"epigram" poems
Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.
17.1k
If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.
7.5k
Novice, heed my diction—
The learned, the schooled, the politic,
Are but fools with conviction.
Jul 26, 2012
Jul 26, 2012 at 12:11 PM UTC
Thick skin, big body and sharp teeth, they slay
These greedy animals hunt for their prey
Their goal is to get all what they want
In the darkness of the night they usually hunt
Crocodiles and snakes, they attack like storms
How big are those reptiles as compared to the worms?
Now modern predators are in tuxedo’s and suits
With shiny eyeglasses or well-polished boots
These greedy creatures scattered in this world
They always make the biggest stories ever told…
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC
When I decided to write my first poem, I thought back to the days,
when we were studying poetry and the teacher would amaze,
she'd make me write down words and things, I'd be chasing praise.
But looking back at my book now, I know what I should do,
and so here follows my glossary of things I'll write for you:
I have - Alliteration, Antagonist, Allegory and Anapest.
Characterisation, Complication, Convention and Connotation.
Elegy, Elision, Epigram and Exposition.
Free verse, Falling action, Falling meter and also Fiction.
Literal language, Imagery, Lyric poem and Irony.
Rising action, Resolution, Rising meter with Recognition.
Acatalectic, Anacreontic, Amphimacer and Amphibrachic.
Cliché, Common Measure, Couplets and Catalectic.
Deconstruction, Dispondee, Dialect Verse with a Dictionary.
Iambic Meter, Incantation, Impromptu with Inspiration.
Laureates and Limericks, Light Verse poems and Linguistics.
Metaphors, Mock-Heroics, Middle English and Movement Poets.
Oh gosh that seems a little worse, than I had it made to be,
I was expecting just to write a poem 'bout my cat and me.
I guess it's harder than it looks so I'll just give up now;
I'll let those big brave poet people, write them all somehow.
Apr 29, 2012
Apr 29, 2012 at 11:55 AM UTC
It was, as the New York Times all but sniffed
(Even then, a haughty mix of bluenose and black ink)
Further proof the poor, misguided Upstate rubes
Were no more than ample fodder
For any tinhorn, two-bit confidence man to take for a ride.
Fair enough—it was, to the careful eye and unheated psyche
Clear as the azure blue sky that,
Despite the best efforts of acid wash and a year underground,
So obviously a statue as to be absolutely laughable,
And yet the vox populi came in waves,
Not only one-gallus farmers from the fields nearby,
But from the great cities near and far
(Chicago, Philadelphia, and, yes, even New York itself
To throw Hannum a quarter to view his gargantuan grotesquery
Just as described in Genesis itself, he noted solemnly
So many, indeed, that Barnum himself was divinely inspired
Not only to purloin the giant, but its prior owner’s epigram
As to the frequency of the manufacture
Of his too-credible customer base.
While there was (briefly, at least) some mystery surrounding
The origins of the brobdingnagian mass of stone,
It remained (to some, anyway) equally unfathomable
Why scores of folks would careen in unsteady coaches
The full length of the Catskill Turnpike,
With its questionable lodging and uneven roadworthiness,
Or patiently suffer the mosquito-laden flatboats of Clinton’s Ditch
All to spend the cash equivalent of two trips to the county fair
To see a perfectly good hootchie-kootchie show
Simply to gawk at an unevenly carved rock of questionable authenticity,
But that explained quite simply,
As the public always gets what the public wants.
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 4:03 PM UTC
Them bastardized youths fell outside, dizzied by a reality unsolved.
Their maws scowled judgment and drooled Pabst down improbable bodies each of them lay in the stink of subtle conformity.
Fiercely unique culture beasts starved away in suburbs; Wikidrifting, those drugged litterbugs scampered.
Dropout fish fast against the current of their time, tired from dancing through desperate crowded nights and disparate lonely dawns, dangling degrees and the specters of success burning incessant their pride.
They were the ******** made so over time contracted by blind parents to nine-to-blithes in which quiet desperation, credit nooses, and irony were the small print.
They were carpenters afraid of their hands. With chisel to headstone, they lied on the hoods of used Japanese cars, panning the radio for a real connection and gazing up at vanishing constellations.
They were their poison and they their elixir, but a cold cigarette was a much quicker fixer of Helplessness Blues and the back of a Bible where a brief intellectual wrote “I am suicidal.”
For how does the turn of the epigram read to those who care less with every new beat of a drummed-up society so high off its piety that seeing stars vanish is simply a shame?
Those ******** dropouts tragically remiss, those Supertramps, Kerouacs, Cohens, and wits.
They were the alternative, urbanite fools that littered alleys with Greek fables and Tibetan tattoos.
Criterion flash cards and the literary canon allowed them to flirt with god in verse and art clues until Pollock’s canvas did rip off their eyelids which left them to know only Socrates knew.
They danced and they writhed, then ****** to pass time, and kept on their passions till lost were their minds. Then they all died, those blasphemous ********
But at least they washed on the back of their crimes.
At least they danced.
At least they were.
And there may be something to movement in chaos.
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 8:06 PM UTC
Feathered Fiends
by Michael R. Burch
Fascists of a feather
flock together.
Alternate:
Conformists of a feather
flock together.
I came up with the "Fascists of a Feather" epigram after Donald Trump repeatedly praised authoritarian "strong men" like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Rodrigo Duterte, Xi Jinping and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Heroic Americans fought a war against fascism and many of them paid the ultimate price, so why is Trump giving comfort to the enemy of democracy?
The alternate version of this couplet was written first and won a National Couplet Contest sponsored by the Society of Classical Poets. The couplet has now been published in one form or another on the websites of major newspapers and news services like TheHill.com, Haaretz.com (Israel), Crikey.com (Australia), Cleveland.com (as the headline of a letter to the editor), Reddit Political Humor, and Humane Conservatives Unite Blog. Sometimes the epigram is quoted in reader comments, sometimes by the writers of letters to the editor, and sometimes within articles.
Keywords/Tags: fascists, flock, together, fascism, conformists, nazis, blackshirts, brownshirts, dictator, tyrant, autocrat, despot, totalitarian, cultist, militarist
Mar 25, 2020
Mar 25, 2020 at 12:48 AM UTC
These are modern English translations of the "Xenia" epigrams written in collaboration by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller.
#2 - Verse versus Kiss
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 - Highest 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 contracts.
―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 virgin’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 versus 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
Keyword/Tags: Goethe, Schiller, epitaph, epigram, German, Germany, translation, love, kiss, friendship, desire, holy, holiness, earth, heaven, beauty, divinity, nature, spirit
Feb 6, 2021
Feb 6, 2021 at 4:39 AM UTC
(On the death of a daughter)
The death I must pronounce upon
For you, parents, the wait was long
Across this land unjustly tried
Your silence only proof you lied.
In pitch darkness, dragged overland
By Dingo jaws and human hand
Guilty and gaoled, she would have read
In her sixth year, were she not dead
Just six weeks, never spoke a word
Now flies the night, free as a bird
Over deserts ochre and red
On Uluru she rests her head
Wakens and plays in sunlight stark
Darts in rock shadows, cool and dark
In Rainbow Spirit surely trust
She lies lightly in sand and dust.
© M.L.Emmett
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 4:56 AM UTC
Childless
by Michael R. Burch
How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
Of one fallen star.
Keywords/Tags: mother, mothers, motherhood, child, childless, death, grief, weight, burden, Atlas, epigram, epitaph, elegy, eulogy, lament
May 10, 2020
May 10, 2020 at 5:49 AM UTC
Mental disability what an epigram, it bounds on burried complexity
Titter inside hysterical effectuation
Feeling electrical currents misfiring in my cerebellum
Screaming unremebered prayers in my night terrors at the devils fornication
Remaining in my presence, anticipating my sleep
***** to reverse the dementia
Waking day dreams, lost in unreality
Descry vociferation calling my name
Wanting to claw my etes out against nebulous shadows creeping behind
Wanting a medium to banih apparitions from my space
Paranoid of all establishment
While securing eye contact with others, they could decipher all my thoughts
With binoculars neighbors surveil
Me camouflaged with drawn shades and pale skin
To go outside summoned all my demons
Wanting to battle, rage war to fulfill some morbid desire
Annihilating hordes in my dreams by any means
***** to reverse the madness
OCD for a little control
A million times repeated thoughts flashing in my eyes
Confusion! What day is it? Am I doing something wrong?
Not glancing in mirrors hiding from myself Garbled guttural utterances in my left ear
Hot breath on my neck
Bawling at flexibility and spontaneity
Not in my scheme for the coming confusing hours
Wanting to pull my skull off exposing the insanity
Just wanted it to STOP!!
***** to reverse the derangement
Limbs not answering brain waves crisscrossed as they dwell
On a daily basis surviving hell
On a nightly basis in true hell
Needing to shriek and explode
Afraid to sleep, walking in exhausted dreams
Broken pains in my bones
No peace day or night
My medication saved my life
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 11:48 AM UTC
In flirtatious quiet
we dodge eye contact
and escape studious looks
in hope that one might fall in love
with the other without even a single word.
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 10:05 PM UTC
At two this midnight the little dark one
Became a poem, her all-knowing smile
The first stanza and her baby bird- glance
Became the next one as she pranced there
On the floor up and down like pendulum
Swinging in the free air, a full fall of force,
A pout of sarcasm from tiny baby lips.
I at midnight wanted to round it off
With a cool third stanza, of epigram
A last line well said, to the deep night.
But she wouldn’t let me, the little one
That squirmed in my hands like a worm
Full of bones that pushed against mine
In my withered palms and finger bones.
It is life which pushed against my death.
As the night creeps I once again go into
My epigrammatic mode of the old poet
With the bally irony thing barely broached.
The curl on my lips that briefly occurred
Vanished without trace in my confusion
As my eye followed her moving in circles.
I thought I had seen the curl on her lips.
Jan 16, 2011
Jan 16, 2011 at 7:38 PM UTC
He makes a wide ring around my feet, as
if him tied to me
or me tied to it - moving me over
the polished grass, taking my mind away
from its machinery;
his urgency is mine for a time, mellow
violent arcs within arcs, splintering
between fork tail and mate, deciding which mood
their pattern will make, finally the image of dance
ends, where the world is carried further
by the replicants of their colour
on the hand of skin,
between thumb, and fore finger
tapping a key board with one speaker
in the best room the dusk can buy,
the sonata shuts off,
eyes made of oil passing over the brim,
shivering with innate worlds smashing on a plate
unslaved gambles and flushing light,
suns night colouring thought in endless epigram,
letting the conduits and candles melt down,
into the folding pool, to journey out
wolves storming bones with silk, and
silence, passion without conscience,
a planet seducing the hive, so acutely mad
that, until it stops to roll the bread in its hands
letting its animals eat
and love first
it cannot grow
a swallow followed me back, the village gathers
into concrete ***** of feral child scream,
and the weeds burst through the concrete, not knowing
that heavens humour mocks everything below,
the local news, the national news, and any news,
make your atoms ache if they join hands for too long
but later
we form one walk,
where our feet whip the path
and signal to the storm with the gestures of our own
that we make in confidence;
turning the lights on,
where they are not,
buying the last tickets
to the last opera, and letting it sing
purging the stage,
and letting us dance up;
feeding the sky
as our joy tells the rest,
it can just wait,
for today.
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 8:13 AM UTC
We sat quietly in the car that never moved
covered in the busy shadows of the garage
you told me I'm proud of you, you know that?
and to silence we returned.
Jul 8, 2018
Jul 8, 2018 at 10:30 PM UTC
Let us
seriously consider
bringing back
the horse
as a
means of transportation
in our cities.
Dec 13, 2015
Dec 13, 2015 at 2:45 PM UTC
Nun Fun Undone!
by Michael R. Burch
after Richard Moore
Abbesses’
recesses
are not for excesses!
Published by Brief Poems. Keywords/Tags: epigram, humor, light verse, doggerel, nun, fun, undone, abbesses, recesses, excesses
Apr 19, 2020
Apr 19, 2020 at 4:03 AM UTC
THE MUSE by Anna Akhmatova
This is my English translation of an epigram by Anna Akhmatova …
The MUSE
by Anna Akhmatova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My being hangs by a thread tonight
as I await a Muse no human pen can command.
The desires of my heart — youth, liberty, glory —
now depend on the Maid with the flute in her hand.
Look! Now she arrives; she flings back her veil;
I meet her grave eyes — calm, implacable, pitiless.
“Temptress, confess!
Are you the one who gave Dante hell?”
She answers, “Yes.”
I have also translated this tribute poem written by Marina Tsvetaeva for Anna Akhmatova:
Excerpt from “Poems for Akhmatova”
by Marina Tsvetaeva
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You outshine everything, even the sun
at its zenith. The stars are yours!
If only I could sweep like the wind
through some unbarred door,
gratefully, to where you are...
to hesitantly stammer, suddenly shy,
lowering my eyes before you, my lovely mistress,
petulant, chastened, overcome by tears,
as a child sobs to receive forgiveness...
Keywords/Tags: Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Russia, Russian, translation, Muse, sun, stars, poems, poetry, poets, writing, mrbtran
Feb 2, 2021
Feb 2, 2021 at 7:42 AM UTC
last night I took a stroll within a dream,
a slow procession through the dirt path aisles,
within her cemetery's mindful stream,
in search of my name carved in stone or tiles,
i'd almost missed the marker to my grave,
cold winds half-covered with forgetfulness,
no epigram was carved to hold and save
my memory, entombed in nothingness,
two bookend dates to mark my history--
when we were born and when we died in love--
my name, two words containing all of me,
a marker quite unseen from up above,
now from this stroll i've surely learned a lot,
to not inquire of what her mind's forgot
(C)2013, Christos Rigakos
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 10:54 PM UTC
How can simple nonoffensive words hurt so much?
How can the plain question: "who am I?" make my stomach clutch?
Why does the disability to answer make me feel like a bird in a hutch?
I try to look for answers, but I end up too weak straying from my goal looking for a crutch.
Speaking of going astray, here goes my mind once again.
Even I don't know the depths of my thoughts, not the tenth of my brain.
After all, I am just a demo, a soul in a chain.
What if: "What am I?" is saner?
That I can say. I am a human that yet did not drain.
A believer of the old saying "no pain no gain."
Oh no! I am more than that! I am a grain.
And I hold within me the power of a reign.
All I need is to grow, all I need is rain.
Rain... rain ladies and gentlemen is nature's beloved soundtrack.
It is the pitter-patter that makes my heart crack.
Sky, why are you so black?
What is it that you feel you lack?
I promise I won't stand back.
Dear horizon ease your anxiety attack,
for you are more loved than FLACK.
I am a 16RAM program of a telegram whose programmer programmed to deprogram all pogrom to the last gram by the use of an epigram.
In simpler terms, I am a poet.
I love the world when I'm high and when I'm at my lowest.
I believe that I am a poet because poetry is the highest expression of love.
I am a lover of this earth and the heavens above.
Love isn't just a myth,
it does exist.
I could go on like this, naming all that I love with a never-ending list.
I have learned to adore the darkest of times,
I have learned to be fascinated by all lives.
Earth why are you falling apart? Why are you so angry? Why are you committing all of these crimes?
Ease your typhoons your tornadoes pandemics tsunamis and volcanoes. Dear planet no need for more hives.
I can't promise you that we will behave,
for mankind is foolish,
him who once lived in a cave.
I understand your wish for the extinction of all humans.
But like any other love story, our love did not last.
While earth took us in her arms in the past,
whilst earth lovingly caressed humans otherwise.
In the present, it has harassed us as if we were Pennywise.
The touch of life used to give me butterflies.
But for now, all I hear is earth's cries.
The earth has loved us so purely,
although earth is 22 500 times older than man she has welcomed him so demurely.
And yet, man polluted destructed and poisoned. Oh isn't man such a disgrace?
How can he look earth in the face?
Apr 9, 2020
Apr 9, 2020 at 3:28 PM UTC
we laugh
but it's not funny.
we laugh
because we don't know
what else to do.
the tears run
into my eyes
and your blurred outline
pulses and dims.
i laugh
once i cant see
you at all anymore.
you laugh
because it's done
and over.
we laugh
but it's not funny.
we laugh
because the feel is gone.
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 2:30 AM UTC
Die Maske des Bösen (“The Mask of Evil”)
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A Japanese woodcarving hangs on my wall—
the mask of an ancient demon, limned with golden lacquer.
Not unsympathetically, I observe
the forehead’s bulging veins,
the strain
such malevolence requires.
Original German text:
Die Maske des Bösen
An meiner Wand hängt ein japanisches Holzwerk
Maske eines bösen Dämons, bemalt mit Goldlack.
Mitfühlend sehe ich
Die geschwollenen Stirnadern, andeutend
Wie anstrengend es ist, böse zu sein.
Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956] was a major German poet, playwright, novelist, humorist, essayist, theater director and songwriter. Brecht fled Germany in 1933, when ****** assumed power. A number of Brecht's poems were written from the perspective of a man who sees his country becoming increasingly fascist, xenophobic and militaristic. Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, German, translation, Holocaust, poem, Japanese, carving, mask, demon, evil, malevolence, sympathy, compassion, understanding, feeling, forehead, veins, swollen, bulging, effort, strain, exhausting, concentration, suggest, suggesting, suggestive, demonstrating, revealing, showing, wall, gold, golden, lacquer, paint, woodwork, totem, malice, hatred, enmity, spite, spitefulness, animosity, anger, maliciousness, malignancy, venom, spleen, viciousness
Bertolt Brecht Epigrams and Quotations
These are my modern English translations of epigrams and quotations by Bertolt Brecht.
Everyone chases the way happiness feels,
unaware how it nips at their heels.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The world of learning takes a crazy turn
when teachers are taught to discern!
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Unhappy, the land that lacks heroes.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Hungry man, reach for the book:
it's a hook,
a harpoon.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
War is like love; true ...
it finds a way through.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
What happens to the hole
when the cheese is no longer whole?
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
It is easier to rob by setting up a bank
than by threatening the poor clerk.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Do not fear death so much, or strife,
but rather fear the inadequate life.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, translation, translations, German, modern English, epigram, epigrams, quote, quotes, quotations
Mar 20, 2020
Mar 20, 2020 at 11:50 PM UTC
An epigram's a scorpion thing:
A compact body and a potent sting
Oct 25, 2009
Oct 25, 2009 at 12:38 PM UTC
Through my mind swim faint ideas--
Vague suggestions of calm reflections,
Bound by the weave of desire to inspire,
By creating a grand collection of perception.
But with senses jaded in dense pretense,
I can but jot some coarse epigram,
That will tickle the mind of a fickle aesthete,
But leave no longstanding, resounding verbatim.
Aug 8, 2013
Aug 8, 2013 at 1:19 AM UTC