Flicker Shimmer Glow

The brightest star can shine even with thick black velvet draped over it.  
Quartz, lime and salt crystals formed a glass ball.
The dark womb held me, warm and soft.  
My mom called my cries when I was born the most sorrowful sound she had ever heard.  
She said she’d never heard a baby make a sound like that.    
I’d open my eyes in low light until the world’s light healed rather than hurt.  
The summer before eighth grade, July 1992,
I watched a shooting star burn by at 100,000 miles per hour as I stood on the balcony  
while my family celebrated my birthday inside.  
It made it into the earth’s atmosphere
but it didn’t look like it was coming down;
I know it didn’t hit the ground but it burned something in the time it was here.  
The glass ball of my life cracked inside.  
Light reflected off the salt crystal cracks.  
I saw the beauty of the light within.  
Nacre from my shell kept those cracks from getting worse,
a wild pearl as defense mechanism.  
In 2001, I quit my job after they melted and poured tar all over my life.  
All summer literature class bathtubs filled with rose hip oil cleaned the tar.  
That fall logic and epistemology classes spewed black ink all over my philosophy
written over ten years then.  
Tar turned to asphalt when I met someone from my old job for a drink in November
and it paved a road for my life that went to the hospital I was in that December
where it sealed the roof on my life
when I was almost murdered there
and in February after meeting her for another drink.  
They lit a fire at the top of the glacier and pushed the burning pile of black coal off the edge,
burnt red, looking like flames falling into the valley.  
While that blazed the side of the cliff something lit an incandescent light.  
The electricity from the metal lightbulb ***** went through wires and heated the filament between until it glowed.  
I began putting more work into emotional balance from things I learned at AA meetings.  
In Spring 2003, the damage that the doctors at the hospital in 2001 had done
made it harder for light to reflect from the cracks in the glass ball.
I’d been eating healthy and trying to get regular exercises since 1994
but in Spring 2003 I began swimming for an hour every morning .  
The water washed the pollution from the burning coals off
And then I escaped in July.  
I moved to London to study English Language and Linguistics.  
I would’ve studied English Language and Literature.  
I did well until Spring 2004 when I thought I was being stalked.  
I thought I was manic.  
I thought I was being stalked.  
I went home and didn’t go back for my exams after spring holiday.  
Because I felt traumatized and couldn’t write poetry anymore,
I used black ink to write my notes for my book on trauma and the Russian Revolution.
I started teaching myself German.  
I stayed healthy.  
In 2005, my parents went to visit my mom’s family in Malaysia for two weeks.
I thought I was being stalked.  
I knew I wasn’t manic.  
I thought I was being stalked.  
I told my parents when they came home.  
They thought I was manic.  
I showed them the shoe prints in the snow of different sizes from the woods to the windows.  
They thought I was manic.  
I was outside of my comfort zone.  
I moved to California. I found light.  
I made light,
the light reflected off the salt crystals I used to heal the violence inflicted on me from then on.  
The light turned the traffic lights to not just green from red
but amber and blue.  
The light turned the car signals left and right.  
The light reflected off of salt crystals, light emitting diodes,
electrical energy turned directly to light,
electroluminescence.  
The electrical currents flowed through,
illuminating.  
Alone in the world, I moved to California in July 2005
but in August  I called the person I escaped in 2003,
the sulfur and nitrogen that I hated.  
He didn’t think I was manic but I never said anything.
I never told him why I asked him to move out to California.  
When his coal seemed like only pollution,
I asked him to leave.  
He threatened me.  
I called the authorities.  
They left me there.
He laughed.  
Then the violence came.  
****:  stabbed and punched, my ****** bruised, purple and swollen.  
The light barely reflected from the glass ball wIth cracks through all the acid rain, smoke and haze.
It would take me half an hour to get my body to do what my mind told it to after.  
My dad told me my mom had her cancer removed.
The next day, the coal said if I wanted him to leave he’d leave.  
I booked his ticket.
I drove him to the airport.  
Black clouds gushed the night before for the first time in months,
the sky clear after the rain.  
He was gone and I was free,
melted glass, heated up and poured—
looked like fire,
looked like the Snow Moon in February
with Mercury in the morning sky.  
I worked through ****.  
I worked to overcome trauma.  
Electricity between touch and love caused acid rain, smoke, haze, and mercury
to light the discharge lamps, streetlights and parking lot lights.
Then I changed the direction of the light waves.  
Like lead glass breaks up the light,
lead from the coal, cleaned and replaced by potassium,
glass cut clearly, refracting the light,
electrolytes,
electrical signals lit through my body,
thick black velvet drapes gone.  





















Lava

I think that someone wrote into some palm leaf a manuscript, a gift, a contract.  
After my parents wedding, while they were still in India,
they found out that my dad’s father and my mom’s grandfather worked for kings administering temples and collecting money for their king from the farmers that worked the rice paddies each king owned.  They both left their homes before they left for college.  
My dad, a son of a brahmin’s son,
grew up in his grandmother’s house.  
His mother was not a Brahmin.  
My mother grew up in Malaysia where she saw the children from the rubber plantation
when she walked to school.  
She doesn’t say what caste she is.  
He went to his father’s house, then college.  
He worked, then went to England, then Canada.  
She went to India then Canada.  
They moved to the United States around Christmas 1978
with my brother while she was pregnant with me.  
My father signed a contract with my mother.  
My parents took ashes and formed rock,
the residue left in brass pots in India,
the rocks, so hot, they turned back to lava miles away before turning back to ash again,
then back to rock,
the lava from a super volcano,
the ash purple and red.  


















Circles on a Moss Covered Volcano

The eruption beatifies the magma.  
It becomes obsidian,
only breaks with a fracture,
smooth circles where it breaks.  

My mom was born on the grass
on a lawn
in a moss covered canyon at the top of a volcanic island.  
My grandfather lived in Malaysia before the Japanese occupied.  
When the volcano erupted,
the lava dried at the ocean into black sand.  
The British allied with the Communist Party of Malaysia—
after they organized.  
After the Americans defeated the Japanese at Pearl Harbor,
the British took over Malaysia again.  
They kept different groups apart claiming they were helping them.  
The black sand had smooth pebbles and sharp rocks.  
Ethnic Malay farmers lived in Kampongs, villages.  
Indians lived on plantations.  
The Chinese lived in towns and urban areas.  
Ethnic Malays wanted independence.
In 1946, after strikes, demonstrations, and boycotts
the British agreed to work with them.  
The predominantly Chinese Communist Party of Malaysia went underground,
guerrilla warfare against the British,
claiming their fight was for independence.  
For the British, that emergency required vast powers
of arrest, detention without trial and deportation to defeat terrorism.  
The Emergency became less unpopular as the terrorism became worse.  
The British were the iron that brought oxygen through my mom’s body.  
She loved riding on her father’s motorcycle with him
by the plantations,
through the Kampongs
and to the city, half an hour away.  
The British left Malaysia independent in 1957
with Malaysian nationalists holding most state and federal government offices.  
As the black sand stretches towards the ocean,
it becomes big stones of dried lava, flat and smooth.  

My mom thought her father and her uncle were subservient to the British.  
She thought all things, all people were equal.  
When her father died when she was 16, 1965,
they moved to India,
my mother,
a foreigner in India, though she’s Indian.  
She loved rock and roll and mini skirts
and didn’t speak the local language.  
On the dried black lava,
it can be hard to know the molten lava flickers underneath there.  
Before the Korean War,
though Britain and the United States wanted
an aggressive resolution
condemning North Korea,
they were happy
that India supported a draft resolution
condemning North Korea
for breach of the peace.  
During the Korean War,
India, supported by Third World and other Commonwealth nations,
opposed United States’ proposals.
They were able to change the U.S. resolution
to include the proposals they wanted
and helped end the war.  
China wanted the respect of Third World nations
and saw the United States as imperialist.  
China thought India was a threat to the Third World
by taking aid from the United States and the Soviets.  
Pakistan could help with that and a seat at the United Nations.  
China wanted Taiwan’s seat at the UN.
My mother went to live with her uncle,
a communist negotiator for a corporation,
in India.  
A poet,
he threw parties and invited other artists, musicians and writers.  
I have the same brown hyperpigmentation at my joints that he had.  
During the day, only the steam from the hot lava can be seen.  
In 1965, Pakistani forces went into Jammu and Kashmir with China’s support.  
China threatened India after India sent its troops in.  
Then they threatened again before sending their troops to the Indian border.  
The United States stopped aid to Pakistan and India.
Pakistan agreed to the UN ceasefire agreement.  
Pakistan helped China get a seat at the UN
and tried to keep the west from escalating in Vietnam.  
The smoldering sound of the lava sizzles underneath the dried lava.  
When West Pakistan refused to allow East Pakistan independence,
violence between Bengalis and Biharis developed into upheaval.  
Bengalis moved to India
and India went into East Pakistan.  
Pakistan surrendered in December 1971.  
East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh

The warm light of the melted lava radiates underneath but burns.  
In 1974, India tested the Smiling Buddha,
a nuclear bomb.  
After Indira Gandhi’s conviction for election fraud in 1973,
Marxist Professor Narayan called for total revolution
and students protested all over India.  
With food shortages, inflation and regional disputes
like Sikh separatists training in Pakistan for an independent Punjab,
peasants and laborers joined the protests.  
Railway strikes stopped the economy.  
In 1975, Indira Gandhi, the Iron Lady,
declared an Emergency,
imprisoning political opponents, restricting freedoms and restricting the press,
claiming threats to national security
because the war with Pakistan had just ended.  
The federal government took over Kerala’s communist dominated government and others.  

My mom could’ve been a dandelion, but she’s more like thistle.  
She has the center that dries and flutters in the wind,
beautiful and silky,
spiny and prickly,
but still fluffy, downy,
A daisy.
They say thistle saved Scotland from the Norse.  
Magma from the volcano explodes
and the streams of magma fly into the air.  
In the late 60s,
the civil rights movement rose
against the state in Northern Ireland
for depriving Catholics
of influence and opportunity.
The Northern Irish police,
Protestant and unionist, anti-catholic,
responded violently to the protests and it got worse.  
In 1969, the British placed Arthur Young,
who had worked at the Federation of Malaya
at the time of their Emergency
at the head of the British military in Northern Ireland.
The British military took control over the police,
a counter insurgency rather than a police force,
crowd control, house searches, interrogation, and street patrols,
use of force against suspects and uncooperative citizens.  
Political crimes were tolerated by Protestants but not Catholics.  
The lava burns the rock off the edge of the volcano.  

On January 30, 1972, ****** Sunday,  
British Army policing killed 13 unarmed protesters
fighting for their rights over their neighborhood,
protesting the internment of suspected nationalists.
That led to protests across Ireland.  
When banana leaves are warmed,
oil from the banana leaves flavors the food.  
My dad flew from Canada to India in February 1972.  
On February 4, my dad met my mom.  
On February 11, 1972,
my dad married my mom.  
They went to Canada,
a quartz singing bowl and a wooden mallet wrapped in suede.  
The rock goes down with the lava, breaking through the rocks as it goes down.  
In March 1972, the British government took over
because they considered the Royal Ulster Police and the Ulster Special Constabulary
to be causing most of the violence.  
The lava blocks and reroutes streams,
melts snow and ice,
flooding.  
Days later, there’s still smoke, red.  
My mom could wear the clothes she liked
without being judged
with my dad in Canada.  
She didn’t like asking my dad for money.
My dad, the copper helping my mother use that iron,
wanted her to go to college and finish her bachelors degree.
She got a job.  
In 1976, the police took over again in Northern Ireland
but they were a paramilitary force—
armored SUVs, bullet proof jackets, combat ready
with the largest computerized surveillance system in the UK,
high powered weapons,
trained in counter insurgency.  
Many people were murdered by the police
and few were held accountable.  
Most of the murdered people were not involved in violence or crime.  
People were arrested under special emergency powers
for interrogation and intelligence gathering.  
People tried were tried in non-jury courts.  
My mom learned Malayalam in India
but didn’t speak well until living with my dad.  
She also learned to cook after getting married.  
Her mother sent her recipes; my dad cooked for her—
turmeric, cumin, coriander, cayenne and green chiles.  
Having lived in different countries,
my mom’s food was exposed to many cultures,
Chinese and French.
Ground rock, minerals and glass
covered the ground
from the ash plume.  
She liked working.  

A volcano erupted for 192 years,
an ice age,
disordered ices, deformed under pressure
and ordered ice crystals, brittle in the ice core records.  
My mother liked working.  
Though Khomeini was in exile by the 1970s in Iran,
more people, working and poor,
turned to him and the ****-i-Ulama for help.
My mom didn’t want kids though my dad did.
She agreed and in 1978 my brother was born.
Iran modernized but agriculture and industry changed so quickly.  
In January 1978, students protested—
censorship, surveillance, harassment, illegal detention and torture.  
Young people and the unemployed joined.  
My parents moved to the United States in December 1978.  
The regime used a lot of violence against the protesters,
and in September 1978 declared martial law in Iran.  
Troops were shooting demonstrators.
In January 1979, the Shah and his family fled.  
On February 11, 1979, my parents’ anniversary,
the Iranian army declared neutrality.  
I was born in July 1979.
The chromium in emeralds and rubies colors them.
My brother was born in May and I was born in July.

Obsidian—
iron, copper and chromium—
isn’t a gas
but it isn’t a crystal;
it’s between the two,
the ordered crystal and the disordered gas.  
They made swords out of obsidian.  





Warm Light Shatters

The eruption beatifies the magma.  
It becomes obsidian,
only breaks with a fracture,
smooth circles where it breaks.  

My dad was born on a large flat rock on the edge of the top
of a hill,
Molasses, sweet and dark, the potent flavor dominates,
His father, the son of a Brahmin,
His mother from a lower caste.
His father’s family wouldn’t touch him,
He grew up in his mother’s mother’s house on a farm.  
I have the same brown hyperpigmentation spot on my right hand that he has.

In 1901, D’Arcy bought a 60 year concession for oil exploration In Iran.
The Iranian government extended it for another 32 years in 1933.
At that time oil was Iran’s “main source of income.”
In 1917’s Balfour Declaration, the British government proclaimed that they favored a national home for the Jews in Palestine and their “best endeavors to facilitate the achievement” of that.

The British police were in charge of policing in the mandate of Palestine.  A lot of the policemen they hired were people who had served in the British army before, during the Irish War for Independence.  
The army tried to stop how violent the police were, police used torture and brutality, some that had been used during the Irish War for Independence, like having prisoners tied to armored cars and locomotives and razing the homes of people in prison or people they thought were related to people thought to be rebels.
The police hired Arab police and Jewish police for lower level policing,
Making local people part of the management.
“Let Arab police beat up Arabs and Jewish police beat up Jews.”

The lava blocks and reroutes streams, melts snow and ice, flooding.
In 1922, there were 83,000 Jews, 71,000 Christians, and 589,000 Muslims.
The League If Nations endorsed the British Mandate.
During an emergency, in the 1930s, British regulations allowed collective punishment, punishing villages for incidents.
Local officers in riots often deserted and also shared intelligence with their own people.
The police often stole, destroyed property, tortured and killed people.  
Arab revolts sapped the police power over Palestinians by 1939.

My father’s mother was from a matrilineal family.
My dad remembers tall men lining up on pay day to respectfully wait for her, 5 feet tall.  
She married again after her husband died.
A manager from a tile factory,
He spoke English so he supervised finances and correspondence.
My dad, a sunflower, loved her: she scared all the workers but exuded warmth to the people she loved.

Obsidian shields people from negative energy.
David Cargill founded the Burmah Oil Co. in 1886.
If there were problems with oil exploration in Burma and Indian government licenses, Persian oil would protect the company.  
In July 1906, many European oil companies, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others, allied to protect against the American oil company, Standard Oil.
D’Arcy needed money because “Persian oil took three times as long to come on stream as anticipated.”
Burmah Oil Co. began the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. as a subsidiary.
Ninety-seven percent of British Petroleum was owned by Burmah Oil Co.
By 1914, the British government owned 51% of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co.  
Anglo-Persian acquired independence from Burmah Oil and Royal Dutch Shell with two million pounds from the British government.

The lava burns the rock off the edge of the volcano.
In 1942, after the Japanese took Burma,
the British destroyed their refineries before leaving.
The United Nations had to find other sources of oil.
In 1943, Japan built the Burma-Thailand Railroad with forced labor from the Malay peninsula who were mostly from the rubber plantations.

The rock goes down with the lava, breaking through the rocks as it goes down.
In 1945. Japan destroyed their refineries before leaving Burma.
Cargill, Watson and Whigham were on the Burmah Oil Co. Board and then the Anglo Iranian Oil Co. Board.  

In 1936 Palestine, boycotts, work stoppages, and violence against British police officials and soldiers compelled the government to appoint an investigatory commission.  
Leaders of Egypt, Trans Jordan, Syria and Iraq helped end the work stoppages.
The British government had the Peel Commission read letters, memoranda, and petitions and speak with British officials, Jews and Arabs.  
The Commission didn’t believe that Arabs and Jews could live together in a single Jewish state.
Because of administrative and financial difficulties the Colonial Secretary stated that to split Palestine into Arab and Jewish states was impracticable.  
The Commission recommended transitioning 250,000 Arabs and 1500 Jews with British control over their oil pipeline, their naval base and Jerusalem.  
The League of Nations approved.
“It will not remove the grievance nor prevent the recurrence,” Lord Peel stated after.
The Arab uprising was much more militant after Peel.  Thousands of Arabs were wounded, ten thousand were detained.  
In Sykes-Picot and the Husain McMahon agreements, the British promised the Arabs an independent state but they did not keep that promise.  
Representatives from the Arab states rejected the Peel recommendations.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution181 partitioned Palestine into Arab and Jewish states with an international regime for the city of Jerusalem backed by the United States and the Soviet Union.  

The Israeli Yishuv had strong military and intelligence organization —-  
the British recognized that their interest was with the Arabs and abstained from the vote.  
In 1948, Israel declared the establishment of its state.  
Ground rock, minerals, and gas covered the ground from the ash plume.
The Palestinian police force was disbanded and the British gave officers the option of serving in Malaya.

Though Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy supported snd tried to get Israel to offer the Arabs concessions, it wasn’t a major priority and didn’t always approve of Israel’s plans.
Arabs that had supported the British to end Turkish rule stopped supporting the West.  
Many Palestinians joined left wing groups and violent third world movements.  
Seventy-eight percent of the territory of former Palestine was under Israel’s control.  

My dad left for college in 1957 and lived in an apartment above the United States Information services office.
Because he graduated at the top of his class, he was given a job with the public works department of the government on the electricity board.  
“Once in, you’ll never leave.”
When he wanted a job where he could do real work, his father was upset.
He broke the chains with bells for vespers.
He got a job in Calcutta at Kusum Products and left the government, though it was prestigious to work there.
In the chemical engineering division, one of the projects he worked on was to design a *** distillery, bells controlled by hammers, hammers controlled by a keyboard.
His boss worked in the United Kingdom for. 20 years before the company he worked at, part of Power Gas Corporation, asked him to open a branch in Calcutta.
He opened the branch and convinced an Industrialist to open a company doing the same work with him.  The branch he opened closed after that.  
My dad applied for labor certification to work abroad and was selected.  
His boss wrote a reference letter for my him to the company he left in the UK.  My dad sent it telling the company when he was leaving for the UK.  
The day he left for London, he got the letter they sent in the mail telling him to take the train to Sheffield the next day and someone from the firm would meet him at the station.  
His dad didn’t know he left, he didn’t tell him.
He broke the chains with chimes for schisms.


Anglo-Persian Oil became Anglo-Iranian Oil in 1935.
The British government used oil and Anglo-Persian oil to fight communism, have a stronger relationship with the United States and make the United Kingdom more powerful.  
The National Secularists, the Tudeh, and the Communists wanted to nationalize Iran’s oil and mobilized the Iranian people.
The British feared nationalization in Iran would incite political parties like the Secular Nationalists all over the world.  
In 1947, the Iranian government passed the Single Article Law that “[increased] investment In welfare benefits, health, housing, education, and implementation of Iranianization through substitution of foreigners” at Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
“Anglo-Iranian Oil Company made more profit in 1950 than it paid to the Iranian government in royalties over the previous half century.”
The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company tried to negotiate a new concession and claimed they’d hire more Iranian people into jobs held by British and people from other nationalities at the company.
Their hospitals had segregated wards.  
On May 1, 1951, the Iranian government passed a bill that nationalized Anglo- Iranian Oil Co.’s holdings.  
During the day, only the steam from the hot lava can be seen.
In August 1953, the Iranian people elected Mossadegh from the Secular Nationalist Party as prime minister.
The British government with the CIA overthrew Mossadegh using the Iranian military after inducing protests and violent demonstrations.  
Anglo-Iranian Oil changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954.
Iranians believe that America destroyed Iran’s “last chance for democracy” and blamed America for Iran’s autocracy, its human rights abuses, and secret police.

The smoldering sound of the lava sizzles underneath the dried lava.  
In 1946, Executive Yuan wanted control over 4 groups of Islands in the South China Sea to have a stronger presence there:  the Paracels, the Spratlys, Macclesfield Bank, and the Pratas.
The French forces in the South China Sea would have been stronger than the Chinese Navy then.
French Naval forces were in the Gulf of Tonkin, U.S. forces were in the Taiwan Strait, the British were in Hong Kong, and the Portuguese were in Macao.
In the 1950s, British snd U.S. oil companies thought there might be oil in the Spratlys.  
By 1957, French presence in the South China Sea was hardly there.  

When the volcano erupted, the lava dried at the ocean into black sand.
By 1954, the Tudeh Party’s communist movement and  intelligence organization had been destroyed.  
Because of the Shah and his government’s westernization policies and disrespectful treatment of the Ulama, Iranians began identifying with the Ulama and Khomeini rather than their government.  
Those people joined with secular movements to overthrow the Shah.  

In 1966, Ne Win seized power from U Nu in Burma.
“Soldiers ruled Burma as soldiers.”
Ne Win thought that western political
Institutions “encouraged divisions.”
Minority groups found foreign support for their separatist goals.
The Karens and the Mons supported U Nu in Bangkok.  


Rare copper, a heavy metal, no alloys,
a rock in groundwater,
conducts electricity and heat.
In 1965, my Dad’s cousin met him at Heathrow, gave him a coat and £10 and brought him to a bed and breakfast across from Charing Cross Station where he’d get the train to Sheffield the next morning.
He took the train and someone met him at the train station.  
At the interview they asked him to design a grandry girder, the main weight bearing steel girder as a test.
Iron in the inner and outer core of the earth,
He’d designed many of those.  
He was hired and lived at the YMCA for 2 1/2 years.  
He took his mother’s family name, Menon, instead of his father’s, Varma.
In 1967, he left for Canada and interviewed at Bechtel before getting hired at Seagrams.  
Iron enables blood to carry oxygen.
His boss recommended him for Dale Carnegie’s leadership training classes and my dad joined the National Instrument Society and became President.
He designed a still In Jamaica,
Ordered all the parts, nuts and bolts,
Had all the parts shipped to Jamaica and made sure they got there.
His boss supervised the construction, installation and commission in Jamaica.
Quartz, heat and fade resistant, though he was an engineer and did the work of an engineer, my dad only had the title, technician so my dad’s boss thought he wasn’t getting paid enough but couldn’t get his boss to offer more than an extra $100/week or the title of engineer; he told my dad he thought he should leave.
In 1969, he got a job at Celanese, which made rayon.
He quit Celanese to work at McGill University and they allowed him to take classes to earn his MBA while working.  

The United States and Israel’s alliance was strong by 1967.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 at the end of the Third Arab Israeli War didn’t mention the Palestinians but mentioned the refugee problem.
After 1967, the Palestinians weren’t often mentioned and when mentioned only as terrorists.  
Palestinians’ faith in the “American sponsored peace process” diminished, they felt the world community ignored and neglected them also.
Groups like MAN that stopped expecting anything from Arab regimes began hijacking airplanes.
By 1972, the Palestine Liberation Organization had enough international support to get by the United States’ veto in the United Nations Security Council and Arab League recognition as representative of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians knew the United States stated its support, as the British had, but they weren’t able to accomplish anything.  
The force Israel exerted in Johnson’s United States policy delivered no equilibrium for the Palestinians.  

In 1969, all political parties submitted to the BSPP, Burma Socialist Programme Party.
Ne Win nationalized banks and oil and deprived minorities of opportunities.
Ne Win became U Nu Win, civilian leader of Burma in 1972 and stopped the active role that U Nu defined for Burma internationally
He put military people in power even when they didn’t have experience which triggered “maldistribution of goods and chronic shortages.”  
Resources were located in areas where separatist minorities had control.

The British presence in the South China Sea ended in 1968.  
The United States left Vietnam in 1974 and China went into the Western Paracels.
The U.S. didn’t intervene and Vietnam took the Spratlys.
China wanted to claim the continental shelf In the central part of the South China Sea and needed the Spratlys.
The United States mostly disregarded the Ulama In Iran and bewildered the Iranian people by not supporting their revolution.

Obsidian—
iron, copper and chromium—
isn’t a gas
but it isn’t a crystal;
it’s between the two,
the ordered crystal and the disordered gas.  
They made swords out of obsidian.


Edelweiss

I laid out in my backyard in my bikini.  
I love the feeling of my body in the sun.  
I’d be dark from the end of spring until winter.
The snow froze my bare feet through winter ,
my skin pale.
American towns in 1984,
Free, below glaciers the sunlight melted the snow,
a sea of green and the edelweiss on the edge of the  limestone,
frosted but still strong.    
When the spring warmed the grass,
the grass warmed my feet. 
The whole field looked cold and white from the glacier but in the meadow,
the bright yellow centers of those flowers float free in the center of the white petals.
The bright yellow center of those edelweiss scared the people my parents ran to America from India to get away from.  
On a sidewalk in Queens, New York in 1991, the men stared and yelled comments at me in short shorts and a fitted top in the summer.  
I grabbed my dad’s arm.

























The Bread and Coconut Butter of Aparigraha

Twelve year old flowerhead,
Marigold, yarrow and nettle,
I’d be all emotion
If not for all my work
From the time I was a teenager.
I got depressed a lot.
I related to people I read about
In my weather balloon,
Grasping, ignorant, and desperate,
But couldn’t relate to other twelve year olds.
After school I read Dali’s autobiography,
Young ****** Autosodomized by Her Own Chastity.
Fresh, green nettle with fresh and dried yarrow for purity.
Dead souls enticed to the altar by orange marigolds,
passion and creativity,
Coax sleep and rouse dreams.
Satellites measure indirectly with wave lengths of light.
My weather balloon measures the lower and middle levels of the atmosphere directly,
Fifty thousand feet high,
Metal rod thermometer,
Slide humidity sensor,
Canister for air pressure.

I enjoy rye bread and cold coconut butter in my weather balloon,
But I want Dali, and all the artists and writers.
Rye grows at high altitudes
But papyrus grows in soil and shallow water,
Strips of papyrus pith shucked from their stems.
When an anchor’s weighed, a ship sails,
But when grounded we sail.
Marigolds, yarrow and nettle,
Flowerhead,
I use the marigold for sleep,
The yarrow for endurance and intensity,
toiling for love and truth,
And the nettle for healing.
Strong rye bread needs equally strong flavors.
By the beginning of high school,
I read a lot of Beat literature
And found Buddhism.
I loved what I read
But I didn’t like some things.
I liked attachment.  
I got to the ground.
Mushrooms grow in dry soil.
Attachment to beauty is Buddha activity.
Not being attached to things I don’t find beautiful is Buddha activity.  
I fried mushrooms in a single layer in oil, fleshy.
I roasted mushrooms at high temperatures in the oven, crisp.
I simmered mushrooms in stock with kombu.
Rye bread with cold coconut butter and cremini mushrooms,
raw, soft and firm.  
Life continues, life changes,
Attachments, losses, mourning and suffering,
But change lures growth.
I find stream beds and wet soil.
I lay the strips of papyrus next to each other.
I cross papyrus strips over the first,
Then wet the crossed papyrus strips,
Press and cement them into a sheet.
I hammer it and dry it in the sun,
With no thought of achievement or self,
Flowerhead,
Hands filled with my past,
Head filled with the future,
Dali, artists poets,
Wishes and desires aligned with nature,
Abundance,
Cocoa, caraway, and molasses.

If I ever really like someone,
I’ll be wearing the dress he chooses,
Fresh green nettle and yarrow, the seeds take two years to grow strong,
Lasting love.
Marigolds steer dead souls from the altar to the afterlife,
Antiseptic, healing wounds,
Soothing sore throats and headaches.
Imperturbable, stable flowerhead,
I empty my mind.
When desires are aligned with nature, desire flows.
Papyrus makes paper and cloth.
Papyrus makes sails.
Charcoal from the ash of pulverized papyrus heals wounds.
Without attachment to the fruit of action
There is continuation of life,
Rye bread and melted coconut butter,
The coconut tree in the coconut butter,
The seed comes from the ground out of nothing,
Naturalness.
It has form.
As the seed grows the seed expresses the tree,
The seed expresses the coconut,
The seed expresses the coconut butter.
Rye bread, large open hollows, chambers,
Immersed in melted coconut butter,
Desire for expansion and creation,
No grasping, not desperate.
When the mind is compassion, the mind is boundless.
Every moment,
only that,
Every moment,
a scythe to the papyrus in the stream bed of the past.  

































Sound on Powdery Blue

Potter’s clay, nymph, plum unplumbed, 1993.
Dahlia, ice, powder, musk and rose,
my source of life emerged in darkness, blackness.
Seashell fragments in the sand,
The glass ball of my life cracked inside,
Light reflected off the salt crystal cracks,
Nacre kept those cracks from getting worse.
Young ****** Autosodomized By Her Own Chastity,
Nymph, I didn’t want to give my body,
Torn, *****, ballgown,
To people who wouldn’t understand me,
Piquant.

Outside on the salt flats,
Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, pleasure and fertility and
Asexual Artemis, goddess of animals, and the hunt,
Mistress of nymphs,
Punish with ruthless savagery.

In my bedroom, blue caribou moss covered rocks, pine, and yew trees,
The heartwood writhes as hurricane gales, twisters and whirlwinds
Contort their bark,
Roots strong in the soil.
Orris root dried in the sun, bulbs like wood.
Dahlia runs to baritone soundbath radio waves.
Light has frequencies,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet,
Flame, slate and flint.
Every night is cold.

Torii gates, pain secured as sacred.
An assignation, frost hardy dahlia and a plangent resonant echo.
High frequency sound waves convert to electrical signals,
Breathe from someone I want,
Silt.
Beam, radiate, ensorcel.
I break the bark,
Sap flows and dries,
Resin seals over the tear.
I distill pine,
Resin and oil for turpentine, a solvent.
Quiver, bemired,
I lead sound into my darkness,
Orris butter resin, sweet and warm,
Hot jam drops on snow drops,
Orange ash on smoke,
Balm on lava,
The problem with cotton candy.

Electrical signals give off radiation or light waves,
The narrow frequency range where
The crest of a radio wave and the crest of a light wave overlap,
Infrared.
Glaciers flow, sunlight melts the upper layers of the snow when strong,
A wet snow avalanche,
A torrent, healing.
Brown sugar and whiskey,
Undulant, lavender.
Pine pitch, crystalline, sticky, rich and golden,
And dried pine rosin polishes glass smooth
Like the smell of powdery orris after years.
Softness, flush, worthy/not worthy,
Rich rays thunder,
Intensify my pulse,
Frenzied red,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet.
Babylon—flutter, glow.
Unquenchable cathartic orris.  

















Pink Graphite

Camellias, winter shrubs,
Their shallow roots grow beneath the spongy caribou moss,
Robins egg blue.
After writing a play with my gifted students program in 1991,
I stopped spending all my free time writing short stories,
But the caribou moss was still soft.

In the cold Arctic of that town,
The evergreen protected the camellias from the afternoon sun and storms.
They branded hardy camellias with a brass molded embossing iron;
I had paper and graphite for my pencils.

After my ninth grade honors English teacher asked us to write poems in 1994,
It began raining.
We lived on an overhang.
A vertical rise to the top of the rock.
The rainstorm caused a metamorphic change in the snowpack,
A wet snow avalanche drifted slowly down the moss covered rock,
The snow already destabilized by exposure to the sunlight.

The avalanche formed lakes,
rock basins washed away with rainwater and melted snow,
Streams dammed by the rocks.  
My pencils washed away in the avalanche,
My clothes heavy and cold.
I wove one side of each warp fiber through the eye of the needle and one side through each slot,
Salves, ointments, serums and tinctures.
I was mining for graphite.
They were mining me,
The only winch, the sound through the water.

A steep staircase to the red Torii gates,
I broke the chains with bells for vespers
And chimes for schisms,
And wove the weft across at right angles to the warp.  

On a rocky ledge at the end of winter,
The pink moon, bitters and body butter,
They tried to get  me to want absinthe,
Wormwood for bitterness and regret.
Heat and pressure formed carbon for flakes of graphite.
Heat and pressure,
I made bitters,
Brandy, grapefruit, chocolate, mandarin rind, tamarind and sugar.
I grounded my feet in the pink moss,
paper dried in one hand,
and graphite for my pencils in the other.  



































Flakes

I don’t let people that put me down be part of my life.  
Gardens and trees,
My shadow sunk in the grass in my yard
As I ate bread, turmeric and lemon.
Carbon crystallizes into graphite flakes.
I write to see well,
Graphite on paper.  
A shadow on rock tiles with a shield, a diamond and a bell
Had me ***** to humiliate me.
Though I don’t let people that put me down near me,
A lot of people putting me down seemed like they were following me,
A platform to jump from
While she had her temple.  

There was a pink door to the platform.
I ate bread with caramelized crusts and
Drank turmeric lemonade
Before I opened that door,
Jumped and
Descended into blankets and feathers.
I found matches and rosin
For turpentine to clean,
Dried plums and licorice.  

In the temple,
In diamonds, leather, wool and silk,
She had her shield and bells,
Drugs and technology,
Thermovision 210 and Minox,
And an offering box where people believed
That if their coins went in
Their wishes would come true.

Hollyhock and smudging charcoal for work,  
Belled,
I ground grain in the mill for the bread I baked for breakfast.
The bells are now communal bells
With a watchtower and a prison,
Her shield, a blowtorch and flux,
Her ex rays, my makeshift records
Because Stalin didn’t like people dancing,
He liked them divebombing.
Impurities in the carbon prevent diamonds from forming,
Measured,
The most hard, the most expensive,
But graphite’s soft delocalized electrons move.  






































OCEAN BED

The loneliness of going to sleep by myself.  
I want a bed that’s high off the ground,
a mattress, an ocean.
I want a crush and that  person in my bed.  
Only that,
a crush in my bed,
an ocean in my bed.  
Just love.  
But I sleep with my thumbs sealed.  
I sleep with my hands, palms up.  
I sleep with my hands at my heart.  
They sear my compassion with their noise.  
They hold their iron over their fire and try to carve their noise into my love,
scored by the violence of voices, dark and lurid,  
but not burned.  
I want a man in my bed.  
When I wake up in an earthquake
I want to be held through the aftershocks.  
I like men,
the waves come in and go out
but the ocean was part of my every day.  
I don’t mind being fetishized in the ocean.  
I ran by the ocean every morning.  
I surfed in the ocean.  
I should’ve gone into the ocean that afternoon at Trestles,
holding my water jugs, kneeling at the edge.  














Morning

I want to fall asleep in the warm arms of a fireman.  
I want to wake up to the smell of coffee in my kitchen.  

Morning—the molten lava in the outer core of the earth embeds the iron from the inner core into the earth’s magnetic field.  
The magnetic field flips.  
The sun, so strong, where it gets through the trees it burns everything but the pine.  
The winds change direction.  
Storms cast lightening and rain.  
Iron conducts solar flares and the heavy wind.  
In that pine forest, I shudder every time I see a speck of light for fear of neon and fluorescents.  The eucalyptus cleanses congestion.  
And Kerouac’s stream ululates, crystal bowl sound baths.  
I follow the sound to the water.  
The stream ends at a bluff with a thin rocky beach below.  
The green water turns black not far from the shore.  
Before diving into the ocean, I eat globe mallow from the trees, stems and leaves, the viscous flesh, red, soft and nutty.  
I distill the pine from one of the tree’s bark and smudge the charcoal over my skin.  

Death, the palo santo’s lit, cleansing negative energy.  
It’s been so long since I’ve smelled a man, woodsmoke, citrus and tobacco.  
Jasmine, plum, lime and tuberose oil on the base of my neck comforts.  
Parabolic chambers heal, sound waves through water travel four times faster.  
The sound of the open sea recalibrates.  
I dissolve into the midnight blue of the ocean.  

I want to fall asleep in the warm arms of a fireman.  
I want to wake up to the smell of coffee in my kitchen.  
I want hot water with coconut oil when I get up.  
We’d lay out on the lawn, surrounded by high trees that block the wind.  
Embers flying through the air won’t land in my yard, on my grass, or near my trees.  





Blue Paper

Haze scatters blue light on a planet.  
Frought women, livid, made into peonies by Aphrodites that caught their men flirting and blamed the women, flushed red.
and blamed the women, flushed red.
Frought women, livid, chrysanthemums, dimmed until the end of the season, exchanged and retained like property.  
Blue women enter along the sides of her red Torii gates, belayed, branded and belled, a plangent sound.  
By candles, colored lights and dried flowers she’s sitting inside on a concrete floor, punctures and ruin burnished with paper, making burnt lime from lime mortar.  
Glass ***** on the ceiling, she moves the beads of a Palestinian glass bead bracelet she holds in her hands.  
She bends light to make shadows against  thin wooden slats curbed along the wall, and straight across the ceiling.
A metier, she makes tinctures, juniper berries and cotton *****.
Loamy soil in the center of the room,
A hawthorn tree stands alone,
A gateway for fairies.
large stones at the base protecting,
It’s branches a barrier.  
It’s leaves and shoots make bread and cheese.
It’s berries, red skin and yellow flesh, make jam.
Green bamboo stakes for the peonies when they whither from the weight of their petals.
And lime in the soil.  
She adds wood chips to the burnt lime in the kiln,
Unrolled paper, spools, and wire hanging.
Wood prayer beads connect her to the earth,
The tassels on the end of the beads connect her to spirit, to higher truth.
Minerals, marine mud and warm basins of seawater on a flower covered desk.  
She adds slaked lime to the burnt lime and wood chips.  
The lime converts to paper,
Trauma victims speak,
Light through butterfly wings.  
She’s plumeria with curved petals, thick, holding water

There once was a squirrel named Nutty
Who was looking for a little buddy
But Nutty was alone
So he burned down his home
With himself inside of it

Filthy, ******,
Who likes nutty buddy's?
Nutty bar you *****.

I reserved a table for the two of us
at the only restaurant in the world
that not only offers atmosphere and setting
but tone and syntax as well.

First some articles for appetizers. They're
easiest on my pocket you know.

An an, a the, and an a.
Let's not even start on the punctuation,
I'm treating you to a rather large meal.
As large as the entire English language,
now back to the articles.
Sure these taste like lint but they still
taste. Petit fours but there you are.
Try to be disinterested or you'll
put me off my food.

Nouns now. My, what a variety.
Bit meaty, eh? These have staying power.
They taste like a bit of everywhere,
and everyone, and everything.
What's that? Surely they're not that bland.
Maybe you need some seasoning.

"Adjective" comes from the
French for "to the word."
So exotic aren't they? These
really are fantastic.
Exquisite, unique, zesty to say the least.
You must admit, they
make the meal worth it.
I hope you're not allergic,
I could have sworn I just
had something "nutty."
Oh, it had nuts "in it"?
There must be some prepositions
mixed in here.

(I'm glad we're getting through
these now, I've never been a big fan of them.
When I was a kid, I would always push my prepositions to the end
of my sentences. You just can't do
that in a joint like this, it seems.)

Ah finally. The verbs are served.
Well-prepared it would seem.
Yes, anything you can do to a verb
they've done to these.
Infinitives (too good to realistically be believed!),
gerunds, and participles (No, not particles. But we
did have some of those at the Japanese restaurant.)
Fairly lean too, as I can't see
any auxiliary fat.

For some reason
those adverbs (just to your left, under that
thesaurus) really go well with this.
Plus those adjectives from earlier, rather pleasantly.

Now a brief selection
of conjunctions, but don't ruin
yourself. They're not a meal of themselves,
just a link to...

Oh! Look at those interjections.
So delicate, so (Wow!) incisive.
I told you to keep your appetite.
Well, just try a little of this. Goodness, me!

And then everyone proceeds to
die  
from a split infinitive.

That someone
Transcendental
But the scene got dangerous
Lady confidential
The Candle in
the wind of diamonds

Went International
A kiss all over
Continental

{A Scene}she play like
a *** phone
The Xylophone,
not a girl's best friend
Used as a weapon

The scenes crying your eyes
out being alone
Taught her many lessons

And those I phones will become old
The new science of acting is bold
Like the I-spy  you've been
Sherlocked
Pretty smile closed locked
Your earrings what big loop
He's draping the sheerness
The fairest of them all
escaping they need the
The darkness hitting those
stage lights
With your lover
Your body so lovely but
The scene changed to the

{Arsenic and lace}

never will he cover
Death becomes her

What happened to
your love scene
So-called part of your face
His words can devour
her footprints
The scene next required
dinner mints
Like tracking

The trance what a long trip
My taste bud acidy
Flying with lucidity
Meeting My Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

The scene was set up with one crack
To be naked no lines left out train track

The Prince looked away
Never to kiss her

But its I
In the scene, someone will bless her

The whole shebang act
Not some kind of
Seed planted
Whole wheat clean as a whistle
bagel
With your cute beagles
Watching your whole set
Like twins or double bet
What a set she has
Detective scenes of
Chocolate Bavarian cream
Vanilla sky the scene you had
was only perfect for
your dream
Doughnuts all cream
She slipped out of her
French crazy horse
burlesque
scene

The Nutcracker ballet
What meaning yearning
But waiting so long my steps
Got lost in his fire
The desire was higher than
Those outtakes and scenes
To do over again
Primetime someone
Will do the scene again
They skipped over
too many lines
Became the dark silhouette
The scene can be changeable
Channeling into someone
remarkable

We are not built up
to take instructions
We are the someone's
Walking the thin line
Or the thin man
Slim man scene
The restriction chair
Like the guillotine
was the fad
Getting scared and angry
Someone showed up mad
Was pitch black dark of the light
Flickers

Should a scene have teasing
No silly quite the drama so
theatrical they hired someone
Was she anyone well known
Like no artist over the website
He was teasing her hair I mean
That wet diving suit was
like the Rite
She got the look shopping
at Shoprite
"Like Loreal" but more surreal
What April fools commercial
Loosening his tie so political
Their discussion all
exceptions to the rule
Bullfight what kick
in the pants mule


She was born Nutty Professor of snickers*


The true believers and achievers
The passion within us
The colors come to ******
Like a scene
We know how to act when
we aren't acting
Like the punctuations
P...I...E...C...E...S
Those nooks and cranny
bits of pieces

Look at her nieces
they look guilty
When we are doing a scene
It's not necessarily about
being wealthy
Everything is
tangible you're on your own
Even if you're not well known
Like a movie extra
Extra read all about it
I am capable of acting anyway I can
Like my words are written
They can shine a stage to glisten

A bisel: A little
A biseleh: A very little
A breyre hob ich: I have no alternative
A breyte deye hob'n: To do all the talking (To have the greatest say or authority)
A broch!: Oh hell! **** it!! A curse!!!
A broch tzu dir!: A curse on you!
A broch tzu Columbus: A curse on Columbus
A brocheh: A blessing
A chazer bleibt a chazer: A pig remains a pig
A chorbn: Oh, what a disaster (Oh ****! an expletive)
A choleryeh ahf dir!: A plague on you! (Lit., wishing someone to get Cholera.)
A deigeh hob ich: I don't care. I should worry.
A farshlepteh krenk: A chronic ailment
A feier zol im trefen: He should burn up! (Lit., A fire should meet him.)
A finstere cholem auf dein kopf und auf dein hent und fiss: (a horrible wish on someone) A dark dream (nightmare) on your head, hands and feet!
A foiler tut in tsveyen: A lazy person has to do a task twice
A gesheft hob nicht: I don't care
A gezunt ahf dein kop!: Good health to you (lit., Good health on your head)
A glick ahf dir!: Good luck to you (Sometimes used sarcastically about minor good fortunes) Big thing!
A glick hot dich getrofen!: Big deal! Sarcastic; lit., A piece of luck happened to you.
A groyser tzuleyger: A big shot (sarcastically.)
A grubber yung: A coarse young man
A kappore: A catastrophe.
A khasuren die kalleh is tsu shayn: A fault that the bride is too beautiful
A klog iz mir!: Woe is me!
A klog tzu meineh sonim!: A curse on my enemies!
A langer lucksh: A tall person (a long noodle)
A leben ahf dein kepele: A life on your head (A grandparent might say to a grandchild meaning "you are SO smart!")
A leben ahf dir!: You should live! And be well!
A lung un leber oyf der noz: Stop talking yourself into illness! (Lit., Don't imagine a lung and a liver upon the nose)
A maidel mit a vayndel: A pony-tailed nymphet.
A maidel mit a klaidel: A cutie-pie showing off her (new) dress.
A mentsh on glik is a toyter mensh: An unlucky person is a dead person.
A mentsh tracht und Gott lacht: A person plans and God laughs.
A metsieh far a ganef: It's a steal (Lit., A bargain for a thief.)
A nahr bleibt a nahr: A fool remains a fool
A nechtiker tog!: Forget it! (Lit., "A day that's a night.")
A nishtikeit!: A nobody!
A piste kayleh: A shallow person (an empty barrel)
A ritch in kop: Crazy (in the head.)
A schwartz yor: Bad luck. (LIT., A black year)
A schwartzen sof: A bad end.
A shandeh un a charpeh: A shame and a disgrace
A shittern mogn: Loose bowel movement
A shtik fleish mit tzvei eigen: A piece of meat with two eyes (insult)
A shtik naches: A great joy
A shtyfer mogn: Constipated
A sof! A sof!: Let's end it ! End it!
A tuches un a halb: A person with a very large backside. (Lit., A backside and a half.)
A volf farlirt zayne hor, ober nit zayn natur: A wolf loses his hair but hot his nature. "A leopard cannot change his spots."
Abi gezunt!: As long as you're healthy!
Achrahyes: Responsibility
Afn gonif brennt das hittel: "He thinks everyone knows he committed a crime." (a thief's hat burns)
Ahf mir gezogt!: I wish it could be said about me!
Ahf tsores: In trouble
Afh yenems tukhes is gut sepatchen: Someone else's *** is easy to smack.
Ahf zu lochis: Spitefully (Lit: Just to get (someone) angry.)
Ahntoisht: Disappointed
Ahzes ponim: Impudent fellow
Aidel: Cultured or finicky
Aidel gepotchket: Delicately brought up
Aidim: Son-in-law
Ainikle: Grandchild
Aitzeh: Advice
Aiver butelt: Absent minded; mixed up
Alaichem sholom: To you be peace. Used in response to the the greeting Shalom aleichem.
Ale:bais - Alphabet; the first two letters of the Jewish alphabet
Alevei!: It should happen to me (to you)!
Alle ziben glicken: Not what it's cracked up to be (all 7 lucky things)
Alles in einem is nisht do bei keine: All in one (person) is to be found in no one.
Alrightnik: One who has succeeded
Alrightnikeh: Feminine form of "alrightnik."
Alteh moid: Spinster, old maid
Alter bocher: Bachelor
Alter bok: Old goat
Alter Kocker: An old man or old woman.
An alteh machashaifeh: An old witch
An alter bakahnter: An old acquaintance
An alter trombenick: An old ***
An emmisse meisse: An (absolutely) true tale
Apikoros: An unbeliever, a skeptic, an athiest
Arbit: Work
Arein: Come in!
Aroisgevorfen: Thrown out, wasted, (wasted opportunities)
Aroisgevorfene gelt: Thrown out money (Wasted money)
Arumgeflickt!: Plucked! Milked!
Arumloifer: Street urchin; person who runs around
Aydem: Son-in-law
Ayn klaynigkeit: Ya, sure!! (very derogatory)
Az a yor ahf mir.: I should have such good luck.
Az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde!: If my grandmother had testicles she would be my grandfather.
Az mir vill schlugen a hunt, gifintmin a schtecken: If one wants to beat a dog, one finds a stick.
Az och un vai!: Tough luck! Too bad! Misfortune!
Az tzvei zuggen shiker, leigst zich der driter shloffen: If two people say you're drunk, the third one goes to sleep. If two people confirm something, it's true.
Azoy?: Really?
Azoy gait es!: That's how it goes!
Azoy gich?: So soon?
Azoy vert dos kichel tzekrochen!: That's how the cookie crumbles!
B
Babka: Coffee cake style pastry
Badchan: Jester, merry maker or master of ceremonies at a wedding; at the end of the meal he announces the presents, lifting them up and praising the giver and the gift in a humorous manner
Bagroben: To bury
Baitsim: Testicles
Balebatim: Persons of high standing
Balbatish: Quiet, respectable, well mannered
Balebatisheh yiden: Respectable Jews, people of substance and good standing in the community
Baleboosteh: Mistress of the house. A compliment to someone who is a terrific housekeeper. "She is some baleboosteh!"
Balegoola: Truckdriver or sloppy person of low standing.
Balmalocha: An expert (sometimes used sarcastically- Oy, is he an expert!)
Balnes: Miracle-worker
Bal Toyreh: Learned man, scholar
Bal: Sure
Bandit: Menace, outlaw, pain-in-the-neck
Bareden yenem: To gossip
Baren (taboo): Fornicate: bother, annoy
Barimer: Braggart, show-off
Bashert: Fated or predestined
Ba:yekhide - A female only child
Bashert zein: To be destined
Batampte: Tasty , delicious
Batlan: Someone without a trade or a regular means of livelihood
Baysn zikh di finger vos: Regret strongly that........
Becher: Wine goblet
Behaimeh: Animal, cow (when referring to a human being, means dull-witted)
Bei mir hust du gepoylt: You've gotten your way with me.
Be:yokhid - A male only child
Benken: "To yearn for" or "to long for."
Benkshaft: Homesickness, nostalgia
Bentsh: To bless, to recite a blessing
Bentshen lecht: Recite prayer over lit candles on Sabbath eve or Holy Day candles
Beryeh: Efficient, competent housewife
Bes medresh: Synagogue
Bialy: Named for the Polish city of Bialystock, the bialy is of Jewish origin. A Bialy is a fairly large (about 6 inches) chewy round yeast roll. Somewhat similar to a bagel, it has a depression rather than a hole in the centre, and is sprinkled with chopped sauteed onion before baking.
Bikur cholem: Visiting the sick
Billik: Cheap, inexpensive
Bist meshugeh?: Are you crazy?
Biteh: Please
Blondjen: To wander, be lost
Boarderkeh: A female boarder
Boch: A punch
Bohmer: *** (masc.)
Bohmerkeh: *** (fem.)
Boorvisser fiss: Barefoot
Boreke borsht: Beet borsht which the wealthy could afford.
Borekes: Pastries with cheese inside
Borsht: Beet soup
Borsht circuit: Hotels in the Catskill Mountains of New York State, with an almost entirely Jewish clientele, who are fond of borsht; term is used by entertainers
Borviss: Barefoot
Botvenye borsht: Borsht made from beet leaves for the poor.
Boychik: Young boy (term of endearment)
Boykh: Stomach, abdomen
Boykhvehtig: Stomachache
Breeye: Creature, animal
Breire: choice
Bris: Circumcision
Bristen: *******
Broitgeber: Head of family (Lit., Bread giver)
Bronfen: Whiskey
Broygis: Not on speaking terms
B'suleh: ******
Bubbeh: Grandmother
Bubbe maisse: Grandmother's tale.
Bubbee: Friendly term for anybody you like
Bubeleh: Endearing term for anyone you like regardless of age
Bulvan: Man built like an ox; boorish, coarse, rude person
Bupkis: Nothing. Something totally worthless (Lit., Beans)
Butchke: chat, tete-a-tete, telling tales
C
Chai: Hebrew word for LIFE, comprised of the two Hebrew letters, Chet and Yod. There is a sect of Jewish mysticism that assigns a numeric value to each letter in the Hebrew alphabet and is devoted to finding hidden meanings in the numeric values of words. The letter "Chet" has the numeric value of 8, and the letter "Yod", has the value of 10, for a total of 18.
Chaider: Religious School
Chaim Yonkel: any Tom, **** or Harry
Chaimyankel kooternooz: The perennial cuckold
Chaleria: Evil woman. Probably derived from cholera.
Chaleshen: Faint
Challa: Ceremonial "egg" bread. Either round or shaped long. Used on Shabbat and most religious observances with the exception of Pesach (Passover)
Chaloshes: Nausea, faintness, unconsciousness
Chamoole: Donkey, *******, numbskull, fool
Chamoyer du ainer!: You blockhead! You dope, You ***!
Chanukah: Also known as the "Festival of Lights", commemorates the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. Chanukah is celebrated for 8 days during which one additional candle is added to the menorah on each night of the holiday.
Chap a gang!: Beat it! (Lit., Catch a way, catch a road)
Chap ein a meesa meshina!: "May you suffer an ugly fate!"
Chap nit!: Take it easy! Not so fast! (Lit., Don't grab)
Chaptsem: Catch him!
Chassene: Wedding
Chassene machen: To plan and execute a wedding.
Chas v'cholileh!: G-d forbid!
Chavver: Friend
Chaye: Animal
Chazen: Cantor
Chazenteh: Wife of chazen (cantor)
Chazzer: A pig (one who eats like a pig)
Chazzerei: Swill; pig's feed; anything bad, unpalatable, rotten. In other words, "junk food." This word can also be used to describe a lot of house hold or other kinds of junk.
Chazzershtal: Pigpen; slovenly kept room or house.
Chei kuck (taboo): Nothing, infinitesimal, worthless, unimportant (Lit., human dung)
Chev 'r' mann: Buddy
Chmalyeh!: Bang, punch; Slam! Wallop!
Chochem : A wise man (Slang: A wise guy)
Chochmeh: Wisdom, bright saying, witticism
Choleryeh: Cholera; a curse, plague
Choshever mentsh: Man of worth and dignity; elite person; respected person
Chosid: Rabid fan
Chossen: Bridegroom
Chosse:kalleh - Bride and groom; engaged couple
Choyzik machen: Make fun of, ridicule
Chrain: Horseradish
Chropen: Snore
Chub Rachmones: "Have pity"
Chug: Activity group
Chupah: Canopy under which a bride and groom stand during marriage ceremony.
Chutzpeh: Brazenness, gall, baitzim
Chutzpenik: Impudent fellow
Chvalye: Ocean wave
Columbus's medina: It's not what it's cracked up to be. (Columbus's country.
D
Danken Got!: Thank G-d!
Darf min gehn in kolledj?: For this I went to college? Usually said when describing a menial task.
Davenen: Pray
Deigeh nisht!: Don't worry!
Der mensch trakht un Gott lahkht: Man thinks (plans) and God laughs
Der oyg: Eye
Der tate oysn oyg: Just like his father
Der universitet: University
Der zokn: Old man
Derech erets: Respect
Derlebn: To live to see (I should only live to see him get married, already!)
Der oysdruk: Expression
Dershtikt zolstu veren!: You should choke on it!
Di khemye: Chemistry
Di skeyne: Old woman
Di Skeynes: Old women
Di skeynim: Old men
Die goldene medina: the golden country
Die untershte sheereh: the bottom line
Dine Essen teg: Yeshiva students would arrange to be fed by various householders on a daily basis in different houses. (Lit., Eat days)
Dingen: Bargain, hire, engage, lease, rent
Dis fayntin shneg: It's starting to snow
Dis fayntin zoraiganin: It's starting to rain
Dos gefelt mir: This pleases me
Dos hartz hot mir gezogt: My heart told me. I predicted it.
Dos iz alts: That's all.
Dos zelbeh: The same
Drai mir nit kain kop!: Don't bother me! (Lit., Don't twist my head)
Drai zich!: Keep moving!
Draikop: Scatterbrain
Dreidal: Spinning top used in a game that is associated with the holiday of Chanukah.
Drek: Human dung, feces, manure or excrement; inferior merchandise or work; insincere talk or excessive flattery
Drek auf dem teller: Mean spirited, valueless Lit.crap on a plate.
Drek mit Leber: Absolutely nothing; it's not worth anything.
Druchus: The sticks (way out in the wild)
Du fangst shoyn on?: Are you starting up again?
Du kannst nicht auf meinem rucken pishen unt mir sagen class es regen ist.: You can't *** on my back and tell me that it's rain!
Dumkop: Dumbbell, dunce (Lit., Dumb head)
Durkhfall: A flop or failure
Dybbuk: Soul condemned to wander for a time in this world because of its sins. (To escape the perpetual torments inflicted upon it by evil spirits, the dybbuk seeks refuge in the body of some pious man or woman over whom the demons have no power. The dybbuk is a Cabalistic conception)
E
Ech: A groan, a disparaging exclamation
Ech mir (eppes): Humorous, disparaging remark about anything. e.g. "American Pie ech mir a movie?"
Efsher: Maybe, could be
Ei! Ei!: Yiddish exclamation equivalent to the English "Oh!"
Eingeshpahrt: Stubborn
Eingetunken: Dipped, dunked
Einhoreh: The evil eye
Eizel: Fool, dope
Ek velt: End of the world
Emes: The truth
Emitzer: Someone
Enschultig meir: "Well excuuuuuuse ME!" (Can also bu used in a non-sarcastic manner depending on the tone of voice and situation.)
Entoisht: Disappointed
Eppes: Something
Er bolbet narishkeiten: He talks nonsense
Er drayt sich arum vie a fortz in russell: He wanders around like a **** in a barrel (aimless)
Er est vi noch a krenk.: He eats as if he just recovered from a sickness.
Er frest vi a ferd.: He eats like a horse.
Er hot a makeh.: He has nothing at all (Lit., He has a boil or a minor hurt.)
Er hot nit zorg.: He hasn't got a worry.
Er iz a niderrechtiker kerl!: He's a low down good-for-nothing.
Er iz shoyn du, der nudnik!: The nuisance is here already!
Er macht a tel fun dem.: He ruins it.
Er macht zack nisht visindicht: He pretends he doesn't know he is doing something wrong. Example: Sneaking into a movie theatre, or sneaking to the front of a line.
Er toig (****) nit: He's no good, worthless
Er varved zakh: Lit: He's throwing himself. Example: He's getting angry, agitated, ******-off.
Er zitst oyf shpilkes.: He's restless. (Lit., He sits on pins and needles.)
Er zol vaksen vi a tsibeleh, mit dem kop in drerd!: He should grow like an onion, with his head in the ground!
Eretz Yisroel: Land of Israel
Es brent mir ahfen hartz.: I have a heartburn.
Es gait nit!: It doesn't work! It isn't running smoothly!
Es gefelt mir.: I like it. (Lit., It pleases, me.)
Es hot zich oysgelohzen a boydem!: Nothing came of it! (Lit., There's nothing up there but a small attic.)
Es iz a shandeh far di kinder!: It's a shame for the children!
Es iz (tsu) shpet.: It is (too) late.
Es ken gemolt zein.: It is conceivable. It is imaginable.
Es macht mir nit oys.: It doesn't matter to me.
Es iz nit dayn gesheft: It's none of your business.
Es past nit.: It is not becoming. It is not fitting.
Es tut mir a groisseh hanoeh!: It gives me great pleasure!(often said sarcastically)
Es tut mir bahng.: I'm sorry. (Lit., It sorrows me)
Es tut mir vai: It hurts me.
Es vert mir finster in di oygen.: This is a response to receiving extremely upsetting information or news. (Lit., It's getting dark in my eyes.)
Es vet gornit helfen!: Nothing will help!!
Es vet helfen vi a toiten bahnkes!: It won't help (any)! (Lit., It will help like blood-cupping on a dead body.)
Ess vie ein foygl sheise vie ein feirt!: Eat like a bird, **** like a horse!
Ess, bench, sei a mensch: Eat, pray, don't act like a ****!
Ess gezunterhait: Eat in good health
Essen: To eat
Essen mitik: Eating midday or having dinner.
F
Fahrshvindn: Disappeared
Faigelah: Bird (also used as a derogatory reference to a gay person).
Fantazyor: Man who builds castles in the air
Farbissener: Embittered; bitter person
Farblondzhet: Lost, bewildered, confused
Farblujet: Bending your ear
Farbrecher: Crook, conman
Fardeiget: Distressed, worried, full of care, anxiety
Fardinen a mitzveh: Earn a blessing or a merit (by doing a good deed)
Fardrai zich dem kop!: Go drive yourself crazy!
Fardross: Resentment, disappointment, sorrow
Farfolen: Lost
Farfoylt: Mildewed, rotten, decayed
Farfroyren: Frozen
Fargessen: Forgot
Farklempt: Too emotional to talk. Ready to cry. (See "Verklempt)
Farklempt fis: Not being able to walk right, clumsy as in "clumsy feet."
Far Knaft: Engaged
Farkakte (taboo): Dungy, ******
Farmach dos moyl!: Shut up! Quiet. (Lit., Shut your mouth.)
Farmatert: Tired
Farmisht: Befuddled
Farmutshet: Worn out, fatigued, exhausted
Farpitzed: To get all dressed up to the "nines."
Farschimmelt: Moldy or rotten. An analogous meaning could be that a person's mind has become senile.
Farshlepteh krenk: Fruitless, endless matter (Lit., A sickness that hangs on)
Farshlugginer: Refers to a mixed-up or shaken item. Generally indicates something of little or dubious value.
Farshmeieter: Highly excitable person; always on the go
Farshnickert: Drunk, high as a kite
Farshnoshket: Loaded, drunk
Farshtaist?: You understand?
Farshtopt: Stuffed
Farshtunken: Smells bad, stinks
Farshvitst: sweaty
Fartik: finished, ready, complete
Fa:tshadikt - Confused, bewildered, befuddled, as if by fumes, gas
Feh!: Fooey, It stinks, It's no good
Feinkoche: Omelet, scrambled eggs
Feinshmeker: Hi falutin'
Fendel: pan
Ferd: Horse, (slang) a fool
Ferkrimpter ponim: Twisted-up, scowling face
Ferprishte punim: pimple-face
Fet: Fat, obese
Fetter: Uncle (also onkel)
Finster un glitshik: Miserable (Lit., Dark and slippery)
Fisfinger: Toes
Fisslach: (chickens'/duck's) feet, often in ptsha
Fliegel: Fowl's wing
Focha: Fan
Foigel: Smart guy (Lit: bird)
Foiler: Lazy man
Foilishtik: Foolishness
Folg mikh!: Obey me!
Folg mikh a gang!: Quite a distance! Why should I do it? It's hardly worth the trouble!
Fonfen: Speak through the nose
For gezunterhait!: Bon voyage! Travel in good health!
Forshpeiz: Appetizer
Fortz: ****
Fortz n' zovver: A foul, soul-smelling ****.
Frageh: Question
Frailech: Happy
Frassk in pis: Slap in the face
Freint: Friend,
Mr. Fremder: Stranger
Fress: Eat....pig out.
Fressen: Eat like a pig, devour
Fressing: Gourmandizing (By adding the English suffix "ing" to the Yiddish word "fress", a new English word in the vocabulary of American Jews has been created.)
Froy: Woman,
Mrs. Frum, (frimer): Pious, religious, devout
Funfeh: Speaker's fluff, error
G
*** avek!: Go away
*** feifen ahfen yam!: Go peddle your fish elsewhere!
*** gezunterhait!: Go in good health
*** in drerd arein!: Go to hell!
*** kaken oifen yam!: Get lost (Lit: Go **** in the ocean!)
*** mit dein kop in drerd: "Go with your head in the ground." "Stick your head in the mud"
*** platz!: Go split your guts!
*** shlog dein kup en vant!: Go bang your head against the wall
*** shoyn, ***.: Scram! also, Don't be silly!
*** strasheh di vantzen: You don't frighten me! (Lit., Go threaten the bed bugs)
*** tren zich. (taboo): Go **** yourself
Gait, gait!: Come now!
Gait es nit!: It doesn't work!
Galitsianer: Jewish native of Galicia
Gants gut: Very good
Gantseh K'nacker!: "Big Shot"
Gantseh Macher: "Big shot."
Gantseh megilleh: Big deal! (derisive)
Gantseh mentsh: Manly, a whole man, a complete man; an adult; a fellow who assumes airs
Gatkes: Long winter underwear
Geben shoychad: To bribe
Gebentsht mit kinder: Blessed with children
Gebentshte boych: Literally-blesses stomach (womb) (Said of a lady with a fabulous child or children,
Gebrenteh tsores: Utter misery
Gebrochener english: Fractured English
Gedainkst?: Remember?
Gedempte flaysh: Mystery meat
Gedicht: Thick, full, ample
Geferlech: Dangerous
Geharget zolstu veren!: Drop dead! (Lit., You should get killed.)
Gelaimter: Person who drops whatever he touches
Gelibteh: Beloved
Gelt: Money
Gelt gait tzu gelt.: Money goes to money.
Gelt is nisht kayn dayge: Money is not a problem.
Gembeh!: Big mouth!
Gemitlich: Slowly, unhurried, gently
Genaivisheh shtiklech: Tricky, sharp, crooked actions or doings
Genevishe oigen: Shifty eyes
Genug iz genug.: Enough is enough!
Gesheft: Business
Geshmak: Tasty, delicious
Geshtorben: The state of being dead.
Geshtroft: Cursed, accursed; punished
Geshvollen: Swollen, puffed up (Also applied to person with haughty pride)
Get: Divorce
Getchke: Statue
Gevaldikeh Zach!: A terrible thing! (often ironically)
Gevalt!: Heaven Forbid! (Exclamatory in the extreme.)
Gevalt geshreeyeh: good grief ("help" screamed)
Gezunde tzores: Healthy troubles. Troubles one should not take too seriously.
Gezunt vi a ferd: Strong as a horse
Gezunteh moid!: Brunhilde, a big healthy dame
Gezunterhait: In good health
Gib mir nit kain einorah!: Don't give me a canary! (Americanism, Lit., Don't give me an evil eye)
Gib zich a traisel: Get a move on
Gib zich a shukl: Hurry up! (Give yourself a shake)
Gitte neshomah: good soul
Gleichvertel: Wisecrack, pun, saying, proverb, bon mot, witticism
Glezel tai: Glass of tea
Glezel varms: comforting or soothing (Lit: Glass of warmth)
Glick: Luck, piece of luck
Gloib mir!: Believe me!
Glustiyah: Enema
G'nossen tsum emess!: The sneeze confirmed the truth!
Goldeneh chasseneh: Fiftieth wedding anniversary
Goniff: Crook, thief, burglar, swindler, racketeer
Gopel: Fork
Gornisht: Nothing
Got in himmel!: G-d in heaven! (said in anguish, despair, fear or frustration)
Got tsu danken: Thank G-d
Got zol ophiten!: G-d forbid!
Got:Vorte - A good piece of information or short concise Torahy commentary.
Gotteniu!: Oh G-d! (anguished cry)
Goy: Any person who is not Jewish
Goyeh: Gentile woman
Goyim: Group of non-Jewish persons
Goyishe kop: Opposite of Yiddishe kop. Generally used to indicate someone who is not particularly smart or shrewd. (Definitely offensive.)
Greps: Blech; a burp if it's a mild one
Grob: Coarse, crude, profane, rough, rude
Grober: Coarse, uncouth, crude person
Grober finger: Thumb
Groi:halter - Show-off, conceited person
Groisseh gedilleh!: Big deal! (said sarcastically)
Groisser gornisht: Big good-for-nothing
Groisser potz! (taboo): Big *****! Big *****! (derogatory or sarcastic)
Grooten: To take after, to favour.
Groyser finger: *******
Guggle muggle: A concoction made of warm milk and honey for sore throats
Gunsel: A young goose. Also used to describe a young man who accompanies a ***** or a young *****.
Gut far him!: Serves him right!
Gut gezugt: Well said
Gut Shabbos: Good Sabbath
Gut Yontif: Happy Holiday
G'vir: Rich man
H
Haimish ponem: A friendly face
Haiseh vanneh: Hot bath
Haissen: To hate
Haken a chainik: Boring, long-winded and annoying conversation; talking for the sake of talking (Lit., To bang on the tea-kettle)
Hak flaish: Chopped meat
Hak mir nit in kop!: Stop bending my ear (Lit.; Stop banging on my head)
Hak mir nit kayn chainik (arain): Don't get on my nerves; Stop nagging me. (Lit., Don't bang my teapot.)
Halevei!: If only...
Hamoyn: Common people
Handlen: To bargain; to do business
Hanoe hobn: to enjoy
Harte mogen: constipation
Hartsvaitik: Heart ache.
Hecher: Louder
Hefker: A mess
Heizel: *******
Hekdish: Decrepit place, a slumhouse, poorhouse; a mess
Heldish: Brave
Heldzel: Stuffed neck flesh; sort of a neck-kishke
Hendl: Chicken
Hert zich ein!: Listen here!
Hetsken zich: Shake and dance with joy
Hikevater: Stammerer Hinten - Rear, rear parts, backside, buttocks; in the rear
Hit zich!: Look out!
Hitsik: Hothead
Hitskop: Excitable person
Hob derech erets: Have respect
Hob dir in arbel: Lit., I've got you by the elbow (Used as a response to a derogatory remark as you would use "sticks and stones"
Hob nit kain deiges: Don't worry
Hoben tsu zingen un tsu zogen: Have no end of trouble (Lit.,To sing and to talk)
Hobn groyse oygn: To be greedy
Hock mir nisht en chinik: Don't hit me in the head. or Dont' give me a headache.
Hoizer gaier: Beggar
Hoizirer: Peddler (from house to house)
Holishkes: Stuffed Cabbage
Host du bie mir an avleh!: So I made a mistake. So what!
Hulyen: A hellraiser
I
Ich bin ahntoisht: I am disappointed
Ich bin dich nit mekaneh: I don't envy you
Ich darf es ahf kapores: It's good for nothing! I have no use for it. (Lit., I need it for a [useless] fowl sacrifice)
Ich darf es vi a loch in kop!: I need it like a hole in the head!
Ich hob dir lieb: I love you!
Ich eil zich (nit): I am (not) in a hurry
Ich feif oif dir!: I despise you! Go to the devil! (Lit., I whistle on you!)
Ich *** chaleshen bald avek: I'm about to faint (from sheer exhaustion)
Ich hob dich in ***!: To hell with you! (Lit., I have you in the bath house!)
Ich hob dir!: Drop dead! Go flap you ears! (Lit., I have you....!) (Americanism!)
Ich hob es in drerd!: To hell with it.
Ich hob im feint: I hate him.
Ich hob im in ***!: To hell with him.
Ich hob mir fer pacht: I have you in my pocket. (I know you for what you are.)
Ich hob nicht kain anung: I have no idea.
Ich ken dir nisht farfeeren: I can't lead you astray
Ich loif: I'm running
Ich vais: I know
Ich vais nit.: I don't know.
Ich vel dir geben a khamalye: I'll give you such a smack
Ich vel dir geben kadoches!: I'll give you nothing! (Lit., I'll give you malaria or a fever.)
Ich yog zich nit.: I'm not in a hurry.
Ich zol azoy vissen fun tsores.: I should know as little about trouble (as I know about what you are asking me)
Iker: Substance; people of substance
In a noveneh: For a change; once in a blue moon
In di alteh guteh tseiten!: In the good old days!
In di oygn: To one's face
In drerd mein gelt!: My money went down the drain! (Lit., My money went to burial in the earth, to hell.)
In miten drinen: In the middle of; suddenly
Ipish: Bad odor, stink
Ir gefelt mir zaier.: You please me a great deal.
Iz brent mir ahfen hartz.: I have a heartburn.
K
Kaas (in kaas oyf): Angry (with)
Kabaret forshtelung: Floorshow
Kabtzen, kaptsen: Pauper
Kaddish: A mourner's prayer
Kaddishel: Baby son; endearing term for a boy or man
Kadoches: Fever
Kadoches mit koshereh fodem!: Absolutely nothing! (Lit., fever with a kosher thread)
Kaftan: Long coat worn by religious Jews
Kakapitshi: Conglomeration
Kalamutneh: Dreary, gloomy, troubled
Kalleh: Bride
Kalleh moid: A girl of marriageable age
Kallehniu: Little bride
Kalta neshomeh: A cold soul
Kalekeh: A new bride who cannot even boil an egg.
Kalyeh: Bad, wrong, spoiled
Kam derlebt: Narrowly achieved (Lit., hardly lived to see)
Kam mit tsores!: Barely made it! (Lit., with some troubles) The word "Kam," also is pronounced "Kom" or "Koim" depending on the region people come from.
Kam vos er kricht: Barley able to creep; Mr. Slowpoke
Kam vos er lebt: He's hardly (barely) alive.
Kamtsoness: To be miserly
Kaneh: An enema
Kaporeh, (kapores): Atonement sacrifice; forgiveness; (slang) good for nothing
Karabeinik: Country peddler
Karger: Miser, tightwad
Kaseer: enema
Kasheh: Groats, mush cereal, buckwheat, porridge; a mess, mix-up, confusion
Kasheh varnishkes: Cooked groats and broad (or bowtie) noodles
Kashress: Kosher condition; Jewish religious dietary law
Kasnik, (keisenik): Angry person; excitable person, hot head
Kasokeh: Cross-eyed
Katchka: Duck (quack, quack)
Katshkedik (Americanism): Ducky, swell, pleasant
Katzisher kop: Forgetful (Lit., Cat head)
Kaynahorah: Lit: the evil eye. Pronounced in order to ward of the evil eye, especially when speaking of one's good fortune. "Everyone in the family is happy and healthy kaynahorah."
Kazatskeh: Lively Russian dance
Kein briere iz oich a breire: Not to have any choice available is also a choice.
Kemfer: Fighter (usually for a cause)
Ken zein: Maybe, could be
Kenen oyf di finger: Have facts at one's fingertips
Ketzele: Kitten
(To) Kibbitz: To offer unsolicited advice as a spectator
Kibbitzer: Meddlesome spectator
Kiddish (Borai pri hagofen): Blessing over wine on the eve of Sabbath or Festivals
Kimpe:tzettel - Childbirth amulet or charm (from the German "kind-bet-tzettel" meaning childbirth label containing Psalm 121, names of angels, patriarchs
Kimpetoren: Woman in labour or immediately after the delivery
Kind un kait: Young and old
Kinderlech: Diminutive, affectionate term for children
Kish mir en toches: Kiss my backside (slang)
Kishef macher: Magic-worker
Kishkeh: Stuffed derma (Sausage shaped, stuffed with a mixture of flour, onions, salt, pepper and fat to keep it together, it is boiled, roasted and sliced) Also used to describe a person's innards. "You sweat your kishkehs out to give your children an good education, and what thanks do you get?"
(A) Kitsel: Tickle
Klainer gornisht: Little **** (Lit., A little nothing)
Klemt beim hartz: Clutches at my heartstrings
Klaperkeh: Talkative woman
Klipeh: Gabby woman, shrew, a female demon
Klo: Plague
Klogmuter: Complainer, chronic complainer
(A) Klog iz mir!: Woe is me!
Kloolye: A curse
Klop: Bang, a real hard punch or wallop
Klotz (klutz): Ungraceful, awkward, clumsy person; bungler
Klotz kasheh: Foolish question; fruitless question
Kloymersht: Not in reality, pretended (Lit., as if it were)
Knacker: A big shot
Knackerke: The distaff k'nacker, but a real cutie-pie.
Knaidel (pl., k'naidlech): Dumplings usually made of matzoh meal, cooked in soup
Knippel: Button, knot; *****, virginity; money tied in a knot in a handkerchief. Also, a little money (cash, usually) set aside for special needs or a rainy day. (Additional meaning thanks to Carl Proper.)
Knish (taboo): ****** [this translation is disputed by at least one reader]
Knishes: Baked dumplings filled with potato, meat, liver or barley
Kochalain: Summer boarding house with cooking privileges (Lit., cook by yourself)
Kochedik: Petulant, excitable
Kochleffel: One who stirs up trouble; gadabout, busy-body (Lit., a cooking ladle)
Kolboynik: Rascally know-it-all
(A) Kop oif di plaitses!: Good, common sense! (Lit., A head on the shoulders!)
Komisch: Funny
Kopvaitik: Headache
Kosher: Jewish dietary laws based on "cleanliness". Also referring to the legitimacy of a situation. "This plan doesn't seem kosher".
Koved: Respect, honour, reverence, esteem
Krank: Sick
Kran:heit - Sickness
Krassavitseh: Beauty, a doll, beautiful woman
Krechts: Groan, moan
Krechtser: Blues singer, a moaner
Kreplach: Small pockets of dough filled with chopped meat which look like ravioli, or won ton, and are eaten in soup; (slang) nothing, valueless
Kroivim: Relatives
Krolik: Rabbit
Kuch leffel: A person who mixes into other people's business (cooking spoon)
Kuck im on (taboo): Defecate on him! The hell with him!
Kuck zich oys! (taboo): Go take a **** for yourself!
Kugel: Pudding
Kukn durkh di finger oyf: Shut one's eyes to....., connive at......, wink at.....
*** ich nisht heint, *** ich morgen: If I don't come today, I'll come tomorrow (procrastinator's slogan)
Kumen tsu gast: To visit
Kuntzen: Tricks
Kuni leml: A nerd
Kunyehlemel: Naive, clumsy, awkward person; nincompoop; Casper Milquetoast
Kuppe dre: A piece of ***** matter (s--t)
Kurveh: *****, *******
Kush in toches arein! (taboo): Kiss my behind! (said to somebody who is annoying you)
Kushinyerkeh: Cheapskate; woman who comes to a store and asks for a five cents' worth of vinegar in her own bottle
K'vatsh: Boneless person, one lacking character; a whiner, weakling
K'velen: Glow with pride and happiness, beam; be delighted
K'vetsh: Whine, complain; whiner, a complainer
K'vitsh: Shriek, scream, screech
L
Lachen mit yas:tsherkes - Forced or false laugh; laugh with anguish
Laidi:gaier - Idler, loafer
Lakeh: A funnel
Lamden: Scholar, erudite person, learned man
Lamed Vovnik: Refers to the Hebrew number "36" and traditionally each generation produces 36 wise and righteous persons who gain the approbation of "lamed vovnik."
Lang leben zolt ir!: Long may you live!
Lange loksch: A very tall thin person , A long tall drink of water.
Lantslaite: Plural of lantsman
Lantsman: Countryman, neighbour, fellow townsman from "old country".
Lapeh: Big hand
Layseh mogen: Diarrhea
(A) Lebedikeh velt!: A lively world!
(A) Lebediker: Lively person
(A) Leben ahf dein kop!: Words of praise like; Well said! Well done! (Lit., A long life upon your head.)
Lebst a chazerishen tog!: Living high off the hog!
Leck, shmeck: Done superficially (lick, smell)
L'che:im, le'chayim! - To life! (the traditional Jewish toast); To your health, skol
Leffel: Spoon
Leibtzudekel: Sleeveless shirt (like bib) with fringes, worn by orthodox Jews
Leiden: To suffer
Lemechel: Milquetoast, quiet person
Lemeshkeh: Milquetoast, bungler
Leshem shomaim: Idealistically, "for the sake of heaven."
Leveiyeh: Funeral
Lezem gayne: leave them be
Lig in drerd!: Get lost! Drop dead! (Lit., Bury yourself!)
Ligner: Liar
Litvak: Lithuanian; Often used to connote shrewdness and skepticism, because the Lithuanian Jews are inclined to doubt the magic powers of the Hasidic leaders; Also, a person who speaks with the Northeastern Yiddish accent.
Lobbus: Little monster
Loch: Hole Loch in kop - Hole in the head.
Loksch: An Italian gentleman.
Lokshen: Noodles
Lokshen strop: a "cat- o- nine tails"
Lominer gaylen: Clumsy fool (a golem-Frankenstein monster -- created by the Lominer rebbe)
Loz mich tzu ru!: Leave me alone! (Lit., Let me be in peace!)
Luftmentsh: Person who has no business, trade, calling, nor income.
Luch in kup: A hole in the head ( " I need this like a luch in kup").
M
Machareikeh: Gimmick, contraption
Macher: big shot, person with access to authorities, man with contacts.
Machshaifeh: Witch
Maidel: Unmarried girl, teenager
Maideleh: Little girl (affectionate term)
Maiven: Expert, connoisseur, authority
Maisse: A story
Maisse mit a deitch: A story with a (moral) twist
Makeh: Plague, wound, boil, curse
Mameleh: Mother dear
Mamoshes: Substance, people of substance.
Mamzer: *******, disliked person, untrustworthy
Mamzerook: A naughty little boy
Mashgiach: Inspector, overseer or supervisor of Kashruth in restaurants & hotels.
Mashugga: Crazy
Matkes: Underpants
Maynster: Mechanic, repairman, workshop proprietor
Mayster: Master craftsman, champion,
Mazel Tov: Good Luck (lit) Generally used to convey "congratulations".
Me ken brechen!: You can ***** from this!
Me ken lecken di finger!: It's delicious!
Me krechts, me geht veyter: I complain and I keep going.
Me lost nit leben!: They don't let you live!
Me redt zich oys dos hartz!: Talk your heart out!
Mechuten: In-Law
Mechutonim: In-Laws (The parents of your child's spouse)
Mechutainista: Mother-In-Law
Megillah: A long story
Mein bobbeh's ta'am: Bad taste! Old fashioned taste!
Mein cheies gait oys!: I'm dying for it!
Mekheye: An extreme pleasure, *******, out of this world wonderful!
Mekler: Go-between
Menner vash tsimmer: Men's room
Mentsh: A special man or person. One who can be respected.
Menuvel: A person who is always causing grief, can get nothing right, and is always in the way.
Meshpokha: Extended family
Meshugass: Madness, insanity, craze
Meshugeh: Crazy
Meshugeh ahf toit!: Crazy as a loon. Really crazy!
Meshugeneh: Mad, crazy, insane female.
Meshugener: Mad, crazy, insane man
Meshugoyim: Crazy people
Messer: Knife
Me zogt: They say; it is said.
Mezinka: A special dance for parents whose last child is getting married
Mezuzah: Tiny box affixed to the right side of the doorway of Jewish homes containing a small portion of Deuteronomy, handwritten on parchment.
Mies: Ugly
Mieskeit: Ugly thing or person.
Mikveh: Ritual bath used by women just prior to marriage as well as after each monthly cycle. This represents a "spiritual cleansing after a potential to create a new life was not actualized. There are some religious men who also use mikvehs prior to festivals and the Sabbath. Some Chassidim immerse every morning before praying.
Min tor nit: One (or you) mustn't
Minyan: Quorum of ten men necessary for holding public worship (must be over 13 years of age)
Mirtsishem: G-d willing
Mitn derinnen: All of a sudden, suddenly
Mitn grobn finger: Quibbling, stretching a point
Mitzvah: Good deed
Mizinik: The youngest child in an immediate family
Mogen Dovid: Star of David
Moisheh kapoyer: Mr. Upside-Down! A person who does everything backwards. Not knowing what one wants.
Mosser: Squealer
Mossik: Mischief maker, prankster, naughty little boy, imp
Moyel: Person (usually a rabbi) who performs circumcisions.
Mutek: Brave
Mutshen zich: To sweat out a job
Muttelmessig: Meddlesome person, kibbitzer
N
N'vayle: Shroud; inept person
Na!: Here! Take it. There you have it.
Naches: Joy: Gratification, especially from children.
Nacht falt tsu.: Night is falling; twilight
Nadan: Dowry
Nafkeh: *******
Nafkeh ba:is - *******
Naidlechech: Rare thing
Nar: Fool
Nar ainer!: You fool, you!
Narish: Foolish
Narishkeit: Foolishness
Narvez: Nervous
Nebach: It's a pity. Unlucky, pitiable person.
Nebbish: A nobody, simpleton, weakling, awkward person
Nebechel: Nothing, a pitiful person; or playing role of being one
(A) Nechtiker tog!: He's (it's) gone! Forget it! Nonsense! (Lit., a yesterday's day)
Nechuma: Consolation
Nechvenin: To *******
Nem zich a vaneh!: Go take a bath! Go jump in the lake!
Neshomeh: Soul, spirit
Neshomeleh: Sweetheart, sweet soul
Nisht geshtoygen, nisht gefloygen: neither here nor there
Nifte:shmifter, a leben macht er? - What difference does it make as long as he makes a living? (Lit., nifter means deceased.)
Nishkosheh: Not so bad, satisfactory. (This has nothing to do with the word "kosher", but comes from the Hebrew and means "hard, heavy," thus "not bad."
Nisht araynton keyn finger in kalt vaser: Loaf, not do a thing, be completely inactive
Nisht fur dich gedacht!: It shouldn't happen! G-d forbid! (Lit., May we be saved from it! [sad event] )
Nishtgedeiget: Don't worry; doesn't worry
Nisht geferlech: Not so bad, not too shabby (Lit. not dangerous.)
Nishtkefelecht: No big deal!
Nisht gefloygen, nisht getoygen: It doesn't matter
Nisht gefonfit!: Don't hedge. Don't fool around. Don't double-talk.
Nisht getoygen, nisht gefloygen: It doesn't fly, it doesn't fit
Nisht getrofen!: So I guessed wrong!
Nisht gut: Not good, lousy
Nisht naitik: Not necessary
Nishtgutnick: No-good person
Nishtikeit!: A nobody!
Nishtu gedacht!: It shouldn't happen! G-d forbid!
Nit kain farshloffener: A lively person
Nit ahin, nit aher: Neither here nor there
Nit gidacht!: It shouldn't happen! (Same as nishtu gedacht)
Nit gidacht gevorn.: It shouldn't come to pass.
Nit kosher: Impure food. Also, slang, anything not good
Nit heint, nit morgen!: Not today, not tomorrow!
Nito farvos!: You're welcome!
Nitsn: To use
Noch a mool: One more time
Noch nisht: Not yet
Nochshlepper: Hanger-on, unwanted follower
Nor Got vaist: Only G-d knows.
Nosh: Snack
Nosherie: Snack food
Nu?: So? Well?
Nu, dahf men huben kinder?: Does one have children? (When a child does something bad)
Nu, shoyn!: Move, already! Hurry up! Let's go! Aren't you finished?
Nudnik: Pesty nagger, nuisance, a bore, obnoxious person
Nudje: Annoying person, badgerer (Americanism)
Nudjen: Badger, annoy persistently
O
Ober yetzt?: So now? (Yetzt is also spelled itzt)
Obtshepen: Get rid of
Och un vai!: Alas and alack: woe be to it!
Oder a klop, oder a fortz (taboo): Either too much or not enough (Lit., either a wallop or a ****)
Oder gor oder gornisht: All or nothing
Ohmain: Amen
Oi!!: Yiddish exclamation to denote disgust, pain, astonishment or rapture
Oi, a shkandal!: Oh, what a scandal!
Oi, gevald: Cry of anguish, suffering, frustration or for help
Oi, Vai!: Dear me! Expression of dismay or hurt
Oi vai iz mir!: Woe is me!
Oif tsalooches: For spite
Oisgeshtrobelt!: Overdressed woman.
Oisgeshtrozelt: Decorated (beautiful)
Oisgevapt: Flat (as in "the fizz has gone out of it.)
Oi:shteler - Braggart
Oiver botel: Absentminded: getting senile
Okurat: That's right! Ok! Absolutely! (Sarcastically: Ya' sure!) Okuratner mentsh - Orderly person
Olreitnik!: Nouveau riche!
On langeh hakdomes!: Cut it short! (Lit., without long introductions.)
Ongeblozzen: Conceited: peevish, sulky, pouting
Ongeblozzener: Stuffed shirt
Ongematert: Tired out
Ongepatshket: Cluttered, disordered, scribbled, sloppy, muddled, overly-done
Ongeshtopt: Very wealthy
Ongeshtopt mit gelt: Very wealthy; (Lit., stuffed with money)
Ongetrunken: Drunk
Ongetshepter: Bothersome hanger-on
Ongevarfen: Cluttered, disordered
Onshikenish: Hanger-on
Onshikenish: Pesty nagger
Onzaltsen: Giving you the business; bribe; soft-soap; sweet-talk (Lit., to salt)
Opgeflickt!: Done in! Suckered! Milked!
Opgehitener: Pious person
Opgekrochen: Shoddy
Opgekrocheneh schoireh: Shoddy merchandise
Opgelozen(er): Careless dresser
Opgenart: Cheated, fooled
Opnarer: Trickster, shady operator
Opnarerei: Deception
Orehman: Poor man, without means
Oremkeit: Poverty
Ot azaih: That's how, just like that
Ot kimm ich: Here I come!
Ot gaist du: There you go (again)
Oy mi nisht gut gevorn: "Oh my, I'm growing weary."
Oy vey tsu meina baina: Woe is me (down to my toes)
Oybershter in himmel: G-d in heaven
Oych a bashefenish: Also a V.I.P.! A big person! (said derogatorily, sarcastically, or in pity)
Oych mir a leben!: This too is a living! This you call a living?
Oyfen himmel a yarid!: Much ado about nothing! Impossible! (Lit., In heaven there's a big fair!)
Oyfgekumener: Come upper, upstart
Oyfn oyg: Roughly, approximately
Oyg oyf oyg: In private, face-to-face
Oys shiddech: The marriage is off!
Oysznoygn fun finger: Concoct, invent (a story)
Oysergeveynlekh: Unusual (sometimes used as "great.")
Oysgedart: Skinny, emaciated
Oysgehorevet: Exhausted
Oysgematert: Tired out, worn out
Oysgemutshet: Worked to death, tired out
Oysgeposhet: "Well grazed," in the sense of being fat.
Oysgeputst: Dressed up, overdressed; over decorated
Oysgeshprait: Spread out
Oysvurf: Outcast, bad person
P
Paigeren: To die (animal)
Paigeren zol er!: He should drop dead!
Pamelech: Slow, slowly
Parech: Low-life, a bad man
Parnosseh: Livelihood
Parshiveh: Mean, cheap
Parshoin: He-man
Partatshnek: Inferior merchandise or work
Parveh: Neutral food, neither milchidik (dairy) nor flaishidik (meat)
Paskidnye: Rotten, terrible
Paskudnik, paskudnyak: Ugly, revolting, evil person; nasty fellow
Past nit.: It isn't proper.
Patsh: Slap, smack on the cheek
Patsh zich in tuchis und schrei "hooray": Said to a child who complains he/she has nothing to do (slap your backside and yell "hooray")
Patshkies around: Anglicized characterization of one who wastes time.
Patteren tseit: To lounge around; waste time
Payess: Long side-curls worn by Hasidic and other ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.
Petseleh: Little *****
Phooey! fooey, pfui: Designates disbelief, distaste, contempt
Pinkt kahpoyer: Upside down; just the opposite
Pipek: Navel, belly button
Pishechtz: *****
Pisher: Male infant, a little squirt, a nobody
Pisk: Slang, for mouth; insultingly, it means a big mouth, loudmouth
Pis:Malocheh - Big talker-little doer! (man who talks a good line but does nothing)
Pitseler: Toddler, small child
Pitshetsh: Chronic complainer
Pitsel: Wee, tiny
Pitsvinik: Little nothing
Plagen: Work hard, sweat out a job, suffer
Plagen zich: To suffer
Plaplen: Chatter Plats! - Burst! Bust your guts out! Split your guts!!
Platsin zuls du: May you explode
Plimenik: Nephew
Plimenitse: Niece
Plotz: To burst
Pluchet: Heavy rain (from Polish "Plucha")
Plyoot: Bull-*******; Loudmouth
Plyotkenitzeh: A gossip
Ponem: Face
Poo, poo, poo: Simulate spitting three times to avoid the evil eye
Pooter veren: Getting rid of (Lit: making butter)
Pooter veren fon emitzer: Getting rid of someone; eg: "ich geh' veren pooter fon ihr" - "I'm going to be getting rid of her!"
Poseyakh: Rolling out dough
Potchke: Fool around or "mess" with
Potzevateh: ******, someone who is "out of it."
Praven: Celebrate
Preplen: To mutter, mumble
Prezhinitse: Scrambled eggs with milk added.
Prietzteh: Princess; finicky girl; (having airs, giving airs; being snooty) prima donna!
Pripitchok: Long, narrow wood-burning stove
Prost: Coarse, common, ******
Prostaches: Low class people
Prostak: Ignorant boor, coarse person, ****** man
Proster chamoole: Low-class *******
Prosteh leit: Simple people, common people; ******, ignorant, "low class" people
Proster mentsh: ****** man, common man
Ptsha: Cows feet in jelly
Pulke: The upper thigh
Pupik: Navel, belly button, gizzard, chicken stomachs
Pupiklech: Dish of chicken gizzards
Pushkeh: Little box for coins
Pustunpasnik: Loafer, idler
Putz: Slang word for "*****." Also used when describing someone someone as being "a ****."
Pyesseh: A play, drama
R
Rachmones: Compassions, mercy, pity
Rav: Rabbi, religious leader of the community
Reb: Mr., Rabbi; title given to a learned and respected man
Rebbe fon Stutz: A phrase used to explain the unexplainable. Similar to blaming something on the fairies or a mystical being.
Rebiniu: "Rabbi dear!" Term of endearment for a rabbi
Rebitsin: Literally, the rabbi's wife (often sarcastically applied to a woman who gives herself airs, or acts excessively pious) ; pompous woman
Rechielesnitseh: Dowdy, gossipy woman
Reden on a moss: To chatter without end
Redn tzu der vant: Talk in vain or to talk and receive no answer (Lit. , talk to the wall for all the good it will do you)
Redlshtul: Wheelchair
Redt zich ayn a kreynk!: Imaginary sickness
Redt zich ayn a kind in boich: Imaginary pregnancy (Imaginary anything)
*****: Rich, wealthy
Reisen di hoit: Skin someone alive (Lit., to tear the skin)
Reissen: To tear
Retsiche: ******
Rib:fish, gelt oyfen tish! - Don't ask for credit! Pay in cash in advance! Cash on the barrel-head!
Riboyno:shel-oylom! (Hebrew) God in heaven, Master of the Universe
Richtiker chaifetz: The real article! The real McCoy!
Rirevdiker: A lively person
Rolleh: Role in a play
Rooshisher: Definitely NOT a Litvak; coming from Ukraine, White Russia; the Crimea, Russia itself.
Roseh: Mean, evil person
Rossel flaysh: Yiddish refritos
(A) Ruach in dein taten's taten arein!: Go to the devil! (Lit., A devil (curse) should enter your father's father!)
Ruf mich k'na:nissel! - I did wrong? So call me a nut!
Ruktish: Portable table
S
S'vet helfen azoy vie a toytn baynkes: Lit: It will help as much as applying cups to a dead person.
S'art eich?: What does it matter to you? Does it matter to you?
Saykhel: Common sense
Schochet: A ritual slaughterer of animals and fowl.
Se brent nit!: Don't get excited! (Lit., It's not on fire!)
Se shtinkt!: It stinks!
Se zol dir grihmen in boych!: You should get a stomach cramp!
Sh' gootzim: Plural of shaigetz
Sha! (gently said): Please keep quiet.
Shabbes goy: Someone doing the ***** work for others (Lit;, gentile doing work for a Jew on Sabbath)
Shabbes klopper: A resident of a neighbourhood who's job it was to "klop" or bang on the shutters of Jewish homes to announce the hour of sundown on Friday
Shadchen: Matchmaker or marriage broker. There is the professional type who derives his or her living from it, but many Jewish people engage in matchmaking without compensation.
Shaigitz: Non-Jewish boy; wild Jewish boy
Shaigetz ainer!: Berating term for irreligious Jewish boy, one who flouts Jewish law
Shaile: A question
Shain vi der lavoone: As pretty as the moon
Shain vi di zibben velten: Beautiful as the seven worlds
Shaineh maidel: pretty girl
Shaineh raaineh keporah: Beautiful, clean sacrifice. Nothing to regret.
Shainer gelechter: Hearty laugh (sarcastically, Some laughter!)
Shainkeit: Beauty
Shaitel, (sheitel): Wig (Ultra-orthodox married women cover their hair. Some use a shaitel)
Shalach mohnes: Customary gifts exchanges on Purim, usually goodies Shalom - Peace (a watchword and a greeting)
Shamus: Sexton, beadle of the synagogue, also, the lighter taper used to light other candles on a menorah, a policeman (slang)
Shandeh: Shame or disgrace
Shandhoiz: Brothel, *******
Shpatzir: A walk without a particular destination
Shat, shat! Hust!: Quiet! Don't get excited
Shatnes: Proscription against wearing clothes that are mixed of wool and linen
Shav: Cold spinach soup, sorrel grass soup, sour leaves soup
Shayneh kepeleh: Pretty head (lit) Good looking, good thoughts
Shemevdik: Bashful, shy
Shepen naches: Enjoy; gather pleasure, draw pleasure, especially from children
Shidech (pl., shiduchim): Match, marriage, betrothal
Shih:pihi - Mere nothings
****:yingel - Messenger
Shikker: Drunkard
Shikseh: Non-Jewish girl
Shlissel: A key
Shissel: A basin or bowl
*******: Sparse, lean, meager
Shiva: Mourning period of seven days observed by family and friends of deceased
Shkapeh: A hag, a mare; worthless
Shkotz: Berating term for mischievous Jewish boy
Shlak: Apoplexy; a wretch, a miserable person; shoddy; shoddy merchandise
Shlang: Snake, serpent; a troublesome wife; ***** (taboo)
Shlatten shammes: Communal busybody, tale bearer; messenger
Shlecht: Bad
Shlecht veib: Shrew (Lit., a bad wife)
Shlemiel: Clumsy bungler, an inept person, butter-fingered; ***** person
Shlep: Drag, carry or haul, particularly unnecessary things, parcels or baggage; to go somewhere unwillingly or where you may be unwanted
Shleppen: To drag, pull, carry, haul
Shlepper: Sponger, panhandler, hanger-on; dowdy, gossipy woman, free-loader
Shlimazel: Luckless person. Unlucky person; one with perpetual bad luck (it is said that the shlemiel spills the soup on the shlimazel!)
Shlog zich kop in vant.: Break your own head! (Lit., bang your head on the wall)
Shlog zich mit Got arum!: Go fight City Hall! (Lit., Go fight with God.)
Shlogen: To beat up
Shlok: A curse; apoplexy
Shlooche: ****
Shloof: Sleep, nap
Shlosser: Mechanic
Shlub: A ****; a foolish, stupid or unknowing person, second rate, inferior.
Shlump: Careless dresser, untidy person; as a verb, to idle or lounge around
Shlumperdik: Unkempt, sloppy
Shmaltz: Grease or fat; (slang) flattery; to sweet talk, overly praise, dramatic
Shmaltzy: Sentimental, corny
Shmatteh: Rag, anything worthless
Shmeis: Bang, wallop
Shmek tabik: Nothing of value (Lit., a pinch of *****)
Shmeer: The business; the whole works; to bribe, to coat like butter
Shmegegi: Buffoon, idiot, fool
Shmeichel: To butter up
Schmeikel: To swindle, con, fast-talk.
Shmendrik: nincompoop; an inept or indifferent person; same as shlemiel
Shmo(e): Naive person, easy to deceive; a goof (Americanism)
Shmontses:Trifles, folly
Shmooz; (shmuess): Chat, talk
Shmuck (tabboo): Self-made fool; obscene for *****: derisive term for a man
Shmulky!: A sad sack!
Shmuts: Dirt, slime
Shmutzik: *****, soiled
Shnapps: Whiskey, same as bronfen
Shnecken: Little fruit and nut coffee rolls
Shneider: Tailor; in gin rummy card game, to win game without opponent scoring
Shnell: Quick, quickly
Shnook: A patsy, a sucker, a sap, easy-going, person easy to impose upon, gullible
Shnorrer: A beggar who makes pretensions to respectability; sponger, a parasite
Shnur: Daughter-in-law
Shokklen: To shake
Shoymer: Watchman; historically refers also to the armed Jewish watchman in the early agricultural settlements in the Holy Land
Shoymer mitzves: Pious person
Shoyn ainmol a' metse:eh! - Really a bargain
Shoyn fargessen?: You have already forgotten?
Shoyn genug!: That's enough!
Shpiel: Play
Shpilkes: Pins and needles
Shpits: end, the heel of the bread
Shpitsfinger: Toes
Shpitzik: Pointed sense of humour, witty, sarcastic, caustic
Shpogel nei: Brand-new
Shreklecheh zach: A terrible thing
Shtarben: To die
Shtark, shtarker: Strong, brave
Shtark gehert: Smelled bad (used only in reference to food; Lit., strongly heard)
Shtark vi a ferd: Strong as a horse
Shteln zikh oyg oyf oyg mit....: To confront
Shtetl: Village or small town (in the "old country")
Shtik: Piece, bit: a special bit of acting
Shtik drek (taboo): *******; ****-head
Shtik goy: Idiomatic expression for one inclined to heretical views, or ignorance of Jewish religious values
Shtik naches: Grandchild, child, or relative who gives you pleasure; a great joy
Shtikel: Small bit or piece; a morsel
Shtiklech: Tricks; small pieces
Shtilinkerait: Quietly
Shtimm zic: Shut up!
Shtoltz: Pride; unreasonably and stubbornly proud, excessive self-esteem
Shtrafeeren: To threaten
Shtrudel: Sweet cake made of paper-thin dough rolled up with various fillings
Shtuk: Trouble
Shtum: Quiet
(A) Shtunk: A guy who doesn't smell too good; a stink (bad odor) a lousy human
Shtup: Push, shove; vulgarism for ****** *******
Shtup es in toches! (taboo): Shove (or stick) it up your ****** (***)!
Shtuss: A minor annoyance that arises from nonsense
Shudden: A big mess
Shul: Colloquial Yiddish for synagogue
Shule: School
Shushkeh: A whisper; an aside
Shutfim: Associates
Shvach: Weak, pale
Shvachkeit: Weakness
Shvantz: tail, *****
Shvartz: Black
Shvegerin: Sister-in-law
Shvengern: Be pregnant
Shver: Father-in-law; heavy, hard, difficult
Shvertz azayan ***: It's hard to be a Jew
Shviger: Mother-in-law
Shvindel: Fraud, deception, swindle
Shvindeldik: Dizzy, unsteady
Shvitz: Sweat, sweating
Shvitz ***: Steam bath
Shvoger: Brother-in-law
Sidder: Jewish prayer book for weekdays and Saturday
Simantov: A good sign (lit) Often used with mazel tov to wish someone good luck or to express congratulations
Simcheh: Joy; also refers to a joyous occasion
Sitzfleish: Patience that can endure sitting (Lit., sitting flesh)
Smetteneh: Sour cream; Cream
Sobaka killev: Very doggy dog
Sof kol sof: Finally
Sonem: Enemy, or someone who thwarts your success.
S'teitsh!: Listen! Hold on! How is that? How is that possible? How come?
Strasheh mich nit!: Don't threaten me!
Strashen net de genz: Lit., Do not disturb the geese. (You are full of yourself and making too much noise)
T
Ta'am: Taste, flavor; good taste
Ta'am gan eyden: Fabulous (Lit: A taste of the Garden of Eden)
Tachlis: Practical purpose, result
Tahkeh: Really! Is that so? Certainly!
Tahkeh a metsieh: Really a bargain! (usually said with sarcasm)
Taiglech: Small pieces of baked dough or little cakes dipped in honey
Tallis: Rectangular prayer-shawl to whose four corners, fringes are attached
Talmud: The complete treasury of Jewish law interpreting the Torah into livable law
Talmud Torah: The commandment to study the Law; an educational institution for orphans and poor children, supported by the community; in the United States, a Hebrew school for children
Tamavate: Feebleminded
Tamaveter: Feebleminded person
Tandaitneh: Inferior
Tararam: Big noise, big deal
Tashlich: Ceremony of the casting off of sins on the Jewish New Year (crumbs of bread symbolizing one's sins are cast away into a stream of water in the afternoon of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashoneh)
Tateh, tatteh, tatteh, tatteleh, tatinka, tatteniu: Father, papa, daddy, pop
Tate:mameh, papa-mama - Parents
Tatenui: Father dear (The suffix "niu" in Yiddish is added for endearing intimacy; also, G-d is addressed this way by the pious; Tateniu-Foter means G-d, our Father
Tchotchkes: Little playthings, ornaments, bric-a-brac, toys
Teier: Dear, costly, expensive
Te:yerinkeh! - Sweetheart, dearest
Temp: Dolt
Temper kop: Dullard
Ti mir nit kayn toyves: "Don't do me any favours" (sarcastic)
Tinef: Junk, poorly made
T'noim: Betrothal, engagement
Toches: Buttocks, behind, ***** (***)
Toches ahfen tish!: Put up or shut up! Let's conclude this! (Lit., ***** on the table!)
Toches in droissen: Bare behind
Toche:lecker - Brown-noser, apple-polisher, ***-kisser
Togshul: Day school
Toig ahf kapores!: Good for nothing! It's worth nothing!
Traif: Forbidden food, impure, contrary to the Jewish dietary laws, non-kosher
Traifener bain: Jew who does not abide by Jewish law (derisive, scornful expression
Traifeneh bicher: Forbidden literature
Traifnyak: Despicable person; one who eats non-kosher food
Trefn oyfn oyg: To make a guess
Trenen: To tear, rip
Trepsverter: Lit. step words. The zinger one thinks of in retreat. The perfect retort one summons after mulling over the insult.
Trogedik: Pregnant
Trog gezunterhait!: Wear it in good health!
Trombenik: A ***, no-good person, ne'er-do-well; a faker
Tsaddik: Pious, righteous person
Tsalooches: Spite
Tsaloochesnik: Spiteful person
Tsatskeh: Doll, plaything; something cute; an overdressed woman; a **** girl
Tsatskeleh der mamehs!: Mother's favorite! Mother's pet!
Tsebrech a fus!: Break a leg!
Tsedrait: Nutty, crazy, screwy
Tsedraiter kop: Bungler
Tseereh: Face (usually used as put-down)
Tseeshvimmen: Blurred
Tsegait zich in moyl: It melts in the mouth, delicious, yummy-yummy
Tsemishnich: Confusion
Tsemisht: Confused, befuddled, mixed-up
Tsevishe:shtotisheh telefonistkeh - Long distance operator
Tshatshki: Toy, doo-dad
Tshepen: To annoy, irk, plague, bother, attack
Tsigeloisen: Compassionate, rather nice
Tsiklen zich: The cantor's ecstatic repetition of a musical phrase
Tsimmes: Sweet carrot compote; (slang) a major issue made out of a minor event
Tsitskeh: Breast, ****, udder
Tsivildivit: Crazy, wild, overwhelmed with too many choices
Tsnueh: Chaste
Tsores: Troubles, misery
Tsu undzer tsukunft tzuzamen: To our future together.
Tsutsheppenish: Hanger-on; unwanted companion; pest; nuisance
Tsum glik, tsum shlimazel: For better, for worse
Tsumakhn an oyg: To fall asleep
Tsvilling: Twins
Tu mir a toiveh.: Do me a favor.
Tu mir nit kain toives.: Don't do me any favors.
Tumel: Confusion, noise, uproar
Tumler: A noise-maker (person); an agitator
Tut vai dos harts: Heartbroken
Tzadrait: Scattered
Tzedakeh: Spirit of philanthropy; charity, benevolence
Tziginner bobkes: Jocular, truly valueless. Also used to describe black olives. Lit: goat droppings
Tziter: To tremble
Tziterdik: Tremulous or trembling
Tzitzis: Fringes attached to the four corners of the tallis
Tzufil!: Too much! Too costly!
U
U:be-rufen - Unqualified, uncalled for; God forbid; (A deprecation to ward off the evil eye)
U:be-shrien - God forbid! It shouldn't happen!
Umgeduldik: Petulant
Ummeglich!: Impossible!
Umglick: A misfortune; (masc) A born loser; an unlucky one
Umshteller: Braggart
Umzist: For nothing
Umzitztiger fresser: free loader, especially one who shows up only to eat (and EAT!)
Unger bluzen: Bad mood. Swollen with anger.
Ungerissen beheiman: A totally stupid person. Lit., an untamed animal. Not wild, just dumb.
Un langeh hakdomes!: Cut it short! (lit., Without a long introduction)
Unter fir oygn: Privately
Unterkoifen: To bribe
Untershmeichlen: To butter up
Untervelt mentsh: Racketeer
Untn: Below
Utz: To goad, to needle
V
Vahksin zuls du vi a tsibeleh, mitten kup in drerd: May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground!
Vahksin zuls du, tsu gezunt, tsu leben, tsu langeh yor: May you grow to health, to life, to long years. (Each may me said when someone sneezes)
Vai!: Woe, pain; usually appears as "oy vai!"
Vai is mir!: Woe is me!
Vai vind iz meine yoren: "Woe is me!"
Vais ich vos: Stuff and nonsense! Says you! (Lit., Know from what)
Vaitik: An ache
Valgeren zich: Wander around aimlessly
Valgerer: Homeless wanderer
Vaneh: Bath, bathtub
Vannit: Where (from) "Fon vannit kimmt ihr?" (Where do you come from?)
Vantz: Bedbug; (slang) a nobody
Varenikehs: Round shaped noodle dough stuffed with meat, potato, etc. and fried
Varfen an oyg: To look out for; to guard; to mind (Lit., To throw an eye at)
Varnishkes: Kasha and noodles
Vart!: Wait! Hold on!
Vas:tsimmer - Bathroom, washroom
Vas:tsimmer far froyen - Ladie's room
Vas:tsimmer far menner - Men's room
Vayt fun di oygn,vayt fun hartsn: Far from the eyes, far from the heart. Equivalent to "Out of sight, out of mind."
Vechter: Watchman
Veibernik: Debauchee
Veibershe shtiklach: Female tricks
Veis vi kalech!: Pale as a sheet!
Ve:zaiger - Alarm clock
Vemen barestu?: (taboo) Whom are you kidding? (Lit., Whom are you *******?)
Vemen narstu?: Whom are you fooling?
Ver derharget!: Get killed! Drop dead! (Also "ver geharget)
Ver dershtikt!: Choke yourself!
Ver farblondjet!: Get lost! Go away!
Verklempt: Extremely emotional. On the verge of tears. (See "Farklempt")
Ver tsuzetst: "Go to hell" (or its equivalent)
Ver vaist?: Who knows?
Ver volt dos gegleybt?: Who would have believed it?
Veren a tel: To be ruined
Veren ferherret: To get married
Vi a barg: Large as a mountain
Vi der ruach zogt gut morgen: Where the devil says good morning! (has many meanings; usually appended to another phrase)
Vi gait dos gesheft?: How's business?
Vi gait es eich?: How goes it with you? How are you? How are you doing?
Vi gaits?: How goes it? How are things? How's tricks?
Vi haistu?: What's your name?
Vi ruft men...?: What is the name of...?
Vi ruft men eich?: What is your name?
Viazoy?: How come?
Vie Chavele tsu der geht: Literally: Like Chavele on her way to her divorce; meaning "all spruced up."
Vifil?: How much?
Vilder mentsh: A wild one; a wild person
Vilder chaiah: Wild animal or out of control child or adult
Vilstu: Do you want...
Vo den?: What else?
Voglen: To wander around aimlessly
Voiler yung!: Roughneck (sarcastic expression)
Voncin: Bed bug
Vortshpiel: Pun, witticism
Vos art es (mich)?: What does it matter (to me)? What do I care?
Vos barist du?: (taboo) What are you ******* around for? What are you fooling around for?
Vos bei a nichteren oyfen lung, is bei a shikkeren oyfen tsung.: What a sober man has on his lung (mind), a drunk has on his tongue.
Vos draistu mir a kop?: What are you bothering me for? (Lit., Why are you twisting my head?)
Vos failt zai?: What are they lacking?
Vos gicher, alts besser: The faster, the better
Vos hakst du mir in kop?: What are you talking my head off for?
Vos hert zich?: What do you hear around? What's up?
Vos hert zich epes ne:es? - What's new?
Vos heyst: what does it mean?
Vos hob ich dos gedarft?: What did I need it for?
Vo:in-der-kort - Capable of doing anything bad (applied to bad person; Lit., everything in the cards)
Vos iz?: What's the matter?
Vos iz ahfen kop, iz ahfen tsung!: What's on his mind is on his tongue!
Vos iz der chil'lek?: What difference does it make?
Vos iz der tachlis?: What's the purpose? Where does it lead to?
Vos iz di chochmeh?: What is the trick?
Vos iz di untershteh shureh?: What's the point? What's the outcome? (Lit., What on the bottom line?)
Vos iz mit dir?: What's wrong with you?
Vos kocht zich in teppel?: What's cooking?
Vos macht a ***?: How's it going?
Vos macht vos oys?: What difference does it make?
Vos macht es mir oys?: What difference does it make to me?
Vos macht ir?: How are you? (pl.); How do you do?
Vos Machstu?: How are you? (singular)
Vos maint es?: What does it mean?
Vos noch?: What else? What then?
Vos ret ir epes?: What are you talking about?
Vos tut zich?: What's going on? What's cooking?
Vos vet zein: What will be
Vos vet zein, vet zein!: What will be, will be!
Vos zogt ir?: What are you saying?
Vu tut dir vai?: Where does it hurt?
Vus du vinsht mir, vinsh ikh dir.: What you wish me, I wish you.
Vuhin gaitsu?: Where are you going?
Vund: Wound
Vursht: Bologna
Vyzoso: Idiot (named after youngest son of Haman, archenemy of Jews in Book of esther); also, *****
W
Wen der tati/fater gibt men tsu zun, lachen baiden. Wen der zun gibt men tsu tati/fater, vainen baiden.: When the father gives to his son, both laugh. When the son gives to the father, both cry.
Wen ich ess, ch'ob ich alles in dread.: (Lit. When I am eating, I have everything in the ground.) When I am eating, everybody can go to hell!
Y
Yachneh: A coarse, loud-mouthed woman; a gossip; a slattern
Yachsen: Man of distinguished lineage, highly connected person, privileged character
Yarmelkeh: Traditional Jewish skull cap, usually worn during prayers; worn at all times by observant Orthodox Jews.
Yahrtzeit: Anniversary of the day of death of a loved-one.
Yashir koyech: May your strength continue
Yatebedam: A man who threatens; one who thinks he's a "big shot"; a blusterer
Yedies: News; cablegrams; announcements
Yefayfiyeh: Beauty; woman of great beauty
Yenems: Someone else's; (the brand of cigarettes moochers smoke!)
Yeneh velt: The other world; the world to come
Yenteh: Gabby, talkative woman; female blabbermouth
Yente telebente: Mrs. National Enquirer
Yentzen (taboo): To fornicate, to *****
Yeshiveh: Jewish traditional higher school, talmudical academy
Yeshiveh bocher: Student of talmudic academy
Yeshuvnik: Farmer, rustic
Yichus: Pedigree, ancestry, family background, nobility
Yiddisher kop: Jewish head
Yiddishkeit: Having to do with all things relating to Jewish culture.
Yingeh tsat:keh! - A young doll! A living doll!
Yiskor: Prayer in commemoration of the dead (Lit., May God remember.)
Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement (the most holy of holy days of the Jewish calendar)
Yontefdik: Festive, holiday-ish; sharp (referring to clothes)
Yortseit: Anniversary of the day of death of parents or relatives; yearly remembrance
Yoysher: Justice, fairness, integrity
Yukel: Buffoon
(A) Yung mit bainer!: A powerhouse! Strongly built person
Yung un alt: Young and old
Yungatsh: Street-urchin, scamp, young rogue
Yungermantshik: A young, vigorous lad; A newlywed
Yusoimeh: Orphan
Z
Zaft: Juice
Zaftik: Pleasantly plump and pretty. Sensuous looking (Lit., juicy)
Zaftikeh moid!: Sexually attractive girl
Zaideh: Grandfather
Zaier gut: O.K. (Lit., very good)
Zaier shain gezogt!: Well said! (Lit., Very beautifully said!)
Zee est vee a feigele: She eats like a bird
Zeh nor, zeh nor!: Look here, look here!
Zei (t) gezunt: Be well! Goodbye! Farewell
Zei mir frailich!: Be Happy!
Zei mir gezunt!: Be well!
Zei mir matriach: Be at pains to... Please; make an effort.
Zei nit a nar!: Don't be a fool!
Zei nit kain vyzoso!: Don't be an idiot! Don't be a **** fool!
Zeit azoy gut: Please (Lit., Be so good)
Zeit ir doch ahfen ferd!: You're all set! (Lit., You're on the horse!)
Zeit (mir) moychel: Excuse me! Be so good as...Forgive me!
Zelig: Blessed (used mostly among German Jews in recalling a beloved deceased ----- mama zelig)
Zeltenkeit: Rare thing
Zetz: Shove, push, bang! Also slang for a ****** experience (taboo)
Zhaleven: To be sparing, miserly
Zhlob: A ****; slob, uncouth
Zhu met (mir) in kop: A buzzing in one's (mind) head
Zhulik: Faker
Zi farmacht nit dos moyl: She doesn't stop talking (Lit., She doesn't close her mouth)
Zindik nit: Don't complain. Don't tempt the Gods.
Zingen: To sing
Ziseh neshomeh: Sweet soul
Ziseh raidelech: Sweet talk
Ziskeit: Sweetness, sweetheart, (Also endearing term for a child)
Zitsen ahf shpilkes: Sitting on pins and needles; to fidget
Zitsen shiveh: Sit in mourning (Shiveh means 7 which is the number of days in the period of mourning
Zitsflaish: Patience (Lit., Sitting meat)
Zog a por verter: Say a few words!
Zogen a ligen: Tell a lie
Zogerkeh: Woman who leads the prayers in the women's section in the synagogue
Zoineh: *******
Zok nit kin vey: Don't worry about it (Lit: Do not say woe)
Zol dich chapen beim boych.: You should get a stomach cramp!
Zol dir klappen in kop!: It should bang in your head (the way it is bothering me!)
Zol er tsebrechen a fus!: May he break a leg! He should break a leg!
Zol es brennen!: The hell with it! (Lit., Let it burn!)
Zol Got mir helfen: May God help me!
Zol Got ophiten!: May God prevent!
Zol ich azoy vissen fun tsores!: I haven't got the faintest idea! (Lit., I should so know from trouble as I know about this!)
Zol makekhs voxen offen tsung!: Pimples should grow on your tongue!
Zol vaksen tzibbelis fun pipek!: Onions should grow from your bellybutton!
Zol ze vaksen ze ve a tsibble mit de kopin dreid: You should grow like an onion with your head in the ground.
Zol zein!: Let it be! That's all!
Zol zein azoy!: O.K.! Let it be so!
Zol zein gezunt!: Be well!
Zol zein mit glik!: Good luck!
Zol zein shah!: Be quiet. Shut up!!
Zol zein shtil!: Silence! Let's have some quiet!
Zolst geshvollen veren vi a barg!: You should swell up like a mountain!
Zolst helfen vi a toyten bankes: It helps like like cupping helps a dead person.
Zolst hobn tzen haizer, yeder hoiz zol hobn tzen tzimern, in yeder tzimer zoln zain tzen betn un zolst zij kaiklen fun ein bet in der tzweiter mit cadojes!: I wish you to have ten houses, each house with ten rooms, each room with ten beds and you should roll from one bed to the other with cholera. (not a very nice thing to say.)
Zolst leben un zein gezunt!: You should live and be well!
Zolst ligen in drerd!: Drop dead! (Lit., You should lie in the earth!)
Zolst nit vissen fun kain shlechts.: You shouldn't know from evil.
Zolst es shtipin in toches!: (taboo) Shove it up your ******!
Zolst zein vi a lom:am tug sollst di hangen, in der nacht sollst di brennen - You should be like a lamp, you should hang during the day and burn during the night!
Zolstu azoy laiben!: You should live so!
Zorg zich nit!: Don't worry!
Zuninkeh!: Dear son! Darling son!

It all began when someone left the window open.
The love bird cocked its bright green head at the shut door of Woodren’s third floor bedroom, perched on her bedpost. Its bright black eyes glittered, listening for the sounds of Woodren’s footsteps. None came. It ruffled its feathers impatiently; waiting for Woodren to come back with some water for its thirsty beak.
The love bird’s first memory was of Woodren: her clear gray eyes expressing her great happiness through them and not through the tiny curve of a smile on her thin pale lips. Her small white fingers pressed on the syringe gently, and a hot, mushy substance that tasted of apples and bananas went down its throat. The tiny black beak clattered against the plastic syringe greedily. “Aw, you poor baby. You’re hungry aren’t you, my Hoopsie-girl?” she murmured.
She then later taught her baby lovebird to fly with the patience of a mother. As soon as its wings started flapping feebly, she lifted Hoopsie up on the palm of her hand above her head and drew her hand away quickly, teaching the lovebird to fly and landing on Woodren’s soft bed. On cold nights, Woodren would wrap her favorite emerald green scarf around Hoopsie and place her behind the television where it was always warm and sellotape the electric sockets and wires so that Hoopsie was safe.
Woodren never even considered snipping the feathers of Hoopsie’s wings; she would never hurt her darling creature, and snip of its greatest glory. She would comb the feathers with a miniature pink Barbie brush, noticing how blue feathers had started to appear on Hoopsie’s wings and red ones slowly layered beneath the blue as time went by.
Showering Hoopsie was the hardest of all. Aunt and Uncle Palmer had no idea that Hoopsie even existed and revealing her presence would leave both Hoopsie and Woodren with no home. Late at night, Woodren would have to sneak out to the bathroom on the first floor (not on the second floor because that one was right next to Aunt and Uncle Palmer’s bedroom), down the stairs (taking care to step over the thirteenth stair that groaned so loudly), turn on the taps quietly and wash a sleepy Hoopsie with warm water.
Her two youngest cousins often made fun of her for the funny smell that stuck on her clothes sometimes. Linda and Lucy, her bratty twin cousins, asked in their scornful sing-song voices, “Why do you lock your room Woodren? Scared we’ll find all your old ***** clothes under the bed that you wouldn’t let Ma throw away?”
“No, maybe she’s scared we’ll find naughty magazines? If we do, we’ll tell Pa and you’ll have nowhere to stay ‘cause Pa says that type of behavior is sinful and he won’t tolerate it in his house!”
Woodren found it in her heart to look upon her silly cousins as childish entertainment. What did they know of the love she had for Hoopsie? “No, I’m scared you’ll find the monster under my bed and start crying for your Ma”
Linda narrowed her blue eyes, “I’m telling Ma you mentioned Lucy’s fear of the monster under the bed to her face! Besides, you don’t have anywhere else to go. You live on Pa’s charity. Ma said so.”
It was the lowest of insults based on a harsh truth. Woodren’s mother had died of cancer when Woodren was very young and her father followed her mother not a year after with heart grief. Her mother had asked her younger sister to take in Woodren; they were her only relatives and had stopped being fond of her once their own two twin daughters arrived and Mr. Palmer started to have to work harder to feed the six bellies at his dinner table. She just became another mouth to feed.
The only person Woodren got along well with in the household was her eldest cousin, Max. Max rarely spoke in anything but grunts, thought of his two little sisters as annoying brats, refused to say more than two sentences at a time to his simpering mother and loudly obnoxious father and often came and sat in Woodren’s room with his large feet against the wall, stroking Hoopsie’s head in silence. She really was fond of Max sometimes. He could be so thoughtful. Just two weeks before, for her birthday, Max had bought her maroon silk curtains with white birds imprinted upon them. He had even gone further than that and stitched in white thread, “Happy birthday. I love you” a red wonky heart followed and then “From Hoopsie.” Simply imagining him sitting there with a huge, thick curtain holding a tiny needle in his bear-like paws, cursing as he stabbed his rough fingertips and fumbling clumsily made her shout with laughter.
It was Max’s idea to buy Hoopsie a big metal cage and attach it to a branch on the big tree in their garden with a piece of shoelace, hidden among all the green leaves. That way, when Hoopsie sang Woodren wouldn’t have to blast her music and radio at the same time or pinch Hoopsie’s beaks shut when her Aunt or Uncle come to  yell at her if she was deaf or crazy or both. And that way, Woodren’s room wouldn’t have its twangy smell of bird **** and Woodren wouldn’t have to be paranoid all day long at school, wondering if nosy Aunt Palmer had broken into her room and found Hoopsie. And that way, she could leave her window open during the day, trying to rid her room off the nutty, sugary smell.
Max’s room was on the same floor as Woodren, the third floor. Every morning, bright and early before school, Woodren would run with a small lump in her sweater and the keys to her locked room jingling on her wrists to Max’s room. Max would barely acknowledge her as she ran across his room, opened his window and climbed out like a monkey to the branch that pushed against his window sill. She crawled along it with speed and sat there, with her legs hanging down and the branch between her legs, fumbled for the cage door above her head, made sure there was enough water and food to last Hoopsie for the day, popped Hoopsie inside with a quick kiss, arranged the fan-like fresh morning-smell leaves to cover the cage completely and skate back towards Max’s window.
Hoopsie mourned with a few high whistling notes. She hated being away from Woodren during the day- waiting for the moment when the sun was getting hot, and Hoopsie was tired of chatting to the birds in the nearby trees, when Woodren’s sharp little white face with its explosion of frizzy black hair would appear in between the leaves with her happy grey eyes and let her fly around the tree before calling, “Hoopsie” followed by her signature tilting whistle. But for now, and for every morning till noon, Hoopsie would have to wait.
“You don’t think they’ll find her do you?” Woodren would ask Max as she clambered back into his window. It was their daily morning ritual.
“No. Pa told Ma that it’s all about privacy now that I’m a growing-up boy. I’ll lock my door; promise.” He would reply back, completing their ritual.
“Are you still eating lunch with that Ed kid?” he asked, completely breaking their ritual this morning.
“Yes.” She was completely surprised. Not only was Max breaking a routine, Max of all people, he was doing so by asking her a question about her personal life.
Woodren eyed Max strangely. To her, Max was her huge cousin that somehow managed to communicate with a variety of different grunts and hated cutting his hair because of his fear of sharp objects; but to the rest of the school and neighborhood, she knew Max was the “strong and silent” handsome tall boy, every girl’s dream, with his shaggy blonde hair.
“Why?” her gray eyes grew rounder when suspicious instead of narrowing.  
“You don’t have many friends at school.”
“You know I don’t get along with any of them but Ed. I don’t like being friends with people unless I actually like them… unlike all the other girls at school.”
“I don’t like you staying around the Ed kid too much.”
Woodren felt a little glow of affection for Max in her heart. She understood why Max was worried. Ed was unstable with the rest of the world. He did what he wanted to, he said exactly what he wanted to and he wasn’t afraid of anything because he didn’t care what anyone said. He was the kid that the no parents wanted their children to stay near. There wasn’t anything Ed hadn’t done before.
Despite what everyone else thought, Woodren knew that his morals and sense of good and justice were strong in his heart. And when it came to Woodren he was always there for her since he moved to the neighborhood more than half a year ago. No matter how many offending remarks he made, she felt he had become the only stable thing in her life in spite of him being so apt to change. She had learned to depend on him.  
At the breakfast table, Woodren’s gray eyes slid over from Linda to Lucy to Aunt Palmer to Uncle Palmer and rested on Max the longest. Until she had come to look at Max, all four of them were identical in their attractive features and identical in their pinched-up, suspicious and petty expressions glazed over with a courteous mask. Max’s blue eyes, though the same shape as Aunt Palmer’s and the same color as Uncle Palmer’s, expressed a good heart and sincerity.
Her first subject of the day was an art lesson. All she had to do was sit comfortably, a palette with swirls of colors, paintbrushes, charcoals and pencils, a *** of water, and a fresh-smelling page. Usually she drew herself as a monster, or Linda as the devil- disturbing pictures that made people believe she was “talented”. But today, it came to her all of a sudden she’d never done a good, worthwhile painting of Hoopsie. Sure, her tables and notebooks were filled with carvings she’d doodled in class but never something she would want to keep.
She started to sketch Hoopsie on her bed post, eyeing the nuts Woodren had stolen from Aunt Palmer’s snack cupboard. She drew Hoopsie in the big tree and painted a metal cage around her. Somehow, the silver cage ruined the picture completely, making Woodren grimace. When the paint dried, she erased Hoopsie from inside the cage and drew her beside it, her small black feet gripping a twig.
Woodren remembered how elegant birds looked when she looked up into the sky, and saw them with their wings spread out and imagined feeling the wind rush through her feathers and ripple down her head and spine, with a heaven of azure blue surrounding her, shooting through clouds cold and refreshing like a sprinkler in the garden. Maybe that’s what freedom tasted like. She tried drawing Hoopsie soaring in the sky before she realized she’d never seen Hoopsie soar like other birds do, because Hoopsie had never done so.
Broodingly, she packed up when class was dismissed, slowly and thoughtfully. Somehow, that small beginning of a painting had darkened her frame of mind completely. Still ruminating, she headed down the hall way to eat lunch.
“Woody!” Hearing the sound of that voice, she momentarily forget her unease and Woodren’s thin, pale lips spread in a smile even before she turned around to him. Ed was the only one who ever called her that. His oval head was covered in small black bristles and one of his black eyebrows rose as he smirked with his pink lips curving down. The diamond earring in his ear glinted like his teeth did. He caught her eyes with his hazel ones; his eyes were warm and lively.  His mouth formed words that were witty and charming and could always make Woodren laugh.
Woodren put a look of amazement on her face. “You came to school today.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been coming to school nearly all month.”
“That’s why I’m surprised.”
He hit her arm lightly. A few girls nearby turned around and giggled when they caught Ed’s eyes. Woodren remembered when Ed had first come to school. All the prettiest girls at school kept sidling over to him and batting their eyelashes. Ed had taken one look at the curves on their bodies; his eyes flickered over their face, a little bored, and continued his conversation with Woodren as if there had been no interruption.
It was a mark of their friendship three weeks later when she told him about her family. His hazel eyes had burnt hotly. When he was angry, his voice was quieter, but strained as if the passionate anger behind the words were being controlled with the greatest effort, “People who ruin other people’s happiness on purpose and with joy are just plain evil.” He told her that he hated the monsters that kidnapped children, crippled them, not only in body but mind too, and forced them to beg, far away from those that loved them. Here followed a stream of facts, all said in the same tone that both scared and impressed Woodren.
“How do you know so much about it?” she had once asked him.
He looked at her with an odd gleam in his eyes, “Because I care.”
Now he was looking at her without breaking his gaze, the same odd gleam in his eyes, searching her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She had still been brooding over Hoopsie in a cage, and why the picture upset her so much.
“Woody, tell me what’s wrong.”
Every time Woodren mentioned Hoopsie, Ed would go silent or make an offending remark about the way that Woodren took care of Hoopsie. Over a very short time, Woodren had learned never to mention Hoopsie’s name and though it drove her crazy with frustration, she knew Ed would never tell her reason the why if she tried to pry it out of him. Knowing not to answer truthfully, “I told you, nothing”
“I can tell when you’re lying. Your eyes grow whopping and your mouth pouts to the right.”
“Shut up.”
He looked at her searchingly before giving up with an irritated sigh.
“Come with me.” The chair scraped as he pulled out and pushed the table away from him. His tall frame dwarfed her.
He brought her to the back of the school where teachers and students never went, leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. “You want to try one?”
“I don’t smoke, Ed”
“Why won’t you even try it?” The tone he used when he was about to state something that began an argument leaked into his voice smoothly, like oil. Woodren opened her mouth to list the damaging things it did to your lungs and heart but his voice had begun in its rapid, silky tone:
“Because society has brain washed you so that if you smoke when you’re a child, you’re a horrible ungrateful creature that will never go far in life. But when an adult smokes, it’s okay. You don’t smoke because people and teachers tell you not to try it. Well I say, **** them. These are the best years of your life. Do what you want, try everything so you can make the choices of your life later with a rounded experience and knowledge. I’m not saying get addicted. You have to be strong if you’re gonna be a risk-taker…” he inhaled deeply and exhaled in a husky voice, “I just thought you always went on about how you were such a strong risk taker.” He blew a cloud of heavy smoke above her head. “Oh, and of course you won’t try it because Aunt and Uncle Palmer said it’d be sin, isn’t that right?” he asked with a tantalizing grin in a mocking tone. He watched her face contort with anger, his hazel eyes dancing with glee. He knew he had hit at the bull’s eyes. No one ever jeered at Woodren’s inner power and then put her on the same note as her Aunt and Uncle.
A sudden snarling sound flared from her. She didn’t have to listen to anything Aunt and Uncle Palmer said… they never did anything worthy intentionally. She knew that. He was just stupid. She swore at him and knocked the cigarette out of his hand with a smart slap before storming away. An amused laugh from behind her made her ears tingle pink.
As soon as school was over, she pushed pass Ed who was waiting for her and ran back home. Opening the front door of the house, she scurried up the stairs to the third-floor and knocked on Max’s door. When she opened it, Max was already holding Hoopsie in his big hands. Hoopsie sang with joy when she saw Woodren.
“Hoopsie-girl” Woodren whistled with a tilting note that Hoopsie identified instantly. Hoopsie flapped over and landed on her shoulder.
“By the way,” said Max, “she must have knocked over her water because it was wet on the bottom of the cage. She kept trying to drink it. She’s thirsty.”
“Oh you silly Hoopsie! Why did you knock over the water? You know I’m supposed to have 8 cups a day?” she pampered the lovebird with caresses and endearing words before hiding Hoopsie in her shirt and running back to her room.
Woodren placed Hoopsie gently down on the bed post

There is a snack size container of peanut butter sitting in the pantry
And I'm sitting across the room but I can feel it's weight as acutely as my own
I checked the package three times, hoping the numbers would change when i returned
282
282
282 calories
I'm having a panic attack over a snack because the one thing I crave more than anything else in the world is the sticky, nutty taste of JIF brand peanut butter of which I am undeserving

My grandmother loved peanut butter
So much that they had to hide it from her if they wanted any hope of a satisfactory sandwich
My mom hid food too
Stole it like kiss after kiss
Sneaking cookies from the houses where she babysat
Getting crumbs on her swelling chest in the dark embrace of her teenage bedroom
A buffet for one
And now I'm in my grandmothers house
Hoping that there's peanut butter in heaven
Because here there's just photographs and the lingering scent of her Chanel number 5 perfume

Like mother, like daughter, like granddaughter they say
You can trace my family line as easily as the stretch marks that litter our bodies
But I am breaking the cycle by falling into my own
I have learned that hunger pangs are better than the climbing figures on the scale
So I lift a glass of water to my lips
And I leave the peanut butter in the pantry so no one will ever have to hide food from me

Now I’m ALLERGIC To NUTS...  
By This I Mean PEANUTS... !!!  

But The Nuts I'm Speaking Of...  
... In THIS Poems GUT... !!!  

DON’T Reach My Stomach... !!!  
  
It’s These Modern Day CHUMPS...  
That I’m...... ALLERGIC Too... !!!  
  
Because Their Nutty Views...  
Tend To Lead To ABUSE... !!!!!  
  
Because Their Nuts... BLATANT...  
Are At The WRONG Station... !?!  
  
And Are Wound TOO TIGHT...  
So Contort Their Minds... !!!  
  
From Religious Nuts... !!!  
To New Gender Nuts... !?!  
To Young Violent Nuts... !!!  
  
And The Type of Nuts...  
Whose ****** Stunts...  
When It Comes To Children...  
Should Have Their Nuts …
… NEUTERED... !!!
  
We’ve Got Conspiracy Nuts...  
Scientific Nuts, Technological Nuts...  
Who Now Want... ROBOTS...  
To Be Their... COMPANIONS... ?!?  
  
I Mean... Isn’t That NUTS...  
... Or Is That Just ME... ?!?  
  
Some People Say I’M NUTS...  
When They Read My Poetry... !?!  
  
Cos They DON’T Use Their Nuts... !!!  
Or That’s Right I Mean Their HEADS... !!!  
  
Unless Their ***** Gets Some...  
Until Their Nut Gets To BUST... !!!  
  
Now It’s True That I...  
Go... LYRICALLY NUTS...  
When I Write This Stuff... !!!  
  
But NOT Like The Mugs...  
Who Choose To Run Their Gums...  
Be TRYING To CLAIM...  
... Goes With My Name... ?!?  
  
Or The Way That My Brain...  
Creates This Wordplay...  
  
I Guess It’s NUTS To Say...  
That Wordplay Bearing...  
The Big Virge Name...  
Is Worthy of Declaring...  
To Be Verse That's... GREAT... ?!?  
  
Well That’s OKAY...  
Because A Lot Humans...  
Seem To Have NUTTY Tastes...
  
That I’m..... ALLERGIC To... !!!  
  
Because I’m From A Pool...  
of Talent That’s COOL...
  
That’s NOT For Fools...  
Or That’s Right For... NUTS... !!!  
  
Whose Gums Enlist...  
Passive Aggressive...  
Moves That STINK... !!!
  
Like... NUTTY PIGS...  
Who Carry... BADGES... !!!
  
I’m NUTTY Like THIS...  
When It Comes To Scripts...  
That I’m QUICK To FLIP...
Like... Dancing CRIPS...  
Who See Some BLOODS...  
And Then Start To Act NUTS... !!!
  
And Then Let Blood RUN...  
When They Pull Out Their GUNS... !!!  
  
It’s A WORLD of NUTS...
When It Comes To VIOLENCE... !!!
  
Heads of Governments...  
And People Who Judge...  
  
With WRONGFUL BIAS...... !!!  
Like These... RACIST NUTS... !!!
  
Whose IGNORANCE...  
Has Spread In Humans...  
Just Like This Virus...  
That Continues To SHUT...  
Mouths And Businesses Up... !!!  
  
Which May Be Why...  
I’ve Had To Write These Lines...  
  
Because of Minds...  
Being Locked Inside...  
  
Now Acting WILD... !?!  
When They Go Outside...  
Or When They Go Online...  
Who Write IGNORANT Stuff...  
That Starts To... EXPOSE...  
  
That They’ve Got PROBLEMS... !!!  
  
That Cause ME To Have...  
  
ALLERGIC REACTIONS...  
  
Because What They INDULGE...  
Is Behaving Like......  
  
... Attention Seeking...  
  
.......... “ NUTS “........

People are loopy
People ain't right
Inside of their heads
Out of their minds

People are nutty
Loco coco bean
Imaginary buddies
Putty for brains

People are batty
Fruit loops that fly
Come in different colors
Confetti minds

People are special
They say with a wink
Jumped the train trestle
Over the brink

Pick one or the other
No answer is wrong
It's all the above
When people are off

I had to go into the big city
well big for me anyway
a beautiful drive still dreaming I think
looks right down on the water that city
at Lake Champlain.

So what did you get?

Oh. You're seriously asking, alright.
Well, it's for a lovely couple this weekend getting married.

Oh I see, do tell Chef ?

I picked some beautiful ingredients
for pumpkin cheesecake
some candies...
I especially love the sunflower seed drops in magenta, violet, lime green, burnt orange, tangerine and dark  chocolate,
they look like little fall tears.

I also found some vinted
honeymoon wine
A voigner
with a lovely fragrant crisp taste

Hmmmm...interesting, go on?

It signifies the full moon in June after the flowers turn into young grapes some honeysuckle Aromas followed by luscious mango and nectar
Paired with roasting chicken
& beautifully seasonal fingerling potatoes
and this amazing rustic sweet potato bread
gorgeous heirloom vegetables in a few various choices
delicately cooking squash
all seasoned to perfection bringing
nutty joy to all
in an aromatic feathery plume of goodness
finally...
green goddess dressing and roasted nuts, berries among other toppings for a brilliant salad.

Oh...well any invitations still open?

I'm not sure, but you can be my guest in the kitchen come along

take your hat off what's the hurry?

Cherie Nolan© 2016

So as much as this Drama does persist
Your Prisoned Warning tugs at my Cool Shirt
Asking me to take Prudence and desist
In bashing Silence to where it would hurt
Now engraved in Copper I will make Clear:
For all my Writ Plagues I Apologise,
Deep in use plug Buds to that Trumpet's Ear
If Empathy a Letter in disguise
This my Friend's Spy; Deploy to high pursuit
Waving that Placard in belated claim
Which tastes folly less on a nutty boot
And Reprimand stamped on his just Remain.
Such I learned that Friendship's Best takes no Force
I Follow my Heart; Now you Follow yours.

For what would be a change of pace,
Check out this unusual place:
Persecuted groups came to create
A place where they could discriminate.
1840s gold rush dreams
Preceded years of get-rich schemes.
Nutty religious cults explore
End-time prophecies galore.
Believe whatever if that's your conviction,
Even if your "facts" are fiction.
You can construct your own reality;
"Whatever goes" is gaining vitality.
Anti-intellectualism
Accompanies attacks on secularism.
Fewer people think it's not odd
For leaders to wait for messages from God.
Satan's causing natural disasters,
For he's out to get us, according to some pastors.
Hustlers hustle the hustled, you see:
Religious theatricality.
Snake oil is sold for a quick fix;
Someone always has a bag of tricks.
Charismatic visionaries
Hope their income never varies.
Though P.T. Barnum is gone, we can say
That humbuggery is here to stay.
Homeopathic cures are widespread.
Devious mediums talk to the dead.
Scare tactics of foreign "invasions"
Keep popping up on numerous occasions.
Some have rewritten the history of the South.
Fake news spread by cyber "word of mouth."
Commingling entertainment and news--
Called "infotainment"--can spread one's views.
Acting out your fantasy makes you feel
That fantasy--NOT reality--is real.
People are duped by made-up scares.
The "National Enquirer" peddles its wares.
Cosmetic surgery transforms features.
People are abducted by strange space creatures.
The fantasy industry proliferates:
Fox News infects all fifty states.
Prosperity-gospel preachers are abounding,
Hoping their spiritual interest is compounding.
The war on the devil is not metaphorical,
For scripture, some say, can't be allegorical.
There are always the paranoid ones
Who fear the confiscation of guns.
Groups attempt to change the rules
So creationism can be taught in the schools.
Anti-establishment's becoming the norm;
Mistrust of experts is taking greater form.
Lies don't matter as long as you
FEEL that what someone says is true.
Some fear "invaders" crossing the border;
Others fear a scary New World Order.
Distrust places the media on trial
And fosters climate change denial.
Some say vaccines do great harm
And GMO foods are cause for alarm.
They say gun laws will only provide
Guns to "bad guys" with something to hide;
That regulations on any level
Of finances are the work of the devil.
A con-man leader will always keep spinning
The fantasy that with him we'll be winning.
That fake news is harmful and only distracts
People entitled to making up facts.
Voter fraud's still the talk of the Right;
Conspiracy theories keep coming to light.
Con artists boldly state:
Conversion therapy makes you straight.
If an alternate universe is in demand,
Then WELCOME, ALL, TO FANTASYLAND!

-by Bob B (11-12-18)

°Inspired by Kurt Andersen's "Fantasyland: How America
Went Haywire"

The sun that lights my moon
But never one dark night
Because I glow when she’s around
And she glows to my delight

The cookies to my milk
She makes me much less bland
And I soften up her crunch
As if it was something that we planned

The wave running through my ocean
The one that will never crash
Nothing scary nothing big
Just enough to make a splash

I’m a cloud floating in an empty sky
She is my silver line
We’re not here to rain on any parade
Just float till the end of time

I’m the blob of purple goo
And she’s my nutty pal
Throw us on a piece of bread
Do with us what you shall

I’m locked up she’s my key
She opens me like a door
I can tell her all she needs to know
And she can tell me more

Where ever you find pavement
There’s grass that’s peeking through
And when I laid my eyes on her
The only flower grew

It will never change
There was never a doubt in my mind
On day she will be my wife
There is no one left to find

My sun, my cookie, my wave,
My glowing silver line,
My key, my flower, or my wife
What ever she is she’s mine

As long as she is in my life
And forever there she’ll stay
There’s one thing I can tell you
She’s why I wake up everyday

tossed around
like empty peanut shells
between a greedy hound girl
and the local squirrel  riff raff
staging a hissy fit
territorial disputes run amuck
so much fuss
the elder pup stands firm
barks to never surrender
her claim to the lucky stash
all the while her feathered foes
swoop down
and steal them both  blind.

t'was not so long ago
in simple human years,
but eons, in poetic ones, that...

visions of fruited plains,
dimpled mountains,
candied wall-nutty natives,
easy lifted from his
eye's casual glances,
reformed to scribbled essays,
while daily walking on the
concrete steppes of his city,
gems of glass shard sidewalk sparkles
and bluest mailboxes were
raptured word tableaus,
rupturing easy with
volcanic force,
his body's planet,
mantle breaking,
crust-conquering poems,
breakout pimples waves,
molten and easy flowing...

he knew not then
what well now he knows,
the exhausted trembling
of asking,
the slowing wearing pace of
heartbeats of constant query,
the wonder of
wondering incessant,

Are You My Poem?

awoken by the body clock
in the wee, streaming,
rem sleeping hours,
asking the no longer
faithful friend,
his bathroom mirror,
is the accuracy of this
stubbled mess,
the white crusted lips and eyes,
is that my, my nowadays,
answer to

Are You My Poem?

he waits,
he, a red taillight speckle
among many, wait watching,
on a Brooklyn minor bridge
over a minor inlet
one of many, on a longer isle,
as the bridge lifts its arms,
opens its middle belly,
waving bye to a
passing-through freighter,
perhaps
destined for
happy springtime Morocco,
perhaps,
the Malay's divided isles,
wandering wondering
one more time,
if that's his etching,
line drawing poem,
passing by, bye, bye,
so each breathe forcing,
escape-asking,

Are You My Poem?

sometime ago,
a grown man,
his voice changed,
like a teenager,
writing now in but the
simplest terms,
plain jane poems,
in the cadence
of spoken words

for all the fancy phrases,
exhausted,
the sewing box of
precious alphabets,
emptied, leaving only
the tyranny of
hello, have a nice day, how are you feeling,
that's nice, goodnight sleep tight...

there were fewer poems
therein contained,
ceasing to fear,
no need for constancy of asking,
but failing in crafting to craft
even then,
trying but no one answering to

Are You My Poem?

one or two true,
asked,
are you busted,
the nib nub rusted,
your silence, long pauses,
worry us, your poem lovers,
if spent,
how deep is thy rent,
let our concern heal,
patch n' fill,
the cuttings,
the empty grooves that pockmark,
hope wishing asking,
sir sire man,
are you still hopeful,
interrogating,
asking the world,

Are You My Poem?

weeping from the
believed warmth
of their caring,
they too, knowing,
that life has its ways
of choking your voice off,
compelled to advise,
still and then and now,
the constant in my equation,
extant yet,
extant yes,
a voice that still rises
at the end of the
periodic element interrogatory of

Are You My Poem?

the poem answers,
muddled, muddied,
everyday life eats you up,
instead of you feasting upon it,
the tempo, the style,
all now humbug static interference,
but every know and every then,
a long winded answer dances
it's way from the core,
answering well
the question less asked,

Are You My Poem?

spent,
the poet
lol's,
for his truest friends here,
answer the pondering,
in deed, indeed,
you, near and dear
poet brothers and sisters,
you are the answer,
to words looking now,
a tod-toad-tad silly,

**You Are My Poem!

Cold and dark the solstice night
But shadows dance inside by candle-light
Pampered spruce holds centre stage
Calendar counts down the days

Festive holly berries red, mistletoe with white
Cards suspended on a string, flashing fairy lights
All is quiet in the house
Nothing stirs except...a mouse

He has no fear
Of cat or trap or carving knife
On his mind is something nice
Perhaps a chocolate-covered nutty treat
Beneath the Christmas tree to eat

Tonight no usual pickings poor
Of meagre breadcrumbs on the floor
For tonight he dines like a king
On fruit and nuts, dates and cake
A little bit of everything

All the Drambuie chocolates he ****** dry
He could not stop, he knew not why
Then he passed out on the floor
One hung-over little mouse, his head so very sore

It was nutty of me to fall for you
Like us out of whack girls will tend to do
At first I thought you broke me
But now I think I broke you
The fallout from when
A nutty girl falls for you

Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .

once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .

unleash
the torrent
of your hair . . .

and show me
once again―
how rare.

Published by The HyperTexts and The Chained Muse



White Goddess
by Michael R. Burch

White in the shadows
I see your face,
unbidden. Go, tell

Love it is commonplace;
tell Regret it is not so rare.

Our love is not here
though you smile,
full of sedulous grace.

Lost in darkness, I fear
the past is our resting place.

Published by Carnelian, The Chained Muse, A-Poem-A-Day and in a YouTube video by Aurora G. with the titles "Ghost, " "White Goddess" and "White in the Shadows."



The Stake
by Michael R. Burch

Love, the heart bets,
if not without regrets,
will still prove, in the end,
worth the light we expend
mining the dark
for an exquisite heart.

Originally published by The Lyric



If
by Michael R. Burch

If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.

If I forget
even for a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.

If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.

If I should burn―one moment less brightly,
one instant less true―
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.



The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh ...

our soft cries, like regret,

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...

now that I have forgotten her face.

Published by Poetry Magazine, La luce che non muore (Italy), Kritya (India), The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Carnelian, Triplopia, Net Poetry and Art Competition, Strange Road, Inspirational Stories, and Centrifugal Eye



Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget,"
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget,"
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET,"
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond ...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.

Published by Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Villanelle, The Eclectic Muse, Nietzsche Twilight, Nutty Stories (South Africa), Poetry Renewal Magazine and Other Voices International



Lucifer, to the Enola Gay
by Michael R. Burch

Go then,
and give them my meaning
so that their teeming
streets
become my city.

Bring back a pretty
flower—
a chrysanthemum,
perhaps, to bloom
if but an hour,
within a certain room
of mine
where
the sun does not rise or fall,
and the moon,
although it is content to shine,
helps nothing at all.

There,
if I hear the wistful call
of their voices
regretting choices
made
or perhaps not made
in time,
I can look back upon it and recall,
in all
its pale forms sublime,
still
Death will never be holy again.

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



Absence
by Michael R. Burch

Christ, how I miss you!,
though your parting kiss is still warm on my lips.

Now the floor is not strewn with your stockings and slips
and the dishes are all stacked away.

You left me today ...
and each word left unspoken now whispers regrets.



Having Touched You
by Michael R. Burch

What I have lost
is not less
than what I have gained.

And for each moment passed
like the sun to the west,
another remained,

suspended in memory
like a flower in crystal
so that eternity

is but an hour, and fall
is no longer a season
but a state of mind.

I have no reason
to wait; the wind
does not pause for remembrance

or regret
because there is only fate and chance.
And so then, forget...

Forget we were utterly
happy a day.
That day was my lifetime.

Before that day I was empty
and the sky was grey.
You were the sunshine:

the sunshine that gave me life.
I took root and I grew.
Now the touch of death is like a terrible knife,

and yet I can bear it,
having touched you.

I wrote this poem as a teenager after watching "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble"



Circe
by Michael R. Burch

She spoke
and her words
were like a ringing echo dying
or like smoke
rising and drifting
while the earth below is spinning.
She awoke
with a cry
from a dream that had no ending,
without hope
or strength to rise,
into hopelessness descending.
And an ache
in her heart
toward that dream, retreating,
left a wake
of small waves
in circles never completing.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Annual
by Michael R. Burch

Silence
steals upon a house
where one sits alone
in the shadow of the itinerant letterbox,
watching the disconnected telephone
collecting dust ...
hearing the desiccate whispers of voices’
dry flutters,—
moths’ wings
brittle as cellophane ...
Curled here,
reading the yellowing volumes of loss
by the front porch light
in the groaning swing . . .
through thin adhesive gloss
I caress your face.



Come!
by Michael R. Burch

Will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder,
when I have lain so long in the indifferent earth
that I have no girth?

When my womb has conformed to the chastity
your anemic Messiah envisioned for me,
will you finally be pleased that my *** was thus rendered
unpalatable, disengendered?

And when those strange loathsome organs that troubled you so
have been eaten by worms, will the heavens still glow
with the approval of God that I ended a maid—
thanks to a *****?

And will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in the season of lightning, the season of thunder?



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 that I believe I wrote as a high school sophomore.



Every Man Has a Dream
by Michael R. Burch

Every man has a dream that he cannot quite touch ...
a dream of contentment, of soft, starlit rain,
of a breeze in the evening that, rising again,
reminds him of something that cannot have been,
and he calls this dream love.

And each man has a dream that he fears to let live,
for he knows: to succumb is to throw away all.
So he curses, denies it and locks it within
the cells of his heart and he calls it a sin,
this madness, this love.

But each man in his living falls prey to his dreams,
and he struggles, but so he ensures that he falls,
and he finds in the end that he cannot deny
the joy that he feels or the tears that he cries
in the darkness of night for this light he calls love.



Sea Dreams
by Michael R. Burch

I.
In timeless days
I've crossed the waves
of seaways seldom seen.
By the last low light of evening
the breakers that careen
then dive back to the deep
have rocked my ship to sleep,
and so I've known the peace
of a soul at last at ease
there where Time's waters run
in concert with the sun.
With restless waves
I've watched the days’
slow movements, as they hum
their antediluvian songs.
Sometimes I've sung along,
my voice as soft and low
as the sea's, while evening slowed
to waver at the dim
mysterious moonlit rim
of dreams no man has known.
In thoughtless flight,
I've scaled the heights
and soared a scudding breeze
over endless arcing seas
of waves ten miles high.
I've sheared the sable skies
on wings as soft as sighs
and stormed the sun-pricked pitch
of sunset’s scarlet-stitched,
ebullient dark demise.
I've climbed the sun-cleft clouds
ten thousand leagues or more
above the windswept shores
of seas no man has sailed
— great seas as grand as hell's,
shores littered with the shells
of men's "immortal" souls —
and I've warred with dark sea-holes
whose open mouths implored
their depths to be explored.
And I've grown and grown and grown
till I thought myself the king
of every silver thing . . .
But sometimes late at night
when the sorrowing wavelets sing
sad songs of other times,
I taste the windborne rime
of a well-remembered day
on the whipping ocean spray,
and I bow my head to pray . . .

II.
It's been a long, hard day;
sometimes I think I work too hard.
Tonight I'd like to take a walk
down by the sea —
down by those salty waves
brined with the scent of Infinity,
down by that rocky shore,
down by those cliffs that I used to climb
when the wind was **** with a taste of lime
and every dream was a sailor's dream.
Then small waves broke light,
all frothy and white,
over the reefs in the ramblings of night,
and the pounding sea
—a mariner’s dream—
was bound to stir a boy's delight
to such a pitch
that he couldn't desist,
but was bound to splash through the surf in the light
of ten thousand stars, all shining so bright.
Christ, those nights were fine,
like a well-aged wine,
yet more scalding than fire
with the marrow’s desire.
Then desire was a fire
burning wildly within my bones,
fiercer by far than the frantic foam . . .
and every wish was a moan.
Oh, for those days to come again!
Oh, for a sea and sailing men!
Oh, for a little time!
It's almost nine
and I must be back home by ten,
and then . . . what then?
I have less than an hour to stroll this beach,
less than an hour old dreams to reach . . .
And then, what then?
Tonight I'd like to play old games—
games that I used to play
with the somber, sinking waves.
When their wraithlike fists would reach for me,
I'd dance between them gleefully,
mocking their witless craze
—their eager, unchecked craze—
to batter me to death
with spray as light as breath.
Oh, tonight I'd like to sing old songs—
songs of the haunting moon
drawing the tides away,
songs of those sultry days
when the sun beat down
till it cracked the ground
and the sea gulls screamed
in their agony
to touch the cooling clouds.
The distant cooling clouds.
Then the sun shone bright
with a different light
over different lands,
and I was always a pirate in flight.
Oh, tonight I'd like to dream old dreams,
if only for a while,
and walk perhaps a mile
along this windswept shore,
a mile, perhaps, or more,
remembering those days,
safe in the soothing spray
of the thousand sparkling streams
that rush into this sea.
I like to slumber in the caves
of a sailor's dark sea-dreams . . .
oh yes, I'd love to dream,
to dream
and dream
and dream.

“Sea Dreams” is one of my longer and more ambitious early poems, along with the full version of “Jessamyn’s Song.” To the best of my recollection, I wrote “Sea Dreams” around age 18, circa 1976-1977.


He Lived: Excerpts from “Gilgamesh”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I.
He who visited hell, his country’s foundation,
Was well-versed in mysteries’ unseemly dark places.
He deeply explored many underworld realms
Where he learned of the Deluge and why Death erases.

II.
He built the great ramparts of Uruk-the-Sheepfold
And of holy Eanna. Then weary, alone,
He recorded his thoughts in frail scratchings called “words”:
But words made immortal, once chiseled in stone.

III.
These walls he erected are ever-enduring:
Vast walls where the widows of dead warriors weep.
Stand by them. O, feel their immovable presence!
For no other walls are as strong as this keep’s.

IV.
Come, climb Uruk’s tower on a starless night—
Ascend its steep stairway to escape modern error.
Cross its ancient threshold. You are close to Ishtar,
The Goddess of Ecstasy and of Terror!

V.
Find the cedar box with its hinges of bronze;
Lift the lid of its secrets; remove its dark slate;
Read of the travails of our friend Gilgamesh—
Of his descent into hell and man’s terrible fate!

VI.
Surpassing all kings, heroic in stature,
Wild bull of the mountains, the Goddess his dam
—Bedding no other man; he was her sole rapture—
Who else can claim fame, as he thundered, “I am!”



Enkidu Enters the House of Dust
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

I entered the house of dust and grief.
Where the pale dead weep there is no relief,
for there night descends like a final leaf
to shiver forever, unstirred.

There is no hope left when the tree’s stripped bare,
for the leaf lies forever dormant there
and each man cloaks himself in strange darkness, where
all company’s unheard.

No light’s ever pierced that oppressive night
so men close their eyes on their neighbors’ plight
or stare into darkness, lacking sight ...
each a crippled, blind bat-bird.

Were these not once eagles, gallant men?
Who sits here—pale, wretched and cowering—then?
O, surely they shall, they must rise again,
gaining new wings? “Absurd!

For this is the House of Dust and Grief
where men made of clay, eat clay. Relief
to them’s to become a mere windless leaf,
lying forever unstirred.”

“Anu and Enlil, hear my plea!
Ereshkigal, they all must go free!
Beletseri, dread scribe of this Hell, hear me!”
But all my shrill cries, obscured

by vast eons of dust, at last fell mute
as I took my place in the ash and soot.



Reclamation
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.

I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me—progenitor of life
with its foul breath.

Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.

Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically—her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure

to a consuming emptiness.
We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture—
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts

to the first note.
Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.

Need is reborn; love dies.



Everlasting
by Michael R. Burch

Where the wind goes
when the storm dies,
there my spirit lives
though I close my eyes.

Do not weep for me;
I am never far.
Whisper my name
to the last star ...

then let me sleep,
think of me no more.

Still ...

By denying death
its terminal sting,
in my words I remain
everlasting.

Keywords/Tags: Epic of Gilgamesh, epic, epical, orient occident, oriental, ancient, ancestors, ancestry, primal

Why oh why do I love pie?

The ABCs of it and
the LMNO-Pie of it

A Apple Pie
B Boston cream Pie
C Cherry Pie
D Dutch Apple Pie
E Equation Pie 3.14
F Fruit Pie
G Grandma's Gooseberry Pie
H Humble Pie
I Ice Cream Pie
J Jell-O Pudding Pie
K Kidney Pie
L Lemon Meringue Pie
M Moon Pie
N Nutty Pecan Pie
O Oreo Cookie Crust Pie
P Pud'nin Pie
Q Quick Set Frozen Cream Pie
R Rhubarb Pie
S Sweet Tater Pie
T Tuxedo Pie
U Upside Down Pineapple Pie
V Velvet Truffle Pie
W Whip Cream Pie
X  PIE IN THE FACE
Y Yummy Pie
Z Zesty Lemon/Lime Pie



Now you have the XYZ of it
and the PIE of it
Why oh why do you love Pie?

As I rounded the hill
Face to face with the still
That I'd only heard rumors spoke of

With no one around
I sat myself down
And proceeded to sample the stuff

As sweet as honeydew melon
Got my feet to a geling
Made me feel like I did in my youth

Sat with a dumb gaze for a while
Then got the biggest of smiles
When it came to me what I should do

So I went with my plan
And opened a stand
Right there on the mountain side

When word in the forest got out
I never had any doubt
That all of the critters would be stoping by

You should have seen them all  guzzle
As the squirrels ordered doubles
Then proceeded to tell wild nutty lies

It was quite the fiasco
When they brought out the cowboy hats and  lasso's
As the party went well into the night

They paid in nuts and berries
Which was fine by me
With them I made different flavors of shine

In flavors I made 32
So I wouldn't get sued
By Baskin-Robbins who has 31 at this time

From all the flavors I made
Boysenberry was the fav
The raccoons made up a dance called the boysenberry crawl

Which was a big hit
At the discotheque
The beavers built in the early fall

We made a deal
I would sell them my swill
For a little piece of the pie

We were all getting rich
I have to admit
It's quite the relationship, the beavers and I

Of course the beavers got greedy
You know how beavers are needy
Couldn't leave well enough alone

Figured they had the right
Who's going to pay for these lights
That make this the best disco in town

They started charging a cover
Which didn't go over
As well as they would have liked

Plus they doubled the price of the *****
Which left little food
On the woodland creatures tables at night

Things went from bad to worse
When they started to curse
Me, "The Man" for the troubles they had

I barely made it out alive
By the skin of my hide
When I packed and hit the road mighty fast

Things had been going so well
Before it all went to hell
And me and my still were forced to leave

Now still to this day
You know why I always say
That famous line, passed down in time
"Leave it to Beav"

Poems about Things that Break

These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old habits, our hearts, and sometimes Love itself.



Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.



Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch



As grief reaches its breaking point
someone snaps a nearby branch.
―Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



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



Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an irresistible
constrictor.
―Sappho, fragment 130, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



My heart is unsteady as a rocking boat;
besieged by such longing I weaken with age
and come close to breaking.
―Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My era’s obscuring mirror  
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.            
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my heart
and instead of sweat
I exude glass.



Mirror Images
by Michael R. Burch

She has belief
without comprehension
and in her crutchwork shack
she is
much like us ...

tamping the bread
into edible forms,
regarding her children
at play
with something akin to relief ...

ignoring the towers ablaze
in the distance
because they are not revelations
but things of glass,
easily shattered ...

and if you were to ask her,
she might say―
sometimes God visits his wrath
upon an impious nation
for its leaders’ sins,

and we might agree:
seeing her mutilations.

Published by Poetry SuperHighway and Modern War Poems



Second Sight
by Michael R. Burch

I never touched you―
that was my mistake.

Deep within,
I still feel the ache.

Can an unformed thing
eternally break?

Now, from a great distance,
I see you again

not as you are now,
but as you were then―

eternally present
and Sovereign.



Ghazal
by Mirza Ghalib
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not the blossomings of song nor the adornments of music:
I am the voice of my own heart breaking.

You toy with your long, dark curls
while I remain captive to my black, pensive thoughts.

We congratulate ourselves that we two are different
but this weakness has burdened us both with inchoate grief.

Now you are here, and I find myself bowing:
as if sadness is a blessing, and longing a sacrament.

I am a fragment of sound rebounding;
you are the walls impounding my echoes.



Bubble
by Michael R. Burch

.................Love
..........fragile elusive
.......if held too closely
....cannot.........withstand
..the inter..................ruption
of its.............................. bright
..unmalleable.............tension
....and breaks disintegrates
......at the............touch of
.........an undiscerning
..................hand.

I believe this is my only shape/shaped/concrete poem.



Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth, on the first anniversary of 9-11

She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget,”
Dove-white on her car’s window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: “Never Forget,”
and kept her heart’s own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers’ glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on ...
she stitches in damp linen: “NEVER FORGET,”
and listens to her heart’s emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: “NEVER FORGET”
because her heart is tender with regret.

Published by Neovictorian/Cochlea, The Villanelle, The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Nietzsche Twilight, Nutty Stories (South Africa), Poetry Renewal Magazine and Other Voices International



Break Time
by Michael R. Burch

for those who lost loved ones on 9-11

Intrude upon my grief; sit; take a spot
of milk to cloud the blackness that you feel;
add artificial sweeteners to conceal
the bitter aftertaste of loss. You’ll heal
if I do not. The coffee’s hot. You speak:
of bundt cakes, polls, the price of eggs. You glance
twice at your watch, cough, look at me askance.
The TV drones oeuvres of high romance
in syncopated lip-synch. Should I feel
the underbelly of Love’s warm Ideal,
its fuzzy-wuzzy tummy, and not reel
toward some dark conclusion? Disappear
to pale, dissolving atoms. Were you here?
I brush you off: like saccharine, like a tear.



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.



Mate Check
by Michael R. Burch

Love is an ache hearts willingly secure
then break the bank to cure.



Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch

You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower springs to life at once,
but joy’s a wan illusion to the expert:
the Bedouin has learned how not to want.

You came to me as riches to a miser
when all is gold, or so his heart believes,
until he dies much thinner and much wiser,
his gleaming bones hauled off by chortling thieves.

You gave your heart too soon, too dear, too vastly;
I could not take it in; it was too much.
I pledged to meet your price, but promised rashly.
I died of thirst, of your bright Midas touch.

I dreamed you gave me water of your lips,
then sealed my tomb with golden hieroglyphs.

Published by The Lyric, Black Medina, The Eclectic Muse, Kritya (India), Shabestaneh (Iran), Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, Captivating Poetry (Anthology), Strange Road, Freshet, Shot Glass Journal, Better Than Starbucks, The Chained Muse, Famous Poets and Poems, Sonnetto Poesia, Poetry Life & Times



Resemblance
by Michael R. Burch

Take this geode with its rough exterior―
crude-skinned, brilliant-hearted ...

a diode of amethyst―wild, electric;
its sequined cavity―parted, revealing.

Find in its fire all brittle passion,
each jagged shard relentlessly aching.

Each spire inward―a fission startled;
in its shattered entrails―fractured light,

the heart ice breaking.

Published by Poet Lore, Poetry Magazine and the Net Poetry and Art Competition



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
as 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 husks into some raging ocean
and laugh as they shatter, 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, Poetry Life & Times and The Chained Muse



Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as if she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She has never heard of Faust, or Frost,
and she is unlikely to have been seen
rummaging through bookstores
for mementos of others
more difficult to name.

She might imagine “poetry”
to be something in common between us,
as we write, bridging the expanse
between convention and something . . .
something the world calls “art”
for want of a better word.

At night I scream
at the conventions of both our worlds,
at the distances between words
and their objects: distances
come lately between us,
like a clean break.

Published by Verse Libre, Triplopia and Lone Stars



The Ruins of Balaclava
by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, barren Crimean land, these dreary shades
of castles―once your indisputable pride―
are now where ghostly owls and lizards hide
as blackguards arm themselves for nightly raids.

Carved into marble, regal boasts were made!
Brave words on burnished armor, gilt-applied!
Now shattered splendors long since cast aside
beside the dead here also brokenly laid.

The Greeks erected shimmering marble here.
The Romans drove wild Mongol hordes to flight.
The Mussulman prayed eastward, day and night.

Now owls and dark-winged vultures watch and leer
as strange black banners, flapping overhead,
mark where the past piles high its nameless dead.



Once Upon a Frozen Star
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, was it in this dark-Decembered world
we walked among the moonbeam-shadowed fields
and did not know ourselves for weight of snow
upon our laden parkas? White as sheets,
as spectral-white as ghosts, with clawlike hands
****** deep into our pockets, holding what
we thought were tickets home: what did we know
of anything that night? Were we deceived
by moonlight making shadows of gaunt trees
that loomed like fiends between us, by the songs
of owls like phantoms hooting: Who? Who? Who?

And if that night I looked and smiled at you
a little out of tenderness . . . or kissed
the wet salt from your lips, or took your hand,
so cold inside your parka . . . if I wished
upon a frozen star . . .  that I could give
you something of myself to keep you warm . . .
yet something still not love . . . if I embraced
the contours of your face with one stiff glove . . .

How could I know the years would strip away
the soft flesh from your face, that time would flay
your heart of consolation, that my words
would break like ice between us, till the void
of words became eternal? Oh, my love,
I never knew. I never knew at all,
that anything so vast could curl so small.

Originally published by Nisqually Delta Review



Eras Poetica II
by Michael R. Burch

“... poetry makes nothing happen ...”―W. H. Auden

Poetry is the art of words: beautiful words.
So that we who are destitute of all other beauties exist
in worlds of our own making; where, if we persist,
the unicorns gather in phantomlike herds,
whinnying to see us; where dark flocks of birds,
hooting, screeching and cawing, all madly insist:
“We too are wild migrants lost in this pale mist
which strangeness allows us, which beauty affords!”

We stormproof our windows with duct tape and boards.
We stockpile provisions. We cull the small list
of possessions worth keeping. Our listless lips, kissed,
mouth pointless enigmas. Time’s bare pantry hoards
dust motes of past grandeurs. Yet here Mars’s sword
lies shattered on the anvil of the enduring Word.



The Higher Atmospheres
by Michael R. Burch

Whatever we became climbed on the thought
of Love itself; we floated on plumed wings
ten thousand miles above the breasted earth
that had vexed us to such Distance; now all things
seem small and pale, a girdle’s handsbreadth girth ...

I break upon the rocks; I break; I fling
my human form about; I writhe; I writhe.
Invention is not Mastery, nor wings
Salvation. Here the Vulture cruelly chides
and plunges at my eyes, and coos and sings ...

Oh, some will call the sun my doom, but Love
melts callow wax the higher atmospheres
leave brittle. I flew high: not high enough
to melt such frozen resins ... thus, Her jeers.



Old Habits Die Hard
by Gulzar
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The habit of breathing
is an odd tradition.
Why struggle so to keep on living?
The body shudders,
the eyes veil,
yet the feet somehow keep moving.
Why this journey, this restless, relentless flowing?
For how many weeks, months, years, centuries
shall we struggle to keep on living, keep on living?
Habits are such strange things, such hard things to break!



Having Touched You (The Boy in the Bubble)
by Michael R. Burch

What I have lost
is not less
than what I have gained.

And for each moment passed
like the sun to the west,
another remained

suspended in memory
like a flower
in crystal

so that eternity
is but an hour
and fall

is no longer a season
but a state
of mind.

I have no reason
to wait;
the wind

does not pause
for remembrance
or regret

because
there is only fate and chance.
And so then, forget...

Forget that we were very happy
for a day.
That day was my lifetime.

Before that day I was empty
and the sky was grey.
You were the sunshine,

the sunshine that gave me life.
I took root
and I grew.

Now the touch of death is like a terrible knife,
and yet I can bear it,
having touched you.

I wrote this poem as a teenager after watching "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" with John Travolta playing a young man with a defective immune system who risks death for a chance at love.



Published as the collection "Poems about Things that Break"

Keywords/Tags: break, breaking, breakings, shatter, shattered, shattering, delicate, fragility, fragment, touch, cruelty, brutality, abuse, stress, love, pain, relationships, society, mrbreak, mrbbreak

What Works
by Michael R. Burch

for David Gosselin

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

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

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

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

and teach the pallid poem to seethe.



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Listen, Hermie
by Michael R. Burch

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

and you can see how white she shone

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

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

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

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

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



Tell me, Hermie
by  Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Fountainhead
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



I Pray Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

I pray tonight
the starry light
might
surround you.

I pray
each day
that, come what may,
no dark thing confound you.

I pray ere tomorrow
an end to your sorrow.
May angels’ white chorales
sing, and astound you.



A Possible Argument for Mercy
by Michael R. Burch

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



Gethsemane in Every Breath
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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



Just Smile
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Lucid Rhythms



Aflutter
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Gallant Knight
by Michael R. Burch

for Alfred Dorn and Anita Dorn

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

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

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

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

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



To Have Loved
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

From what I know of death, I'll side with those
who'd like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker),
and real fahr off, instead of quicker.

Originally published by Light Quarterly



Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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



The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

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

reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness

as remembered as the sudden light.

Originally published by The Raintown Review



Tremble
by Michael R. Burch

Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.

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

Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.

Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.

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



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

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

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

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



Shrill Gulls and Other Skeptics
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

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

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

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

Originally published by Able Muse



Caveat Spender
by Michael R. Burch

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



At Wilfred Owen’s Grave
by Michael R. Burch

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



Safe Harbor
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin N. Roberts

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

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

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

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

Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly and Angle



The Harvest of Roses
by Michael R. Burch

for Harvey Stanbrough

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

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

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



The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

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

the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;

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

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

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

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



Lean Harvests
by Michael R. Burch

for T.M.

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

Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle



The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M.

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



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

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

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

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



Abide
by Michael R. Burch

after Philip Larkin's "Aubade"

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

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

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



Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Distances
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

Originally published by The HyperTexts



Step Into Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by The Lyric



hymn to Apollo
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

till all the bright light
retired,
expired.

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



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

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



The One and Only
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

If anyone ever loved me,
It was you.

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

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



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller

#2 - Love Poetry

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

#5 - Criticism

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

#11 - Holiness

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

#12 - Love versus Desire

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

#19 - Nymph and Satyr

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

#20 - Desire

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

#23 - The Apex I

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

#24 - The Apex II

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

#25 -Human Life

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

#35 - Dead Ahead

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

#36 - Unexpected Consequence

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

#41 - Earth vs. Heaven

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



The Poet
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



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

Playmates
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Playthings
by Michael R. Burch

a sequel to “Playmates”

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

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

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

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

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



hey pete
by Michael R. Burch

for Pete Rose

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

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



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

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

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



Ironic Vacation
by Michael R. Burch

Salzburg.
Seeing Mozart’s baby grand piano.
Standing in the presence of sheer incalculable genius.
Grabbing my childish pen to write a poem & challenge the Immortals.
Next stop, the catacombs!

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



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



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

into oblivion ...

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



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



Myth
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



The Communion of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find flowers,
or will she find thorns
guarding the petals
of roses unborn?

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?

And will she find treasure
or will she find pain
at the end of this rainbow
of moonlight on rain?

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



Childhood's End
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



The Tender Weight of Her Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

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

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



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

for the Religious Right

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

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

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



Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch

for and after William Blake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



how many Nights
by michael r. burch

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

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

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

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

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

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



Duet (II)
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Bewildering Stories



Rant: The Elite
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Chinese Poets: English Translations

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



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

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



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

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


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

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

Chinese translations Li Bai

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



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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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



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

Tonight the Fu-Chou moon
watches your lonely bedroom.

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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

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



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

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

That distant rutted road
wounds me to the heart.

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

Grief coupled with longing
wounds me to the heart.

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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



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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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

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



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

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



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

for Xu Zhimo

I blushed,
hearing the lovely nocturnal tune.

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(6 November 1928)

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



The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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



The Insurrection of Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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



Star Crossed
by Michael R. Burch

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



The State of the Art (?)
by Michael R. Burch

Has rhyme lost all its reason
and rhythm, renascence?
Are sonnets out of season
and poems but poor pretense?

Are poets lacking fire,
their words too trite and forced?
What happened to desire?
Has passion been coerced?

Shall poetry fade slowly,
like Latin, to past tense?
Are the bards too high and holy,
or their readers merely dense?



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

“Evolution’s a Fishy Business!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Originally published by Lighten Up Online


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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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



The First Complete Musical Composition

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

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



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

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



VILLANELLES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Trump’s Retribution Resolution
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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



Why I Left the Right
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



The vanilla-nelle
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

Ars Brevis
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Door Mouse
by Michael R. Burch

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



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

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

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



Mercedes Benz
by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

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

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



Syndrome
by Michael R. Burch

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

Published by the National Association for Down Syndrome



Homer translations

Surrender to sleep at last! What a misery, keeping watch all night, wide awake. Soon you’ll succumb to sleep and escape all your troubles. Sleep. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Passage home? Impossible! Surely you have something else in mind, Goddess, urging me to cross the ocean’s endless expanse in a raft. So vast, so full of danger! Hell, sometimes not even the sea-worthiest ships can prevail, aided as they are by Zeus’s mighty breath! I’ll never set foot on a raft, Goddess, until you swear by all that’s holy you’re not plotting some new intrigue! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let’s hope the gods are willing. They rule the vaulting skies. They’re stronger than men to plan, execute and realize their ambitions. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Few sons surpass their fathers; most fall short, all too few overachieve. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Any moment might be our last. Earth’s magnificence? Magnified because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than at this moment. We will never pass this way again. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Beauty! Ah, Terrible Beauty! A deathless Goddess, she startles our eyes! — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Many dread seas and many dark mountain ranges lie between us. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The lives of mortal men? Like the leaves’ generations. Now the old leaves fall, blown and scattered by the wind. Soon the living timber bursts forth green buds as spring returns. Even so with men: as one generation is born, another expires. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m attempting to temper my anger, it does not behoove me to rage unrelentingly on. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Overpowering memories subsided to grief. Priam wept freely for Hector, who had died crouching at Achilles’ feet, while Achilles wept himself, first for his father, then for Patroclus, as their mutual sobbing filled the house. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“Genius is discovered in adversity, not prosperity.” — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ruin, the eldest daughter of Zeus, blinds us all with her fatal madness. With those delicate feet of hers, never touching the earth, she glides over our heads, trapping us all. First she entangles you, then me, in her lethal net. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death and Fate await us all. Soon comes a dawn or noon or sunset when someone takes my life in battle, with a well-flung spear or by whipping a deadly arrow from his bow. — Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is the Great Leveler, not even the immortal gods can defend the man they love most when the dread day dawns for him to take his place in the dust.—Homer, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Giacomo da Lentini

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

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

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

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

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

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



Haiku

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

Published as the collection "What Works"