If thine eye offends thee
pluck it out....

War offends
my eye.

All my
senses
defiled
*****
disemboweled
by the
abomination
of war.

My mind
disregards
denigrates
reneges
warps time
destroys values
alters psyches
lays waste
to my
conscience
of hope.

Mine eye offends me
the complicit witness
complacently
ambivalent
turning deaf ears
to groans
of the wounded
wails of the aggrieved
silence of the dead;
shutting doors
to sanctuaries
where refugees
seek safe houses,
locking factories
where men seek work,
level homes
where women nurture,
strafe playgrounds
where children laugh,
raise cities
where people
learn to be human,
immolate mosques
where
God's Children
cry out to the
Beneficent One.

Mine eye offends me,
my gut sickens,
to witness
the slaughter
of innocents
droning on
no angels to save
the million Issac's
savagely smashed to bits
by a Tomahawk's blow.

God's vengeance
escalates
the celestial ledgers
dripping red ink
from excessive
collateral damage,
people reduced
as objects used
to secure a loan
indeed an ARM
on a real time
American nightmare
whose reset rate
is mounting body counts
and massive budget allocations
protecting undisturbed flows
of corporate profits
valued in barrels
of imported blood.

Mine eye offends me
an innocence lost
Veritas vanquished
life is devalued
humanity debased
compassion defunct
empathy a twisted satire
an indelible weakness
incidental hostage
to the torridness
of the lurid play
of savage nations
projecting will,
a devastation
of action.

Mine eye offends me
the message of
sweet Jesus
a way of light
transformed into
biblical justification
agitprop verse
stoking blood lust zeal
for apostate infidels
sons of Abraham's
unworthy spawn,
of Hagar the *****
******* child Ishmael
turned out again
from tribal tents
of an absentee father
from an unfriendly
paternity.

This black *******
an abomination
in the sight of Allah
celebrates
a zeal to ****
unholy disciples
yearning to fill
banana crates
with body parts
draped in
drab Hijabs
decorated with
satanic verses
from a
Holy Quran
carved with
bayonets
of self righteous
Crusaders
armed with rifles
inscribed with
Gospel verses
on deadly gun
barrel stocks
to ramp the passion
of the righteous Crusade
against Godless apostates.

Mine eye offends me
as I witness
the **** of
corporate mercenaries
churning bereaved
Blackwaters
beholden only
to shareholders
gobbling spoils of war
to safely exit
to private vomitoriums
to expunge the excess
of gluttony
only to
quickly return
to engorge themselves
at the public troughs
again.

No constitutional
restraints
save the
strict guidelines
of holy
corporate governance scriptures
ruthlessly enforced with
golden carrots
of multi-million dollar
stock options
and the brutal stick
of shareholders divine right
to quarterly dividends
and above average
equity returns.

Corporate warriors
anointed by
holy oil
proffered
by capitalist shamans
and US Senators
conferring
jurisprudential deferment
on civil law
recusing them from
any behavior
to recognize the humanity
of captive insurgents.

Mine eye offends me,
as the flag
draped coffins
of returning
servicemen
and women
continue to pile
on the boiling tarmac
of Dover Air Force Base.

Tearful salutes,
folded flags
and mournful dirges
of prerecorded Taps
are small compensation for
shattered families,
and a wasted life,
unnecessarily spent,
criminally sacrificed
in a pointless conflict
in service to a lie.

Mine eye offends me
as I watch
my country's soft parade
of growing militarization
xenophobic fear
compelled patriotism
salute and goose step
to the flash of sword
and the sound of guns
and the glittering
medals of valor
adorning the chests
of a nations warriors.

How barbaric
are we?
allocating
overstuffed
apportionment
of weapons
and armories
while
people are
foreclosed
forcing armies
of unemployed
Joads
to ride
en masse on
an Acela Express
to a crowded
poor house
a listless journey
on pock marked
highways
arriving at
dreaded
destinations
to defunct
townships
offering
empty factories
and closed schools.

Screaming in silence
I scratch at my eyes
with numbed fingers.

Matthew 18:9

Music Selection:
The Doors, The Soft Parade

Oakland
3/17/10
jbm

How Long the Night: Modern English Translations of Medieval Poems Written in Middle English and Old English/Anglo-Saxon English

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast—
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong,
now grieve, mourn and fast.

Originally published by Measure

Keywords/Tags: Old English, Middle English, Medieval English, long night, lament, complaint, alas, summer, pleasant, winter, north wind, northern wind, severe weather, storm, bird, birds, birdsong, sin, crime, fast, fasting, repentance, dark night of the soul, sackcloth and ashes, regret, repentance, remonstrance

These are modern English translations of Old English/Anglo-Saxon poems and Middle English poems by Anonymous, Caedmon, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Campion, Deor, William Dunbar, Godric of Finchale, Charles d'Orleans, Layamon and Sir Thomas Wyatt.



Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (1460-1525)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.

Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet everywhere, no odor but rue.

I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose and left her downcast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that I long to plant love's root again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.

My translation of "Lament for the Makaris" by William Dunbar appears later on this page.



"Now skruketh rose and lylie flour" is an early Middle English poem that gives a hint of things to come, in terms of meter and rhyme …

Now skruketh rose and lylie flour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 11th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now the rose and the lily skyward flower,
That will bear for awhile that sweet savor:
In summer, that sweet tide;
There is no queen so stark in her power
Nor any lady so bright in her bower
That Death shall not summon and guide;
But whoever forgoes lust, in heavenly bliss will abide
With his thoughts on Jesus anon, thralled at his side.

skruketh = break forth, burst open; stour = strong, stern, hardy; tharled = thralled?, made a serf?, bound?



Fowles in the Frith
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fowls in the forest,
the fishes in the flood
and I must go mad:
such sorrow I've had
for beasts of bone and blood!

Sounds like an early animal rights activist! The use of "and" is intriguing … is the poet saying that his walks in the woods drive him mad because he's also a "beast of bone and blood" facing a similar fate? I must note, however, that this is my personal interpretation. The poem has "beste" and the poet may have meant "for the best of bone and blood" meaning some unidentified person, presumably.



Westron Wynde
(anonymous Middle English lyric, found in a partbook circa 1530 AD, but perhaps written earlier)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Western wind, when will you blow,
bringing the drizzling rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
and I in my bed again!

The original poem has "the smalle rayne down can rayne" which suggests a drizzle or mist.



This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything comes to naught.



Pity Mary
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now the sun passes under the wood:
I rue, Mary, thy face—fair, good.
Now the sun passes under the tree:
I rue, Mary, thy son and thee.

In the poem above, note how "wood" and "tree" invoke the cross while "sun" and "son" seem to invoke each other. Sun-day is also Son-day, to Christians. The anonymous poet who wrote the poem above may have been been punning the words "sun" and "son." The poem is also known as "Now Goeth Sun Under Wood" and "Now Go'th Sun Under Wood."



I am of Ireland
(anonymous Medieval Irish lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am of Ireland,
and of the holy realm of Ireland.
Gentlefolk, I pray thee:
for the sake of saintly charity,
come dance with me
in Ireland!



Whan the turuf is thy tour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
shall be sullen worms’ to note.
What help to you, then,
was all your worldly hope?

2.
When the turf is your tower
and the grave is your bower,
your pale white throat and skin
worm-eaten from within …
what hope of my help then?

The second translation leans more to the "lover's complaint" and carpe diem genres, with the poet pointing out to his prospective lover that by denying him her favors she make take her virtue to the grave where worms will end her virginity in macabre fashion. This poem may be an ancient precursor of poems like Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."



Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow exit this fen.
Second, that I cannot know when.
And yet it’s the third that torments me so,
Because I don't know where the hell I will go!



Ich have y-don al myn youth
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have done it all my youth:
Often, often, and often!
I have loved long and yearned zealously …
And oh what grief it has brought me!



GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Three Roundels by Geoffrey Chaucer

I. Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain green;
for your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain.

By all truth, I tell you faithfully
that you are of life and death my queen;
for at my death this truth shall be seen:
your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.



II. Rejection
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has been cast.
I tell you truly, needless now to feign,—
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain.

Alas, that Nature in your face compassed
Such beauty, that no man may hope attain
To mercy, though he perish from the pain;
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.



III. Escape
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.

He may question me and counter this and that;
I care not: I will answer just as I mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean.

Love strikes me from his roster, short and flat,
And he is struck from my books, just as clean,
Forevermore; there is no other mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.



Welcome, Summer
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights’ frosts.
Saint Valentine, in the heavens aloft,
the songbirds sing your praises together!

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather.

We have good cause to rejoice, not scoff,
since love’s in the air, and also in the heather,
whenever we find such blissful warmth, together.

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights’ frosts.



CHARLES D'ORLEANS

Rondel: Your Smiling Mouth
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation by Michael R. Burch

Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains,
Your hands so smooth, each finger straight and plain,
Your little feet—please, what more can I say?

It is my fetish when you’re far away
To muse on these and thus to soothe my pain—
Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains.

So would I beg you, if I only may,
To see such sights as I before have seen,
Because my fetish pleases me. Obscene?
I’ll be obsessed until my dying day
By your sweet smiling mouth and eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains!



Spring
by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can only hazard guesses.
But they rear like prancing steeds
raked by brilliant spurs of need,
Young lovers.



Oft in My Thought
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
    Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
    To give my lady dear;
    But that sweet thought's been wrested from me, clear,
        Since death, alas, has sealed her under clay
    And robbed the world of all that's precious here―
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

For me to keep my manner and my thought
    Acceptable, as suits my age's hour?
While proving that I never once forgot
    Her worth? It tests my power!
    I serve her now with masses and with prayer;
        For it would be a shame for me to stray
    Far from my faith, when my time's drawing near—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

Now earthly profits fail, since all is lost
    And the cost of everything became so dear;
Therefore, O Lord, who rules the higher host,
    Take my good deeds, as many as there are,
    And crown her, Lord, above in your bright sphere,
        As heaven's truest maid! And may I say:
    Most good, most fair, most likely to bring cheer—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

When I praise her, or hear her praises raised,
I recall how recently she brought me pleasure;
    Then my heart floods like an overflowing bay
And makes me wish to dress for my own bier—
    God keep her soul, I can no better say.



Winter has cast his cloak away
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation by Michael R. Burch

Winter has cast his cloak away
of wind and cold and chilling rain
to dress in embroidered light again:
the light of day—bright, festive, gay!
Each bird and beast, without delay,
in its own tongue, sings this refrain:
"Winter has cast his cloak away!"
Brooks, fountains, rivers, streams at play,
wear, with their summer livery,
bright beads of silver jewelry.
All the Earth has a new and fresh display:
Winter has cast his cloak away!

This rondeau was set to music by Debussy in his Trois chansons de France.



The year lays down his mantle cold
by Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation by Michael R. Burch

The year lays down his mantle cold
of wind, chill rain and bitter air,
and now goes clad in clothes of gold
of smiling suns and seasons fair,
while birds and beasts of wood and fold
now with each cry and song declare:
"The year lays down his mantle cold!"
All brooks, springs, rivers, seaward rolled,
now pleasant summer livery wear
with silver beads embroidered where
the world puts off its raiment old.
The year lays down his mantle cold.



Fair Lady Without Peer
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fair Lady, without peer, my plea,
Is that your grace will pardon me,
Since I implore, on bended knee.
No longer can I, privately,
Keep this from you: my deep distress,
When only you can comfort me,
For I consider you my only mistress.

This powerful love demands, I fear,
That I confess things openly,
Since to your service I came here
And my helpless eyes were forced to see
Such beauty gods and angels cheer,
Which brought me joy in such excess
That I became your servant, gladly,
For I consider you my only mistress.

Please grant me this great gift most dear:
to be your vassal, willingly.
May it please you that, now, year by year,
I shall serve you as my only Liege.
I bend the knee here—true, sincere—
Unfit to beg one royal kiss,
Although none other offers cheer,
For I consider you my only mistress.



Chanson: Let Him Refrain from Loving, Who Can
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let him refrain from loving, who can.
I can no longer hover.
I must become a lover.
What will become of me, I know not.

Although I’ve heard the distant thought
that those who love all suffer,
I must become a lover.
I can no longer refrain.

My heart must risk almost certain pain
and trust in Beauty, however distraught.
For if a man does not love, then what?
Let him refrain from loving, who can.



Her Beauty
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Her beauty, to the world so plain,
Still intimately held my heart in thrall
And so established her sole reign:
She was, of Good, the cascading fountain.
Thus of my Love, lost recently,
I say, while weeping bitterly:
“We cleave to this strange world in vain.”

In ages past when angels fell
The world grew darker with the stain
Of their dear blood, then became hell
While poets wept a tearful strain.
Yet, to his dark and drear domain
Death took his victims, piteously,
So that we bards write bitterly:
“We cleave to this strange world in vain.”

Death comes to claim our angels, all,
as well we know, and spares no pain.
Over our pleasures, Death casts his pall,
Then without joy we “living” remain.
Death treats all Love with such disdain!
What use is this world? For it seems to me,
It has neither Love, nor Pity.
Thus “We cleave to this strange world in vain.”



Chanson: The Summer's Heralds
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Summer’s heralds bring a dear
Sweet season of soft-falling showers
And carpet fields once brown and sere
With lush green grasses and fresh flowers.

Now over gleaming lawns appear
The bright sun-dappled lengthening hours.

The Summer’s heralds bring a dear
Sweet season of soft-falling showers.

Faint hearts once chained by sullen fear
No longer shiver, tremble, cower.
North winds no longer storm and glower.
For winter has no business here.



Traitorous Eye
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Traitorous eye, what’s new?
What lewd pranks do you have in view?
Without civil warning, you spy,
And no one ever knows why!

Who understands anything you do?
You’re rash and crass in your boldness too,
And your lewdness is hard to subdue.
Change your crude ways, can’t you?

Traitorous eye, what’s new?
You should be beaten through and through
With a stripling birch strap or two.
Traitorous eye, what’s new?
What lewd pranks do have you in view?



SIR THOMAS WYATT

“Whoso List to Hunt” has an alternate title, “The Lover Despairing to Attain Unto His Lady’s Grace Relinquisheth the Pursuit” and is commonly believed to have been written for Anne Boleyn, who married King Henry VIII only to be beheaded at his command when she failed to produce a male heir. (Ouch, talk about male chauvinism!)

Whoever Longs to Hunt
by Sir Thomas Wyatt
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation 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.



Brut, an excerpt
by Layamon, circa 1100 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now he stands on a hill overlooking the Avon,
seeing steel fishes girded with swords in the stream,
their swimming days done,
their scales a-gleam like gold-plated shields,
their fish-spines floating like shattered spears.



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English poem circa 960-990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.
Here, bloodthirsty curs howl for carnage.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

My thoughts pursued Wulf like panting hounds.
Whenever it rained, as I wept,
the bold warrior came; he took me in his arms:
good feelings, to a point, but the end loathsome!
Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your infrequent visits
have left me famished, deprived of real meat!
Do you hear, Eadwacer? Watchdog!
A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.



Cædmon's Hymn (Old English circa 658-680 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, let us honour      heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the might of the Architect      and his mind-plans,
the work of the Glory-Father.      First he, the Everlasting Lord,
established      the foundation of wonders.
Then he, the Primeval Poet,      created heaven as a roof
for the sons of men,      Holy Creator,
Maker of mankind.      Then he, the Eternal Entity,
afterwards made men middle-earth:      Master Almighty!



A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

3.
Often the deed-dodger avoids ventures,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.



Franks Casket Runes
anonymous Old English poems, circa 700 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fish flooded the shore-cliffs;
the sea-king wept when he swam onto the shingle:
whale's bone.

Romulus and Remus, twin brothers weaned in Rome
by a she-wolf, far from their native land.



"The Leiden Riddle" is an Old English translation of Aldhelm's Latin riddle Lorica ("Corselet").

The Leiden Riddle
anonymous Old English riddle poem, circa 700 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dank earth birthed me from her icy womb.
I know I was not fashioned from woolen fleeces;
nor was I skillfully spun from skeins;
I have neither warp nor weft;
no thread thrums through me in the thrashing loom;
nor do whirring shuttles rattle me;
nor does the weaver's rod assail me;
nor did silkworms spin me like skillfull fates
into curious golden embroidery.
And yet heroes still call me an excellent coat.
Nor do I fear the dread arrows' flights,
however eagerly they leap from their quivers.

Solution: a coat of mail.



If you see a busker singing for tips, you're seeing someone carrying on an Anglo-Saxon tradition that goes back to the days of Beowulf …

He sits with his harp at his thane's feet,
Earning his hire, his rewards of rings,
Sweeping the strings with his skillful nail;
Hall-thanes smile at the sweet song he sings.
—"Fortunes of Men" loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Deor's Lament
(Anglo Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland knew the agony of exile.
That indomitable smith was wracked by grief.
He endured countless troubles:
sorrows were his only companions
in his frozen island dungeon
after Nithad had fettered him,
many strong-but-supple sinew-bonds
binding the better man.
   That passed away; this also may.

Beadohild mourned her brothers' deaths
but even more, her own sad state
once she discovered herself with child.
She predicted nothing good could come of it.
   That passed away; this also may.

We have heard that the Geat's moans for Matilda,
his lady, were limitless,
that his sorrowful love for her
robbed him of regretless sleep.
   That passed away; this also may.

For thirty winters Theodric ruled
the Mæring stronghold with an iron hand;
many knew this and moaned.
   That passed away; this also may.

We have also heard of Ermanaric's wolfish ways,
of how he held wide sway in the realm of the Goths.
He was a grim king! Many a warrior sat,
full of cares and maladies of the mind,
wishing constantly that his kingdom might be overthrown.
   That passed away; this also may.

If a man sits long enough, sorrowful and anxious,
bereft of joy, his mind constantly darkening,
soon it seems to him that his troubles are endless.
Then he must consider that the wise Lord
often moves through the earth
granting some men honor, glory and fame,
but others only shame and hardship.
This I will say for myself:
that for awhile I was the Heodeninga's scop,
dear to my lord. My name was Deor.
For many winters I held a fine office,
faithfully serving a just lord. But now Heorrenda
a man skilful in songs, has received the estate
the protector of warriors gave me.
   That passed away; this also may.



The Wife's Lament
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I draw these words from deep wells of my grief,
care-worn, unutterably sad.
I can recount woes I've borne since birth,
present and past, never more than now.
I have won, from my exile-paths, only pain.

First, my lord forsook his folk, left,
crossed the seas' tumult, far from our people.
Since then, I've known
wrenching dawn-griefs, dark mournings … oh where,
where can he be?

Then I, too, left—a lonely, lordless refugee,
full of unaccountable desires!
But the man's kinsmen schemed secretly
to estrange us, divide us, keep us apart,
across earth's wide kingdom, and my heart broke.

Then my lord spoke:
"Take up residence here."
I had few friends in this unknown, cheerless
region, none close.
Christ, I felt lost!

Then I thought I had found a well-matched man –
one meant for me,
but unfortunately he
was ill-starred and blind, with a devious mind,
full of murderous intentions, plotting some crime!

Before God we
vowed never to part, not till kingdom come, never!
But now that's all changed, forever –
our friendship done, severed.
I must hear, far and near, contempt for my husband.

So other men bade me, "Go, live in the grove,
beneath the great oaks, in an earth-cave, alone."
In this ancient cave-dwelling I am lost and oppressed –
the valleys are dark, the hills immense,
and this cruel-briared enclosure—an arid abode!

The injustice assails me—my lord's absence!
On earth there are lovers who share the same bed
while I pass through life dead in this dark abscess
where I wilt, summer days unable to rest
or forget the sorrows of my life's hard lot.

A young woman must always be
stern, hard-of-heart, unmoved,
opposing breast-cares and her heartaches' legions.
She must appear cheerful
even in a tumult of grief.

Like a criminal exiled to a far-off land,
moaning beneath insurmountable cliffs,
my weary-minded love, drenched by wild storms
and caught in the clutches of anguish,
is reminded constantly of our former happiness.

Woe be it to them who abide in longing.



The Husband's Message
anonymous Old English poem, circa 960-990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

See, I unseal myself for your eyes only!
I sprang from a seed to a sapling,
waxed great in a wood,
                           was given knowledge,
was ordered across saltstreams in ships
where I stiffened my spine, standing tall,
till, entering the halls of heroes,
                   I honored my manly Lord.

Now I stand here on this ship’s deck,
an emissary ordered to inform you
of the love my Lord feels for you.
I have no fear forecasting his heart steadfast,
his honor bright, his word true.

He who bade me come carved this letter
and entreats you to recall, clad in your finery,
what you promised each other many years before,
mindful of his treasure-laden promises.

He reminds you how, in those distant days,
witty words were pledged by you both
in the mead-halls and homesteads:
how he would be Lord of the lands
you would inhabit together
while forging a lasting love.

Alas, a vendetta drove him far from his feuding tribe,
but now he instructs me to gladly give you notice
that when you hear the returning cuckoo's cry
cascading down warming coastal cliffs,
come over the sea! Let no man hinder your course.

He earnestly urges you: Out! To sea!
Away to the sea, when the circling gulls
hover over the ship that conveys you to him!

Board the ship that you meet there:
sail away seaward to seek your husband,
over the seagulls' range,
                          over the paths of foam.
For over the water, he awaits you.

He cannot conceive, he told me,
how any keener joy could comfort his heart,
nor any greater happiness gladden his soul,
than that a generous God should grant you both
to exchange rings, then give gifts to trusty liege-men,
golden armbands inlaid with gems to faithful followers.

The lands are his, his estates among strangers,
his new abode fair and his followers true,
all hardy heroes, since hence he was driven,
shoved off in his ship from these shore in distress,
steered straightway over the saltstreams, sped over the ocean,
a wave-tossed wanderer winging away.

But now the man has overcome his woes,
outpitted his perils, lives in plenty, lacks no luxury,
has a hoard and horses and friends in the mead-halls.

All the wealth of the earth's great earls
now belongs to my Lord …
                                             He only lacks you.

He would have everything within an earl's having,
if only my Lady will come home to him now,
if only she will do as she swore and honor her vow.



Led By Christ and Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

By Christ and Saint Mary I was so graciously led
that the earth never felt my bare foot’s tread!

Crist and sainte marie swa on scamel me iledde
þat ic on þis erðe ne silde wid mine bare fote itredie



A Cry to Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
Saintë Marië Virginë,
Mother of Jesus Christ the Nazarenë,
Welcome, shield and help thin Godric,
Fly him off to God’s kingdom rich!

II.
Saintë Marië, Christ’s bower,
****** among Maidens, Motherhood’s flower,
Blot out my sin, fix where I’m flawed,
Elevate me to Bliss with God!



Prayer to St. Nicholas
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Saint Nicholas, beloved of God,
Build us a house that’s bright and fair;
Watch over us from birth to bier,
Then, Saint Nicholas, bring us safely there!

Sainte Nicholaes godes druð
tymbre us faire scone hus
At þi burth at þi bare
Sainte nicholaes bring vs wel þare



The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and graciously provided its radiant engine.
I was gladdened with glees, bathed in bright hues,
deluged with joy’s blossoms, sunshine-infused.

Men admired me, feted me with banquet-courses;
we rejoiced in the good life. Gaily bedecked horses
carried me swiftly across plains on joyful rides,
delighting me with their long limbs' thunderous strides.
That world was quickened by earth’s fruits and their flavors!
I cantered under pleasant skies, attended by troops of advisers.
Guests came and went, amusing me with their chatter
as I listened with delight to their witty palaver.

Well-appointed ships glided by in the distance;
when I sailed myself, I was never without guidance.
I was of the highest rank; I lacked for nothing in the hall;
nor did I lack for brave companions; warriors, all,
we strode through castle halls weighed down with gold
won from our service to thanes. We were proud men, and bold.
Wise men praised me; I was omnipotent in battle;
Fate smiled on and protected me; foes fled before me like cattle.
Thus I lived with joy indwelling; faithful retainers surrounded me;
I possessed vast estates; I commanded all my eyes could see;
the earth lay subdued before me; I sat on a princely throne;
the words I sang were charmed; old friendships did not wane …

Those were years rich in gifts and the sounds of happy harp-strings,
when a lasting peace dammed shut the rivers’ sorrowings.
My servants were keen, their harps resonant;
their songs pealed, the sound loud but pleasant;
the music they made melodious, a continual delight;
the castle hall trembled and towered bright.
Courage increased, wealth waxed with my talent;
I gave wise counsel to great lords and enriched the valiant.

My spirit enlarged; my heart rejoiced;
good faith flourished; glory abounded; abundance increased.
I was lavishly supplied with gold; bright gems were circulated …
Till treasure led to treachery and the bonds of friendship constricted.

I was bold in my bright array, noble in my equipage,
my joy princely, my home a happy hermitage.
I protected and led my people;
for many years my life among them was regal;
I was devoted to them and they to me.

But now my heart is troubled, fearful of the fates I see;
disaster seems unavoidable. Someone dear departs in flight by night
who once before was bold. His soul has lost its light.
A secret disease in full growth blooms within his breast,
spreads in different directions. Hostility blossoms in his chest,
in his mind. Bottomless grief assaults the mind's nature
and when penned in, erupts in rupture,
burns eagerly for calamity, runs bitterly about.

The weary man suffers, begins a journey into doubt;
his pain is ceaseless; pain increases his sorrows, destroys his bliss;
his glory ceases; he loses his happiness;
he loses his craft; he no longer burns with desires.
Thus joys here perish, lordships expire;
men lose faith and descend into vice;
infirm faith degenerates into evil’s curse;
faith feebly abandons its high seat and every hour grows worse.

So now the world changes; Fate leaves men lame;
Death pursues hatred and brings men to shame.
The happy clan perishes; the spear rends the marrow;
the evildoer brawls and poisons the arrow;
sorrow devours the city; old age castrates courage;
misery flourishes; wrath desecrates the peerage;
the abyss of sin widens; the treacherous path snakes;
resentment burrows, digs in, wrinkles, engraves;
artificial beauty grows foul;
the summer heat cools;
earthly wealth fails;
enmity rages, cruel, bold;
the might of the world ages, courage grows cold.
Fate wove itself for me and my sentence was given:
that I should dig a grave and seek that grim cavern
men cannot avoid when death comes, arrow-swift,
to seize their lives in his inevitable grasp.
Now night comes at last,
and the way stand clear
for Death to dispossesses me of my my abode here.

When my corpse lies interred and the worms eat my limbs,
whom will Death delight then, with his dark feast and hymns?
Let men’s bones become one,
and then finally, none,
till there’s nothing left here of the evil ones.
But men of good faith will not be destroyed;
the good man will rise, far beyond the Void,
who chastened himself, more often than not,
to avoid bitter sins and that final black Blot.
The good man has hope of a far better end
and remembers the promise of Heaven,
where he’ll experience the mercies of God for his saints,
freed from all sins, dark and depraved,
defended from vices, gloriously saved,
where, happy at last before their cheerful Lord,
men may rejoice in his love forevermore.



Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Adam lay bound, bound in a bond;
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been,
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus;
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"

The poem has also been rendered as "Adam lay i-bounden" and "Adam lay i-bowndyn."



I Sing of a Maiden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless.
The King of all Kings
For her son she chose.

He came also as still
To his mother's breast
As April dew
Falling on the grass.

He came also as still
To his mother's bower
As April dew
Falling on the flower.

He came also as still
To where his mother lay
As April dew
Falling on the spray.

Mother and maiden?
Never one, but she!
Well may such a lady
God's mother be!



Tegner's Drapa
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard a voice, that cried,
“Balder the beautiful lies dead, lies dead …”
a voice like the flight of white cranes
intent on a sun sailing high overhead—
but a sun now irretrievably setting.

Then I saw the sun’s corpse
—dead beyond all begetting—
borne through disconsolate skies
as blasts from the Nifel-heim rang out with dread,
“Balder lies dead, our fair Balder lies dead! …”

Lost—the sweet runes of his tongue,
so sweet every lark hushed its singing!
Lost, lost forever—his beautiful face,
the grace of his smile, all the girls’ hearts wild-winging!
O, who ever thought such strange words might be said,
as “Balder lies dead, gentle Balder lies dead! …”



Lament for the Makaris (Makers, or Poets)
by William Dunbar (1460-1525)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

i who enjoyed good health and gladness
am overwhelmed now by life’s terrible sickness
and enfeebled with infirmity …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

our presence here is mere vainglory;
the false world is but transitory;
the flesh is frail; the Fiend runs free …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

the state of man is changeable:
now sound, now sick, now blithe, now dull,
now manic, now devoid of glee …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

no state on earth stands here securely;
as the wild wind shakes the willow tree,
so wavers this world’s vanity …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

Death leads the knights into the field
(unarmored under helm and shield)
sole Victor of each red mêlée …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

that strange, despotic Beast
tears from its mother’s breast
the babe, full of benignity …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

He takes the champion of the hour,
the captain of the highest tower,
the beautiful damsel in her tower …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

He spares no lord for his elegance,
nor clerk for his intelligence;
His dreadful stroke no man can flee …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

artist, magician, scientist,
orator, debater, theologist,
must all conclude, so too, as we:
“how the fear of Death dismays me!”

in medicine the most astute
sawbones and surgeons all fall mute;
they cannot save themselves, or flee …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

i see the Makers among the unsaved;
the greatest of Poets all go to the grave;
He does not spare them their faculty …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

i have seen Him pitilessly devour
our noble Chaucer, poetry’s flower,
and Lydgate and Gower (great Trinity!) …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

since He has taken my brothers all,
i know He will not let me live past the fall;
His next prey will be — poor unfortunate me! …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

there is no remedy for Death;
we all must prepare to relinquish breath
so that after we die, we may be set free
from “the fear of Death dismays me!”



Fairest Between Lincoln and Lindsey
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa late 13th century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the nightingale sings, the woods turn green;
Leaf and grass again blossom in April, I know,
Yet love pierces my heart with its spear so keen!
Night and day it drinks my blood. The painful rivulets flow.

I’ve loved all this year. Now I can love no more;
I’ve sighed many a sigh, sweetheart, and yet all seems wrong.
For love is no nearer and that leaves me poor.
Sweet lover, think of me — I’ve loved you so long!



Sumer is icumen in
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1260 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sing now cuckoo! Sing, cuckoo!
Sing, cuckoo! Sing now cuckoo!

Summer is a-comin'!
Sing loud, cuckoo!
The seed grows,
The meadow blows,
The woods spring up anew.
Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe bleats for her lamb;
The cows contentedly moo;
The bullock roots;
The billy-goat poots …
Sing merrily, cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing so well, cuckoo!
Never stop, until you're through!



The Maiden Lay in the Wilds
circa the 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The maiden in the moor lay,
in the moor lay;
seven nights full,
seven nights full,
the maiden in the moor lay,
in the moor lay,
seven nights full and a day.

Sweet was her meat.
But what was her meat?
The primrose and the—
The primrose and the—
Sweet was her meat.
But what was her meat?
The primrose and the violet.

Pure was her drink.
But what was her drink?
The cold waters of the—
The cold waters of the—
Pure was her drink.
But what was her drink?
The cold waters of the well-spring.

Bright was her bower.
But what was her bower?
The red rose and the—
The red rose and the—
Bright was her bower.
But what was her bower?
The red rose and the lily flower.



The World an Illusion
circa 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is the sum of wisdom bright:
however things may appear,
life vanishes like birds in flight;
now it’s here, now there.
Nor are we mighty in our “might”—
now on the bench, now on the bier.
However vigilant or wise,
in health it’s death we fear.
However proud and without peer,
no man’s immune to tragedy.
And though we think all’s solid here,
this world is but a fantasy.

The sun’s course we may claim to know:
arises east, sets in the west;
we know which way earth’s rivers flow,
into the seas that fill and crest.
The winds rush here and there, also,
it rains and snows without arrest.
Will it all end? God only knows,
with the wisdom of the Blessed,
while we on earth remain hard-pressed,
all bedraggled, or too dry,
until we vanish, just a guest:
this world is but a fantasy.



Trust Only Yourself
circa the 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alas! Deceit lies in trust now,
dubious as Fortune, spinning like a ball,
as brittle when tested as a rotten bough.
He who trusts in trust is ripe for a fall!
Such guile in trust cannot be trusted,
or a man will soon find himself busted.
Therefore, “Be wary of trust!” is my advice.
Trust only yourself and learn to be wise.



See, Here, My Heart
circa the 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O, mankind,
please keep in mind
where Passions start:
there you will find
me wholly kind—
see, here, my heart.



How Death Comes
circa the 13th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When my eyes mist
and my ears hiss
and my nose grows cold
as my tongue folds
and my face grows slack
as my lips grow black
and my mouth gapes
as my spit forms lakes
and my hair falls
as my heart stalls
and my hand shake
as my feet quake:
All too late! All too late!
When the bier is at the gate.

Then I shall pass
from bed to floor,
from floor to shroud,
from shroud to bier,
from bier to grave,
the grave closed forever!
Then my house will rest on my nose.
This world’s not worth a farthing, Heaven knows!



Johann Scheffler (1624-1677), also known as Johann Angelus Silesius, was a German Catholic priest and physician, known as a mystic and religious poet. He's a bit later than most of the other poets on this page, but seems to fit in …

Unholy Trinity
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Man has three enemies:
himself, the world, and the devil.
Of these the first is, by far,
the most irresistible evil.

True Wealth
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There is more to being rich
than merely having;
the wealthiest man can lose
everything not worth saving.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose merely blossoms
and never asks why:
heedless of her beauty,
careless of every eye.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose lack “reasons”
and merely sways with the seasons;
she has no ego
but whoever put on such a show?

Eternal Time
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eternity is time,
time eternity,
except when we
are determined to "see."

Visions
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Our souls possess two eyes:
one examines time,
the other visions
eternal and sublime.

Godless
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God is absolute Nothingness
beyond our sense of time and place;
the more we try to grasp Him,
The more He flees from our embrace.

The Source
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water is pure and clean
when taken at the well-head:
but drink too far from the Source
and you may well end up dead.

Ceaseless Peace
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unceasingly you seek
life's ceaseless wavelike motion;
I seek perpetual peace, all storms calmed.
Whose is the wiser notion?

Well Written
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Friend, cease!
Abandon all pretense!
You must yourself become
the Writing and the Sense.

Worm Food
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No worm is buried
so deep within the soil
that God denies it food
as reward for its toil.

Mature Love
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

New love, like a sparkling wine, soon fizzes.
Mature love, calm and serene, abides.

God's Predicament
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God cannot condemn those with whom he would dwell,
or He would have to join them in hell!

Clods
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A ruby
is not lovelier
than a dirt clod,
nor an angel
more glorious
than a frog.



The original poem below is based on my teenage misinterpretation of a Latin prayer …

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

… qui laetificat juventutem meam …
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
… requiescat in pace …
May she rest in peace.
… amen …
Amen.

I was touched by this Latin prayer, which I discovered in a novel I read as a teenager. I later decided to incorporate it into a poem. From what I now understand, “ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” means “to the God who gives joy to my youth,” but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. The phrase can be traced back to Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 42 in the Vulgate Latin Bible (circa 385 AD).

You gave me bad news as I walked out the door
Guess the winds of karma are catching up
Still I search for the boundless space treasury
With hooks of compassion in my heart
Your spiritual residue does nothing but sting
Your god is godless in the big empty
Near attainment with half-closed eyes
I look up and see the symbols in the sky
The red and white beads are making their journey
Praying for confusion soothed and fear pacified
The hollow illusion and the 8-spoked wheel
Are frowned upon by the Lady of the Space Realm

I stand alone in the weight of motionless time

Upon my bluff, to witness all these godless crimes.

Hearing the victims screaming out all their helpless cries

Ever enduring yet all they really wanna do is die.



No more biding time, gather the crowds

Adorn these criminals with their neck-crowns

Their time to say hello to hell is right now.



No pain has left a life so unsatisfied

Nor struck so vicariously inside my mind.

All the rage, all the hurt builds up inside

Dreaming the day all these villains will be crucified.



No more biding time, gather the crowds

Adorn these criminals with their neck-crowns

Their time to say hello to hell is right now.

.
.
.

No more biding time, gather the crowds

Adorn these criminals with their neck-crowns

Their time to say hello to hell is right now.

you are an unholy sort of beautiful
a rejection of divinity in every freckle and curve
in the dirt under your nails and the blood in your smile
your crooked nose and clever fingers screaming that you are godless

you dress yourself in an artless kind of humanity and revel in the shock it brings
hair and skin and dirt and all the warmth you can gather between two hands
you cup your heart in scarred palms like the very opposite of a benediction

you wear debauchery like a second skin
darling, you could **** god with a grin

A strange weather pattern
Appears up in the sky,
And a strange sludge splatters
Into onlooking eyes.

Menstrual matter falls
From the great godless clouds,
The people struck with awe
As they run, scream alloud.

A trickle turned downpour
Of radiated blood,
Now drowning in a storm
That yields a *** flood.

Dropping violently in pints, gallons, and leagues
We become fossils under a ******* sea.

Poems about Flight, Flying, Flights of Fancy, Kites, Leaves, Butterflies, Birds and Bees



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...

Originally published by Hibiscus (India)



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast... solitariness... there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a little longer the wind invests its sighs;
you
stall,
spread-eagled, as the canvas snaps
and *****
its white rebellious wings,
and all
the houses watch with baffled eyes.



The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

(for Leslie Mellichamp, the late editor of The Lyric,
who was a friend and mentor to many poets, and
a fine poet in his own right)

The stars were always there, too-bright cliches:
scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew
as baffled poets winged keyed kites—amazed,
in dream of shocks that suddenly came true...

but came almost as static—background noise,
a song out of the cosmos no one hears,
or cares to hear. The poets, starstruck boys,
lay tuned in to their kite strings, saucer-eared.

They thought to feel the lightning’s brilliant sparks
electrify their nerves, their brains; the smoke
of words poured from their overheated hearts.
The kite string, knotted, made a nifty rope...

You will not find them here; they blew away—
in tumbling flight beyond nights’ stars. They clung
by fingertips to satellites. They strayed
too far to remain mortal. Elfin, young,

their words are with us still. Devout and fey,
they wink at us whenever skies are gray.

Originally published by The Lyric



American Eagle, Grounded
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 as “Tremble” by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, The Fabric of a Vision, NPAC—Net Poetry and Art Competition, Poet’s Haven, Listening To The Birth Of Crystals (Anthology), Poetry Renewal, Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (Iranian/Farsi), The Eclectic Muse (Canada)



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were, and how unwise;
and I remember their first flight—an old prop plane,
their blissful arc through alien blue skies...

And I touch them here through leaves which—tattered, frayed—
are also wings, but wings that never flew:
like insects’ wings—pinned, held. Here, time delayed,
their features never merged, remaining two...

And Grief, which lurked unseen beyond the lens
or in shadows where It crept on furtive claws
as It scritched Its way into their hearts, depends
on sorrows such as theirs, and works Its jaws...

and slavers for Its meat—those young, unwise,
who naively dare to dream, yet fail to see
how, lumbering sunward, Hope, ungainly, flies,
clutching to Her ruffled breast what must not be.



Springtime Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

They’ll have to grow like crazy,
the springtime baby geese,
if they’re to fly to balmier climes
when autumn dismembers the leaves...

And so I toss them loaves of bread,
then whisper an urgent prayer:
“Watch over these, my Angels,
if there’s anyone kind, up there.”

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly—
away, away...

O, love is not in the ephemeral flight,
but love, Love! is our destination—

graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night!
Let us bear one another up in our vast migration.



In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

for George King

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while the lilies sigh in their beds, for shame,
we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen,
and gather our vigor, and all our intent.
We must heave our bodies to some famished ocean
and laugh as they vanish, and never repent.
We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us,
soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze...
blown high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning
to the heights of awareness from which we were seized.

Published by Songs of Innocence, Romantics Quarterly, The Chained Muse and Poetry Life & Times. This is a poem I wrote for my favorite college English teacher, George King, about poetic kinship, brotherhood and romantic flights of fancy.



For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow...
Where does the butterfly go?

Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief's a banked fire's glow,
where does the butterfly go?

And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?

Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab



Earthbound, a Vision of Crazy Horse
by Michael R. Burch

Tashunka Witko, a Lakota Sioux better known as Crazy Horse, had a vision of a red-tailed hawk at Sylvan Lake, South Dakota. In his vision he saw himself riding a spirit horse, flying through a storm, as the hawk flew above him, shrieking. When he awoke, a red-tailed hawk was perched near his horse.

Earthbound,
and yet I now fly
through the clouds that are aimlessly drifting...
so high
that no sound
echoing by
below where the mountains are lifting
the sky
can be heard.

Like a bird,
but not meek,
like a hawk from a distance regarding its prey,
I will shriek,
not a word,
but a screech,
and my terrible clamor will turn them to clay—
the sheep,
the earthbound.

Published by American Indian Pride and Boston Poetry Magazine



Sioux Vision Quest
by Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A man must pursue his Vision
as the eagle explores
the sky's deepest blues.

Published by Better Than Starbucks and A Hundred Voices



in-flight convergence
by Michael R. Burch

serene, almost angelic,
the lights of the city ——— extend ———
over lumbering behemoths
shrilly screeching displeasure;
they say
that nothing is certain,
that nothing man dreams or ordains
long endures his command

here the streetlights that flicker
and those blazing steadfast
seem one: from a distance;
descend,
they abruptly
part ———— ways,
so that nothing is one
which at times does not suddenly blend
into garish insignificance
in the familiar alleyways,
in the white neon flash
and the billboards of Convenience

and man seems the afterthought of his own Brilliance
as we thunder down the enlightened runways.

Originally published by The Aurorean and subsequently nominated for the Pushcart Prize



Flight 93
by Michael R. Burch

I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked
why existence felt so small, so purposeless,
like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp...

vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms
as, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch
to OFF... I heard the klaxon's shrill alarms

like vultures’ shriekings... earthward, in a stall...
we floated... earthward... wings outstretched, aghast
like Icarus... as through the void we fell...

till nothing was so beautiful, so blue...
so vivid as that moment... and I held
an image of your face, and dreamed I flew

into your arms. The earth rushed up. I knew
such comfort, in that moment, loving you.



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

Eagle, raven, blackbird, crow...
What you are I do not know.
Where you go I do not care.
I’m unconcerned whose meal you bear.
But as you mount the sunlit sky,
I only wish that I could fly.
I only wish that I could fly.

Robin, hawk or whippoorwill...
Should men care that you hunger still?
I do not wish to see your home.
I do not wonder where you roam.
But as you scale the sky's bright stairs,
I only wish that I were there.
I only wish that I were there.

Sparrow, lark or chickadee...
Your markings I disdain to see.
Where you fly concerns me not.
I scarcely give your flight a thought.
But as you wheel and arc and dive,
I, too, would feel so much alive.
I, too, would feel so much alive.

This is a poem I wrote in high school. I seem to remember the original poem being influenced by William Cullen Bryant's "To a Waterfowl."



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the ****** wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;

but when at last...
I soar the distant heights of undreamt skies
where never hawks nor eagles dared to go,
as I laugh among the meteors flashing by
somewhere beyond the bluest earth-bound seas...
if I'm not told
I’m just a man,
then I shall know
just what I am.

This is one of my early poems, written around age 16-17.



Stage Craft-y
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a dromedary
who befriended a crafty canary.
Budgie said, "You can’t sing,
but now, here’s the thing—
just think of the tunes you can carry!"



Clyde Lied!
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a mockingbird, Clyde,
who bragged of his prowess, but lied.
To his new wife he sighed,
"When again, gentle bride?"
"Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied.



Less Heroic Couplets: ****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

“****** most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.
“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner!”
the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.

Published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7.



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!
Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
by Michael R. Burch

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ the bees rise
in a dizzy circle of two.
Oh, when I’m with you,
I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too.



Delicacy
by Michael R. Burch

for all good mothers

Your love is as delicate
as a butterfly cleaning its wings,
as soft as the predicate
the hummingbird sings
to itself, gently murmuring—
“Fly! Fly! Fly!”
Your love is the string
soaring kites untie.



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.



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.



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...



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.



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...



Untitled Translations

Cupid, if you incinerate my soul, touché!
For like you she has wings and can fly away!
—Meleager, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

As autumn deepens,
a butterfly sips
chrysanthemum dew.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, butterfly,
it’s late
and we’ve a long way to go!
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Up and at ’em! The sky goes bright!
Let’***** the road again,
Companion Butterfly!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ah butterfly,
what dreams do you ply
with your beautiful wings?
—Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, dreamlike winter butterfly:
a puff of white snow
cresting mountains
—Kakio Tomizawa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Dry leaf flung awry:
bright butterfly,
goodbye!
—Michael R. Burch, original haiku

Will we remain parted forever?
Here at your grave:
two flowerlike butterflies
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

a soaring kite flits
into the heart of the sun?
Butterfly & Chrysanthemum
—Michael R. Burch, original haiku

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray autumn's gay,
contemptuous of frost
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Whistle on, twilight whippoorwill,
solemn evangelist
of loneliness
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The sea darkening,
the voices of the wild ducks:
my mysterious companions!
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lightning
shatters the darkness—
the night heron's shriek
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This snowy morning:
cries of the crow I despise
(ah, but so beautiful!)
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A crow settles
on a leafless branch:
autumn nightfall.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hush, cawing crows; what rackets you make!
Heaven's indignant messengers,
you remind me of wordsmiths!
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Higher than a skylark,
resting on the breast of heaven:
this mountain pass.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An exciting struggle
with such a sad ending:
cormorant fishing.
—Matsuo Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gull
in his high, lonely circuits, may tell.
—Glaucus, translation by Michael R. Burch

The eagle sees farther
from its greater height—
our ancestors’ wisdom
—Michael R. Burch, original haiku

A kite floats
at the same place in the sky
where yesterday it floated...
—Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Descent
by Michael R. Burch

I have listened to the rain all this morning
and it has a certain gravity,
as if it knows its destination,
perhaps even its particular destiny.
I do not believe mine is to be uplifted,
although I, too, may be flung precipitously
and from a great height.



Ultimate Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

he now faces the Ultimate Sunset,
his body like the leaves that fray as they dry,
shedding their vital fluids (who knows why?)
till they’ve become even lighter than the covering sky,
ready to fly...



Free Fall
by Michael R. Burch

for my father, Paul Ray Burch, Jr.

I see the longing for departure gleam
in his still-keen eye,
and I understand his desire
to test this last wind, like those late autumn leaves
with nothing left to cling to...



Leaf Fall
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever winds encountered soon resolved
to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps
of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall.
In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each
dry leaf into its place and built a high,
soft bastion against earth's gravitron—
a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright
impediment to fling ourselves upon.
And nothing in our laughter as we fell
into those leaves was like the autumn's cry
of also falling. Nothing meant to die
could be so bright as we, so colorful—
clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain
we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again.

Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.
We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow...
And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes—
I can almost remember—goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.
She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me
rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Kin
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.



Songstress
by Michael R. Burch

Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart
must flutter wildly, O, and always sing
against the pressing darkness: all it knows
until at last it feels the numbing sting
of death. Then life's brief vision swiftly passes,
imposing night on one who clearly saw.
Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw–
envenomed, fanged–could swallow, whole, your Awe.
And yet it was not death so much as you
who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing
and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb's
white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing!
But you'll not be imprisoned here, wise wren!
Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again.

A poet like Nadia Anjuman can be likened to a caged bird, deprived of flight, who somehow finds it within herself to sing of love and beauty.



Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

Who teaches the wren
in its drab existence
to explode into song?
What parodies of irony
does the jay espouse
with its sharp-edged tongue?
What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams
of the dull gray slug
—spinning its chrysalis,
gluing rough seams—
abiding in darkness
its transformation,
till, waving damp wings,
it applauds its performance?
I am done with irony.
Life itself sings.



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



My Forty-Ninth Year
by Michael R. Burch

My forty-ninth year
and the dew remembers
how brightly it glistened
encrusting September,...
one frozen September
when hawks ruled the sky
and death fell on wings
with a shrill, keening cry.

My forty-ninth year,
and still I recall
the weavings and windings
of childhood, of fall...
of fall enigmatic,
resplendent, yet sere,...
though vibrant the herald
of death drawing near.

My forty-ninth year
and now often I've thought on
the course of a lifetime,
the meaning of autumn,
the cycle of autumn
with winter to come,
of aging and death
and rebirth... on and on.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as “My Twenty-Ninth Year”



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.



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.



Child of 9-11
by Michael R. Burch

a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who
was born on September 11, 2001 and who
died at age nine, shot to death...

Child of 9-11, beloved,
I bring this lily, lay it down
here at your feet, and eiderdown,
and all soft things, for your gentle spirit.
I bring this psalm — I hope you hear it.

Much love I bring — I lay it down
here by your form, which is not you,
but what you left this shell-shocked world
to help us learn what we must do
to save another child like you.

Child of 9-11, I know
you are not here, but watch, afar
from distant stars, where angels rue
the evil things some mortals do.
I also watch; I also rue.

And so I make this pledge and vow:
though I may weep, I will not rest
nor will my pen fail heaven's test
till guns and wars and hate are banned
from every shore, from every land.

Child of 9-11, I grieve
your tender life, cut short... bereaved,
what can I do, but pledge my life
to saving lives like yours? Belief
in your sweet worth has led me here...
I give my all: my pen, this tear,
this lily and this eiderdown,
and all soft things my heart can bear;
I bring them to your final bier,
and leave them with my promise, here.

Originally published by The Flea



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to dance.
Your heart imagines wild romance.

Though you cupped fire in your hands
and molded incandescent forms,
you are barren now, and—spent of flame—
the ashes that remain are borne
toward the sun upon a storm.

You, who demanded more, have less,
your heart within its cells of sighs
held fast by chains of misery,
confined till death for peddling lies—
imprisonment your sense denies.

You, who collected hearts like leaves
and pressed each once within your book,
forgot. None—winsome, bright or rare—
not one was worth a second look.
My heart, as others, you forsook.

But I, though I loved you from afar
through silent dawns, and gathered rue
from gardens where your footsteps left
cold paths among the asters, knew—
each moonless night the nettles grew
and strangled hope, where love dies too.

Published by Penny Dreadful, Carnelian, Romantics Quarterly, Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Life & Times



Transplant
by Michael R. Burch

You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh
as strange to us who briefly knew your flame
as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh.
Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim
to earth, and floats forever now the same—
light captured at its moment of least height.
You laugh here always, welcoming the night,
and, just a photograph, still you can claim
bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh—
but something more, made less. Your humanness
this moment of release becomes a name
and something else—a radiance, a strange
brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand
and chain you here to this nocturnal land
of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone.
I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim
to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night
that crushes all the laughter from us. Light
in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease
some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees
to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these
are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight,
I welcome darkness, overcome with light.



Reading between the lines
by Michael R. Burch

Who could have read so much, as we?
Having the time, but not the inclination,
TV has become our philosophy,
sheer boredom, our recreation.



Rilke Translations

Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will
emanates dynamism. Otherwise
the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us,
nor the centering ***** make us smile
at the thought of their generative animus.
Otherwise the stone might seem deficient,
unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin
projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards,
unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within
like an inchoate star—demanding our belief.
You must change your life.



Herbsttag ("Autumn Day")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits to fatten and shine;
O, grant them another Mediterranean hour!
Urge them to completion, and with power
convey final sweetness to the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, never will build one.
Who's alone now, shall continue alone;
he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends,
and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down,
restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend.

Originally published by Measure



The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond.
Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride,
he circles, his small orbit tightening,
an electron losing power. Paralyzed,
soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing.
Only at times the pupils' curtains rise
silently, and then an image enters,
descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers
somewhere within his empty heart, and dies.



Come, You
by Ranier Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke's last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive.

Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return—
incurable pain searing this physical mesh.
As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn
with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh.
This wood that long resisted your embrace
now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury
as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage—
uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré.
Completely free, no longer future's pawn,
I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain,
certain I'd never return—my heart's reserves gone—
to become death's nameless victim, purged by flame.
Now all I ever was must be denied.
I left my memories of my past elsewhere.
That life—my former life—remains outside.
Inside, I'm lost. Nobody knows me here.



Love Song
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn't touch yours?
How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone?
Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark
in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate.
There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow
enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice.
Whose instrument are we becoming together?
Whose, the hands that excite us?
Ah, sweet song!



The Beggar's Song
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I live outside your gates,
exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun;
sometimes I'll cradle my right ear
in my right palm;
then when I speak my voice sounds strange,
alien...
I'm unsure whose voice I'm hearing:
mine or yours.
I implore a trifle;
the poets cry for more.
Sometimes I cover both eyes
and my face disappears;
there it lies heavy in my hands
looking peaceful, instead,
so that no one would ever think
I have no place to lay my head.



Ivy
by Michael R. Burch

“Van trepando en mi viejo dolor como las yedras.” — Pablo Neruda
“They climb on my old suffering like ivy.”

Ivy winds around these sagging structures
from the flagstones
to the eave heights,
and, clinging, holds intact
what cannot be saved of their loose entrails.
Through long, blustery nights of dripping condensation,
cured in the humidors of innumerable forgotten summers,
waxy, unguent,
palely, indifferently fragrant, it climbs,
pausing at last to see
the alien sparkle of dew
beading delicate sparrowgrass.
Coarse saw grass, thin skunk grass, clumped mildewed yellow gorse
grow all around, and here remorse, things past,
watch ivy climb and bend,
and, in the end, we ask
if grief is worth the gaps it leaps to mend.



Joy in the Morning
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George Edwin Hurt and Christine Ena Hurt

There will be joy in the morning
for now this long twilight is over
and their separation has ended.
For fourteen years, he had not seen her
whom he first befriended,
then courted and married.
Let there be joy, and no mourning,
for now in his arms she is carried
over a threshold vastly sweeter.
He never lost her; she only tarried
until he was able to meet her.



Prodigal
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Kevin Longinotti, who died four days short of graduation from Vanderbilt University, the victim of a tornado that struck Nashville on April 16, 1998.

You have graduated now,
to a higher plane
and your heart’s tenacity
teaches us not to go gently
though death intrudes.

For eighteen days
—jarring interludes
of respite and pain—
with life only faintly clinging,
like a cashmere snow,
testing the capacity
of the blood banks
with the unstaunched flow
of your severed veins,
in the collapsing declivity,
in the sanguine haze
where Death broods,
you struggled defiantly.

A city mourns its adopted son,
flown to the highest ranks
while each heart complains
at the harsh validity
of God’s ways.

On ponderous wings
the white clouds move
with your captured breath,
though just days before
they spawned the maelstrom’s
hellish rift.

Throw off this mortal coil,
this envelope of flesh,
this brief sheath
of inarticulate grief
and transient joy.

Forget the winds
which test belief,
which bear the parchment leaf
down life’s last sun-lit path.

We applaud your spirit, O Prodigal,
O Valiant One,
in its percussive flight into the sun,
winging on the heart’s last madrigal.



Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now what can I do for her shattered psyche’s sake?

I did it not to push.
I did it not to shove.
I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love.

But gods, all mad as hatters,
who legislate in all such matters,
ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters.



The Quickening
by Michael R. Burch

I never meant to love you
when I held you in my arms
promising you sagely
wise, noncommittal charms.

And I never meant to need you
when I touched your tender lips
with kisses that intrigued my own—
such kisses I had never known,
nor a heartbeat in my fingertips!



It's Halloween!
by Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;
if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads
uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;
if birds give up their verse
to comfort chicks they nurse,
while children dream weird dreams
of ugly, wiggly things,
beware the serpent's curse!

If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise
to plague black nightmare skies
one night without disguise,
while children toss about
uneasy, full of doubt,
beware the devil's eyes...
it's Halloween!



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 is one of my early poems, written around age 16 and published in my high school literary journal, The Lantern.



Describing You
by Michael R. Burch

How can I describe you?
The fragrance of morning rain
mingled with dew
reminds me of you;
the warmth of sunlight
stealing through a windowpane
brings you back to me again.

This is an early poem of mine, written as a teenager.



www.firesermon.com
by Michael R. Burch

your gods have become e-vegetation;
your saints—pale thumbnail icons; to enlarge
their images, right-click; it isn’t hard
to populate your web-site; not to mention
cool sound effects are nice; Sound Blaster cards
can liven up dull sermons, zing some fire;
your drives need added Zip; you must discard
your balky paternosters: ***!!! Desire!!!
these are the watchwords, catholic; you must
as Yahoo! did, employ a little lust
if you want great e-commerce; hire a bard
to spruce up ancient language, shed the dust
of centuries of sameness;
lameness *****;
your gods grew blurred; go 3D; scale; adjust.

Published by: Ironwood, Triplopia and Nisqually Delta Review



Her Grace Flows Freely
by Michael R. Burch

July 7, 2007

Her love is always chaste, and pure.
This I vow. This I aver.
If she shows me her grace, I will honor her.
This I vow. This I aver.
Her grace flows freely, like her hair.
This I vow. This I aver.
For her generousness, I would worship her.
This I vow. This I aver.
I will not **** her for what I bear
This I vow. This I aver.
like a most precious incense–desire for her,
This I vow. This I aver.
nor call her “*****” where I seek to repair.
This I vow. This I aver.
I will not wink, nor smirk, nor stare
This I vow. This I aver.
like a foolish child at the foot of a stair
This I vow. This I aver.
where I long to go, should another be there.
This I vow. This I aver.
I’ll rejoice in her freedom, and always dare
This I vow. This I aver.
the chance that she’ll flee me–my starling rare.
This I vow. This I aver.
And then, if she stays, without stays, I swear
This I vow. This I aver.
that I will joy in her grace beyond compare.
This I vow. This I aver.



Second Sight (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Newborns see best at a distance of 8 to 14 inches.
Wiser than we know, the newborn screams,
red-faced from breath, and wonders what life means
this close to death, amid the arctic glare
of warmthless lights above.
Beware! Beware!—
encrypted signals, codes? Or ciphers, noughts?
Interpretless, almost, as his own thoughts—
the brilliant lights, the brilliant lights exist.
Intruding faces ogle, gape, insist—
this madness, this soft-hissing breath, makes sense.
Why can he not float on, in dark suspense,
and dream of life? Why did they rip him out?
He frowns at them—small gnomish frowns, all doubt—
and with an ancient mien, O sorrowful!,
re-closes eyes that saw in darkness null
ecstatic sights, exceeding beautiful.



Incommunicado
by Michael R. Burch

All I need to know of life I learned
in the slap of a moment,
as my outward eye turned
toward a gauntlet of overhanging lights
which coldly burned, hissing—
"There is no way back!..."
As the ironic bright blood
trickled down my face,
I watched strange albino creatures twisting
my flesh into tight knots of separation
all the while tediously insisting—
“He's doing just fine!"



Letdown
by Michael R. Burch

Life has not lived up to its first bright vision—
the light overhead fluorescing, revealing
no blessing—bestowing its glaring assessments
impersonally (and no doubt carefully metered).
That first hard

SLAP

demanded my attention. Defiantly rigid,
I screamed at their backs as they, laughingly,

ripped

my mother’s pale flesh from my unripened shell,
snapped it in two like a pea pod, then dropped
it somewhere—in a dustbin or a furnace, perhaps.

And that was my clue

that some deadly, perplexing, unknowable task
lay, inexplicable, ahead in the white arctic maze
of unopenable doors, in the antiseptic gloom...



Recursion
by Michael R. Burch

In a dream I saw boys lying
under banners gaily flying
and I heard their mothers sighing
from some dark distant shore.

For I saw their sons essaying
into fields—gleeful, braying—
their bright armaments displaying;
such manly oaths they swore!

From their playfields, boys returning
full of honor’s white-hot burning
and desire’s restless yearning
sired new kids for the corps.

In a dream I saw boys dying
under banners gaily lying
and I heard their mothers crying
from some dark distant shore.



Poet to poet
by Michael R. Burch

I have a dream
pebbles in a sparkling sand
of wondrous things.
I see children
variations of the same man
playing together.
Black and yellow, red and white,
stone and flesh, a host of colors
together at last.
I see a time
each small child another's cousin
when freedom shall ring.
I hear a song
sweeter than the sea sings
of many voices.
I hear a jubilation
respect and love are the gifts we must bring
shaking the land.
I have a message,
sea shells echo, the melody rings
the message of God.
I have a dream
all pebbles are merely smooth fragments of stone
of many things.
I live in hope
all children are merely small fragments of One
that this dream shall come true.
I have a dream...
but when you're gone, won't the dream have to end?
Oh, no, not as long as you dream my dream too!
Here, hold out your hand, let's make it come true.
i can feel it begin
Lovers and dreamers are poets too.
poets are lovers and dreamers too



Life Sentence
by Michael R. Burch

... I swim, my Daddy’s princess, newly crowned,
toward a gurgly Maelstrom... if I drown
will Mommy stick the Toilet Plunger down
to **** me up?... She sits upon Her Throne,
Imperious (denying we were one),
and gazes down and whispers “precious son”...

... the Plunger worked; i’m two, and, if not blessed,
still Mommy got the Worst Stuff off Her Chest;
a Vacuum Pump, They say, will do the rest...

... i’m three; yay! whee! oh good! it’s time to play!
(oh no, I think there’s Others on the way;
i’d better pray)...

... i’m four; at night I hear the Banging Door;
She screams; sometimes there’s Puddles on the Floor;
She wants to **** us, or, She wants some More...

... it’s great to be alive if you are five (unless you’re me);
my Mommy says: “you’re WRONG! don’t disagree!
don’t make this HURT ME!”...

... i’m six; They say i’m tall, yet Time grows Short;
we have a thriving Family; Abort!;
a tadpole’s ripping Mommy’s Room apart...

... i’m seven; i’m in heaven; it feels strange;
I saw my life go gurgling down the Drain;
another Noah built a Mighty Ark;
God smiled, appeased, a Rainbow split the Dark;
... I saw Bright Colors also, when She slammed
my head against the Tub, and then I swam
toward the magic tunnel... last, I heard...
is that She feels Weird.



Beast 666
by Michael R. Burch

“... what rough beast... slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”—W. B. Yeats

Brutality is a cross
wooden, blood-stained,
gas hissing, sibilant,
lungs gilled, deveined,
red flecks on a streaked glass pane,
jeers jubilant,
mocking.

Brutality is shocking—
tiny orifices torn,
impaled with hard lust,
the fetus unborn
tossed in a dust-
bin. The scarred skull shorn,
nails bloodied, tortured,
an old wound sutured
over, never healed.

Brutality, all its faces revealed,
is legion:
Death March, Trail of Tears, Inquisition...
always the same.
The Beast of the godless and of man’s “religion”
slouching toward Jerusalem:
horned, crowned, gibbering, drooling, insane.



America's Riches
by Michael R. Burch

Balboa's dream
was bitter folly—
no El Dorado near, nor far,
though seas beguiled
and rivers smiled
from beds of gold and silver ore.

Drake retreated
rich with plunder
as Incan fled Conquistador.
Aztecs died
when Spaniards lied,
then slew them for an ingot more.

The pilgrims came
and died or lived
in fealty to an oath they swore,
and bought with pain
the precious grain
that made them rich though they were poor.

Apache blood,
Comanche tears
were shed, and still they went to war;
they fought to be
unbowed and free—
such were Her riches, and still are.

Published by Poetic Reflections and Tucumcari Literary Review



Kindergarten
by Michael R. Burch

Will we be children as puzzled tomorrow—
our lessons still not learned?
Will we surrender over to sorrow?
How many times must our fingers be burned?
Will we be children sat in the corner,
paddled again and again?
How long must we linger, playing Jack Horner?
Will we ever learn, and when?
Will we be children wearing the dunce cap,
giggling and playing the fool,
re-learning our lessons forever and ever,
still failing the golden rule?



Photographs
by Michael R. Burch

Here are the effects of a life
and they might tell us a tale
(if only we had time to listen)
of how each imperiled tear would glisten,
remembered as brightness in her eyes,
and how each dawn’s dramatic skies
could never match such pale azure.

Like dreams of her, these ghosts endure
and they tell us a tale of impatient glory...
till a line appears—a trace of worry?—
or the wayward track of a wandering smile
which even now can charm, beguile?

We might find good cause to wonder
as we see her pause (to frown?, to ponder?):
what vexed her in her loveliness...
what weight, what crushing heaviness
turned her lustrous hair a frazzled gray,
and stole her youth before her day?

We might ask ourselves: did Time devour
the passion with the ravaged flower?
But here and there a smile will bloom
to light the leaden, shadowed gloom
that always seems to linger near...
And here we find a single tear:
it shimmers like translucent dew
and tells us Anguish touched her too,
and did not spare her for her hair
of copper, or her eyes' soft hue.

Published in Tucumcari Literary Review



Numbered
by Michael R. Burch

He desired an object to crave;
she came, and she altared his affection.
He asked her for something to save:
a memento for his collection.
But all that she had was her need;
what she needed, he knew not to give.
They compromised on a thing gone to seed
to complete the half lives they would live.
One in two, they were less than complete.
Two plus one, in their huge fractious home
left them two, the new one in the street,
then he, by himself, one, alone.
He awoke past his prime to new dawn
with superfluous dew all around,
in ten thousands bright beads on his lawn,
and he knew that, at last, he had found
a number of things he had missed:
things shining and bright, unencumbered
by their price, or their place on a list.
Then with joy and despair he remembered
and longed for the lips he had kissed
when his days were still evenly numbered.



Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch

“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.

“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.

“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed Vijay.

“My family is relatively heavy,
too big even for a pig-barn Chevy;
we need more space,”
spat What’s His Face.

“What does it matter,
dirge or mantra,”
sighed Serge.

“The world will wobble
in Hubble’s lens
till the tempest ends,”
wailed Mercedes.

“The world is going to hell in a bucket.
So **** it and get outta my face!
We own this place!
Me and my friends got more guns than ISIS,
so what’s the crisis?”
cried Bubba Billy Joe Bob Puckett.



All My Children
by Michael R. Burch

It is May now, gentle May,
and the sun shines pleasantly
upon the blousy flowers
of this backyard cemet'ry,
upon my children as they sleep.

Oh, there is Hank in the daisies now,
with a mound of earth for a pillow;
his face as hard as his monument,
but his voice as soft as the wind through the willows.

And there is Meg beside the spring
that sings her endless sleep.
Though it’s often said of stiller waters,
sometimes quicksilver streams run deep.

And there is Frankie, little Frankie,
tucked in safe at last,
a child who weakened and died too soon,
but whose heart was always steadfast.

And there is Mary by the bushes
where she hid so well,
her face as dark as their berries,
yet her eyes far darker still.

And Andy... there is Andy,
sleeping in the clover,
a child who never saw the sun
so soon his life was over.

And Em'ly, oh my Em'ly...
the prettiest of all...
now she's put aside her dreams
of lovers dark and tall
for dreams dreamed not at all.

It is May now, merry May
and the sun shines pleasantly
upon the green gardens,
on the graves of all my children...
But they never did depart;
they still live within my heart.

I wrote this poem around age 15-16.



Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness.
Let me have none of the lividness
of religious outrage.

LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of “morality” around me.
Surround me,
not with law’s restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,
and not to fly to You, my only sin.



Birthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch

LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,
Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;
come dwell again,
happy child among men—
men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger’s cool
sweet light scent of unburdened hay.
Teach us again to be light that way,
with a chorus of angelic songs lessoned above.
Be to us again that sweet birth of Love
in the only way men can truly understand.
Do not frown darkening down upon an unrighteous land
planning fierce Retributions we require, and deserve,
but remember the child you were; believe
in the child I was, alike to you in innocence
a little while, all sweetness, and helpless without pretense.
Let us be little children again, magical in your sight.
Grant me this boon! Is it not my birthright—
just to know you, as you truly were, and are?
Come, be my friend. Help me understand and regain Hope’s long-departed star!



Litany
by Michael R. Burch

Will you take me with all my blemishes?
I will take you with all your blemishes, and show you mine. We’ll **** wine from cardboard boxes till our teeth and lips shine red like greedily gorging foxes’. We’ll swill our fill, then have *** for hours till our neglected guts at last rebel. At two in the morning, we’ll eat cold Krystals as our blood detoxes, and we will be in love.

And that’s it?
That’s it.

And can I go out with my friends and drink until dawn?
You can go out with your friends and drink until dawn, come home lipstick-collared, pass out by the pool, or stay at the bar till the new moon sets, because we'll be in love, and in love there's no room for remorse or regret. There is no right, no wrong, and no mistrust, only limb-numbing ***, hot-pistoning lust.

And that’s all?
That’s all.

That’s great!
But wait...

Wait? Why? What’s wrong?
I want to have your children.

Children?
Well, perhaps just one.

And what will happen when we have children?
The most incredible things will happen—you’ll change, stop acting so strangely, start paying more attention to me, start paying your bills on time, grow up and get rid of your horrible friends, and never come home at a-quarter-to-three drunk from a night of swilling, smelling like a lovesick skunk, stop acting so lewdly, start working incessantly so that we can afford a new house which I will decorate lavishly and then grow tired of in a year or two or three, start growing a paunch so that no other woman would ever have you, stop acting so boorishly, start growing a beard because you’re too tired to shave, or too afraid, thinking you might slit your worthless wrinkled throat...



Mending Glass
by Michael R. Burch

In the cobwebbed house—
lost in shadows
by the jagged mirror,
in the intricate silver face
cracked ten thousand times,
silently he watches,
and in the twisted light
sometimes he catches there
a familiar glimpse of revealing lace,
white stockings and garters,
a pale face pressed indiscreetly near
with a predatory leer,
the sheer flash of nylon,
an embrace, or a sharp slap,
... a sudden lurch of terror.

He finds bright slivers
—the hard sharp brittle shards,
the silver jags of memory
starkly impressed there—
and mends his error.



Shadowselves
by Michael R. Burch

In our hearts, knowing
fewer days—and milder—beckon,
how are we, now, to measure
that flame by which we reckon
the time we have remaining?

We are shadows
spawned by a blue spurt of candlelight.
Darkly, we watch ourselves flicker.

Where shall we go when the flame burns less bright?
When chill night steals our vigor?

Why are we less than ourselves? We are shadows.

Where is the fire of youth? We grow cold.

Why does our future loom dark? We are old.

Why do we shiver?

In our hearts, seeing
fewer days—and briefer—breaking,
now, even more, we treasure
the brittle leaf-like aching
that tells us we are living.



Pressure
by Michael R. Burch

Pressure is the plug of ice in the frozen hose,
the hiss of water within vinyl rigidly green and shining,
straining to writhe.

Pressure is the kettle’s lid ceaselessly tapping its tired dance,
the hot eye staring, its frantic issuance
unavailing.

Pressure is the bellow’s surge, the hard forged
metal shedding white heat, the beat of the clawed hammer
on cold anvil.

Pressure is a day’s work compressed into minutes,
frantic minute vessels constricted, straining and hissing,
unable to writhe,

the fingers drumming and tapping their tired dance,
eyes staring, cold and reptilian,
hooded and blind.

Pressure is the spirit sighing—reflective,
restrictive compression—an endless drumming—
the bellows’ echo before dying.

The cold eye—unblinking, staring.
The hot eye—sinking, uncaring.



Open Portal
by Michael R. Burch

“You already have zero privacy—get over it.”
Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems

While you’re at it—
don’t bother to wear clothes:
We all know what you’re concealing underneath.

Let the bathroom door swing open.
Let, O let Us peer in!
What you’re doing, We’ve determined, may be a sin!

When you visit your mother
and it’s time to brush your teeth,
it’s okay to openly spit.

And, while you’re at it,
go ahead—
take a long, noisy ****.

What the he|ll is your objection?
What on earth is all this fuss?
Just what is it, exactly, you would hide from US?



beMused
by Michael R. Burch

Perhaps at three
you'll come to tea,
to sip a cuppa here?

You'll just stop in
to drink dry gin?
I only have a beer.

To name the greats:
Pope, Dryden, mates?
The whole world knows their names.

Discuss the songs
of Emerson?
But these are children's games.

Give me rhythm
wild as Dylan!
Give me Bobbie Burns!

Give me Psalms,
or Hopkins’ poems,
Hart Crane’s, if he returns!

Or Langston railing!
Blake assailing!
Few others I desire.

Or go away,
yes, leave today:
your tepid poets tire.



The Century’s Wake
by Michael R. Burch

lines written at the close of the 20th century

Take me home. The party is over,
the century passed—no time for a lover.

And my heart grew heavy
as the fireworks hissed through the dark
over Central Park,
past high-towering spires to some backwoods levee,
hurtling banner-hung docks to the torchlit seas.
And my heart grew heavy;
I felt its disease—
its apathy,
wanting the bright, rhapsodic display
to last more than a single day.

If decay was its rite,
now it has learned to long
for something with more intensity,
more gaudy passion, more song—
like the huddled gay masses,
the wildly-cheering throng.

You ask me—
How can this be?

A little more flair,
or perhaps only a little more clarity.

I leave her tonight to the century’s wake;
she disappoints me.



Salve
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims and survivors of 9-11

The world is unsalvageable...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,
sometimes we still touch,
laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as we do,
that our bodies are wise
in ways we refuse
to comprehend,
still insisting we eat,
drink...
even multiply.

And so we touch...
touch, and only imagine
ourselves immune:
two among billions
in this night of wished-on stars,
caresses,
kisses,
and condolences.

We are not lovers of irony,
we
who imagine ourselves
beyond the redemption
of tears
because we have salvaged
so few
for ourselves...

and so we laugh
at our predicament,
fumbling for the ointment.



Stump
by Michael R. Burch

This used to be a poplar, oak or elm...
we forget the names of trees, but still its helm,
green-plumed, like some Greek warrior’s, nobly fringed,
with blossoms almond-white, but verdant-tinged,
this massive helm... this massive, nodding head
here contemplated life, and now is dead...

Perhaps it saw its future, furrow-browed,
and flung its limbs about, dejectedly.
Perhaps it only dreamed as, cloud by cloud,
the sun plod through the sky. Heroically,
perhaps it stood against the mindless plots
of concrete that replaced each flowered bed.
Perhaps it heard thick loggers draw odd lots
and could not flee, and so could only dread...

The last of all its kind? They left its stump
with timeworn strange inscriptions no one reads
(because a language lost is just a bump
impeding someone’s progress at mall speeds).

We leveled all such “speed bumps” long ago
just as our quainter cousins leveled trees.
Shall we, too, be consumed by what we know?
Once gods were merely warriors; august trees
were merely twigs, and man the least divine...
mere fables now, dust, compost, turpentine.



First Dance
by Michael R. Burch

for Sykes and Mary Harris

Beautiful ballerina—
so pert, pretty, poised and petite,
how lightly you dance for your waiting Beau
on those beautiful, elegant feet!

How palely he now awaits you, although
he’ll glow from the sparks when you meet!



Keep the Body Well
by Michael R. Burch

for William Sykes Harris III

Is the soul connected to the brain
by a slender silver thread,
so that when the thread is severed
we call the body “dead”
while the soul — released from fear and pain —
is finally able to rise
beyond earth’s binding gravity
to heaven’s welcoming skies?

If so — no need to quail at death,
but keep the body well,
for when the body suffers
the soul experiences hell.



On Looking into Curious George’s Mirrors
by Michael R. Burch

for Maya McManmon, granddaughter of the poet Jim McManmon

Maya was made in the image of God;
may the reflections she sees in those curious mirrors
always echo back Love.

Amen



Maya’s Beddy-Bye Poem
by Michael R. Burch

for Maya McManmon, granddaughter of the poet Jim McManmon

With a hatful of stars
and a stylish umbrella
and her hand in her Papa’s
(that remarkable fella!)
and with Winnie the Pooh
and Eeyore in tow,
may she dance in the rain
cheek-to-cheek, toe-to-toe
till each number’s rehearsed...
My, that last step’s a leap! —
the high flight into bed
when it’s past time to sleep!

Note: “Hatful of Stars” is a lovely song and image by Cyndi Lauper.



Chip Off the Block
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

In the fusion of poetry and drama,
Shakespeare rules! Jeremy’s a ham: a
chip off the block, like his father and mother.
Part poet? Part ham? Better run for cover!
Now he’s Benedick — most comical of lovers!

NOTE: Jeremy’s father is a poet and his mother is an actress; hence the fusion, or confusion, as the case may be.



Whose Woods
by Michael R. Burch

Whose woods these are, I think I know.
**** Cheney’s in the White House, though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his chip mills overflow.

My sterile horse must think it queer
To stop without a ’skeeter near
Beside this softly glowing “lake”
Of six-limbed frogs gone nuclear.

He gives his hairless tail a shake;
I fear he’s made his last mistake—
He took a sip of water blue
(Blue-slicked with oil and HazMat waste).

Get out your wallets; ****’s not through—
Enron’s defunct, the bill comes due...
Which he will send to me, and you.
Which he will send to me, and you.



1-800-HOT-LINE
by Michael R. Burch

“I don’t believe in psychics,” he said, “so convince me.”

When you were a child, the earth was a joy,
the sun a bright plaything, the moon a lit toy.
Now life’s minor distractions irk, frazzle, annoy.
When the crooked finger beckons, scythe-talons destroy.

“You’ll have to do better than that, to convince me.”

As you grew older, bright things lost their meaning.
You invested your hours in commodities, leaning
to things easily fleeced, to the convenient gleaning.
I see a pittance of dirt—untended, demeaning.

“Everyone knows that!” he said, “so convince me.”

Your first and last wives traded in golden bands
for vacations from the abuses of your cruel hands.
Where unwatered blooms line an arid plot of land,
the two come together, waving fans.

“Everyone knows that. Convince me.”

As your father left you, you left those you brought
to the doorstep of life as an afterthought.
Two sons and a daughter tap shoes, undistraught.
Their tears are contrived, their condolences bought.

“Everyone knows that. CONVINCE me.”

A moment, an instant... a life flashes by,
a tunnel appears, but not to the sky.
There is brightness, such brightness it sears the eye.
When a life grows too dull, it seems better to die.

“I could have told you that!” he shrieked, “I think I’ll **** myself!”

Originally published by Penny Dreadful



Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch

I.
If I should die,
there will come a Doom,
and the sky will darken
to the deepest Gloom.

But if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

II.
If I should die,
let no mortal say,
“Here was a man,
with feet of clay,

or a timid sparrow
God’s hand let fall.”
But watch the sky darken
to an eerie pall

and know that my Spirit,
unvanquished, broods,
and cares naught for graves,
prayers, coffins, or roods.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

III.
If I should die,
let no man adore
his incompetent Maker:
Zeus, Jehovah, or Thor.

Think of Me as One
who never died—
the unvanquished Immortal
with the unriven side.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

IV.
And if I should “die,”
though the clouds grow dark
as fierce lightnings rend
this bleak asteroid, stark...

If you look above,
you will see a bright Sign—
the sun with the moon
in its arms, Divine.

So divine, if you can,
my bright meaning, and know—
my Spirit is mine.
I will go where I go.

And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.

Keywords/Tags: flight, flying, fancy, kites, leaves, birds, bees, butterflies, wings, heights, fall, falling

A Story of Scientology and the Mental Health System Connection

SEEKER

Now I can hear you saying to yourselves,
"So. You said you were smart. Why did you get involved with a crazy cult like Scientology?"* Well. Two reasons. 1) I was raised an atheist (Humanist), but had a seeker's soul. I became very spiritual, like I said. I also had a desire to HELP people. Humanity. I still do. But because I had a godless upbringing I was left open to deception. And 2) I found a boyfriend. Or, I should say, he found me. One of Scientology's tried and true methods of recruitment.

I had another friend, a ***** Jewish scientologist (yes, there can be that sort of thing, as you can be "any faith" and still be a scientologist... hmph!). She introduced us. I was impressed by two things. He was an instructor at the "Mission". And he could tell you things that seemed psychic. One of the procedures for impressing people to sign up for classes and "processing" was this. Doug would position you in a certain part of the room. He'd have his back to you. Then he'd tell you to walk away from him... then stop abruptly.
He'd be able to tell you when you stopped! And he could do it every time! This really impressed me. Until I found out he looked into the reflective surface of a large glass covered poster that was on the wall! Lol! What a con artistic magician HE was! HA!

I was totally gone over by the registrar (salesperson). She stuck to me like glue until she FINALLY figured out, Yes! I had NO MONEY! So I didn't get any training or processing. Which was a BIG part of why I stuck around. I didn't even read "Dianetics" by L Ron Hubbard. Doug told me a little about it. But most of his energy was expended trying to get in my pants... a fruitless endeavor to say the least!

He was instrumental in getting me up to Phoenix for the fateful "Flag Orientation Tour". The recruitment campaign which would change my life forever...

*Where I signed my life over to Scientology's Sea Organization for the next BILLION YEARS.

O Woman!

Speak!
Shout!
Yell!

Your voice
Though it seems
So low

Speak!
Shout!
Yell!

Let them know
That you
Are woman

Speak!
Shout!
Yell!

Let your voice be heard!

Through the grasslands of the Serengeti
In the swelling waters of the Mississippi
Past the scorching sands of the Gobi
High above the Pyrenees.

Speak!
Shout!
Yell!

In the Godless cities
Paved with fear and hate
In dark alleyways
Where the dead
And the desperate
Congregate
Through the suburbs of apathy
To the congresses of none

Demand that you be heard
You must be heard
For you are woman

Your voice
Is strong
You must speak for your sisters
That had no voice
That could not speak as woman

O Woman!

Speak!
Shout!
Yell!
Fight!

For you are woman
And woman is strong

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,—
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,—
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,—
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,—
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A Senate, Time’s worst statute unrepealed,—
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

Though I splish
Though I splash
*** I drink so fear my wrath

Behold my mate
Behold my captain
Cutlasses ring and we are laughing

Pity me not
Pity the foe
Sink him to the godless unknown

Plunder the hold
Plunder her chest
Strife we be so do not rest

Sink the English
Sink the Spanish
We rule here so we **** them

Free we are
Free we be
A lavish life is the one for me

If I am hanged
If I am dead
Fear not mate I swam to land

Cut your foes
Cut their friends
We rule this kingdom
    In the Queen Anne's Revenge!

I was a gifted child. Until I wasn't. I was the golden girl. Until I couldn't burn anymore.
My parents expected me to build wings of gold and fly further than anyone could ever try. I don't blame them, having a child to raise is like sculpting a clay ***, you can shape it the way you like, paint it the color you fancy. To raise a child is to play God. To raise a child is to be God.
But to be a child is to fall, to make mistakes, to fail. The thing about being too bright at an early age means you burn out by the time you're 16 and suddenly the world around you becomes more gray and terribly, terribly lonely. The fire is never warm enough, nothing is ever enough. And one day you find yourself begging to a godless sky, begging for a new spark.

Wasted hours, passing daze
All because I see her face
My thoughts can freeze
As we walk beneath these towering trees.
Her hair holds up even in the rain
To touch her lips I can't refrain
To graze her hips with my fingertips
I know would heal my pains.

I am a coward to her beauty
Afraid of her denial
But was my last attempt not futile?
Her lips I did meet
Oh yes, her gorgeous, gracious, succulent, mesmerizing lips
Of which mine briefly became acquainted
Makes me cannibalistic for more.

I seek not lust, but i must
For my daydreams and my night dreams
and my left dreams and my right dreams
Strip her from her avaunt garde clothing
Revealing her olive skin in a florescent room
Free from the abysmal gloom
For my unworthy hands to gently caress.

I press to impress this empress of my thoughts
For she supersedes my wants.
I don't just want but I need to feel her hair
Brush against my bare chest as she lays down
To close her eyes next to mine
Awaiting the moment they open and see
I am still there.

What I would do to be with you
For even one night
(I'd believe in God if I got two.)

You certainly are nothing less than bliss
But my uncertainty aches me
Will I ever get another kiss?

What is love, and what is love not;
I cannot feel love any more,
I am asleep in my sick conscience,
I feel dead when it can but breathe.

What is a heart, what is it not;
When my sight is but bathed in pain,
In grief, for no more love hath recognised me;
Nor bribed me for the sake of lust.

What is poetry, and what are words;
For I am not seen within their worlds,
What hath caused me to be so weak,
What hath now ceased to be my love.

What is sane, and what is sane not;
For I hath had my story short,
I am insane in a place I cannot see,
Where my steps cannot place their whereabouts.

Ah, I cannot even feel the air;
My lungs are stuck in such unwavering heat,
My heart is devoid of its past midnight bliss;
I am longing for what used to be me again.

Ah, I cannot even feel such love;
There raised a longing for my lost poetry,
All is not settled and I feel but angry,
I cannot smell and taste the summer rose.

Ah, I am now blind to such delight;
The delight that once carried me to moonlight,
And the butterflies that hummed in my dreams
That I saw them live as I writ.

Ah, I am now blind to such joy!
I cannot mime the animated old song,
For all is greed here—and tainted by greed,
For speed is prime, and conscience is vain.

Ah, I feel weary too much now!
For tomorrows are heavy, and lights are violent,
For on the roads are but violent tumults,
And all the cheeky hot breeze they raise,
I cannot live, nor do I see in such rage.

Ah, I feel savage in too many ways!
The green gardens stay but to mock me,
They are a low illusion to my presence,
An image too unreal to reveal my fate.

Ah, I feel distorted in my imagination;
Even my universe cannot keep its way now,
And I cannot feel my feet steady,
Its hysteria spilling all over me.

Ah, I cannot but feel thirsty;
The sun is too bright that I cannot see,
The moon is too vague that I cannot feel,
My destiny lay too briefly in my arms.

Ah, I cannot feel comforted, no more;
For none in t’eir slumbers shalt hear my word,
They are too busy with their talk, and legs,
Aptly storming about with ugly chores.

Ah, I cannot see in such dry moonlight;
I hath not a soul to fight, but read—
And none bears but a piece of word about me,
With too much to say, too many tongues to feed.

Ah, I cannot but remember the forgot;
To endear to thee like my arms did,
To read and lay about the upcoming moors,
To feel the urge to lay still, like an awed child.

Ah, I cannot but remember my dreams;
The ones so wild that the vibrant remain,
A remembrance of which shalt become my character,
And my character thus, shalt stand not in vain.

Ah, I cannot but long for my shore;
A long shore so cold like that in England,
When ‘tis a shore not, aye, but a solitude,
One I am not to find in such hearts unlike mine.

Ah, I cannot but long for my old oak;
In Coventry, that I saw by pitiful daylight,
But oft’ smiled to me during the hazy winter,
Hanging to me like my dear sweet old friend.

Ah, and I cannot help but writ about thee;
And sing the same cheerful song again,
A song of innocence and lethal youth,
That my midnight sleeps in colours again.

Ah, I cannot but miss that wry smile;
That such crooked lips shalt by satiated by none else,
That such mirth is but to lie within thee alone,
That such joy is not present in thy absence.

Ah, so I cannot but long for thee again;
My moonlit light and twilight friend,
My dark poetry as winter began,
I felt it light on my naked hands.

Ah, so I cannot but feel thee here;
On whom are all my guts and verdant desire,
Whom hath I sweetly, and purely loved,
That I hath loved with unknown bareness, and chastity.

Ah, so I cannot but miss t’at season of thine;
Thy blooming cheeks and lush lavenders,
Those we strolled by in the vigilant autumn,
The ones that would soon die, and wake in a daze.

Ah, I cannot but rest in my dreams again;
My slumbers are now about yon blue fall,
Too sophisticated for a sophomore like me,
In that image too, thou wouldst be by my side.

Ah, I cannot but resent the sun once more;
But it understands not my resenting,
Like a joyless bud it shimmers no joy,
Like every summer that is void of love.

Ah, I cannot but resent its tears;
For such gurgling tears I am not made of,
I am a being of my immortal poetry,
And so my youthful joy too is eternal.

Ah, I cannot but favour thee again;
I feel too chaste for the absent-minded sun,
Too spirited for its imbecile heat,
Too womanly for its sordid jubilee.

Ah, I cannot but resort to thee once more;
I feel too wasted by the impatient wind,
Horrendous and frivolous in its wake,
Hot and sultry to my conscience.

Ah, so I cannot but seek my sweet fall again;
For t’is heat is too godless to share,
For a youthful maiden like me,
All is blind to me, for I cannot stay awake.

Ah, I cannot but seek my same old love;
My solitude is rigid and tough,
Fake in its meridian and lame singing,
And its heated leaves smelling sour.

Ah, I cannot but yearn for my rhymes;
Filled in fall with sweet grapes and thyme,
I used to write by the old lime tree,
The ice and cold washing all over me.

Ah, I cannot but long for long writ;
By the golden brass and old riverbanks,
Where all goes dark and becomes dusk too soon,
When clean, free air but satiates my mouth.

Ah, I can but feel such love now, and longer;
There exist too many tales to tell,
My heart hath fallen to Coventry’s midnight grass,
And with its existence, cometh again the image of thee.

Ah, I cannot but tame such love, no more;
To spend every word at the same old pace,
Bear my flavour in darkness and haze,
Writ damp poetry by the bashful chest.

Discipline your mind to think rationally and realistically
Let your reasons rhyme and your rhymes never be without reason
Resist resistance and render all rendering rendered
Be relentless with repentance,
righting every wrong until there’s only room for rewards
Whether god sent or godless be on guard regardless
Rearrange the soul of your renegade, show him how to be a real man
Until the distribution of retribution, this is the restitution
And remember, you are who you think

Violet Valley
Violent Valley

In unison
a painted progression
possession

Seen to the point of intrusion

Illusive
In a cloak of mercenary wander
A violet valley
of a crimson dawn

Drawn from scarlet billows

Where I seethe
Into a prison I saw
A vision blurred from yours

Under the heath of an adolescence
comes a lapse of time
in a spiritless essence

Godless

Unsheathing itself
In the beds of silence
the voice of a cobalt rebellion

Freedom stricken
Gaslit onto your lips

The index of incendiary

Rearing fruits of wonder
Where knowledge is set without bound
born from the dusk
of a violet valley

No truth knows where it has risen
For curiosity is kept unkempt
inside obscure tides

of thought from yours to mine.

And I think I should say
I did not find God, today.
I'm being told that my mind
isn't considered right and that
I will always lose the fight
that is life.

I think I should melt away
with the tangerine dusk;
float away with the
copper-colored dust.
And I shouldn't be mourned
or become a chore to the
people I should have warned:
I am a Godless void, ruined by
my own mindless self-indulgence.

For what it's worth,
it no longer hurts or can
be mistaken for
something bigger
for our Lord.

Maybe I should find a
Texas hole to melt inside;
a place to rest my burden,
fall apart and die.

Oh, I'm looking for light,
In this godless night,

I'm losing my spark,
And the apathy feels great.

With each uneven beat of my heart,
I close my eyes, and its not nearly as dark...

As the life we surround ourselves with,
Afraid of death and the afterlife.

It is called crazy, crazy, to wish it was over.
They call it depression and submission.

I call it rationalism!
What does this world have to offer you?

You take of it what you will,
But to me it lends only bills!

And not of the meaningless thing we call money,
No ******* up currency, no trust we bind ourselves by.

Nay the cruelty of a loveless life, of emotions drained,
Hopes dashed, family cruelly washed down winter's basin.

What do we look forward to in life?
Oh, I wonder, and wander. I am lost.

But to me I am found. I know who I am.
I am the darkness, at 2 am which causes me to write.
I am the boogeyman, the hidden fright.
The fear which holds you from kissing her,
The quiver you try to hide under, your receding grin,
I am the line by which darkness exudes,
I am evil and the joy infused,
I am the happiness of void, the contentness of lust.
I am the sin and the sinner, the judge and the judged.
And I am without care or worry. I am only waiting to be taken.
Oh. Oh indeed.

I feel that there are times
when I could reach out my hand
and touch my own death.
This causes me no regret or fear
for I have lived in my own way-
Godless and lawless but
with a belief in knowing
what's right and wrong.
So, as my ghostdom awaits me
I shall not tremble in my shoes
I'll greet him with a wink
and my best angelic smile

                                      By Phil Roberts

I Have Labored Sore
anonymous medieval lyric (circa the fifteenth century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have labored sore / and suffered death,
so now I rest / and catch my breath.
But I shall come / and call right soon
heaven and earth / and hell to doom.
Then all shall know / both devil and man
just who I was / and what I am.

NOTE: This poem has a pronounced caesura (pause) in the middle of each line: a hallmark of Old English poetry. While this poem is closer to Middle English, it preserves the older tradition. I have represented the caesura with a slash.



The Best Middle English Poems in Modern English Translations by Michael R. Burch

These are modern English translations of Middle English poems and Old English/Anglo-Saxon poems by Anonymous, John Audelay, Caedmon, Charles d'Orleans, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Cornish, Deor, William Dunbar, Gildas, Godric of Finchale, King Henry VIII, Robert Henryson, William Herebert, Thomas Hoccleve, William Langland, Layamon, John Lydgate, The Pearl Poet, Thomas Phillipps, Richard of Caistre, Richard Rolle, James Ryman, John Skelton, William of Shoreham and Winfred aka St. Boniface. There are also modernizations of late Medieval poems by Thomas Campion, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Johann Angelus Silesius.

Some of the oldest English poems are among the most beautiful, including "Merciless Beauty" by Geoffrey Chaucer, "Sweet Rose of Virtue" by William Dunbar, and "Oft in My Thought" by Charles d'Orleans. All completely free here.



How Long the Night
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song …
but now I feel the northern wind's blast—
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



"Now skruketh rose and lylie flour" is an early Middle English poem that gives a hint of things to come, in terms of meter and rhyme …

Now skruketh rose and lylie flour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 11th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now the rose and the lily skyward flower,
That will bear for awhile that sweet savor:
In summer, that sweet tide;
There is no queen so stark in her power
Nor any lady so bright in her bower
That Death shall not summon and guide;
But whoever forgoes lust, in heavenly bliss will abide
With his thoughts on Jesus anon, thralled at his side.



Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (1460-1525)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.

Into your garden, today, I followed you;
there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
both white and red, delightful to see,
and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet everywhere, no odor but rue.

I fear that March with his last arctic blast
has slain my fair rose and left her downcast,
whose piteous death does my heart such pain
that I long to plant love's root again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.

My translation of "Lament for the Makaris" by William Dunbar appears later on this page.



Next are four splendid poems from the early 13th century that may predate Chaucer. Please note the introduction of end rhyme …

Westron Wynde
(anonymous Middle English lyric, found in a partbook circa 1530 AD, but perhaps written earlier)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Western wind, when will you blow,
bringing the drizzling rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
and I in my bed again!

The original poem has "the smalle rayne down can rayne" which suggests a drizzle or mist.



This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything comes to naught.



I Have Labored Sore
(anonymous medieval lyric circa the fifteenth century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have labored sore          and suffered death,
so now I rest           and catch my breath.
But I shall come      and call right soon
heaven and earth          and hell to doom.
Then all shall know           both devil and man
just who I was               and what I am.



A Lyke-Wake Dirge
anonymous medieval lyric circa the 16th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Lie-Awake Dirge is “the night watch kept over a corpse.”

This one night, this one night,
every night and all;
fire and sleet and candlelight,
and Christ receive thy soul.

When from this earthly life you pass
every night and all,
to confront your past you must come at last,
and Christ receive thy soul.

If you donated socks and shoes,
every night and all,
sit right down and slip yours on,
and Christ receive thy soul.

But if you never helped your brother,
every night and all,
walk barefoot through the flames of hell,
and Christ receive thy soul.

If you shared your food and drink,
every night and all,
the fire will never make you shrink,
and Christ receive thy soul.

But if you never helped your brother,
every night and all,
walk starving through the black abyss,
and Christ receive thy soul.

This one night, this one night,
every night and all;
fire and sleet and candlelight,
and Christ receive thy soul.



Excerpt from “Ubi Sunt Qui Ante Nos Fuerunt?”
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1275)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Where are the men who came before us,
who led hounds and hawks to the hunt,
who commanded fields and woods?
Where are the elegant ladies in their boudoirs
who braided gold through their hair
and had such fair complexions?

Once eating and drinking gladdened their hearts;
they enjoyed their games;
men bowed before them;
they bore themselves loftily …
But then, in an eye’s twinkling,
they were gone.

Where now are their songs and their laughter,
the trains of their dresses,
the arrogance of their entrances and exits,
their hawks and their hounds?
All their joy has vanished;
their “well” has come to “oh, well”
and to many dark days …



Pity Mary
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now the sun passes under the wood:
I rue, Mary, thy face—fair, good.
Now the sun passes under the tree:
I rue, Mary, thy son and thee.

In the poem above, note how "wood" and "tree" invoke the cross while "sun" and "son" seem to invoke each other. Sun-day is also Son-day, to Christians. The anonymous poet who wrote the poem above may have been been punning the words "sun" and "son." The poem is also known as "Now Goeth Sun Under Wood" and "Now Go'th Sun Under Wood."



Fowles in the Frith
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fowls in the forest,
the fishes in the flood
and I must go mad:
such sorrow I've had
for beasts of bone and blood!



I am of Ireland
(anonymous Medieval Irish lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am of Ireland,
and of the holy realm of Ireland.
Gentlefolk, I pray thee:
for the sake of saintly charity,
come dance with me
in Ireland!



Is this the oldest carpe diem poem in the English language?

Whan the turuf is thy tour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
shall be sullen worms’ to note.
What help to you, then,
was all your worldly hope?

2.
When the turf is your tower
and the grave is your bower,
your pale white throat and skin
worm-eaten from within …
what hope of my help then?

The second translation leans more to the "lover's complaint" and carpe diem genres, with the poet pointing out to his prospective lover that by denying him her favors she make take her virtue to the grave where worms will end her virginity in macabre fashion. This poem may be an ancient precursor of poems like Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."



Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow exit this fen.
Second, that I cannot know when.
And yet it’s the third that torments me so,
Because I don't know where the hell I will go!



Ich have y-don al myn youth
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have done it all my youth:
Often, often, and often!
I have loved long and yearned zealously …
And oh what grief it has brought me!



GEOFFREY CHAUCER

Three Roundels by Geoffrey Chaucer

I. Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain green;
for your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain.

By all truth, I tell you faithfully
that you are of life and death my queen;
for at my death this truth shall be seen:
your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.



II. Rejection
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has been cast.
I tell you truly, needless now to feign,—
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain.

Alas, that Nature in your face compassed
Such beauty, that no man may hope attain
To mercy, though he perish from the pain;
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.



III. Escape
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.

He may question me and counter this and that;
I care not: I will answer just as I mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean.

Love strikes me from his roster, short and flat,
And he is struck from my books, just as clean,
Forevermore; there is no other mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.



Welcome, Summer
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights’ frosts.
Saint Valentine, in the heavens aloft,
the songbirds sing your praises together!

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather.

We have good cause to rejoice, not scoff,
since love’s in the air, and also in the heather,
whenever we find such blissful warmth, together.

Now welcome, Summer, with your sun so soft,
since you’ve banished Winter with her icy weather
and driven away her long nights’ frosts.



CHARLES D'ORLEANS

Rondel: Your Smiling Mouth
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains,
Your hands so smooth, each finger straight and plain,
Your little feet—please, what more can I say?

It is my fetish when you’re far away
To muse on these and thus to soothe my pain—
Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains.

So would I beg you, if I only may,
To see such sights as I before have seen,
Because my fetish pleases me. Obscene?
I’ll be obsessed until my dying day
By your sweet smiling mouth and eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains!



Spring
by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can only hazard guesses.
But they rear like prancing steeds
raked by brilliant spurs of need,
Young lovers.



Oft in My Thought
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
    Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
    To give my lady dear;
    But that sweet thought's been wrested from me, clear,
        Since death, alas, has sealed her under clay
    And robbed the world of all that's precious here―
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

For me to keep my manner and my thought
    Acceptable, as suits my age's hour?
While proving that I never once forgot
    Her worth? It tests my power!
    I serve her now with masses and with prayer;
        For it would be a shame for me to stray
    Far from my faith, when my time's drawing near—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

Now earthly profits fail, since all is lost
    And the cost of everything became so dear;
Therefore, O Lord, who rules the higher host,
    Take my good deeds, as many as there are,
    And crown her, Lord, above in your bright sphere,
        As heaven's truest maid! And may I say:
    Most good, most fair, most likely to bring cheer—
         God keep her soul, I can no better say.

When I praise her, or hear her praises raised,
I recall how recently she brought me pleasure;
    Then my heart floods like an overflowing bay
And makes me wish to dress for my own bier—
    God keep her soul, I can no better say.



Winter has cast his cloak away
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Winter has cast his cloak away
of wind and cold and chilling rain
to dress in embroidered light again:
the light of day—bright, festive, gay!
Each bird and beast, without delay,
in its own tongue, sings this refrain:
"Winter has cast his cloak away!"
Brooks, fountains, rivers, streams at play,
wear, with their summer livery,
bright beads of silver jewelry.
All the Earth has a new and fresh display:
Winter has cast his cloak away!

This rondeau was set to music by Debussy in his Trois chansons de France.



The year lays down his mantle cold
by Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

The year lays down his mantle cold
of wind, chill rain and bitter air,
and now goes clad in clothes of gold
of smiling suns and seasons fair,
while birds and beasts of wood and fold
now with each cry and song declare:
"The year lays down his mantle cold!"
All brooks, springs, rivers, seaward rolled,
now pleasant summer livery wear
with silver beads embroidered where
the world puts off its raiment old.
The year lays down his mantle cold.



SIR THOMAS WYATT

Whoso List to Hunt ("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.



“Stafell Gynddylan” (“The Hall of Cynddylan”) belongs to the cycle of Welsh englynion (three-line stanzas) traditionally called “Canu Heledd” (“The Song of Heledd”).

The Welsh “dd” is pronounced “th.”
Cynddylan is pronounced KahN-THIHL-aeN.

Stafell Gynddylan (“The Hall of Cynddylan”)
Welsh englynion circa 1382-1410
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire and a bed,
I will weep awhile then lapse into silence.

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire or a candle,
save God, who will preserve my sanity?

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire, lacking light,
grief for you overwhelms me!

The hall of Cynddylan’s roof is dark.
After the blessed assembly,
still little the good that comes of it.

Hall of Cynddylan, you have become shapeless, amorphous.
Your shield lies in the grave.
While he lived, no one breached these gates.

The hall of Cynddylan mourns tonight,
mourns for its lost protector.
Alas death, why did you spare me?

The hall of Cynddylan trembles tonight,
atop the shivering rock,
lacking lord, lacking liege, lacking protector.

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire, lacking mirth, lacking songs.
My cheeks are eroded by tears.

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight.
Lacking fire, lacking heroes, lacking a warband.
Abundant, my tears’ rains.

The hall of Cynddylan offends my eyes,
lacking roof, lacking fire.
My lord lies dead, and yet I still live?

The hall of Cynddylan lies shattered tonight,
without her steadfast warriors,
Elfan, and gold-torqued Cynddylan.

The hall of Cynddylan lies desolate tonight,
no longer respected
without the men and women who maintained it.

The hall of Cynddylan lies quiet tonight,
stunned to silence by losing its lord.
Merciful God, what must I do?

The hall of Cynddylan’s roof is dark,
after the Saxons destroyed
shining Cynddylan and Elfan of Powys.

The hall of Cynddylan lies dark tonight:
lost, the race of the Cyndrwyn,
of Cynon and Gwion and Gwyn.

Hall of Cynddylan, you wound me, hourly,
having lost that great company
who once warmed hands at your hearth.



Brut, an excerpt
by Layamon, circa 1100 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Now he stands on a hill overlooking the Avon,
seeing steel fishes girded with swords in the stream,
their swimming days done,
their scales a-gleam like gold-plated shields,
their fish-spines floating like shattered spears.



The following are some of the best Old English (i.e., Anglo Saxon) poems …

Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English poem circa 960-990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens.
Here, bloodthirsty curs howl for carnage.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

My thoughts pursued Wulf like panting hounds.
Whenever it rained, as I wept,
the bold warrior came; he took me in his arms:
good feelings, to a point, but the end loathsome!
Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your infrequent visits
have left me famished, deprived of real meat!
Do you hear, Eadwacer? Watchdog!
A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods.
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.



Cædmon's Hymn (Old English circa 658-680 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, let us honour      heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the might of the Architect      and his mind-plans,
the work of the Glory-Father.      First he, the Everlasting Lord,
established      the foundation of wonders.
Then he, the Primeval Poet,      created heaven as a roof
for the sons of men,      Holy Creator,
Maker of mankind.      Then he, the Eternal Entity,
afterwards made men middle-earth:      Master Almighty!

"Cædmon's Hymn" was composed sometime between 658 and 680 AD and may be the oldest extant poem in the English language.



A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

3.
Often the deed-dodger avoids ventures,
never succeeds, dies dead alone.

Winfred is better known as St. Boniface.



Franks Casket Runes
anonymous Old English poems, circa 700 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fish flooded the shore-cliffs;
the sea-king wept when he swam onto the shingle:
whale's bone.

Romulus and Remus, twin brothers weaned in Rome
by a she-wolf, far from their native land.



"The Leiden Riddle" is an Old English translation of Aldhelm's Latin riddle Lorica ("Corselet").

The Leiden Riddle
anonymous Old English riddle poem, circa 700 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The dank earth birthed me from her icy womb.
I know I was not fashioned from woolen fleeces;
nor was I skillfully spun from skeins;
I have neither warp nor weft;
no thread thrums through me in the thrashing loom;
nor do whirring shuttles rattle me;
nor does the weaver's rod assail me;
nor did silkworms spin me like skillful fates
into curious golden embroidery.
And yet heroes still call me an excellent coat.
Nor do I fear the dread arrows' flights,
however eagerly they leap from their quivers.

Solution: a coat of mail.



If you see a busker singing for tips, you're seeing someone carrying on an Anglo-Saxon tradition that goes back to the days of Beowulf …

He sits with his harp at his thane's feet,
Earning his hire, his rewards of rings,
Sweeping the strings with his skillful nail;
Hall-thanes smile at the sweet song he sings.
—"Fortunes of Men" loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Here's one of the first Old English/Anglo-Saxon poems to employ a refrain:

Deor's Lament
(Anglo Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland knew the agony of exile.
That indomitable smith was wracked by grief.
He endured countless troubles:
sorrows were his only companions
in his frozen island dungeon
after Nithad had fettered him,
many strong-but-supple sinew-bonds
binding the better man.
   That passed away; this also may.

Beadohild mourned her brothers' deaths
but even more, her own sad state
once she discovered herself with child.
She predicted nothing good could come of it.
   That passed away; this also may.

We have heard that the Geat's moans for Matilda,
his lady, were limitless,
that his sorrowful love for her
robbed him of regretless sleep.
   That passed away; this also may.

For thirty winters Theodric ruled
the Mæring stronghold with an iron hand;
many knew this and moaned.
   That passed away; this also may.

We have also heard of Ermanaric's wolfish ways,
of how he held wide sway in the realm of the Goths.
He was a grim king! Many a warrior sat,
full of cares and maladies of the mind,
wishing constantly that his kingdom might be overthrown.
   That passed away; this also may.

If a man sits long enough, sorrowful and anxious,
bereft of joy, his mind constantly darkening,
soon it seems to him that his troubles are endless.
Then he must consider that the wise Lord
often moves through the earth
granting some men honor, glory and fame,
but others only shame and hardship.
This I will say for myself:
that for awhile I was the Heodeninga's scop,
dear to my lord. My name was Deor.
For many winters I held a fine office,
faithfully serving a just lord. But now Heorrenda
a man skilful in songs, has received the estate
the protector of warriors gave me.
   That passed away; this also may.



The Wife's Lament
Old English poem circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I draw these words from deep wells of my grief,
care-worn, unutterably sad.
I can recount woes I've borne since birth,
present and past, never more than now.
I have won, from my exile-paths, only pain.

First, my lord forsook his folk, left,
crossed the seas' tumult, far from our people.
Since then, I've known
wrenching dawn-griefs, dark mournings … oh where,
where can he be?

Then I, too, left—a lonely, lordless refugee,
full of unaccountable desires!
But the man's kinsmen schemed secretly
to estrange us, divide us, keep us apart,
across earth's wide kingdom, and my heart broke.

Then my lord spoke:
"Take up residence here."
I had few friends in this unknown, cheerless
region, none close.
Christ, I felt lost!

Then I thought I had found a well-matched man –
one meant for me,
but unfortunately he
was ill-starred and blind, with a devious mind,
full of murderous intentions, plotting some crime!

Before God we
vowed never to part, not till kingdom come, never!
But now that's all changed, forever –
our friendship done, severed.
I must hear, far and near, contempt for my husband.

So other men bade me, "Go, live in the grove,
beneath the great oaks, in an earth-cave, alone."
In this ancient cave-dwelling I am lost and oppressed –
the valleys are dark, the hills immense,
and this cruel-briared enclosure—an arid abode!

The injustice assails me—my lord's absence!
On earth there are lovers who share the same bed
while I pass through life dead in this dark abscess
where I wilt, summer days unable to rest
or forget the sorrows of my life's hard lot.

A young woman must always be
stern, hard-of-heart, unmoved,
opposing breast-cares and her heartaches' legions.
She must appear cheerful
even in a tumult of grief.

Like a criminal exiled to a far-off land,
moaning beneath insurmountable cliffs,
my weary-minded love, drenched by wild storms
and caught in the clutches of anguish,
is reminded constantly of our former happiness.

Woe be it to them who abide in longing.



The Husband's Message
anonymous Old English poem, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

See, I unseal myself for your eyes only!
I sprang from a seed to a sapling,
waxed great in a wood,
                           was given knowledge,
was ordered across saltstreams in ships
where I stiffened my spine, standing tall,
till, entering the halls of heroes,
                   I honored my manly Lord.

Now I stand here on this ship’s deck,
an emissary ordered to inform you
of the love my Lord feels for you.
I have no fear forecasting his heart steadfast,
his honor bright, his word true.

He who bade me come carved this letter
and entreats you to recall, clad in your finery,
what you promised each other many years before,
mindful of his treasure-laden promises.

He reminds you how, in those distant days,
witty words were pledged by you both
in the mead-halls and homesteads:
how he would be Lord of the lands
you would inhabit together
while forging a lasting love.

Alas, a vendetta drove him far from his feuding tribe,
but now he instructs me to gladly give you notice
that when you hear the returning cuckoo's cry
cascading down warming coastal cliffs,
come over the sea! Let no man hinder your course.

He earnestly urges you: Out! To sea!
Away to the sea, when the circling gulls
hover over the ship that conveys you to him!

Board the ship that you meet there:
sail away seaward to seek your husband,
over the seagulls' range,
                          over the paths of foam.
For over the water, he awaits you.

He cannot conceive, he told me,
how any keener joy could comfort his heart,
nor any greater happiness gladden his soul,
than that a generous God should grant you both
to exchange rings, then give gifts to trusty liege-men,
golden armbands inlaid with gems to faithful followers.

The lands are his, his estates among strangers,
his new abode fair and his followers true,
all hardy heroes, since hence he was driven,
shoved off in his ship from these shore in distress,
steered straightway over the saltstreams, sped over the ocean,
a wave-tossed wanderer winging away.

But now the man has overcome his woes,
outpitted his perils, lives in plenty, lacks no luxury,
has a hoard and horses and friends in the mead-halls.

All the wealth of the earth's great earls
now belongs to my Lord …
                                             He only lacks you.

He would have everything within an earl's having,
if only my Lady will come home to him now,
if only she will do as she swore and honor her vow.



Are these the oldest rhyming poems in the English language? Reginald of Durham recorded four verses of Saint Godric's: they are the oldest songs in English for which the original musical settings survive.

Led By Christ and Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

By Christ and Saint Mary I was so graciously led
that the earth never felt my bare foot’s tread!

In the second poem, Godric puns on his name: godes riche means “God’s kingdom” and sounds like “God is rich” …

A Cry to Mary
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
Saintë Marië Virginë,
Mother of Jesus Christ the Nazarenë,
Welcome, shield and help thin Godric,
Fly him off to God’s kingdom rich!

II.
Saintë Marië, Christ’s bower,
****** among Maidens, Motherhood’s flower,
Blot out my sin, fix where I’m flawed,
Elevate me to Bliss with God!

Godric also wrote a prayer to St. Nicholas:

Prayer to St. Nicholas
by Saint Godric of Finchale (1065-1170)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Saint Nicholas, beloved of God,
Build us a house that’s bright and fair;
Watch over us from birth to bier,
Then, Saint Nicholas, bring us safely there!



Another candidate for the first rhyming English poem is actually called "The Rhyming Poem" as well as "The Riming Poem" and "The Rhymed Poem."

The Rhyming Poem
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and graciously provided its radiant engine.
I was gladdened with glees, bathed in bright hues,
deluged with joy’s blossoms, sunshine-infused.

Men admired me, feted me with banquet-courses;
we rejoiced in the good life. Gaily bedecked horses
carried me swiftly across plains on joyful rides,
delighting me with their long limbs' thunderous strides.
That world was quickened by earth’s fruits and their flavors!
I cantered under pleasant skies, attended by troops of advisers.
Guests came and went, amusing me with their chatter
as I listened with delight to their witty palaver.

Well-appointed ships glided by in the distance;
when I sailed myself, I was never without guidance.
I was of the highest rank; I lacked for nothing in the hall;
nor did I lack for brave companions; warriors, all,
we strode through castle halls weighed down with gold
won from our service to thanes. We were proud men, and bold.
Wise men praised me; I was omnipotent in battle;
Fate smiled on and protected me; foes fled before me like cattle.
Thus I lived with joy indwelling; faithful retainers surrounded me;
I possessed vast estates; I commanded all my eyes could see;
the earth lay subdued before me; I sat on a princely throne;
the words I sang were charmed; old friendships did not wane …

Those were years rich in gifts and the sounds of happy harp-strings,
when a lasting peace dammed shut the rivers’ sorrowings.
My servants were keen, their harps resonant;
their songs pealed, the sound loud but pleasant;
the music they made melodious, a continual delight;
the castle hall trembled and towered bright.
Courage increased, wealth waxed with my talent;
I gave wise counsel to great lords and enriched the valiant.

My spirit enlarged; my heart rejoiced;
good faith flourished; glory abounded; abundance increased.
I was lavishly supplied with gold; bright gems were circulated …
Till treasure led to treachery and the bonds of friendship constricted.

I was bold in my bright array, noble in my equipage,
my joy princely, my home a happy hermitage.
I protected and led my people;
for many years my life among them was regal;
I was devoted to them and they to me.

But now my heart is troubled, fearful of the fates I see;
disaster seems unavoidable. Someone dear departs in flight by night
who once before was bold. His soul has lost its light.
A secret disease in full growth blooms within his breast,
spreads in different directions. Hostility blossoms in his chest,
in his mind. Bottomless grief assaults the mind's nature
and when penned in, erupts in rupture,
burns eagerly for calamity, runs bitterly about.

The weary man suffers, begins a journey into doubt;
his pain is ceaseless; pain increases his sorrows, destroys his bliss;
his glory ceases; he loses his happiness;
he loses his craft; he no longer burns with desires.
Thus joys here perish, lordships expire;
men lose faith and descend into vice;
infirm faith degenerates into evil’s curse;
faith feebly abandons its high seat and every hour grows worse.

So now the world changes; Fate leaves men lame;
Death pursues hatred and brings men to shame.
The happy clan perishes; the spear rends the marrow;
the evildoer brawls and poisons the arrow;
sorrow devours the city; old age castrates courage;
misery flourishes; wrath desecrates the peerage;
the abyss of sin widens; the treacherous path snakes;
resentment burrows, digs in, wrinkles, engraves;
artificial beauty grows foul;
the summer heat cools;
earthly wealth fails;
enmity rages, cruel, bold;
the might of the world ages, courage grows cold.
Fate wove itself for me and my sentence was given:
that I should dig a grave and seek that grim cavern
men cannot avoid when death comes, arrow-swift,
to seize their lives in his inevitable grasp.
Now night comes at last,
and the way stand clear
for Death to dispossesses me of my my abode here.

When my corpse lies interred and the worms eat my limbs,
whom will Death delight then, with his dark feast and hymns?
Let men’s bones become one,
and then finally, none,
till there’s nothing left here of the evil ones.
But men of good faith will not be destroyed;
the good man will rise, far beyond the Void,
who chastened himself, more often than not,
to avoid bitter sins and that final black Blot.
The good man has hope of a far better end
and remembers the promise of Heaven,
where he’ll experience the mercies of God for his saints,
freed from all sins, dark and depraved,
defended from vices, gloriously saved,
where, happy at last before their cheerful Lord,
men may rejoice in his love forevermore.



Adam Lay Ybounden
(anonymous Medieval English poem, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Adam lay bound, bound in a bond;
Four thousand winters, he thought, were not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
As clerics now find written in their book.
But had the apple not been taken, or had it never been,
We'd never have had our Lady, heaven's queen.
So blesséd be the time the apple was taken thus;
Therefore we sing, "God is gracious!"

The poem has also been rendered as "Adam lay i-bounden" and "Adam lay i-bowndyn." Here's the original poem in one of its ancient forms:



I Sing of a Maiden
(anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless.
The King of all Kings
For her son she chose.

He came also as still
To his mother's breast
As April dew
Falling on the grass.

He came also as still
To his mother's bower
As April dew
Falling on the flower.

He came also as still
To where his mother lay
As April dew
Falling on the spray.

Mother and maiden?
Never one, but she!
Well may such a lady
God's mother be!



IN LIBRARIOS
by Thomas Campion

Novelties
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.



Tegner's Drapa
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I heard a voice, that cried,
“Balder the beautiful lies dead, lies dead …”
a voice like the flight of white cranes
intent on a sun sailing high overhead—
but a sun now irretrievably setting.

Then I saw the sun’s corpse
—dead beyond all begetting—
borne through disconsolate skies
as blasts from the Nifel-heim rang out with dread,
“Balder lies dead, our fair Balder lies dead! …”

Lost—the sweet runes of his tongue,
so sweet every lark hushed its singing!
Lost, lost forever—his beautiful face,
the grace of his smile, all the girls’ hearts wild-winging!
O, who ever thought such strange words might be said,
as “Balder lies dead, gentle Balder lies dead! …”



Lament for the Makaris (Makers, or Poets)
by William Dunbar (1460-1525)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

i who enjoyed good health and gladness
am overwhelmed now by life’s terrible sickness
and enfeebled with infirmity …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

our presence here is mere vainglory;
the false world is but transitory;
the flesh is frail; the Fiend runs free …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

the state of man is changeable:
now sound, now sick, now blithe, now dull,
now manic, now devoid of glee …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

no state on earth stands here securely;
as the wild wind shakes the willow tree,
so wavers this world’s vanity …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

Death leads the knights into the field
(unarmored under helm and shield)
sole Victor of each red mêlée …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

that strange, despotic Beast
tears from its mother’s breast
the babe, full of benignity …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

He takes the champion of the hour,
the captain of the highest tower,
the beautiful damsel in her tower …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

He spares no lord for his elegance,
nor clerk for his intelligence;
His dreadful stroke no man can flee …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

artist, magician, scientist,
orator, debater, theologist,
must all conclude, so too, as we:
“how the fear of Death dismays me!”

in medicine the most astute
sawbones and surgeons all fall mute;
they cannot save themselves, or flee …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

i see the Makers among the unsaved;
the greatest of Poets all go to the grave;
He does not spare them their faculty …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

i have seen Him pitilessly devour
our noble Chaucer, poetry’s flower,
and Lydgate and Gower (great Trinity!) …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

since He has taken my brothers all,
i know He will not let me live past the fall;
His next prey will be — poor unfortunate me! …
how the fear of Death dismays me!

there is no remedy for Death;
we all must prepare to relinquish breath
so that after we die, we may be set free
from “the fear of Death dismays me!”



Fairest Between Lincoln and Lindsey
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa late 13th century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the nightingale sings, the woods turn green;
Leaf and grass again blossom in April, I know,
Yet love pierces my heart with its spear so keen!
Night and day it drinks my blood. The painful rivulets flow.

I’ve loved all this year. Now I can love no more;
I’ve sighed many a sigh, sweetheart, and yet all seems wrong.
For love is no nearer and that leaves me poor.
Sweet lover, think of me — I’ve loved you so long!



A cleric courts his lady
(anonymous Middle English poem, circa late 13th century)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My death I love, my life I hate, because of a lovely lady;
She's as bright as the broad daylight, and shines on me so purely.
I fade before her like a leaf in summer when it's green.
If thinking of her does no good, to whom shall I complain?



Sumer is icumen in
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1260 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sing now cuckoo! Sing, cuckoo!
Sing, cuckoo! Sing now cuckoo!

Summer is a-comin'!
Sing loud, cuckoo!
The seed grows,
The meadow blows,
The woods spring up anew.
Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe bleats for her lamb;
The cows contentedly moo;
The bullock roots;
The billy-goat poots …
Sing merrily, cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing so well, cuckoo!
Never stop, until you're through!



The Maiden Lay in the Wilds
circa the 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The maiden in the moor lay,
in the moor lay;
seven nights full,
seven nights full,
the maiden in the moor lay,
in the moor lay,
seven nights full and a day.

Sweet was her meat.
But what was her meat?
The primrose and the—
The primrose and the—
Sweet was her meat.
But what was her meat?
The primrose and the violet.

Pure was her drink.
But what was her drink?
The cold waters of the—
The cold waters of the—
Pure was her drink.
But what was her drink?
The cold waters of the well-spring.

Bright was her bower.
But what was her bower?
The red rose and the—
The red rose and the—
Bright was her bower.
But what was her bower?
The red rose and the lily flower.



The World an Illusion
circa 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is the sum of wisdom bright:
however things may appear,
life vanishes like birds in flight;
now it’s here, now there.
Nor are we mighty in our “might”—
now on the bench, now on the bier.
However vigilant or wise,
in health it’s death we fear.
However proud and without peer,
no man’s immune to tragedy.
And though we think all’s solid here,
this world is but a fantasy.

The sun’s course we may claim to know:
arises east, sets in the west;
we know which way earth’s rivers flow,
into the seas that fill and crest.
The winds rush here and there, also,
it rains and snows without arrest.
Will it all end? God only knows,
with the wisdom of the Blessed,
while we on earth remain hard-pressed,
all bedraggled, or too dry,
until we vanish, just a guest:
this world is but a fantasy.



I Have a Noble ****
circa early 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have a gentle ****
who crows in the day;
he bids me rise early,
my matins to say.

I have a gentle ****,
he comes with the great;
his comb is of red coral,
his tail of jet.

I have a gentle ****,
kind and laconic;
his comb is of red coral,
his tail of onyx.

His legs are pale azure,
so gentle and so slender;
his spurs are silver-white,
so pretty and so tender!

His eyes are like fine crystal
set deep in golden amber,
and every night he perches
in my lady’s chamber.



Trust Only Yourself
circa the 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alas! Deceit lies in trust now,
dubious as Fortune, spinning like a ball,
as brittle when tested as a rotten bough.
He who trusts in trust is ripe for a fall!
Such guile in trust cannot be trusted,
or a man will soon find himself busted.
Therefore, “Be wary of trust!” is my advice.
Trust only yourself and learn to be wise.



See, Here, My Heart
circa the 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O, mankind,
please keep in mind
where Passions start:
there you will find
me wholly kind—
see, here, my heart.



Fair Lady Without Peer
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fair Lady, without peer, my plea,
Is that your grace will pardon me,
Since I implore, on bended knee.
No longer can I, privately,
Keep this from you: my deep distress,
When only you can comfort me,
For I consider you my only mistress.

This powerful love demands, I fear,
That I confess things openly,
Since to your service I came here
And my helpless eyes were forced to see
Such beauty gods and angels cheer,
Which brought me joy in such excess
That I became your servant, gladly,
For I consider you my only mistress.

Please grant me this great gift most dear:
to be your vassal, willingly.
May it please you that, now, year by year,
I shall serve you as my only Liege.
I bend the knee here—true, sincere—
Unfit to beg one royal kiss,
Although none other offers cheer,
For I consider you my only mistress.



Chanson: Let Him Refrain from Loving, Who Can
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let him refrain from loving, who can.
I can no longer hover.
I must become a lover.
What will become of me, I know not.

Although I’ve heard the distant thought
that those who love all suffer,
I must become a lover.
I can no longer refrain.

My heart must risk almost certain pain
and trust in Beauty, however distraught.
For if a man does not love, then what?
Let him refrain from loving, who can.



Her Beauty
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Her beauty, to the world so plain,
Still intimately held my heart in thrall
And so established her sole reign:
She was, of Good, the cascading fountain.
Thus of my Love, lost recently,
I say, while weeping bitterly:
“We cleave to this strange world in vain.”

In ages past when angels fell
The world grew darker with the stain
Of their dear blood, then became hell
While poets wept a tearful strain.
Yet, to his dark and drear domain
Death took his victims, piteously,
So that we bards write bitterly:
“We cleave to this strange world in vain.”

Death comes to claim our angels, all,
as well we know, and spares no pain.
Over our pleasures, Death casts his pall,
Then without joy we “living” remain.
Death treats all Love with such disdain!
What use is this world? For it seems to me,
It has neither Love, nor Pity.
Thus “We cleave to this strange world in vain.”



Chanson: The Summer's Heralds
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Summer’s heralds bring a dear
Sweet season of soft-falling showers
And carpet fields once brown and sere
With lush green grasses and fresh flowers.

Now over gleaming lawns appear
The bright sun-dappled lengthening hours.

The Summer’s heralds bring a dear
Sweet season of soft-falling showers.

Faint hearts once chained by sullen fear
No longer shiver, tremble, cower.
North winds no longer storm and glower.
For winter has no business here.



Traitorous Eye
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Traitorous eye, what’s new?
What lewd pranks do you have in view?
Without civil warning, you spy,
And no one ever knows why!

Who understands anything you do?
You’re rash and crass in your boldness too,
And your lewdness is hard to subdue.
Change your crude ways, can’t you?

Traitorous eye, what’s new?
You should be beaten through and through
With a stripling birch strap or two.
Traitorous eye, what’s new?
What lewd pranks do have you in view?



How Death Comes
circa the 13th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When my eyes mist
and my ears hiss
and my nose grows cold
as my tongue folds
and my face grows slack
as my lips grow black
and my mouth gapes
as my spit forms lakes
and my hair falls
as my heart stalls
and my hand shake
as my feet quake:
All too late! All too late!
When the bier is at the gate.

Then I shall pass
from bed to floor,
from floor to shroud,
from shroud to bier,
from bier to grave,
the grave closed forever!
Then my house will rest on my nose.
This world’s not worth a farthing, Heaven knows!



Farewell Advent!
by James Ryman, 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Please note that “all and some” means “one and all.”

Farewell, Advent; Christmas has come;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

With patience thou hast us fed
Yet made us go hungry to bed;
For lack of meat, we were nigh dead;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

When you came, hasty, to our house,
We ate no puddings, no, nor souce, [pickled pork]
But stinking fish not worth a louse;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

There was no fresh fish, far nor near;
Salt fish and salmon were too dear,
And thus we’ve had but heavy cheer;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Thou hast fed us with servings thin,
Nothing on them but bone and skin;
Therefore our love thou shalt not win;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

With mussels gaping after the moon
Thou hast fed us, at night and noon,
But once a week, and that too soon;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Our bread was brown, our ale was thin;
Our bread was musty in the bin;
Our ale was sour, or we’d dive in;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Thou art of great ingratitude,
Good meat from us, for to exclude;
Thou art not kind but very rude;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Thou dwellest with us against our will,
And yet thou gavest us not our fill;
For lack of meat thou would’st us spill;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Above all things thou art most mean
To make our cheeks both bare and lean;
I would thou were at Boughton Bleane!
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Come thou no more, here, nor in Kent,
For, if thou dost, thou shalt be shent; [reviled, shamed, reproached]
It is enough to fast in Lent;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Thou mayest not dwell with heaven’s estate;
Therefore with us thou playest checkmate;
Go hence, or we will break thy pate!
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Thou mayest not dwell with knight nor squire;
For them thou mayest lie in the mire;
They love not thee, nor Lent, thy sire;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Thou mayest not dwell with laboring man,
For on thy fare no skill can he fan,
For he must eat every now and then;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Thus thou must dwell with monk and friar,
Canon and nun, once every year,
Yet thou shouldest make us better cheer;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

This time of Christ’s feast natal,
We will be merry, great and small,
While thou (haste!) exit from this hall;
Farewell from us, both all and some.

Advent is gone; Christmas is come;
Now we are merry, alle and some;
He is not wise that will be dumb;
In ortu Regis omnium. [At the birth of the King of all.]



Dread of Death (excerpts)
by John Audelay (died circa 1426)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady, help! Jesu, mercy!
Timor mortis conturbat me. [The fear of death dismays me.]

Dread of death, sorrow for sin,
Trouble my heart, full grievously:
My soul wars with my lust then.
Passio Christi conforta me. [Passion of Christ, strengthen me.]

As I lay sick in my languor,
With sorrow of heart and teary eye,
This carol I made with great dolor:
Passio Christi conforta me.



A Carol for Saint Francis
by John Audelay
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I pray you, sirs, for charity,
Please read this carol reverently,
For I made it with a tearful eye:
Your brother John the Blind Awdley.
Saint Francis, to thee I say,
Save thy brethren both night and day!



The Three Living and the Three Dead Kings
by John Audelay
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Then the last king speaks; he looks at the hills;
Looks under his hands and holds his head;
But a dreadful blow coldly pierces his heart,
Like the knife or the key that chills the knuckle.
These are the three demons who stalk these hills;
May our Lord, who rules all, show us the quickest exit!
My heart bends with fright like a windblown reed,
Each finger trembles and grows weak with terror.
I'm forced to fear our fate;
therefore, let us flee, quickly!
I can offer no counsel but flight.
These devils make us cower,
For fear they will block our escape.



Nothing is known about Laurence Minot other than his name.

Les Espagnols-sur-mer
by Laurence Minot
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I would not spare to speak, if I wished success,
of strong men with weapons in worthy armor,
who were driven to deeds and now lie dead.
Who sailed the seas, fishes to feed.
Fell fishes they feed now, for all their vaunting fanfare;
for it was with the waning of the moon that they came there.

They sailed forth into perils on a summer’s tide,
with trumpets and tabors and exalted pride. ...

When they sailed westward, although they were mighty in war,
their bulwarks, their anchors were of no avail.
For mighty men of the west drew nearer and nearer
and they stumbled into the snare, because they had no fear.
For those who fail to flee become prey in the end
and those who once plundered, perish.



On the Siege of Calais, 1436
anonymous Middle English poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

On the 19th of July, 1436, the Duke of Burgundy laid siege to the city of Calais, but was forced to lift the siege just six days later.

The next morrow, while it was day,
Early, the Duke fled away,
And with him, they off Ghent.
For after Bruges and Apres both
To follow after they were not loath;
Thus they made their departure.
For they had knowledge
Of the Duke of Gloucester’s coming,
Calais to rescue.
Because they bode not there,
In Flanders, he sought them far and near,
That ever after they might rue it.



Beowulf
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 8th-10th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

LO, praise the prowess of the Spear-Danes
and the clan-thanes who ruled them in days bygone
with dauntless courage and valor.
All have heard of the honors the athelings won,
of Scyld Scefing, scourge of rebellious tribes,
wrecker of mead-benches, worrier of warriors,
awer of earls. He had come from afar,
first friendless, a foundling, but Fate intervened:
for he waxed under the welkin and persevered,
until folk, far and wide, on all coasts of the whale-path,
were forced to yield to him, bring him tribute.
A good king!

To him an heir was afterwards born,
a lad in his yards, a son in his halls,
sent by heaven to comfort the folk.
Feeling their pain because they had lacked an earl
for a long while, thus the Lord of Life,
the Almighty, made him far-renowned.
Beowulf’s fame flew far throughout the north,
the boast of him, this son of Scyld,
through Scandian lands.



Lent is Come with Love to Town
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1330
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Springtime comes with love to town,
With blossoms and with birdsong ’round,
Bringing all this bliss:
Daisies in the dales,
Sweet notes of nightingales.
Each bird contributes songs;
The thrush chides ancient wrongs.
Departed, winter’s glowers;
The woodruff gayly flowers;
The birds create great noise
And warble of their joys,
Making all the woodlands ring!



“Cantus Troili” from Troilus and Criseide
by Petrarch
“If no love is, O God, what fele I so?” translation by Geoffrey Chaucer
modernization by Michael R. Burch

If there’s no love, O God, why then, so low?
And if love is, what thing, and which, is he?
If love is good, whence comes my dismal woe?
If wicked, love’s a wonder unto me,
When every torment and adversity
That comes from him, persuades me not to think,
For the more I thirst, the more I itch to drink!

And if in my own lust I choose to burn,
From whence comes all my wailing and complaint?
If harm agrees with me, where can I turn?
I know not, all I do is feint and faint!
O quick death and sweet harm so pale and quaint,
How may there be in me such quantity
Of you, ’cept I consent to make us three?

And if I so consent, I wrongfully
Complain, I know. Thus pummeled to and fro,
All starless, lost and compassless, am I
Amidst the sea, between two rending winds,
That in diverse directions bid me, “Go!”
Alas! What is this wondrous malady?
For heat of cold, for cold of heat, I die.



“Blow, northerne wind”
anonymous Middle English poem, circa late 13th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Blow, northern wind,
Send my love, my sweeting,
Blow, northern wind,
Blow, blow, blow,
Our love completing!



“What is he, this lordling, that cometh from the fight?”
by William Herebert, circa early 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who is he, this lordling, who staggers from the fight,
with blood-red garb so grisly arrayed,
once appareled in lineaments white?
Once so seemly in sight?
Once so valiant a knight?

“It is I, it is I, who alone speaks right,
a champion to heal mankind in this fight.”

Why then are your clothes a ****** mess,
like one who has trod a winepress?

“I trod the winepress alone,
else mankind was done.”



“Thou wommon boute fere”
by William Herebert, circa early 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Woman without compare,
you bore your own father:
great the wonder
that one woman was mother
to her father and brother,
as no one else ever was.



“Marye, maide, milde and fre”
by William of Shoreham, circa early 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mary, maid, mild and free,
Chamber of the Trinity,
This while, listen to me,
As I greet you with a song ...



“My sang es in sihting”
by Richard Rolle, circa 14th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My song is in sighing,
My life is in longing,
Till I see thee, my King,
So fair in thy shining,
So fair in thy beauty,
Leading me into your light ...



To Rosemounde: A Ballade
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Madame, you’re a shrine to loveliness
And as world-encircling as trade’s duties.
For your eyes shine like glorious crystals
And your round cheeks like rubies.
Therefore you’re so merry and so jocund
That at a revel, when that I see you dance,
You become an ointment to my wound,
Though you offer me no dalliance.

For though I weep huge buckets of warm tears,
Still woe cannot confound my heart.
For your seemly voice, so delicately pronounced,
Make my thoughts abound with bliss, even apart.
So courteously I go, by your love bound,
So that I say to myself, in true penance,
"Suffer me to love you Rosemounde;
Though you offer me no dalliance.”

Never was a pike so sauce-immersed
As I, in love, am now enmeshed and wounded.
For which I often, of myself, divine
That I am truly Tristam the Second.
My love may not grow cold, nor numb,
I burn in an amorous pleasance.
Do as you will, and I will be your thrall,
Though you offer me no dalliance.



A Lady without Paragon
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hide, Absalom, your shining tresses;
Esther, veil your meekness;
Retract, Jonathan, your friendly caresses;
Penelope and Marcia Catoun?
Other wives hold no comparison;
Hide your beauties, Isolde and Helen;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.

Thy body fair? Let it not appear,
Lavinia and Lucretia of Rome;
Nor Polyxena, who found love’s cost so dear;
Nor Cleopatra, with all her passion.
Hide the truth of love and your renown;
And thou, Thisbe, who felt such pain;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.

Hero, Dido, Laodamia, all fair,
And Phyllis, hanging for Demophon;
And Canace, dead by love’s cruel spear;
And Hypsipyle, betrayed along with Jason;
Make of your truth neither boast nor swoon,
Nor Hypermnestra nor Adriane, ye twain;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.



A hymn to Jesus
by Richard of Caistre, circa 1400
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Jesu, Lord that madest me
and with thy blessed blood hath bought,
forgive that I have grieved thee,
in word, work, will and thought.

Jesu, for thy wounds’ hurt
of body, feet and hands too,
make me meek and low in heart,
and thee to love, as I should do...



In Praise of his Ugly Lady
by Thomas Hoccleve, early 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Of my lady? Well rejoice, I may!
Her golden forehead is full narrow and small;
Her brows are like dim, reed coral;
And her jet-black eyes glisten, aye.

Her bulging cheeks are soft as clay
with large jowls and substantial.

Her nose, an overhanging shady wall:
no rain in that mouth on a stormy day!

Her mouth is nothing scant with lips gray;
Her chin can scarcely be seen at all.

Her comely body is shaped like a football,
and she sings like a cawing jay.



Lament for Chaucer
by Thomas Hoccleve, early 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Alas, my worthy master, honorable,
The very treasure and riches of this land!
Death, by your death, has done irreparable
harm to us: her cruel and vengeful hand
has robbed our country of sweet rhetoric...



Holly and Ivy
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Nay! Ivy, nay!
It shall not be, like this:
Let Holy have the mastery,
As the manner is.

Holy stood in the hall
Fair to behold;
Ivy stood outside the door,
Lonely and cold.

Holy and his merry men
Commenced to dance and sing;
Ivy and her maidens
Were left outside to weep and wring.

Ivy has a chilblain,
She caught it with the cold.
So must they all have, aye,
Whom with Ivy hold.

Holly has berries
As red as any rose:
The foresters and hunters
Keep them from the does.

Ivy has berries
As black as any ill:
There comes the owl
To eat them as she will.

Holly has birds,
A full fair flock:
The nightingale, the popinjay,
The gentle lark.

Good Ivy, good Ivy,
What birds cling to you?
None but the owl
Who cries, "Who? Who?'



Unkindness Has Killed Me
anonymous Middle English poem, 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Grievous is my sorrow:
Both evening and morrow;
Unto myself alone
Thus do I moan,
That unkindness has killed me
And put me to this pain.
Alas! what remedy
That I cannot refrain?



from The Testament of John Lydgate
15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Behold, o man! lift up your eyes and see
What mortal pain I suffer for your trespass.
With piteous voice I cry and say to thee:
Behold my wounds, behold my ****** face,
Behold the rebukes that do me such menace,
Behold my enemies that do me so despise,
And how that I, to reform thee to grace,
Was like a lamb offered in sacrifice.



Vox ultima Crucis
from The Testament of John Lydgate, 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

TARRY no longer; toward thine heritage
Haste on thy way, and be of right good cheer.
Go each day onward on thy pilgrimage;
Think how short a time thou hast abided here.
Thy place is built above the stars clear,
No earthly palace wrought in such stately wise.
Come on, my friend, my brother must enter!
For thee I offered my blood in sacrifice.



Inordinate Love
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shall say what inordinate love is:
The ferocity and singleness of mind,
An inextinguishable burning devoid of bliss,
A great hunger, too insatiable to decline,
A dulcet ill, an evil sweetness, blind,
A right wonderful, sugared, sweet error,
Without any rest, contrary to kind,
Without quiet, a riot of useless labor.



Besse Bunting
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In April and May
When hearts be all a-merry,
Bessie Bunting, the miller’s girl,
With lips as red as cherries,
Cast aside remembrance
To pass her time in dalliance
And leave her misery to chance.
Right womanly arrayed
In petticoats of white,
She was undismayed
And her countenance was light.



The spring under a thorn
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At a wellspring, under a thorn,
the remedy for an ill was born.
There stood beside a maid
Full of love bound,
And whoso seeks true love,
In her it will be found.



The Complaint of Cresseid against Fate
Robert Henryson, 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O sop of sorrow, sunken into care,
O wretched Cresseid, now and evermore
Gone is thy joy and all thy mirth on earth!
Stripped bare of blitheness and happiness,
No salve can save you from your sickness.
Fell is thy fortune, wicked thy fate.
All bliss banished and sorrow in bloom.
Would that I were buried under the earth
Where no one in Greece or Troy might hear it!



A lover left alone with his thoughts
anonymous Middle English poem, circa later 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Continuance
of remembrance,
without ending,
causes me penance
and great grievance,
for your parting.

You are so deeply
engraved in my heart,
God only knows
that always before me
I ever see you
in thoughts covert.

Though I do not explain
my woeful pain,
I bear it still,
although it seems vain
to speak against
Fortune’s will.



Go, hert, hurt with adversity
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Go, heart, hurt with adversity,
and let my lady see thy wounds,
then say to her, as I say to thee:
“Farewell, my joy, and welcome pain,
till I see my lady again.”



I love a flower
by Thomas Phillipps, circa 1500
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“I love, I love, and whom love ye?”
“I love a flower of fresh beauty.”
“I love another as well as ye.”
“That shall be proved here, anon,
If we three
together can agree
thereon.”

“I love a flower of sweet odour.”
“Marigolds or lavender?”
“Columbine, golds of sweet flavor?”
“Nay! Nay! Let be:
It is none of them
that liketh me.”

(The argument continues...)

“I love the rose, both red and white.”
“Is that your perfect appetite?”
“To talk of them is my delight.”
“Joyed may we be,
our Prince to see
and roses three.”

“Now we have loved and love will we,
this fair, fresh flower, full of beauty.”
“Most worthy it is, so thinketh me.”
“Then may it be proved here, anon,
that we three
did agree
as one.”



The sleeper hood-winked
by John Skelton, circa late 15th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

With “Lullay! Lullay!” like a child,
Thou sleepest too long, thou art beguiled.

“My darling dear, my daisy flower,
let me, quoth he, “lie in your lap.”
“Lie still,” quoth she, “my paramour,”
“Lie still, of course, and take a nap.”
His head was heavy, such was his hap!
All drowsy, dreaming, drowned in sleep,
That of his love he took no keep. [paid no notice]



The Corpus Christi Carol
anonymous Middle English poem, circa early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He bore him up, he bore him down,
He bore him into an orchard brown.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

In that orchard there stood a hall
Hanged all over with purple and pall.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

And in that hall there stood a bed
hanged all over with gold so red.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

And in that bed there lies a knight,
His wounds all bleeding both day and night.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

By that bed's side there kneels a maid,
And she weeps both night and day.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.

And by that bedside stands a stone,
"Corpus Christi" written thereon.
Lully, lullay, lully, lullay!
The falcon has borne my mate away.



Love ever green
attributed to King Henry VIII, circa 1515
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

If Henry VIII wrote the poem, he didn’t quite live up to it! – MRB

Green groweth the holly,
so doth the ivy.
Though winter’s blasts blow never so high,
green groweth the holly.

As the holly groweth green
and never changeth hue,
so am I, and ever have been,
unto my lady true.

Adew! Mine own lady.
Adew! My special.
Who hath my heart truly,
Be sure, and ever shall.



Pleasure it is
by William Cornish, early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pleasure it is,
to her, indeed.
The birds sing;
the deer in the dale,
the sheep in the vale,
the new corn springing.
God’s allowance
for sustenance,
his gifts to man.
Thus we always give him praise
and thank him, then.
And thank him, then.



My lute and I
by Sir Thomas Wyatt, circa early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

At most mischief
I suffer grief
Without relief
Since I have none;
My lute and I
Continually
Shall both apply
To sigh and moan.

Nought may prevail
To weep or wail;
Pity doth fail
In you, alas!
Mourning or moan,
Complaint, or none,
It is all one,
As in this case.

For cruelty,
Most that can be,
Hath sovereignty
Within your heart;
Which maketh bare
All my welfare:
Nought do you care
How sore I smart.

No tiger's heart
Is so perverse
Without desert
To wreak his ire;
And me? You ****
For my goodwill;
Lo, how I spill
For my desire!

There is no love
Your heart to move,
And I can prove
No other way;
Therefore I must
Restrain my lust,
Banish my trust
And wealth away.

Thus in mischief
I suffer grief,
Without relief
Since I have none,
My lute and I
Continually
Shall both apply
To sigh and moan.



What menethe this?
by Sir Thomas Wyatt, circa early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

WHAT does this mean, when I lie alone?
I toss, I turn, I sigh, I groan;
My bed seems near as hard as stone:
What means this?

I sigh, I plain continually;
The clothes that on my bed do lie,
Always, methinks, they lie awry;
What means this?

In slumbers oft for fear I quake;
For heat and cold I burn and shake;
For lack of sleep my head doth ache;
What means this?

At mornings then when I do rise,
I turn unto my wonted guise,
All day thereafter, muse and devise;
What means this?

And if perchance by me there pass,
She, unto whom I sue for grace,
The cold blood forsaketh my face;
What means this?

But if I sit with her nearby,
With a loud voice my heart doth cry,
And yet my mouth is dumb and dry;
What means this?

To ask for help, no heart I have;
My tongue doth fail what I should crave;
Yet inwardly I rage and rave;
What means this?

Thus I have passed many a year,
And many a day, though nought appear,
But most of that which I most I fear;
What means this?



Yet ons I was
by Sir Thomas Wyatt, circa early 16th century
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once in your grace I know I was,
Even as well as now is he;
Though Fortune hath so turned my case
That I am down and he full high;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he that did you please
So well that nothing did I doubt,
And though today ye think it ease
To take him in and throw me out;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he, in times past.
That as your own ye did retain:
And though ye have me now out-cast,
Showing untruth in you to reign;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he that knit the knot
The which ye swore not to unknit,
And though ye feign it now forgot,
In using your newfangled wit;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he to whom ye said,
“Welcome, my joy, my whole delight!”
And though ye are now well repaid
Of me, your own, your claim seems slight;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he to whom ye spake,
“Have here my heart! It is thy own.”
And though these words ye now forsake,
Saying thereof my part is none;
Yet once I was.

Once I was he that led the cast,
But now am he that must needs die.
And though I die, yet, at the last,
In your remembrance let it lie,
That once I was.



The Vision of Piers Plowman
by William Langland, circa 1330-1400
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Incipit liber de Petro Plowman prologus

In a summer season when the sun shone soft,
I clothed myself in a cloak like a shepherd’s,
In a habit like a hermit's unholy in works,
And went out into the wide world, wonders to hear.
Then on a May morning on Malvern hills,
A marvel befell me, of fairies, methought.
I was weary with wandering and went to rest
Under a broad bank, by a brook's side,
And as I lay, leaned over and looked on the waters,
I fell into a slumber, for it sounded so merry.
Soon I began to dream a marvellous dream:
That I was in a wilderness, I wist not where.
As I looked to the east, right into the sun,
I saw a tower on a knoll, worthily built,
With a deep dale beneath and a dungeon therein,
Full of deep, dark ditches and and dreadful to behold.
Then a fair field full of fond folk, I espied between,
Of all manner of men, both rich and poor,
Working and wandering, as the world demands.
Some put themselves to the plow, seldom playing,
But setting and sowing they sweated copiously
And won that which wasters destroyed by gluttony...



Pearl
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1400
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pearl, the pleasant prize of princes,
Chastely set in clear gold and cherished,
Out of the Orient, unequaled,
Precious jewel without peer,
So round, so rare, so radiant,
So small, so smooth, so seductive,
That whenever I judged glimmering gems,
I set her apart, unimpeachable, priceless.
Alas, I lost her in earth’s green grass!
Long I searched for her in vain!
Now I languish alone, my heart gone cold.
For I lost my precious pearl without stain.



Johann Scheffler (1624-1677), also known as Johann Angelus Silesius, was a German Catholic priest, physician, mystic and religious poet. He's a bit later than most of the other poets on this page, but seems to fit in …

Unholy Trinity
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Man has three enemies:
himself, the world, and the devil.
Of these the first is, by far,
the most irresistible evil.

True Wealth
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There is more to being rich
than merely having;
the wealthiest man can lose
everything not worth saving.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose merely blossoms
and never asks why:
heedless of her beauty,
careless of every eye.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose lack “reasons”
and merely sways with the seasons;
she has no ego
but whoever put on such a show?

Eternal Time
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eternity is time,
time eternity,
except when we
are determined to "see."

Visions
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Our souls possess two eyes:
one examines time,
the other visions
eternal and sublime.

Godless
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God is absolute Nothingness
beyond our sense of time and place;
the more we try to grasp Him,
The more He flees from our embrace.

The Source
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water is pure and clean
when taken at the well-head:
but drink too far from the Source
and you may well end up dead.

Ceaseless Peace
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unceasingly you seek
life's ceaseless wavelike motion;
I seek perpetual peace, all storms calmed.
Whose is the wiser notion?

Well Written
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Friend, cease!
Abandon all pretense!
You must yourself become
the Writing and the Sense.

Worm Food
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No worm is buried
so deep within the soil
that God denies it food
as reward for its toil.

Mature Love
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

New love, like a sparkling wine, soon fizzes.
Mature love, calm and serene, abides.

God's Predicament
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God cannot condemn those with whom he would dwell,
or He would have to join them in hell!

Clods
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A ruby
is not lovelier
than a dirt clod,
nor an angel
more glorious
than a frog.



The original poem below is based on my teenage misinterpretation of a Latin prayer …

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

… qui laetificat juventutem meam …
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
… requiescat in pace …
May she rest in peace.
… amen …
Amen.

I was touched by this Latin prayer, which I discovered in a novel I read as a teenager. I later decided to incorporate it into a poem. From what I now understand, “ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” means “to the God who gives joy to my youth,” but I am sticking with my original interpretation: a lament for a little girl at her funeral. The phrase can be traced back to Saint Jerome's translation of Psalm 42 in the Vulgate Latin Bible (circa 385 AD).



GILDAS TRANSLATIONS

These are my modern English translations of Latin poems by the English monk Gildas. Gildas, also known as Gildas Sapiens ("Gildas the Wise") , was a 6th-century British monk who is one of the first native writers of the British Isles we know by name. Gildas is remembered for his scathing religious polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae ("On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain" or simply "On the Ruin of Britain") . The work has been dated to circa 480-550 AD.

"Alas! The nature of my complaint is the widespread destruction of all that was good, followed by the wild proliferation of evil throughout the land. Normally, I would grieve with my motherland in her travail and rejoice in her revival. But for now I restrict myself to relating the sins of an indolent and slothful race, rather than the feats of heroes. For ten years I kept my silence, I confess, with much mental anguish, guilt and remorse, while I debated these things within myself..." — Gildas, The Ruin of Britain, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Gildas is also remembered for his "Lorica" ("Breastplate") :

"The Lorica of Loding" from the Book of Cerne
by Gildas
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Trinity in Unity, shield and preserve me!
Unity in Trinity, have mercy on me!

Preserve me, I pray, from all dangers:
dangers which threaten to overwhelm me
like surging sea waves;
neither let mortality
nor worldly vanity
sweep me away from the safe harbor of Your embrace!

Furthermore, I respectfully request:
send the exalted, mighty hosts of heaven!
Let them not abandon me
to be destroyed by my enemies,
but let them defend me always
with their mighty shields and bucklers.

Allow Your heavenly host
to advance before me:
Cherubim and Seraphim by the thousands,
led by the Archangels Michael and Gabriel!

Send, I implore, these living thrones,
these principalities, powers and Angels,
so that I may remain strong,
defended against the deluge of enemies
in life's endless battles!

May Christ, whose righteous Visage frightens away foul throngs,
remain with me in a powerful covenant!

May God the Unconquerable Guardian
defend me on every side with His power!

Free my manacled limbs,
cover them with Your shielding grace,
leaving heaven-hurled demons helpless to hurt me,
to pierce me with their devious darts!

Lord Jesus Christ, be my sure armor, I pray!

Cover me, O God, with Your impenetrable breastplate!

Cover me so that, from head to toe,
no member is exposed, within or without;
so that life is not exorcized from my body
by plague, by fever, by weakness, or by suffering.

Until, with the gift of old age granted by God,
I depart this flesh, free from the stain of sin,
free to fly to those heavenly heights,
where, by the grace of God, I am borne in joy
into the cool retreats of His heavenly kingdom!

Amen

#GILDAS #LATIN #LORICA #RUIN #MRBGILDAS #MRBLATIN #MRBLORICA #MRBRUIN

Keywords/Tags: labor, labored, sore, sorrow, sorry, death, rest, breath, heaven, earth, hell, doom, devil, man, lyke, wake, dirge, Christ, Christian, soul, soulmate, world, joy, ubi, sunt