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I share so much desire:
this love―like a fire—
that ends in a pyre's
charred coffin.



'Married Love' or 'You and I' or 'The Song of You and Me'
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I shared a love that burned like fire:
two lumps of clay in the shape of Desire
molded into twin figures. We two.
Me and you.

In life we slept beneath a single quilt,
so in death, why any guilt?
Let the skeptics keep scoffing:
it's best to share a single coffin.

Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)    is also known as Kuan Tao-Sheng, Guan Zhongji and Lady Zhongji. A famous poet of the early Yuan dynasty, she has also been called 'the most famous female painter and calligrapher in the Chinese history... remembered not only as a talented woman, but also as a prominent figure in the history of bamboo painting.' She is best known today for her images of nature and her tendency to inscribe short poems on her paintings.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard my love was going to Yang-chou
So I accompanied him as far as Ch'u-shan.
For just a moment as he held me in his arms
I thought the swirling river ceased flowing and time stood still.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will I ever hike up my dress for you again?
Will my pillow ever caress your arresting face?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night descends...
I let my silken hair spill down my shoulders as I part my thighs over my lover.
Tell me, is there any part of me not worthy of being loved?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will wear my robe loose, not bothering with a belt;
I will stand with my unpainted face at the reckless window;
If my petticoat insists on fluttering about, shamelessly,
I'll blame it on the unruly wind!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When he returns to my embrace,
I'll make him feel what no one has ever felt before:
Me absorbing him like water
Poured into a wet clay jar.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bare branches tremble in a sudden breeze.
Night deepens.
My lover loves me,
And I am pleased that my body's beauty pleases him.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do you not see
that we
have become like branches of a single tree?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I could not sleep with the full moon haunting my bed!
I thought I heard―here, there, everywhere―
disembodied voices calling my name!
Helplessly I cried 'Yes! ' to the phantom air!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have brought my pillow to the windowsill
so come play with me, tease me, as in the past...
Or, with so much resentment and so few kisses,
how much longer can love last?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When she approached you on the bustling street, how could you say no?
But your disdain for me is nothing new.
Squeaking hinges grow silent on an unused door
where no one enters anymore.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I remain constant as the Northern Star
while you rush about like the fickle sun:
rising in the East, drooping in the West.

Tzŭ-Yeh (or Tzu Yeh)    was a courtesan of the Jin dynasty era (c.400 BC)    also known as Lady Night or Lady Midnight. Her poems were pinyin ('midnight songs') . Tzŭ-Yeh was apparently a 'sing-song' girl, perhaps similar to a geisha trained to entertain men with music and poetry. She has also been called a 'wine shop girl' and even a professional concubine! Whoever she was, it seems likely that Rihaku (Li-Po)    was influenced by the lovely, touching (and often very ****)    poems of the 'sing-song' girl. Centuries later, Arthur Waley was one of her translators and admirers. Waley and Ezra Pound knew each other, and it seems likely that they got together to compare notes at Pound's soirees, since Pound was also an admirer and translator of Chinese poetry. Pound's most famous translation is his take on Li-Po's 'The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter.' If the ancient 'sing-song' girl influenced Li-Po and Pound, she was thus an influence―perhaps an important influence―on English Modernism. The first Tzŭ-Yeh poem makes me think that she was, indeed, a direct influence on Li-Po and Ezra Pound.―Michael R. Burch



The Day after the Rain
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the day after the rain
and the meadow's green expanses!
My heart endlessly rises with wind,
gusts with wind...
away the new-mown grasses and the fallen leaves...
away the clouds like smoke...
vanishing like smoke...



Music Heard Late at Night
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Xu Zhimo

I blushed,
hearing the lovely nocturnal tune.

The music touched my heart;
I embraced its sadness, but how to respond?

The pattern of life was established eons ago:
so pale are the people's imaginations!

Perhaps one day You and I
can play the chords of hope together.

It must be your fingers gently playing
late at night, matching my sorrow.

Lin Huiyin (1904-1955) , also known as Phyllis Lin and Lin Whei-yin, was a Chinese architect, historian, novelist and poet. Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash in 1931, allegedly flying to meet Lin Huiyin.



Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again
Xu Zhimo (1897-1931)  
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
quietly I wave good-bye
to the sky's dying flame.

The riverside's willows
like lithe, sunlit brides
reflected in the waves
move my heart's tides.

Weeds moored in dark sludge
sway here, free of need,
in the Cam's gentle wake...
O, to be a waterweed!

Beneath shady elms
a nebulous rainbow
crumples and reforms
in the soft ebb and flow.

Seek a dream? Pole upstream
to where grass is greener;
rig the boat with starlight;
sing aloud of love's splendor!

But how can I sing
when my song is farewell?
Even the crickets are silent.
And who should I tell?

So quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
gently I flick my sleeves...
not a wisp will remain.

(6 November 1928)  

Xu Zhimo's most famous poem is this one about leaving Cambridge. English titles for the poem include 'On Leaving Cambridge, ' 'Second Farewell to Cambridge, ' 'Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again, '  and 'Taking Leave of Cambridge Again.'



These are my modern English translations of poems by the Chinese poet Huang E (1498-1569) , also known as Huang Xiumei. She has been called the most outstanding female poet of the Ming Dynasty, and her husband its most outstanding male poet. Were they poetry's first power couple? Her father Huang Ke was a high-ranking official of the Ming court and she married Yang Shen, the prominent son of Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe. Unfortunately for the young power couple, Yang Shen was exiled by the emperor early in their marriage and they lived largely apart for 30 years. During their long separations they would send each other poems which may belong to a genre of Chinese poetry I have dubbed 'sorrows of the wild geese' …

Sent to My Husband
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wild geese never fly beyond Hengyang...
how then can my brocaded words reach Yongchang?
Like wilted willow flowers I am ill-fated indeed;
in that far-off foreign land you feel similar despair.
'Oh, to go home, to go home! ' you implore the calendar.
'Oh, if only it would rain, if only it would rain! ' I complain to the heavens.
One hears hopeful rumors that you might soon be freed...
but when will the Golden **** rise in Yelang?

A star called the Golden **** was a symbol of amnesty to the ancient Chinese. Yongchang was a hot, humid region of Yunnan to the south of Hengyang, and was presumably too hot and too far to the south for geese to fly there.



Luo Jiang's Second Complaint
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The green hills vanished,
pedestrians passed by
disappearing beyond curves.

The geese grew silent, the horseshoes timid.

Winter is the most annoying season!

A lone goose vanished into the heavens,
the trees whispered conspiracies in Pingwu,
and people huddling behind buildings shivered.



Bitter Rain, an Aria of the Yellow Oriole
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These ceaseless rains make the spring shiver:
even the flowers and trees look cold!
The roads turn to mud;
the river's eyes are tired and weep into in a few bays;
the mountain clouds accumulate like ***** dishes,
and the end of the world seems imminent, if jejune.

I find it impossible to send books:
the geese are ruthless and refuse to fly south to Yunnan!



Broken-Hearted Poem
by Huang E
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My tears cascade into the inkwell;
my broken heart remains at a loss for words;
ever since we held hands and said farewell,
I have been too listless to paint my eyebrows;
no medicine can cure my night-sweats,
no wealth repurchase our lost youth;
and how can I persuade that ****** bird singing in the far hills
to tell a traveler south of the Yangtze to return home?

What Works
by Michael R. Burch

for David Gosselin

What works—
hewn stone;
the blush the iris shows the sun;
the lilac’s pale-remembered bloom.

The frenzied fly: mad-lively, gay,
as seconds tick his time away,
his sentence—one brief day in May,
a period. And then decay.

A frenzied rhyme’s mad tip-toed time,
a ballad’s languid as the sea,
seek, striving—immortality.

When gloss peels off, what works will shine.
When polish fades, what works will gleam.
When intellectual prattle pales,
the dying buzzing in the hive
of tedious incessant bees,
what works will soar and wheel and dive
and milk all honey, leap and thrive,

and teach the pallid poem to seethe.



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today ...
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...
We loved and life we left alone and deftly was it done;
we sang our song all summer long beneath the sultry sun.

I wrote this poem as a boy, after seeing an ad for the movie "Summer of ’42," which starred the lovely Jennifer O’Neill and a young male actor who might have been my nebbish twin. I didn’t see the R-rated movie at the time: too young, according to my parents! But something about the ad touched me; even thinking about it today makes me feel sad and a bit out of sorts. The movie came out in 1971, so the poem was probably written around 1971-1972. In any case, the poem was published in my high school literary journal, The Lantern, in 1976. The poem is “rhyme rich” with eleven rhymes in the first four lines: well, farewell, tell, bells, within, din, in, say, today, had, bad. The last two lines appear in brackets because they were part of the original poem but I later chose to publish just the first six lines. I didn’t see the full movie until 2001, around age 43, after which I addressed two poems to my twin, Hermie …



Listen, Hermie
by Michael R. Burch

Listen, Hermie . . .
you can hear the strangled roar
of water inundating that lost shore . . .

and you can see how white she shone

that distant night, before
you blinked
and she was gone . . .

But is she ever really gone from you . . . or are
her lips the sweeter since you kissed them once:
her waist wasp-thin beneath your hands always,
her stockinged shoeless feet for that one dance
still whispering their rustling nylon trope
of―“Love me. Love me. Love me. Give me hope
that love exists beyond these dunes, these stars.”

How white her prim brassiere, her waist-high briefs;
how lustrous her white slip. And as you danced―
how white her eyes, her skin, her eager teeth.
She reached, but not for *** . . . for more . . . for you . . .
You cannot quite explain, but what is true
is true despite our fumblings in the dark.

Hold tight. Hold tight. The years that fall away
still make us what we are. If love exists,
we find it in ourselves, grown wan and gray,
within a weathered hand, a wrinkled cheek.

She cannot touch you now, but I would reach
across the years to touch that chord in you
which still reverberates, and play it true.



Tell me, Hermie
by  Michael R. Burch

Tell me, Hermie ― when you saw
her white brassiere crash to the floor
as she stepped from her waist-high briefs
into your arms, and mutual griefs ―
did you feel such fathomless awe
as mystics do, in artists’ reliefs?

How is it that dark night remains
forever with us ― present still ―
despite her absence and the pains
of dreams relived without the thrill
of any ecstasy but this ―
one brief, eternal, transient kiss?

She was an angel; you helped us see
the beauty of love’s iniquity.



Fountainhead
by Michael R. Burch

I did not delight in love so much
as in a kiss like linnets' wings,
the flutterings of a pulse so soft
the heart remembers, as it sings:
to bathe there was its transport, brushed
by marble lips, or porcelain,—
one liquid kiss, one cool outburst
from pale rosettes. What did it mean ...
to float awhirl on minute tides
within the compass of your eyes,
to feel your alabaster bust
grow cold within? Ecstatic sighs
seem hisses now; your eyes, serene,
reflect the sun's pale tourmaline.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetica Victorian, Nutty Stories (South Africa)



I Pray Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

I pray tonight
the starry light
might
surround you.

I pray
each 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.



A Possible Argument for Mercy
by Michael R. Burch

Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember-we are as You were,
but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.



Gethsemane in Every Breath
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, we have lost our way, and now
we have mislaid love―earth's fairest rose.
We forgot hope's song―the way it goes.
Help us reclaim their gifts, somehow.

LORD, we have wondered long and far
in search of Bethlehem's retrograde star.
Now in night's dead cold grasp, we gasp:
our lives one long-drawn rattling rasp

of misspent breath... before we drown.
LORD, help us through this spiral down
because we faint, and do not see
above or beyond despair's trajectory.

Remember that You, too, once held
imperiled life within your hands
as hope withdrew... that where You knelt
―a stranger in a stranger land―

the chalice glinted cold afar
and red with blood as hellfire.
Did heaven ever seem so far?
Remember―we are as You were,

but all our lives, from birth to death―
Gethsemane in every breath.



Just Smile
by Michael R. Burch

We’d like to think some angel smiling down
will watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard,
ripped off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps,
his doddering progress through the scarlet house
to tell his mommy "boo-boo!," only two.

We’d like to think his reconstructed face
will be as good as new, will often smile,
that baseball’s just as fun with just one arm,
that God is always Just, that girls will smile,
not frown down at his thousand livid scars,
that Life is always Just, that Love is Just.

We do not want to hear that he will shave
at six, to raze the leg hairs from his cheeks,
that lips aren’t easily fashioned, that his smile’s
lopsided, oafish, snaggle-toothed, that each
new operation costs a billion tears,
when tears are out of fashion.
O, beseech
some poet with more skill with words than tears
to find some happy ending, to believe
that God is Just, that Love is Just, that these
are Parables we live, Life’s Mysteries ...

Or look inside his courage, as he ties
his shoelaces one-handed, as he throws
no-hitters on the first-place team, and goes
on dates, looks in the mirror undeceived
and smiling says, "It’s me I see. Just me."

He smiles, if life is Just, or lacking cures.
Your pity is the worst cut he endures.

Originally published by Lucid Rhythms



Aflutter
by Michael R. Burch

This rainbow is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh.—Yahweh

You are gentle now, and in your failing hour
how like the child you were, you seem again,
and smile as sadly as the girl (age ten?)
who held the sparrow with the mangled wing
close to her heart. It marveled at your power
but would not mend. And so the world renews
old vows it seemed to make: false promises
spring whispers, as if nothing perishes
that does not resurrect to wilder hues
like rainbows’ eerie pacts we apprehend
but cannot fail to keep. Now in your eyes
I see the end of life that only dies
and does not care for bright, translucent lies.
Are tears so precious? These few, let us spend
together, as before, then lay to rest
these sparrows’ hearts aflutter at each breast.



Gallant Knight
by Michael R. Burch

for Alfred Dorn and Anita Dorn

Till you rest with your beautiful Anita,
rouse yourself, Poet; rouse and write.
The world is not ready for your departure,
Gallant Knight.

Teach us to sing in the ringing cathedrals
of your Verse, as you outduel the Night.
Give us new eyes to see Love's bright Vision
robed in Light.

Teach us to pray, that the true Word may conquer,
that the slaves may be freed, the blind have Sight.
Write the word LOVE with a burning finger.
I shall recite.

O, bless us again with your chivalrous pen,
Gallant Knight!

It was my honor to have been able to publish the poetry of Dr. Alfred Dorn and his wife Anita Dorn.



To Have Loved
by Michael R. Burch

"The face that launched a thousand ships ..."

Helen, bright accompaniment,
accouterment of war as sure as all
the polished swords of princes groomed to lie
in mausoleums all eternity ...

The price of love is not so high
as never to have loved once in the dark
beyond foreseeing. Now, as dawn gleams pale
upon small wind-fanned waves, amid white sails, ...

now all that war entails becomes as small,
as though receding. Paris in your arms
was never yours, nor were you his at all.
And should gods call

in numberless strange voices, should you hear,
still what would be the difference? Men must die
to be remembered. Fame, the shrillest cry,
leaves all the world dismembered.

Hold him, lie,
tell many pleasant tales of lips and thighs;
enthrall him with your sweetness, till the pall
and ash lie cold upon him.

Is this all? You saw fear in his eyes, and now they dim
with fear’s remembrance. Love, the fiercest cry,
becomes gasped sighs in his once-gallant hymn
of dreamed “salvation.” Still, you do not care

because you have this moment, and no man
can touch you as he can ... and when he’s gone
there will be other men to look upon
your beauty, and have done.

Smile―woebegone, pale, haggard. Will the tales
paint this―your final portrait? Can the stars
find any strange alignments, Zodiacs,
to spell, or unspell, what held beauty lacks?

Published by The Raintown Review, Triplopia, The Electic Muse, The Chained Muse, and The Pennsylvania Review



Fahr an' Ice
(Apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash)
by Michael R. Burch

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.

Originally published by Light Quarterly



Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest; published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Mandrake Poetry Review, Carnelian, and Famous Poets and Poems



The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

All the dull hollow clamor has died
and what was contained,
removed,

reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness

as remembered as the sudden light.

Originally published by The Raintown Review



Tremble
by Michael R. Burch

Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.

Her raptor beak,
all jagged sharp-edged ******,
juts.

Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.

Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.

Published by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, MahMag (Iran), The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



Millay Has Her Way with a Vassar Professor
by Michael R. Burch

After a night of hard drinking and spreading her legs,
Millay hits the dorm, where the Vassar don begs:
“Please act more chastely, more discretely, more seemly!”
(His name, let’s assume, was, er... Percival Queemly.)

“Expel me! Expel me!”—She flashes her eyes.
“Oh! Please! No! I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be wise,
for a great banished Shelley would tarnish my name...
Eek! My game will be lame if I can’t milque your fame!”

“Continue to live here—carouse as you please!”
the beleaguered don sighs as he sags to his knees.
Millay grinds her crotch half an inch from his nose:
“I can live in your hellhole, strange man, I suppose...
but the price is your firstborn, whom I’ll sacrifice to Moloch.”
(Which explains what became of pale Percy’s son, Enoch.)



Shrill Gulls and Other Skeptics
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

1.
Shrill gulls,
how like my thoughts
you, struggling, rise
to distant bliss―
the weightless blue of skies
that are not blue
in any atmosphere,
but closest here...

2.
You seek an air
so clear,
so rarified
the effort leaves you famished;
earthly tides
soon call you back―
one long, descending glide...

3.
Disgruntledly you ***** dirt shores for orts
you pull like mucous ropes
from shells’ bright forts...
You eye the teeming world
with nervous darts―
this way and that...
Contentious, shrewd, you scan―
the sky, in hope,
the earth, distrusting man.

Originally published by Able Muse



Caveat Spender
by Michael R. Burch

It’s better not to speculate
"continually" on who is great.
Though relentless awe’s
a Célèbre Cause,
please reserve some time for the contemplation
of the perils of EXAGGERATION.



At Wilfred Owen’s Grave
by Michael R. Burch

A week before the Armistice, you died.
They did not keep your heart like Livingstone’s,
then plant your bones near Shakespeare’s. So you lie
between two privates, sacrificed like Christ
to politics, your poetry unknown
except for that brief flurry’s: thirteen months
with Gaukroger beside you in the trench,
dismembered, as you babbled, as the stench
of gangrene filled your nostrils, till you clenched
your broken heart together and the fist
began to pulse with life, so close to death.
Or was it at Craiglockhart, in the care
of “ergotherapists” that you sensed life
is only in the work, and made despair
a thing that Yeats despised, but also breath,
a mouthful’s merest air, inspired less
than wrested from you, and which we confess
we only vaguely breathe: the troubled air
that even Sassoon failed to share, because
a man in pieces is not healed by gauze,
and breath’s transparent, unless we believe
the words are true despite their lack of weight
and float to us like chlorine—scalding eyes,
and lungs, and hearts. Your words revealed the fate
of boys who retched up life here, gagged on lies.



Safe Harbor
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin N. Roberts

The sea at night seems
an alembic of dreams—
the moans of the gulls,
the foghorns’ bawlings.

A century late
to be melancholy,
I watch the last shrimp boat as it steams
to safe harbor again.

In the twilight she gleams
with a festive light,
done with her trawlings,
ready to sleep...

Deep, deep, in delight
glide the creatures of night,
elusive and bright
as the poet’s dreams.

Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly and Angle



The Harvest of Roses
by Michael R. Burch

for Harvey Stanbrough

I have not come for the harvest of roses—
the poets' mad visions,
their railing at rhyme...
for I have discerned what their writing discloses:
weak words wanting meaning,
beat torsioning time.

Nor have I come for the reaping of gossamer—
images weak,
too forced not to fail;
gathered by poets who worship their luster,
they shimmer, impendent,
resplendently pale.

Originally published by The Raintown Review when Harvey Stanbrough was the editor



The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;

the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;

each interstate’s bleak white bar
that vanishes under your car;

every hour and flower and friend
that cannot be saved in the end;

dear things of immeasurable cost...
now all irretrievably lost.

Note: The title “The Pain of Love” was suggested by an interview with Little Richard, then eighty years old, in Rolling Stone. He said that someone should create a song called “The Pain of Love.” I have always found the departure platforms of railway stations and the vanishing broken white bars of highway dividing lines depressing.



Lean Harvests
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

the trees are shedding their leaves again:
another summer is over.
the Christians are praising their Maker again,
but not the disconsolate plover:
i hear him berate
the fate
of his mate;
he claims God is no body’s lover.

Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle



The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M.

The sanest of poets once wrote:
"Friend, why be a sheep or a goat?
Why follow the leader
or be a blind *******?"
But almost no one took note.



Millay Has Her Way with a Vassar Professor
by Michael R. Burch

After a night of hard drinking and spreading her legs,
Millay hits the dorm, where the Vassar don begs:
“Please act more chastely, more discretely, more seemly!”
(His name, let’s assume, was, er... Percival Queemly.)

“Expel me! Expel me!”—She flashes her eyes.
“Oh! Please! No! I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be wise,
for a great banished Shelley would tarnish my name...
Eek! My game will be lame if I can’t milque your fame!”

“Continue to live here—carouse as you please!”
the beleaguered don sighs as he sags to his knees.
Millay grinds her crotch half an inch from his nose:
“I can live in your hellhole, strange man, I suppose...
but the price is your firstborn, whom I’ll sacrifice to Moloch.”
(Which explains what became of pale Percy’s son, Enoch.)



Abide
by Michael R. Burch

after Philip Larkin's "Aubade"

It is hard to understand or accept mortality—
such an alien concept: not to be.
Perhaps unsettling enough to spawn religion,
or to scare mutant fish out of a primordial sea

boiling like goopy green tea in a kettle.
Perhaps a man should exhibit more mettle
than to admit such fear, denying Nirvana exists
simply because we are stuck here in such a fine fettle.

And so we abide...
even in life, staring out across that dark brink.
And if the thought of death makes your questioning heart sink,
it is best not to drink
(or, drinking, certainly not to think).



Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There you go,
in diaphanous lace,
making another man’s heart swoon.

Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is,
taking my place.

Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Centrifugal Eye, and The Eclectic Muse



Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water —
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night ...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter ...
So near, yet so far.

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Step Into Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

Step into starlight,
lovely and wild,
lonely and longing,
a woman, a child . . .

Throw back drawn curtains,
enter the night,
dream of his kiss
as a comet ignites . . .

Then fall to your knees
in a wind-fumbled cloud
and shudder to hear
oak hocks groaning aloud.

Flee down the dark path
to where the snaking vine bends
and withers and writhes
as winter descends . . .

And learn that each season
ends one vanished day,
that each pregnant moon holds
no spent tides in its sway . . .

For, as suns seek horizons―
boys fall, men decline.
As the grape sags with its burden,
remember―the wine!

Originally published by The Lyric



hymn to Apollo
by Michael R. Burch

something of sunshine attracted my i
as it lazed on the afternoon sky,
golden,
splashed on the easel of god . . .
what,
i thought,
could this airy stuff be,
to, phantomlike,
flit through tall trees
on fall days, such as these?

and the breeze
whispered a dirge
to the vanishing light;
enchoired with the evening, it sang;
its voice
enchantedly
rang
chanting “Night!” . . .

till all the bright light
retired,
expired.

This poem appeared in my high school literary journal; I believe I was around 16 when I wrote it.



****** Analysis
by Michael R. Burch

This is not what I need . . .
analysis,
paralysis,
as though I were a seed
to be planted,
supported
with a stick and some string
until I emerge.
Your words
are not water. I need something
more nourishing,
like cherishing,
something essential, like love
so that when I climb
out of the lime
and the mulch. When I shove
myself up
from the muck . . .
we can ****.



The One and Only
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

If anyone ever loved me,
It was you.

If anyone ever cared
beyond mere things declared;
if anyone ever knew ...
My darling, it was you.

If anyone ever touched
my beating heart as it flew,
it was you,
and only you.



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller

#2 - Love Poetry

She says an epigram’s too terse
to reveal her tender heart in verse ...
but really, darling, ain’t the thrill
of a kiss much shorter still?
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#5 - Criticism

Why don’t I openly criticize the man? Because he’s a friend;
thus I reproach him in silence, as I do my own heart.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#11 - Holiness

What is holiest? This heart-felt love
binding spirits together, now and forever.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#12 - Love versus Desire

You love what you have, and desire what you lack
because a rich nature expands, while a poor one retracts.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#19 - Nymph and Satyr

As shy as the trembling doe your horn frightens from the woods,
she flees the huntsman, fainting, uncertain of love.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#20 - Desire

What stirs the ******’s heaving ******* to sighs?
What causes your bold gaze to brim with tears?
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#23 - The Apex I

Everywhere women yield to men, but only at the apex
do the manliest men surrender to femininity.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#24 - The Apex II

What do we mean by the highest? The crystalline clarity of triumph
as it shines from the brow of a woman, from the brow of a goddess.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#25 -Human Life

Young sailors brave the sea beneath ten thousand sails
while old men drift ashore on any bark that avails.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#35 - Dead Ahead

What’s the hardest thing of all to do?
To see clearly with your own eyes what’s ahead of you.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#36 - Unexpected Consequence

Friends, before you utter the deepest, starkest truth, please pause,
because straight away people will blame you for its cause.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#41 - Earth vs. Heaven

By doing good, you nurture humanity;
but by creating beauty, you scatter the seeds of divinity.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



The Poet
by Michael R. Burch

He walks to the sink,
takes out his teeth,
rubs his gums.
He tries not to think.

In the mirror, on the mantle,
Time—the silver measure—
does not stare or blink,
but in a wrinkle flutters,
in a hand upon the brink
of a second, hovers.

Through a mousehole,
something scuttles
on restless incessant feet.
There is no link

between life and death
or from a fading past
to a more tenuous present
that a word uncovers
in the great wink.

The white foam lathers
at his thin pink
stretched neck
like a tightening noose.
He tries not to think.



These are poems I wrote in my early teens on the themes of play, playing, playmates, vacations, etc.

Playmates
by Michael R. Burch

WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended... far, far away...
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.

Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.

Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden cookies were our only lusts!

Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure—what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to the uncertainties of fate.

Hell, we seldom thought about the next day,
when tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things couldn't last.

Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die...
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.

This is probably the poem that "made" me, because my high school English teacher called it "beautiful" and I took that to mean I was surely the Second Coming of Percy Bysshe Shelley! "Playmates" is the second longish poem I remember writing; I believe I was around 13 or 14 at the time.



Playthings
by Michael R. Burch

a sequel to “Playmates”

There was a time, as though a long-forgotten dream remembered,
when you and I were playmates and the days were long;
then we were pirates stealing plaits of daisies
from trembling maidens fearing men so strong . . .

Our world was like an unplucked Rose unfolding,
and you and I were busy, then, as bees;
the nectar that we drank, it made us giddy;
each petal within reach seemed ours to seize . . .

But you were more the doer, I the dreamer,
so I wrote poems and dreamed a noble cause;
while you were linking logs, I met old Merlin
and took a dizzy ride to faery Oz . . .

But then you put aside all "silly" playthings;
with sunburned hands you built, from bricks and stone,
tall buildings, then a life, and then you married.
Now my fantasies, again, are all my own.

I believe “Playthings” was written in my late teens, around 1977. According to my notes, I revised the poem in 1991, then again in 2020 and 2021.



hey pete
by Michael R. Burch

for Pete Rose

hey pete,
it's baseball season
and the sun ascends the sky,
encouraging a schoolboy's dreams
of winter whizzing by;
go out, go out and catch it,
put it in a jar,
set it on a shelf
and then you'll be a Superstar.

This is another of my boyhood poems about play and playing. When I was a boy, Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player; this poem is not a slam at him, but rather an ironic jab at the term "superstar."



Have I been too long at the fair?
by Michael R. Burch

Have I been too long at the fair?
The summer has faded,
the leaves have turned brown;
the Ferris wheel teeters ...
not up, yet not down.
Have I been too long at the fair?

This is one of my earliest poems, written around age 15.



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!

This is a poem I wrote about a vacation my family took to Salzburg when I was a boy, age 11 or perhaps a bit older. But I wrote the poem much later in life: around 50 years later, in 2020.



Of course the ultimate form of play is love ...



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound of falling leaves
and the scent of new-mown grass;
I held out my arms to her and she passed

into oblivion ...

This little dream-poem appeared in my high school literary journal, the Lantern, so I was no older than 18 when I wrote it, probably younger. I will guess around age 16.



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...

This poem appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976. It also appeared in my college literary journal, Homespun, in 1977. I was probably around 14 when I wrote the poem.



Myth
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low sheaf—
full of faith, full of grief.

Here the immaculate dawn
requires belief of the leafed earth
and she is the myth of the mown grain—
golden and humble in all its weary worth.

I believe I wrote the first version of this poem toward the end of my senior year of high school, around age 18.



The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

There was a moment
  without the sound of trumpets or a shining light,
    but with only silence and darkness and a cool mist
      felt more than seen.
      I was eighteen,
    my heart pounding wildly within me like a fist.
  Expectation hung like a cry in the night,
and your eyes shone like the corona of a comet.

There was an instant ...
  without words, but with a deeper communion,
    as clothing first, then inhibitions fell;
      liquidly our lips met
      —feverish, wet—
    forgotten, the tales of heaven and hell,
  in the immediacy of our fumbling union ...
when the rest of the world became distant.

Then the only light was the moon on the rise,
and the only sound, the communion of sighs.

I believe this poem was written around age 18 as the poem itself says.



Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your heart sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?

Might I lift you tonight from earth’s wreckage and damage
on these waves gently rising to pay the moon homage?
Or better, perhaps, let me say that I, too,
have dreamed of infinity ... windswept and blue.

This is one of the first poems that made me feel like a "real" poet. I remember reading the poem and asking myself, "Did I really write that?" I believe I wrote it around age 17 or 18.



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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?

If I remember correctly, I wrote the first version of this poem toward the end of my senior year in high school, around age 18, then forgot about it for fifteen years until I met my future wife Beth and she reminded me of the poem’s mysterious enchantress.



Childhood's End
by Michael R. Burch

How well I remember
those fiery Septembers:
dry leaves, dying embers of summers aflame
lay trampled before me
and fluttered, imploring
the bright, dancing rain to descend once again.

Now often I’ve thought on
the meaning of autumn,
how the moons those pale mornings enchanted dark clouds
while robins repeated
gay songs they had heeded
so wisely when winters before they’d flown south.

And still, in remembrance,
I’ve conjured a semblance
of childhood and how the world seemed to me then;
but early this morning,
when, rising and yawning,
my lips brushed your ******* . . . I celebrated its end.

I believe I wrote this poem in my early twenties, no later than 1982, but probably around 1980.



The Tender Weight of Her Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

The tender weight of her sighs
lies heavily upon my heart;
apart from her, full of doubt,
without her presence to revolve around,
found wanting direction or course,
cursed with the thought of her grief,
believing true love is a myth,
with hope as elusive as tears,
hers and mine, unable to lie,
I sigh ...

This poem has an unusual rhyme scheme, with the last word of each line rhyming with the first word of the next line. The final line is a “closing couplet” in which both words rhyme with the last word of the preceding line. I believe I invented this ***** form and will dub it the "End-First Curtal Sonnet."



Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all *******
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.

Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure
that your intentions were good and ineluctably pure.
After all, what the hell does he care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.



Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch

for and after William Blake

I.
Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.

I did not whistle
as I worked:
the whistle was my work.
I shirked

nothing I saw
and made a rhyme
to children at play
and hard time.

II.
Among the prisoners
I saw
the leaden manacles
of Law,

the heavy ball and chain,
the quirt.
And yet I whistled
at my work.

III.
Among the children’s
daisy faces
and in the women’s
frowsy laces,

I saw redemption,
and I smiled.
Satanic millers,
unbeguiled,

were swayed by neither girl,
nor child,
nor any God of Love.
Yet mild

I whistled at my work,
and Song
broke out,
ere long.



how many Nights
by michael r. burch

how many Nights we laughed to see the sun
go down
because the Night was made for reckless fun.

...Your golden crown,
Your skin so soft, so smooth, and lightly downed...

how many nights i wept glad tears to hold
You tight against the years.

...Your eyes so bold,
Your hair spun gold,
and all the pleasures Your soft flesh foretold...

how many Nights i did not dare to dream
You were so real...
now all that i have left here is to feel
in dreams surreal
Time is the Nightmare God before whom men kneel.

and how few Nights, i reckoned, in the end,
we were allowed to gather, less to spend.



Duet (II)
by Michael R. Burch

If love is just an impulse meant to bring
two tiny hearts together, skittering
like hamsters from their Quonsets late at night
in search of lust’s productive exercise . . .

If love is the mutation of some gene
made radiant—an accident of bliss
played out by two small actors on a screen
of silver mesh, who never even kiss . . .

If love is evolution, nature’s way
of sorting out its DNA in pairs,
of matching, mating, sculpting flesh’s clay . . .
why does my wrinkled hamster climb his stairs

to set his wheel revolving, then descend
and stagger off . . . to make hers fly again?

Originally published by Bewildering Stories



Rant: The Elite
by Michael R. Burch

When I heard Harold Bloom unsurprisingly say:
Poetry is necessarily difficult. It is our elitist art ...
I felt a small suspicious thrill. After all, sweetheart,
isn’t this who we are? Aren’t we obviously better,
and certainly fairer and taller, than they are?

Though once I found Ezra Pound
perhaps a smidgen too profound,
perhaps a bit over-fond of Benito
and the advantages of fascism
to be taken ad finem, like high tea
with a pure white spot of intellectualism
and an artificial sweetener, calorie-free.

I know! I know! Politics has nothing to do with art
And it tempts us so to be elite, to stand apart ...
but somehow the word just doesn’t ring true,
echoing effetely away—the distance from me to you.

Of course, politics has nothing to do with art,
but sometimes art has everything to do with becoming elite,
with climbing the cultural ladder, with being able to meet
someone more Exalted than you, who can demonstrate how to ****
so that everyone below claims one’s odor is sweet.
You had to be there! We were falling apart
with gratitude! We saw him! We wept at his feet!
Though someone will always be far, far above you, clouding your air,
gazing down at you with a look of wondering despair.



Chinese Poets: English Translations

These are modern English translations of poems by some of the greatest Chinese poets of all time, including Du Fu, Huang O, Li Bai/Li Po, Li Ching-jau, Li Qingzhao, Po Chu-I, Tzu Yeh, Yau Ywe-Hwa and Xu Zhimo.



Quiet Night Thoughts
by Li Bai aka Li Po
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight illuminates my bed
as frost brightens the ground.
Lifting my eyes, the moon allures.
Lowering my eyes, I long for home.



Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion
by Li Bai aka Li Po
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The spring breeze knows partings are bitter;
The willow twig knows it will never be green again.


A Toast to Uncle Yun
by Li Bai aka Li Po
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water reforms, though we slice it with our swords;
Sorrow returns, though we drown it with our wine.

Chinese translations Li Bai

These are my modern English translations of Chinese poems by Li Bai, who was also known as Li Po.



Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain
by Li Bai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now the birds have deserted the sky
and the last cloud slips down the drains.

We sit together, the mountain and I,
until only the mountain remains.



Farewell to a Friend
by Li Bai
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rolling hills rim the northern border;
white waves lap the eastern riverbank...
Here you set out like a windblown wisp of grass,
floating across fields, growing smaller and smaller.
You’ve longed to travel like the rootless clouds,
yet our friendship declines to wane with the sun.
Thus let it remain, our insoluble bond,
even as we wave goodbye till you vanish.
My horse neighs, as if unconvinced.

Li Bai (701-762) was a romantic figure called the Lord Byron of Chinese poetry. He and his friend Du Fu (712-770) were the leading poets of the Tang Dynasty era, the Golden Age of Chinese poetry. Li Bai is also known as Li Po, Li Pai, Li T’ai-po, and Li T’ai-pai.

Keywords/Tags: China, Chinese, bird, birds, clouds, mountains, spring, partings, farewell, goodbye, green, twig, bitter, water, sorrow, wine, moon, love, bed, frost, eyes, introspection



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alone in your bedchamber
you gaze out at the Fu-Chou moon.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an ...

A perfumed mist, your hair's damp ringlets!
In the moonlight, your arms' exquisite jade!

Oh, when can we meet again within your bed's drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



Moonlit Night
by Du Fu (712-770)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the Fu-Chou moon
watches your lonely bedroom.

Here, so distant, I think of our children,
too young to understand what keeps me away
or to remember Ch'ang-an ...

By now your hair will be damp from your bath
and fall in perfumed ringlets;
your jade-white arms so exquisite in the moonlight!

Oh, when can we meet again within those drawn curtains,
and let the heat dry our tears?



Lone Wild Goose
by Du Fu (712-770)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned goose refuses food and drink;
he cries querulously for his companions.

Who feels kinship for that strange wraith
as he vanishes eerily into the heavens?

You watch it as it disappears;
its plaintive calls cut through you.

The indignant crows ignore you both:
the bickering, bantering multitudes.

Du Fu (712-770) is also known as Tu Fu. The first poem is addressed to the poet's wife, who had fled war with their children. Ch'ang-an is an ironic pun because it means "Long-peace."



The Red Cockatoo
by Po Chu-I (772-846)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A marvelous gift from Annam—
a red cockatoo,
bright as peach blossom,
fluent in men's language.

So they did what they always do
to the erudite and eloquent:
they created a thick-barred cage
and shut it up.

Po Chu-I (772-846) is best known today for his ballads and satirical poems. Po Chu-I believed poetry should be accessible to commoners and is noted for his simple diction and natural style. His name has been rendered various ways in English: Po Chu-I, Po Chü-i, Bo Juyi and Bai Juyi.



The Migrant Songbird
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c. 1084-1155)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The migrant songbird on the nearby yew
brings tears to my eyes with her melodious trills;
this fresh downpour reminds me of similar spills:
another spring gone, and still no word from you ...



The Plum Blossoms
Li Qingzhao aka Li Ching-chao (c. 1084-1155)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This year with the end of autumn
I find my reflection graying at the edges.
Now evening gales hammer these ledges ...
what shall become of the plum blossoms?

Li Qingzhao was a poet and essayist during the Song dynasty. She is generally considered to be one of the greatest Chinese poets. In English she is known as Li Qingzhao, Li Ching-chao and The Householder of Yi’an.



Star Gauge
Sui Hui (c. 351-394 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

So much lost so far away
on that distant rutted road.

That distant rutted road
wounds me to the heart.

Grief coupled with longing,
so much lost so far away.

Grief coupled with longing
wounds me to the heart.

This house without its master;
the bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils.

The bed curtains shimmer, gossamer veils,
and you are not here.

Such loneliness! My adorned face
lacks the mirror's clarity.

I see by the mirror's clarity
my Lord is not here. Such loneliness!

Sui Hui, also known as Su Hui and Lady Su, appears to be the first female Chinese poet of note. And her "Star Gauge" or "Sphere Map" may be the most impressive poem written in any language to this day, in terms of complexity. "Star Gauge" has been described as a palindrome or "reversible" poem, but it goes far beyond that. According to contemporary sources, the original poem was shuttle-woven on brocade, in a circle, so that it could be read in multiple directions. Due to its shape the poem is also called Xuanji Tu ("Picture of the Turning Sphere"). The poem is now generally placed in a grid or matrix so that the Chinese characters can be read horizontally, vertically and diagonally. The story behind the poem is that Sui Hui's husband, Dou Tao, the governor of Qinzhou, was exiled to the desert. When leaving his wife, Dou swore to remain faithful. However, after arriving at his new post, he took a concubine. Lady Su then composed a circular poem, wove it into a piece of silk embroidery, and sent it to him. Upon receiving the masterwork, he repented. It has been claimed that there are up to 7,940 ways to read the poem. My translation above is just one of many possible readings of a portion of the poem.



Reflection
Xu Hui (627–650)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Confronting the morning she faces her mirror;
Her makeup done at last, she paces back and forth awhile.
It would take vast mountains of gold to earn one contemptuous smile,
So why would she answer a man's summons?

Due to the similarities in names, it seems possible that Sui Hui and Xu Hui were the same poet, with some of her poems being discovered later, or that poems written later by other poets were attributed to her.



Waves
Zhai Yongming (1955-)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The waves manhandle me like a midwife pounding my back relentlessly,
and so the world abuses my body—
accosting me, bewildering me, according me a certain ecstasy ...



Monologue
Zhai Yongming (1955-)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am a wild thought, born of the abyss
and—only incidentally—of you. The earth and sky
combine in me—their concubine—they consolidate in my body.

I am an ordinary embryo, encased in pale, watery flesh,
and yet in the sunlight I dazzle and amaze you.

I am the gentlest, the most understanding of women.
Yet I long for winter, the interminable black night, drawn out to my heart's bleakest limit.

When you leave, my pain makes me want to ***** my heart up through my mouth—
to destroy you through love—where's the taboo in that?

The sun rises for the rest of the world, but only for you do I focus the hostile tenderness of my body.
I have my ways.

A chorus of cries rises. The sea screams in my blood but who remembers me?
What is life?

Zhai Yongming is a contemporary Chinese poet, born in Chengdu in 1955. She was one of the instigators and prime movers of the “Black Tornado” of women’s poetry that swept China in 1986-1989. Since then Zhai has been regarded as one of China’s most prominent poets.



Pyre
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I share so much desire:
this love―like a fire—
that ends in a pyre's
charred coffin.



"Married Love" or "You and I" or "The Song of You and Me"
Guan Daosheng (1262-1319)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You and I shared a love that burned like fire:
two lumps of clay in the shape of Desire
molded into twin figures. We two.
Me and you.

In life we slept beneath a single quilt,
so in death, why any guilt?
Let the skeptics keep scoffing:
it's best to share a single coffin.

Guan Daosheng (1262-1319) is also known as Kuan Tao-Sheng, Guan Zhongji and Lady Zhongji. A famous poet of the early Yuan dynasty, she has also been called "the most famous female painter and calligrapher in the Chinese history ... remembered not only as a talented woman, but also as a prominent figure in the history of bamboo painting." She is best known today for her images of nature and her tendency to inscribe short poems on her paintings.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard my love was going to Yang-chou
So I accompanied him as far as Ch'u-shan.
For just a moment as he held me in his arms
I thought the swirling river ceased flowing and time stood still.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Will I ever hike up my dress for you again?
Will my pillow ever caress your arresting face?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Night descends ...
I let my silken hair spill down my shoulders as I part my thighs over my lover.
Tell me, is there any part of me not worthy of being loved?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I will wear my robe loose, not bothering with a belt;
I will stand with my unpainted face at the reckless window;
If my petticoat insists on fluttering about, shamelessly,
I'll blame it on the unruly wind!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When he returns to my embrace,
I’ll make him feel what no one has ever felt before:
Me absorbing him like water
Poured into a wet clay jar.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bare branches tremble in a sudden breeze.
Night deepens.
My lover loves me,
And I am pleased that my body's beauty pleases him.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do you not see
that we
have become like branches of a single tree?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I could not sleep with the full moon haunting my bed!
I thought I heard―here, there, everywhere―
disembodied voices calling my name!
Helplessly I cried "Yes!" to the phantom air!



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have brought my pillow to the windowsill
so come play with me, tease me, as in the past ...
Or, with so much resentment and so few kisses,
how much longer can love last?



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When she approached you on the bustling street, how could you say no?
But your disdain for me is nothing new.
Squeaking hinges grow silent on an unused door
where no one enters anymore.



Tzu Yeh (circa 400 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I remain constant as the Northern Star
while you rush about like the fickle sun:
rising in the East, drooping in the West.

Tzŭ-Yeh (or Tzu Yeh) was a courtesan of the Jin dynasty era (c. 400 BC) also known as Lady Night or Lady Midnight. Her poems were pinyin ("midnight songs"). Tzŭ-Yeh was apparently a "sing-song" girl, perhaps similar to a geisha trained to entertain men with music and poetry. She has also been called a "wine shop girl" and even a professional concubine! Whoever she was, it seems likely that Rihaku (Li-Po) was influenced by the lovely, touching (and often very ****) poems of the "sing-song" girl. Centuries later, Arthur Waley was one of her translators and admirers. Waley and Ezra Pound knew each other, and it seems likely that they got together to compare notes at Pound's soirees, since Pound was also an admirer and translator of Chinese poetry. Pound's most famous translation is his take on Li-Po's "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter." If the ancient "sing-song" girl influenced Li-Po and Pound, she was thus an influence―perhaps an important influence―on English Modernism. The first Tzŭ-Yeh poem makes me think that she was, indeed, a direct influence on Li-Po and Ezra Pound.―Michael R. Burch



The Day after the Rain
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the day after the rain
and the meadow's green expanses!
My heart endlessly rises with wind,
gusts with wind ...
away the new-mown grasses and the fallen leaves ...
away the clouds like smoke ...
vanishing like smoke ...



Music Heard Late at Night
Lin Huiyin (1904-1955)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

for Xu Zhimo

I blushed,
hearing the lovely nocturnal tune.

The music touched my heart;
I embraced its sadness, but how to respond?

The pattern of life was established eons ago:
so pale are the people's imaginations!

Perhaps one day You and I
can play the chords of hope together.

It must be your fingers gently playing
late at night, matching my sorrow.

Lin Huiyin (1904-1955), also known as Phyllis Lin and Lin Whei-yin, was a Chinese architect, historian, novelist and poet. Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash in 1931, allegedly flying to meet Lin Huiyin.



Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again
Xu Zhimo (1897-1931)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
quietly I wave good-bye
to the sky's dying flame.

The riverside's willows
like lithe, sunlit brides
reflected in the waves
move my heart's tides.

Weeds moored in dark sludge
sway here, free of need,
in the Cam's gentle wake ...
O, to be a waterweed!

Beneath shady elms
a nebulous rainbow
crumples and reforms
in the soft ebb and flow.

Seek a dream? Pole upstream
to where grass is greener;
rig the boat with starlight;
sing aloud of love's splendor!

But how can I sing
when my song is farewell?
Even the crickets are silent.
And who should I tell?

So quietly I take my leave,
as quietly as I came;
gently I flick my sleeves ...
not a wisp will remain.

(6 November 1928)

Xu Zhimo's most famous poem is this one about leaving Cambridge. English titles for the poem include "On Leaving Cambridge," "Second Farewell to Cambridge," "Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again,"  and "Taking Leave of Cambridge Again."



The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men ravish, dishevel her . . .
till both are cut down
by mere ticks of the Leveler.

I believe I wrote this poem around age 20, in 1978 or thereabouts. It has since been published in The Lyric, Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly and The Aurorean.



The Insurrection of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

She was my Shiloh, my Gethsemane;
she nestled my head to her breast
and breathed upon my insensate lips
the fierce benedictions of her ubiquitous sighs,
the veiled allegations of her disconsolate tears . . .

Many years I abided the agile assaults of her flesh . . .
She loved me the most when I was most sorely pressed;
she undressed with delight for her ministrations
when all I needed was a good night’s rest . . .

She anointed my lips with her soft lips’ dews;
the insurrection of sighs left me fallen, distressed, at her elegant heel.
I felt the hard iron, the cold steel, in her words and I knew:
the terrible arrow showed through my conscripted flesh.

The sun in retreat left her victor and all was Night.
The last peal of surrender went sinking and dying—unheard.



Star Crossed
by Michael R. Burch

Remember—
night is not like day;
the stars are closer than they seem ...
now, bending near, they seem to say
the morning sun was merely a dream
ember.



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?



Options Underwater: The Song of the First Amphibian
by Michael R. Burch

“Evolution’s a Fishy Business!”

1.
Breathing underwater through antiquated gills,
I’m running out of options. I need to find fresh Air,
to seek some higher Purpose. No porpoise, I despair
to swim among anemones’ pink frills.

2.
My fins will make fine flippers, if only I can walk,
a little out of kilter, safe to the nearest rock’s
sweet, unmolested shelter. Each eye must grow a stalk,
to take in this green land on which it gawks.

3.
No predators have made it here, so I need not adapt.
Sun-sluggish, full, lethargic―I’ll take such nice long naps!

The highest form of life, that’s me! (Quite apt
to lie here chortling, calling fishes saps.)

4.
I woke to find life teeming all around―
mammals, insects, reptiles, loathsome birds.
And now I cringe at every sight and sound.
The water’s looking good! I look Absurd.

5.
The moral of my story’s this: don’t leap
wherever grass is greener. Backwards creep.
And never burn your bridges, till you’re sure
leapfrogging friends secures your Sinecure.

Originally published by Lighten Up Online


Yasna 28, Verse 6
by Zarathustra (Zoroaster)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lead us to pure thought and truth
by your sacred word and long-enduring assistance,
O, eternal Giver of the gifts of righteousness.

O, wise Lord, grant us spiritual strength and joy;
help us overcome our enemies’ enmity!

Translator’s Note: The Gathas consist of 17 hymns believed to have been composed by Zoroaster, also known as Zarathustra, Zarathushtra Spitama or Ashu Zarathushtra.



“Whoso List to Hunt” is a famous early English sonnet written by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) in the mid-16th century.

Whoever Longs to Hunt
by Sir Thomas Wyatt
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Whoever longs to hunt, I know the deer;
but as for me, alas!, I may no more.
This vain pursuit has left me so bone-sore
I'm one of those who falters, at the rear.
Yet friend, how can I draw my anguished mind
away from the doe?
                               Thus, as she flees before
me, fainting I follow.
                                I must leave off, therefore,
since in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Whoever seeks her out,
                                     I relieve of any doubt,
that he, like me, must spend his time in vain.
For graven with diamonds, set in letters plain,
these words appear, her fair neck ringed about:
Touch me not, for Caesar's I am,
And wild to hold, though I seem tame.



The First Complete Musical Composition

Shine, while you live;
blaze beyond grief,
for life is brief
and Time, a thief.
—Michael R. Burch, after Seikilos of Euterpes

The so-called Seikilos Epitaph is the oldest known surviving complete musical composition which includes musical notation. It is believed to date to the first or second century AD. The epitaph appears to be signed “Seikilos of Euterpes” or dedicated “Seikilos to Euterpe.” Euterpe was the ancient Greek Muse of music.



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

Weigh me down with stones ...
fill all the pockets of my gown ...
I’m going down,
mad as the world
that can’t recover,
to where even mermaids drown.



VILLANELLES

These are villanelles and villanelle-like poems, including a new new poetic form I invented, the “trinelle” or “triplenelle.”

What happened to the songs of yesterdays?
by Michael R. Burch

Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?
Has prose become its height and depth and sum?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

Does prose leave all nine Muses vexed and glum,
with fingers stuck in ears, till hearing’s numbed?
Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?

Should we cut loose, drink, guzzle jugs of ***,
write prose nonstop, till Hell or Kingdom Come?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

Are there no beats to which tense thumbs might thrum?
Did we outsmart ourselves and end up dumb?
Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?

How did a feast become this measly crumb,
such noble princess end up in a slum?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

I’m running out of rhymes! Please be a chum
and tell me if some Muse might spank my ***
for choosing rhyme above the painted phrase?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?



Trump’s Retribution Resolution
by Michael R. Burch

My New Year’s resolution?
I require your money and votes,
for you are my retribution.

May I offer you dark-skinned scapegoats
and bigger and deeper moats
as part of my sweet resolution?

Please consider a YUGE contribution,
a mountain of lovely C-notes,
for you are my retribution.

Revenge is our only solution,
since my critics are weasels and stoats.
Come, second my sweet resolution!

The New Year’s no time for dilution
of the anger of victimized GOATs,
when you are my retribution.

Forget the ****** Constitution!
To dictators “ideals” are footnotes.
My New Year’s resolution?
You are my retribution.



Why I Left the Right
by Michael R. Burch

I was a Reagan Republican in my youth but quickly “left” the GOP when I grokked its inherent racism, intolerance and retreat into the Dark Ages.

I fell in with the troops, but it didn’t last long:
I’m not one to march to a klanging gong.
“Right is wrong” became my song.

I’m not one to march to a klanging gong
with parrots all singing the same strange song.
I fell in with the bloops, but it didn’t last long.

These parrots all singing the same strange song,
with no discernment between right and wrong?
“Right is wrong” became my song.

With no discernment between right and wrong,
the **** marched on in a white-robed throng.
I fell in with the rubes, but it didn’t last long.

The **** marched on in a white-robed throng,
enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs.
“Right is wrong” became my song.

Enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs
and girls with butch hairdos, the clan klanged its gongs.
I fell in with the dupes, but it didn’t last long.
“Right is wrong” became my song.



The vanilla-nelle
by Michael R. Burch

The vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write
In a chocolate world where purity is slight,
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

As sure as night is day and day is night,
And walruses write songs, such is my plight:
The vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write.

I’m running out of rhymes and it’s a fright
because the end’s not nearly (yet) in sight,
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

It’s tougher when the poet’s not too bright
And strains his brain, which only turns up “blight.”
Yes, the vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write.

I strive to seem aloof and recondite
while avoiding ancient words like “knyghte” and “flyte”
But every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

I think I’ve failed: I’m down to “zinnwaldite.”
I fear my Muse is torturing me, for spite!
For the vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!



I may have invented a new poetic form, the “trinelle” or “triplenelle.”

Ars Brevis
by Michael R. Burch

Better not to live, than live too long:
this is my theme, my purpose and desire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

My will to live was never all that strong.
Eternal life? Find some poor fool to hire!
Better not to live, than live too long.

Granny ******* or a flosslike thong?
The latter rock, the former feed the fire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

Let briefs be brief: the short can do no wrong,
since David slew Goliath, who stood higher.
Better not to live, than live too long.

A long recital gets a sudden gong.
Quick death’s preferred to drowning in the mire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

A wee bikini or a long sarong?
French Riviera or some dull old Shire?
Better not to live, than live too long:
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.



This is a "trinelle" or "triplenelle" about one of my favorite basketball players:

The Ballad of Dalton "Connect" Knecht
by Michael R. Burch

The basket's bent, the nets are charred.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
Dalton Knecht is hard to guard.

To all defenders, it's "en garde!"
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
The basket's bent, the nets are charred.

There's no defense, all exits 're barred.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
Dalton Knecht is hard to guard.

All hope is lost, not even a shard.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
The basket's bent, the nets are charred.

The opposing coach's faith is jarred.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
Dalton Knecht is hard to guard.

The defense's pride is maimed and scarred.
It's hard to **** his will, as well.
The basket's bent, the nets are charred.
Dalton Knecht is hard to guard.



Door Mouse
by Michael R. Burch

I’m sure it’s not good for my heart—
the way it will jump-start
when the mouse scoots the floor
(I try to **** it with the door,
never fast enough, or
fling a haphazard shoe ...
always too slow too)
in the strangest zig-zaggedy fashion
absurdly inconvenient for mashin’,
till our hearts, each maniacally revvin’,
make us both early candidates for heaven.



Prose Poem: The Trouble with Poets
by Michael R. Burch

This morning the neighborhood girls were helping their mothers with chores, but one odd little girl was out picking roses by herself, looking very small and lonely. Suddenly the odd one refused to pick roses anymore because she decided it might “hurt” them. Now she just sits beside the bushes, rocking gently back and forth, weeping and consoling the vegetation!
Now she’s lost all interest in nature, which she finds “appalling.” She dresses in black “like Rilke” and says she prefers the “roses of the imagination”! She mumbles constantly about being “pricked in conscience” and being “pricked to death.” What on earth can she mean? Does she plan to have *** until she dies?

For chrissake, now she’s locked herself in her room and refuses to come out until she has “conjured” the “perfect rose of the imagination”! We haven’t seen her for days. Her only communications are texts punctuated liberally with dashes. They appear to be badly-rhymed poems. She signs them “starving artist” in lower-case. What on earth can she mean? Is she anorexic, or bulimic, or is this just a phase she’ll outgrow?



Mercedes Benz
by Michael R. Burch

I'd like to do a song of great social and political import. It goes like this:

Oh Donnie, won't you sell me your Mercedes Benz?
My friends ***** in Porsches, I must make amends!
Like you, I ****** my partners and now have no friends.
So, Donnie won't you sell me your Mercedes Benz?

Oh Donnie, won't you sell me a **** import?
You need to pay your lawyers: a **** for a tort!
I’ll await her delivery, each day until three.
And Donnie, please throw in Ivanka for free!

Oh, Donnie won't you buy me a night on the town?
I'm counting on you, Don, so please don't let me down!
Oh, prove you're a ******* and bring them around.
Oh, Donnie won't you buy me a night on the town?

Oh Donnie, won't you sell me your Mercedes Benz?
My friends ***** in Porsches, I must make amends!
Like you, I ****** my partners and now have no friends.
So, Donnie won't you sell me your Mercedes Benz?



Syndrome
by Michael R. Burch

When the heart of a child,
fragile, like a flower, unfolds;
when his soul emerges from its last concealment,
nestled in the womb’s muscular whorls, its secret chambers;
when he kicks and screams,
flung from the watery darkness into the harsh light’s glare,
feeling its restive anger, its accusatory stare;
when he feels the heart his emergent heart remembers
fluttering against his cheek,
then falls into the lilac arms of heavy-lidded sleep;
when he reopens his eyes to the bellows’ thunder
(which he has never heard before, save as a drowned echo)
and feels its wild surmise, and sees—with wonder
the tenderness in another’s eyes
reflecting his startled wonder back at him,
as his heart picks up the beat of his mother’s grieving hymn for the world’s intolerable slander;
when he understands, with a babe’s discernment—
the *******, the hands, that now, throughout the years,
will bless him with their comforts, console him with caresses,
the gentle eyes, which, with their knowing tears,
will weep him away from the world’s slick, writhing dangers
through all his restlessly-flowering years;
as his helplessly-frail fingers curl around the nose now leaning to catch his powdery talcum scent ...
Remember—it is the world’s syndrome, its handicap, not his,
that will insulate assumers from the gentle pollinations of his loveliness,
from his gifts of enchantment, from his all-encompassing acceptance,
from these tender angelic charms now lifting awed earthlings who gladly embrace him.

Published by the National Association for Down Syndrome



Homer translations

Surrender to sleep at last! What a misery, 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

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

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

Few sons surpass their fathers; most fall short, all too few overachieve. — 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

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

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



Giacomo da Lentini

Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Jacopo da Lentini or by the appellative Il Notaro (“The Notary”), was an Italian poet of the 13th century who has been credited with creating the sonnet.

Sonnet 26
by Giacomo da Lentini
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I've seen it rain on sunny days;
I’ve seen the darkness split by light;
I’ve seen white lightning fade to haze;
Seen frozen snow turn water-bright.

Some sweets have bitter aftertastes
While bitter things can taste quite sweet:
So enemies become best mates
While former friends no longer meet.

Yet the strangest thing I've seen is Love,
Who healed my wounds by wounding me.
Love quenched the fire he lit before;
The life he gave was death, therefore.

How to warm my heart? It eluded me.
Yet extinguished, Love sears all the more.



Haiku

Am I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch

Sleepyheads!
I recite my haiku
to the inattentive lilies.
—Michael R. Burch

The sky tries to assume
your eyes’ azure
but can’t quite pull it off.
—Michael R. Burch

The sky tries to assume
your eyes’ arresting blue
but can’t quite pull it off.
—Michael R. Burch

Early robins
get the worms,
cats waiting to pounce.
—Michael R. Burch

Two bullheaded frogs
croaking belligerently:
election season.
—Michael R. Burch

An enterprising cricket
serenades the sunrise:
soloist.
—Michael R. Burch

A single cricket
serenades the sunrise:
solo violinist.
—Michael R. Burch

My life:
how little remains
of a night so brief?
—Masaoka Shiki, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Masaoka Shiki struggled with tuberculosis and died at age 35.
Yesterday’s snows
that fell like cherry blossoms
are mudpuddles again.

—Koshigaya Gozan, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I write, erase, revise, erase again,
and then...
suddenly a poppy blooms!

—Katsushika Hokusai, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Vanishing spring:
songbirds lament,
fish weep with watery eyes.

—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Wearily,
I enter the inn
to be welcomed by wisteria!

—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Pale moonlight:
the wisteria’s fragrance
seems equally distant.

—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
By such pale moonlight
even the wisteria's fragrance
seems distant.

—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Pale moonlight:
the wisteria’s fragrance
drifts in from afar.

—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Pale moonlight:
the wisteria’s fragrance
drifts in from nowhere.

—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Plum flower temple:
voices ascend
from the valleys.

—Natsume Soseki, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
limping to the grave under the sentence of death,
should i praise ur LORD? think i’ll save my breath!
–michael r. burch

Because you made a world where nothing matters,
our hearts lie in tatters.
—Michael R. Burch



Hurrian Hymn No. 6
ancient Akkadian hymn
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Hurrian Hymn No. 6" was discovered in the ruins of Ugarit, near the modern town of Ras Shamra in Syria. It is the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music, dating to around 1400 BCE. The hymn is addressed to the goddess Nikkal (aka Ningal), the wife of the moon god Sin in ancient Mesopotamian mythology. "Hurrian Hymn No. 6" is one of 36 ancient Akkadian hymns called the "Hurrian Hymns" that were preserved in cuneiform, although the rest of the hymns are not as well-preserved.

1.
Having endeared myself to the Deity, she will embrace me.
May this offering of bread I bring wholly cover my sins.
May the sesame oil purify me as I bow low before your divine throne in awe.
Nikkal will make the sterile fertile, cause the barren to be fruitful:
They will bring forth children like grain.
The wife will bear her husband’s children.
May she who has not yet borne children now conceive them!

2.
For those who receive my offerings,
I place two loaves in their bowls as I perform the rites.
The couple have raised sacrifices to the heavens for their health and good fortune!
I have placed the loaves before your Divine Throne.
I will purify their sins, without denying them.
I will bring the lovers to you, that you may find them agreeable, for you love those who come forward to be reconciled.
I have brought their sins before you, to be removed through the reconciliation ritual.
I will honor you at your footstool.
Nikkal will strengthen them.
She allows married couples have children.
She allows children to be conceived by their fathers.
But the unreconciled will weep: "Why have I not yet born my husband children?"


Ammiditāna's Hymn to Ištar
Ancient Akkadian poem, author unknown
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1 iltam zumrā rašubti ilātim
2 litta''id bēlet iššī rabīt igigī
3 ištar zumrā rašubti ilātim
4 litta''id bēlet ilī nišī rabīt igigī

1 Sing the praises of the Goddess, our awe-inspiring Goddess!
2 Sing the praises of our Lady, the greatest of the gods!
3 Sing the praises of Ishtar, our awe-inspiring Goddess!
4 Sing the praises of our Lady, the greatest of the gods!

5 šāt mēleṣim ruāmam labšat
6 za'nat inbī mīkiam u kuzbam
7 šāt mēleṣim ruāmam labšat
8 za'nat inbī mīkiam u kuzbam

5 Ishtar who becomes aroused, exuding lust,
6 dripping desire—voluptuous and amorous!
7 Ishtar who becomes aroused, exuding lust,
8 dripping desire—voluptuous and amorous!

9 šaptīn duššupat balāṭum pīša
10 simtišša ihannīma ṣīhātum
11 šarhat irīmū ramû rēšušša
12 banâ šimtāša bitrāmā īnāša šitārā

9 Her lips drip honey-sweetness, her mouth is life itself,
10 Her cheeks are flushed with delight!
11 She is lovely, with beads braided in her hair!
12 Her cheeks are comely, her eyes are iridescent!

13 eltum ištāša ibašši milkum
14 šīmat mimmami qatišša tamhat
15 naplasušša bani bu'āru
16 baštum mašrahu lamassum šēdum

13 Our Goddess is pure, her counsel uncontested;
14 She holds the fates of all worlds in her hands!
15 Seeing her brings prosperity and happiness
16 for her pride, splendor, and protective spirit!

17 tartāmī tešmê ritūmī ṭūbī
18 u mitguram tebēl šīma
19 ardat tattadu umma tarašši
20 izakkarši innišī innabbi šumša

17 She is the Goddess of love-making and seduction,
18 of pleasure and harmony!
19 She teaches the naked girl to become a mother;
20 She will advance her name among the people!

21 ayyum narbiaš išannan mannum
22 gašrū ṣīrū šūpû parṣūša
23 ištar narbiaš išannan mannum
24 gašrū ṣīrū šūpû parṣūša

21 Who can rival her glory?
22 Her powers are unlimited, exalted and manifest!
23 Who can rival Ishtar's glory?
24 Her powers are unlimited, exalted and manifest!

25 gaṣṣat inilī atar nazzazzuš
26 kabtat awassa elšunu haptatma
27 ištar inilī atar nazzazzuš
28 kabtat awassa elšunu haptatma

25 Highest of the gods, her standing immense,
26 Her word is law, she towers above them!
27 Ishtar among the gods, her standing immense,
28 Her word is law, she towers above them!

29 šarrassun uštanaddanū siqrīša
30 kullassunu šâš kamsūšim
31 nannarīša illakūši
32 iššû u awīlum palhūšīma

29 They beg their queen to issue them orders;
30 they bow down obsequiously before her!
31 Acolytes orbit around her;
32 Men and women approach her in fear!

33 puhriššun etel qabûša šūtur
34 ana anim šarrīšunu malâm ašbassunu
35 uznam nēmeqim hasīsam eršet
36 imtallikū šī u hammuš

33 Foremost in the assembly, her speech altogether exalted,
34 she sits throned among them, an equal to Anu, the king!
35 She is wise beyond comprehension
36 when she and her chieftan confer!

37 ramûma ištēniš parakkam
38 iggegunnim šubat rīšātim
39 muttiššun ilū nazzuizzū
40 epšiš pîšunu bašiā uznāšun

37 They sit at the dais together,
38 in their delightful dwelling,
39 as the gods stand respectfully
40 awaiting her bidding.

41 šarrum migrašun narām libbīšun
42 šarhiš itnaqqišunūt niqi'ašu ellam
43 ammiditāna ellam niqī qātīšu
44 mahrīšun ušebbi li'ī u yâlī namrā'i

41 The king, their favourite, their hearts' beloved,
42 offers his sacrifice before them in splendour.
43 In their presence, Ammiditana, with his own hands
44 makes fattened offerings of bulls and stags.

45 išti anim hāmerīša tēteršaššum
46 dāriam balāṭam arkam
47 madātim šanāt balāṭim ana ammiditāna
48 tušatlim ištar tattadin

45 From Anum, her bridegroom, she has demanded
46 for the king a long fruitful life.
47 Many long years of life for Ammiditana
48 Ishtar has granted!

49 siqrušša tušaknišaššu
50 kibrat erbe'im ana šēpīšu
51 u naphar kalīšunu dadmī
52 taṣammissunūti ana nīrīšu

49 At her command the four corners of the earth
50 bow down to him!
51 She has bound the entire orb of the earth
52 to his yoke!

53 bibil libbīša zamar lalêša
54 naṭumma ana pîšu siqri ea īpuš
55 ešmēma tanittaša irissu
56 libluṭmi šarrašu lirāmšu addāriš

53 Her heart's desire, the praise-filled song,
54 is suited to his mouth, the commandment of Ea.
55 "I have heard her eulogy," said Ea, "and I was delighted with it!"
56 "May her king live long and may she love him forever!"

57 ištar ana ammiditāna šarri rā'imīki
58 arkam dāriam balāṭam šurqī

57 O Ishtar, may he live long and prosper,
58 Ammiditana, the king who loves you!



Keywords/Tags: amphibian, amphibians, evolution, gills, water, air, lungs, fins, flippers, fish, fishy business, poets, poetry, writing, art, work, works, rhyme, ballad, immortality, passion, emotion, desire, mrbwork, mrbworks

Published as the collection "What Works"

He’s like that last bit of sunlight that everyone tries to savor during the final days of summer. He’s the light that manages to fill the bleakest of rooms. Even in the loneliest of nights I still feel the light he brings. He is the bearer of joy not just to me, but whomever he me crosses paths with. He brings joy to the miserable, youth to the old, and even love to the loveless. Spending time with you is like living what poetry is.

Life’s Dismay
Wide River within this great confluence of time and eternity the engine of the skiff pushes it ever so gently forward the water flows to each side of the bow your way marked and bordered on each side by this unending fence line of reeds. Still waters beneath the skin of this water bound traveler come up the length of your being time rolls forward and back along the tunnel where it was set in motion oh so long ago the minutes hours soon counted by centuries to retell the story this maritime log what stories of heroism lays along the linear line. Trafalgar’s glory passes in the viewing ships of timbers and mighty sails ply broad waters the waves climb in great walls glistening and with a roar they fall the master commanded they obeyed peace be still. The ship’s captain born of daring seed no mans word will he heed only the sea his master who can resist ports so fair in mighty England the Union Jack flows with such flair or Portugal no fairer land can be found than the land of the Portuguese. Trust not yourself to the shallows the mighty deep is where glory stands in regal defiance does a cobra bow freedoms head the king a fitting name king cobra it will hold you in its stare then strikes as waves of terror through your body convulse you forgot your place now death will be read in your face. Only the wisest survive in a land shared with scorpions and bleakest dunes of sand Lawrence of Arabia showed the way his sea was the Sahara with her endless wasteland voiding every prospect of mans intrusions only the finest line of life this strung out caravan men here are mere ghost figures they faintly pass leaving no indication of their passing. The sand swallows any marks of their existence but for ever has this been the adventures holy grail test yourself against the Himalayas or here where it seems even God’s voice didn’t reach. The stitches of time that so effectively marks progress and history sewn with deftness not evidenced here. If one was ever to be dispossessed of his inheritance this fits the bill damnation’s warning can be read in all directions. They say God speaks his love in a thousand ways this has to be another valuable expression a veritable object lesson. You have here what is the natural outcome of what the devil works at without end one of his names is even a destroyer how fitting an illustration wasteland if sorrow had a birthplace this would be it the devils rightful place. He works without tiring to make your life miserable as his and the saddest thing the majority of the world walks hand in hand with him. So to keep from doing the most needed thing which is to check your own evil nature because it will cost you eternal death in a place finally even worse than an earthen desert. While all along God says my grace is sufficient for you meaning you never are expected or left to fight the battle yourself no one can beat the devil or self. Look at the contrast God’s part land mast of unequaled wonder seas that will test your metal build you up you truly will become as strong as the ships chosen timber and all the sea does is season it to a greater finer quality. There is a story of a table that was made from one of these ships who can compare it even mahogany was out classed. You could sit and observe the grain darker deeper the evidence of the many storms she endured and kept all afloat and made each trip. Here in a sitting room the glory displayed your glory one day will reside in a mansion that’s What God is trying to do in your life.

the world is adorned with a million windows
the bleakest night has a thousand eyes
daylight shines into the globes darkest corners
truth will ultimately expose all lies

NASA’s satellites circle
Tropic of Cancer latitudes
cameras pinpoint the disease
metastasizing in the body of Homs

from stratospheric limits
sensitive lenses read the names
magic markers have scrawled
onto white sheets covering the dead

YouTube gets Oscar consideration
for grisly cinematography
a real-time visceral docudrama
of panting fascists gleefully tramping

through the desecrated streets
coolly administering a coup de gras
to a city on its knees, pleading release
from an **** of incessant bloodletting

twitter records desperate tweets
the batting wings of endangered flocks
furiously thumbing into the blogosphere
calls for UN intervention that falls on blind eyes

BBC reportage,
the global gold standard
for journalistic excellence
scoops the stories
of London based FSA partisans
awaiting repatriation to scatter
Bashar’s Kodachrome killers

Has the All Seeing Eye
who has graced us with sight
laughingly curse us with vision?

Does the
One Caring Eye of the Universe
bless us with perception
to haunt us with images?

Has
The One Thats Sees Everything
blinked closed the eye of compassion?

Has the horror of Homs
become too much even for
The Universal Eye of Love?

the opened eyes
of a dead child
reflects our
cold winter
of indifference
demoralizing
dehumanizing
a watching world

Music Selection
Grateful Dead Eyes of the World

Oakland
3/2/12
jbm

In the bleakest part of winter.
When earth is covered with snow,
A sentry of masculine gender
Stands without a sign of woe.

How is it snow men always smile?
The scenery isn't great.
Though they most often dress with style,
They are always overweight.

Magic silk hats hide their bald heads.
Their carrot noses aren't cute.
Beady eyes seem pixilated.
They don't even own a suit.

So, why do these guards always smile?
What can they all smile about?
To contrast, scarecrows are most vile,
With a look that's all worn out.

Scarecrows got the cerebral part,
But it wasn't an even trade.
For what snowmen got was a heart,
In the love with which they're made.

life's dismay these Unchartered waters
Life’s Dismay
Wide River within this great confluence of time and eternity the engine of the skiff pushes it ever so gently forward the water flows to each side of the bow your way marked and bordered on each side by this unending fence line of reeds. Still waters beneath the skin of this water bound traveler come up the length of your being time rolls forward and back along the tunnel where it was set in motion oh so long ago the minutes hours soon counted by centuries to retell the story this maritime log what stories of heroism lays along the linear line. Trafalgar’s glory passes in the viewing ships of timbers and mighty sails ply broad waters the waves climb in great walls glistening and with a roar they fall the master commanded they obeyed peace be still. The ship’s captain born of daring seed no mans word will he heed only the sea his master who can resist ports so fair in mighty England the Union Jack flows with such flair or Portugal no fairer land can be found than the land of the Portuguese. Trust not yourself to the shallows the mighty deep is where glory stands in regal defiance does a cobra bow freedoms head the king a fitting name king cobra it will hold you in its stare then strikes as waves of terror through your body convulse you forgot your place now death will be read in your face. Only the wisest survive in a land shared with scorpions and bleakest dunes of sand Lawrence of Arabia showed the way his sea was the Sahara with her endless wasteland voiding every prospect of mans intrusions only the finest line of life this strung out caravan men here are mere ghost figures they faintly pass leaving no indication of their passing. The sand swallows any marks of their existence but for ever has this been the adventures holy grail test yourself against the Himalayas or here where it seems even God’s voice didn’t reach. The stitches of time that so effectively marks progress and history sewn with deftness not evidenced here. If one was ever to be dispossessed of his inheritance this fits the bill damnation’s warning can be read in all directions. They say God speaks his love in a thousand ways this has to be another valuable expression a veritable object lesson. You have here what is the natural outcome of what the devil works at without end one of his names is even a destroyer how fitting an illustration wasteland if sorrow had a birthplace this would be it the devils rightful place. He works without tiring to make your life miserable as his and the saddest thing the majority of the world walks hand in hand with him. So to keep from doing the most needed thing which is to check your own evil nature because it will cost you eternal death in a place finally even worse than an earthen desert. While all along God says my grace is sufficient for you meaning you never are expected or left to fight the battle yourself no one can beat the devil or self. Look at the contrast God’s part land mast of unequaled wonder seas that will test your metal build you up you truly will become as strong as the ships chosen timber and all the sea does is season it to a greater finer quality. There is a story of a table that was made from one of these ships who can compare it even mahogany was out classed. You could sit and observe the grain darker deeper the evidence of the many storms she endured and kept all afloat and made each trip. Here in a sitting room the glory displayed your glory one day will reside in a mansion that’s What God is trying to do in your life.

we always seem to want or be in want or having something anecdotal, if not witty to say, and we rarely have the opportunity to say it, but more chance to write it, with the allowance of it being by nature synchronised to the least favour of it being said in the first place, and as such not said to the extent it was wished to be communicated; to deal with delaying a saying is the art of aphorism stating, which i'm sure nietzsche greatly borrowed from you: so instead of itemising life for all its empty and emptying poses of the tier tongue filling a righteousness of some sordid familial pedigree given easy sway to decay by modest man's standards defining perversity: speak into the grave, and let us hear the bone rattling ganges incineration maracas shake shake shake urns of defacement: for honour the bleakest of all humours bleaker than scandinavian as that be english, bleakest. i never troubled myself juggling ******* and alcohol problems, i just took to beer, whiskey and coca-cola, so sugar me up dahling... i'm ready to tiger pounce on you and grow a magic fern from my ****-hole for a bouquet of piñiata of halloween trick-or-**** as the fudge packing inverse **** of a baseball baton lubricated into me: circumcise the flares! i think i see titanic sinking! ha ha! all in all too many maxims were written, many of which are untrue, and if true, then they're never written: you only write truths for people to make mistakes to prove them; you never write truths if they're properly adequate chess of senior pieces moving pawns, you keep such truths ****** prone, ****** for a purpose of dark-ethical cloning in the familial bonds of dynasty.

The machete of death is
Coming closer closer closer
Blood and bones and
My eyes are strained
From too much existential contemplation.

Not good for the soul
To consistently ideate
About it’s utter and absolute distinction;
Throwing your living body, your living soul,
Swiftly and without warning into
A raging flame that cobbles you up
Hungry to dissolve you, disjoint you,
Consume you into her wild flames.

Blood red and yellow as the surface of the sun
All breaking down into
The black gravely ash.

Where something cognizant
And living and organic and dynamic
Has fallen from grace like Satan falling
From his place in heaven
Arch-angel transformed into the anti-christ

And at times, I relate
I feel myself falling falling falling
Like Lucifer
And Alice
And Persephone.

We are falling and we cannot stop.

From our homes, the only ones we’ve ever known
Tumbling manically into a new world
Whose rules we were never told
Whose customs are foreign
Whose reality fills us with this
Dread of confusion.

Once we were home.
In heaven
Reading a book in the dabble sun
Spreading spring and life with
Our mother Demeter
And in a moment
It all changed

Without warning
Without any choice in the matter
So we watched outside ourselves
As our bodies flailed through the air
Our lungs bursting with screams
Our bodies lost to our own control,
Now just flesh being dropped
From Olymus to an upside world.

And yet…
We grew to love it
The devil, Alice, Persephone and I.

We learned to love our forced new world
And decided there was something majestic
About climbing through time and space
Traversing reality
Entering into a new world that flittered---
Terrifying at first, like the slit from a knife,
But then glowing, glinting with flame
And pomegranate and tea parties.
And as lost as we were
We began to find our way.

We sat down with the mad hatter,
We stopped ourselves form being swallowed
By our own gushing, oceanic tears.
We grew large and small.

We came to reign a dark, black world
That somehow become our own
So sinister, gaping with evil, think
With the sinners. But still, in my own way,
Perhaps the heavenly remnants inside me
Loved them. Watched them float here from
Their corpses like dancing skeletons on display
And I welcomed them into my dungeon
Of fire and flame and blackness and death.
I punished them. And yet, I loved them.
Punishing them like my children,
Wreaking the havoc they had caused.
They were sinners and they were mine
And no longer was I ugly and tarred and shamed,
A monstrosity. Suddenly, I was my own god.
And my sinners, so broken, hearts filled with black bile
Spewing out angry and hatred and violence.
But they were mine and all the fear
I used to hold that I was a sinner,
Not good enough to be good,
Dissipated. I was here in the bleakest part of
The universe, a black hold that gaped on for hours
With spikes and flames and wading pools of human blood.
I was a monster among monsters. They were my monstrous
Children, soulless, void of humanity,
And yet inside of my some fleeting thing existed
An undestroyed part of my early life:
For I loved them. I love their sins and I drank them
In like blood and wine. We are all sinners, but the sinners
Who have made their way here…their sins are so catastrophic
I believe they may in fact be divine.

free from the irishman's arbeit macht frei on the building site:
****** worked the tools for a few years, got promoted and started
to kiss pig snouts - thinks he's the god Merovingian,
people hallucinate a potato where
his head ought to be and laugh -
well, how the most of society is sheltered
from the construction site in the west:
foreigners out! willkommen... now you
get you spoofs to do the hardened labours -
see how they fair, poncy fairies couldn't
even lift a shitload of bricks: but there they
go into the temple of hamster wheels
and brass muscles and kissing bicep meat-heads...
they could be utilised to generate enough
power to provide energy for a corner shops -
so yeah, the Romanians were on holiday,
it took them 5 days to reach their village
flying from London to Bucharest -
the cultural improvement of the Kazakh nation
was filmed there, after 5 weeks free from
the shackles of the irishman's version of
Auschwitz: a regular staple around here,
i get the smuggled cigarettes -
but after smoking tobacco smuggled from
god knows where, these Benson & Hedges
feel like torpedoes between the index and middle...
odd what 3 packets of 50g tobacco does to
perception, for a while i was smoking chop-sticks,
next thing i'm smoking torpedoes thick bulging
sticks - the smoke v. drink dynamic changes...
is Mary Poppins about to teach me a lesson
in how the HM & Revenue is sacred?
i hated that nanny when she said: to preserve
the health of the public, and to invoke a need
for proper taxation... well... **** that...
ever smoke Беломорканал сигареты?
       (belomorkanal sigarety)?
i thought you haven't, i have, i wouldn't even know
where to begin if i had to lie and tell you
i visited the Lenin mausoleum -
Беломорканал сигареты though? see the neo-Greek
in Cyrillic, or as? talk about evolution, i'd talk
more about more recent events in linguistic,
how Greek evolved in Cyrillic and Latin into added
diacritical markings: English held onto puritan Latin
impression way too long, instead of diacritical markings
we have U.S.A. accents, Scottish Irish and Welsh accents,
regional accents in England, Australian and South African...
it's like this inverse sense of insomnia:
    the sun never, ever, ******* sets on English,
steroids and amphetamines, continually news -
must be hard to keep up, to keep the local reference
in a world adequately suited for the day-to-day
marching orders - but yeah, smoked those cigarettes -
they don't have filters, well, cardboard "filters" -
you squeezed the ends and smoked the workman's
tobacco - while you were digging that god awful trench:
the white sea-baltic canal - and she was the lovely
middle-class lady who introduced me into smoking
them, after she realised she had the poker hand -
it always happens when the middle-classes meddle
with someone originating in the working class
who wants to become a chemist... they say: work!
whip for a tongue... i swear you need shampoos and toothpaste...
oh right, i'm from the land of brick and mortar?
well, if you're going to maim me, damage me,
obviously i'll stage a rebellion utilising poetry...
should have left me after infringing the damage on me,
should have left me to do the work...
but no... she calls me up and exposes me to
a schizophrenic virus: i.e. the atypical symptom -
and i'm like: huh? voices? what are voices?
what do you meaning you're hearing voices?
i guess the conscience kicked in -
                         oh how angelic everyone thinks they are...
    i call these symptoms: a rotten conscience,
  the fact that anyone would appreciate having one
is already a miracle... but seeing it rotting
    is a bit like a Dorian Gray revelation -
shock! awe! but the picture is there!
                                               funny how people who
plan a baby sometimes never score,
              and funnier still how some people invoke
   getting impregnated without the state's laws
of matrimony to blackmail a man into matrimonial
laws, use the meanest, bleakest, bile-fuelled mechanism
to erase the person from all the pages of life,
   then spectacularly fail: a bit like Jesus on the third day,
and the person in question blahs his way into
   something resembling life -  the typical
Hollywood plot: they killed him, but he got away...
        now i'm just waiting for a Mr. Chapman to finish
the job properly - because he might say:
                                his talent started waning...
    oh sure... i'd love to reach threescore & ten -
  and wait for the gimmick post-: every year after that
   is god's blessing... can i speak to the god in Sudan?
   can i get an audience? no? ah ****.
better start planning early mortality plans
while others are thinking of retirement.
                **** me! i used to be so into life that i'd
probably have written a poem a month apart -
    and now i'm left with a ****** biography that
could be encompassed in a year...
   i'm not even obsessing about it, it's just an elephant
in a box room that started snorting ******* and
playing jazz real good -
                                 then they blamed me on marijuana,
   i'd be the laziest person alive if i overdid that drug...
and however much i tried to become a Catholic
apostate, not getting confirmed and what:
   i was forced into Christian lessons of forgiveness,
only because i didn't have enough money to
pursue an argument in court... grand... just pitch-***
perfect -              mind you, they are really ****** lessons,
    i wouldn't go banging them to anyone
  who hasn't experienced injustice in this world:
gravity is probably the only law we can all experience
with true justice... as you can see, gravity wasn't
man-made... so good luck arguing your cases
     with murderers not being punished
  thieves not having their hands cut off for stealing jewels...
   if anyone was god at the birth of Christianity,
it was only Pontius Pilate - he washed his hands clean
from the matter... to me that's who god was in that
story... i'm washing my hands of anything that
might come from this.

You,
Lone being
Of enduring kindness,
Your tiny hand touching me tenderly,
Even in the bleakest times.
Dragging me out of the darkness
Even as I continually crawled toward it.
The tortures inflicted,
both blindly and unintentionally
And with premeditation and surety
Should surely not have befallen one so gorgeous of spirit.
It seems now you have lost your faith in me,
As I have failed to fulfill a slew of promises.
But, you do not understand where I stand,
How my hands are shackled
Fettered to the spot,
When we dwelled together
Hell rained down until our hearts were parted.
I do not wish for the intensity of my vile
To drizzle and stain, and burn and brand you.
You are far too precious to me to allow the chance of that.
But, seeing you burn my page from your diary,
Finally and emphatically denouncing me,
I am torn down like a *****, ******.
I love you with devout intensity,
And watching you suffer at our separation
It equalled the potential pain of my tint tainting you.
So what am I to do now, kind one?
My smile only masks the agony so long.
Sweet one, whose kiss lasted longest,
Which sadly meant, there were fewer of them.
The clever saboteur will always sabotage us.
The angry cannoneer will always barrage us.
I don't want you to endure such things.
But NEVER stop believing I Love you!
Whatever you see occur,
Never forget this.

I found myself a dying sun,
I lay ashore, all mem'ries gone,
Beneath a sky of crimson clay,
Where every world spends its last day.

The dusty sand beneath my form
I used to love looks so forlorn.
The waves crash down with energy
They do not wish to share with me.

I am tired of it all,
Sick to death, I take the fall.
Down to the void, abyss,
Without parting glass or kiss.

You will not find me here tomorrow,
I have drowned myself in sorrow.
The bleakest darkness of my past
Swells in the distance like a mast.

I shall not perish, all the same.
Your world is evil and insane,
Yet I shall rise again at last
While you'll be buried in the past.

I tore out the intimate stanzas that my friends had written in my note book
I used it to clean their mess
Jealousy at it's bleakest
Excuses at their best

Angst and nerves filled my head
Most of the time i'm too scared to read what they had written
Most of the time i'm too scared to read what they had said

My notebook is hardly mine any more
Merely scrap pages for my friends thoughts
Their voices are loud and powerful on paper
But I hardly spare the time to listen


**Imagery created by all means
But never correctly interpreted

In the Bleakest of December,
I sought my soul to remember.
The warmth of your touch,
The taste of your lips.
But to my dismay I could find no such feeling.
In the heated rain of the spring time air,
I searched my soul for what I once had,
But in my soul there was nothing but misary and dispair.
The fragrance of the peace and joy you bring,
While listening to the Robin sing.
To lay you down on a silken bed,
While sprinkling Rose Dust around your head.
To see your eyes in an innocent Blue,
Seeing me there to look after you.
Now at the end of this desperate search,
I have found the light of which I yearn.
The truest form of my love for you I have now found,
A crystal example of our love that has left the ground
To stay in this moment, is what I shall do,
To thine own heart be truest to you.

Some worship the sun and the stars
Others worship bearded men with guitars

Some of us worship idols and priests
Others worship the trees and the beasts

Some worship places
Others worship faces

As of late, worship of numbers seems to be the norm
The image of ourselves does this worship deform

The worship of might will last for eons
The human mind is fascinating though, delusions it’ll build to free itself of these rigid forms

Pick a belief, a rock or a sock
There will always be those who, for the love of their beliefs will bring down havoc

Worship is but human nature, even in the bleakest of times we close our eyes and look inward
When we do wake up, we buckle down, take a deep breath and start walking onward

sweet bird of budding april's pretty wing,
sat in the willow where the catkins grow,

enchanting like the river's winding flow,
small chatterbox that always loves to sing,

the blossoms kiss the sky whose wandering
finds vast crusades where fleeting warriors go,

true to their loves e'en in the bleakest snow,
or some princess who finds a sapphire ring.

enchanted lands, the bird sings in the tree,
so long forgotten once found near and far,
where streams wind yonder where the bluebirds play,

on honey branches by the windswept sea,
as if they whispered underneath a star
of princely gold the beauty of the day.

Through a broken window
Covered with dirt and cobwebs
And from within an empty house
Crumbling and derelict
Even the bleakest landscape
Can look fine and good

When the water runs in
Through the sagging old roof
It makes the rain outside
Seem healthier and clean
So that drafts blowing through
Cracked and buckling walls
Make the harshest winds
Feel kind and warm

Because when the interior
Is so desolate and empty
It makes the worst of the world
Seem pretty much good enough
So why bother to change
Anything at all

                                               By Phil Roberts

in this,
my darkest hour,
the shadow of doubt
sits as I sleep
staring into my eyes
when I look at
him
and burning
holes in my form
when I find the
courage
to look
away

he is silent,
most times

seemingly satisfied
with encroaching fear
from his very prescience

but at times,
he does speak

he whisper to me
soft truths
which I cannot
deny
but
I refuse
to
accept

these truths
like…

that I’m failing
at the simplest of
tasks

or

that I’m
unable
to control myself
and what
I am

or

that
I am no
longer
someone that
I would
look
up
to

for the most part,
I can ignore these.

going about my days
in bliss and happiness
and sunshine

other times,
I am not so
lucky

when my bed
seems my only
friend
and I flop
down into its
soft sheets
and begin drifting off
into my own
world
I am
suddenly reminded
of his
existence

this is when he doesn’t talk

he just looks at me,
knowing why I am so
desperate to get away
from everyone,
and continues to
look

stop staring!
I say

stop staring!
I say again

stop staring!
stop staring!
stop staring
you *******
freak!

but he doesn’t

I work myself up
arguing with him

rationalizing his motivations
analyzing his strategies
predicting his moves

it just makes the whole
experience hurt worse
until finally:

I grab the lamp,
the bottle, the
plate, the knife,
the book, the child,
the girlfriend, the
family member,
the moral

and

throw it at him

every time
the object shatters
against the wall
and the shadow
is gone

I never see where he goes,
I’m still not sure of his name
or his purpose

in these, my darkest hours,
I can feel his eyes burning
me

he whispers answers
too hard to swallow
and edges me on till
I gallop over the edge

once I jump,
he leaves,
leaving me to wrestle
back to some sort of
sanity

I am not sure why
I am not sure when
I am not sure how
it’s possible in the
first place

but I know he will return
and I will be left to wrestle
with myself when he departs
again

in my bleakest moment,
even sleep haunts me with
dreams of my corpse

And so she leaves, what we were behind
And somehow expects me not to mind.
We weren't together but I'm still not fine
In this world, where she's not mine.
From all our plans, she walked away,
And now I'm alone, on this bleakest day.

Steamy ink boiled over
the kettle of opportunistic metaphors
poison'd doses in gray's gangrene slur,
don't attempt to sleep in my mouth
like a w*e in head, the sword in bed
taboo artistes in monotonic ambivalent jaws
clamping down without remorse
chomp'd away at an asunder analogy
****'d in my jeans and expect'd to get fed
spit it out on the polar opposite cafe floor
unicorns dwellings of butter'd blessings
broken bread & barely berry wine of Monet's encores
bite the ear that fed you preaching van Gogh
perhaps they'll listen for insanity to be set free
confining rules taught us naught to stutter
pay your monopoly dues in bleakest sermons
pass the bucket of superiority's conquests
bled of analgesic ego's epic divided faction's fiction
don't forget to wipe your shadow on the way out

Here you stand alone with your thoughts
Not believing you could be whole again
You try to tell yourself that you're okay
Deep down inside, you don't believe what you say

You feel that perhaps it's too late
Scared that somehow, someone will find you
Break you, watch you bleed
Then leave you behind to pick up the pieces

It's going to be a long, long night
It's going to be darker than it should
The bleakest of seasons , a time for tears
Colder until the morning light appears

Please don't hide away
Follow your heart, don't be afraid
Think of what could be, what would be
If you'd rewrite the role that you play

I believe you've got what it takes
You're magical, beautiful, incredible
I know that you're much stronger than you let on
I know you're brave enough to get through this

I will be waiting for you on the other side
Out of the dark, out of the rain
Where it's almost paradise...
I'll be waiting to be with you again.

You forged a map
  whilst quite unaware
    that he was in want of direction,
      and though he was lost
        and close to despair,
he mustered his will and he made a connection.

You spoke of an age
  from aeons ago;
    a harmony sweet to his ears.
      Though sep'rate by worlds,
        you drew him in slow
and extinguished his nerves and his bleakest of fears.

You opened yourself up
  to him like a rose,
    when discord and tension were rife,
      and gifted him naifly
        with welcome repose
when you entered his otherwise workaday life.

You flooded his thoughts,
  a tempestuous storm,
    your tales of love as his guide,
      and whilst he took your lead
        and began to transform,
he learned to catch starlight with you by his side.

And how can he thank you
  for touching him so,
    when he still barely knows who he is?
      The best he can do
        is to write you a verse -
a mainline direct to your heart, from his.

I

My words do not matter to Him
Just faith, love, and devotion
My words do not matter to me
Just eternal peace without condition

So why do I still write
And for whom to not listen
Constantly fearing inferiority
While aspiring total self-forgetfulness

II

I want to reap what is sown
Plant the seeds here,
But let it bloom yonder
Let me be content
To drink the bitter silence here
And taste the sweetness hereafter

I want to bask in the present sun
See the prospect of glory
But let it not shine for me here
Let me be content
To praise the wisdom of suffering, before
As an ordinary sunflower
And receive the everlasting warmth, beyond
Ever closer to the sun

III

I want the world to love all
As I want to be loved by Him
I want the world to accept itself
As I could never accept myself
With its scars, and flaws, and suffering
With more forgiveness for sinners
Than momentary praises for perfection

I look at the world as a mirror
Fading and scraped bare
By constant cleansing-
A looking glass stained by tears
And broken by hairline fractures
Will not distort the beauty of the
Seeker of obscured truth

But, a non-existent flawless mirror
Where the onlooker refuse to look
Will show nothing of merit
Truth, lies, or otherwise

IV


O world, be not like me
The bard afraid of words
If you keep them to yourselves
Then Hear the silence reign

O world, be not like me
A sinner afraid of imperfections
If you pluck all petals with flaws
Then See a world full of stalks

O world, be not like me
The glutton with thin skin
If you don’t build up your calluses
How unbearably will it twinge

V

Now heed my plea

The lambs might have autonomy
But what wonder might lie beyond
The glen
What happens,
When in perfect harmony
The uncut wool smothers the sheep
And doom looms
When green turns to earth
Grazed
Till it waned.

VI

Soon, if I were to be chased
By the clouds of self or man
I will put my faith in the sun
I will lay bare my soul in the sun

For its Warmth,
    Calms the chilling winds of change
    All shadows conquered at dawn
    And at dusk
It yet guides,
    Lending light to the crescent moon
    Even at its bleakest a soothing sight
    And at its brightest
A mother’s love in the summer days
A father’s forgiveness in the winter nights

VII

Fear not the petty scorn and envy of men
Cried I, the pettiest, most scornful, and envious
Of them all
Shame me not, for we are all lost
Let us find together,
The road timelessly traveled
Built for the mass, found by the few
Righteous, yet perilous
Rugged and overgrown
Darkened by the Sun
To give to it to reach the summit
Flesh and soul
Strength and breath
One day aching joyously
Having reached the height
To see the hidden valley of delight
Where we will finally
Ache
Nevermore