by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

       COR. AGRIPPA, Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

on Valentine’s Day he is working on black painting hears knocking at door with rag brushes in hand he asks “who is it?” “it’s Reiko! come on mr. birdfishdog open up” he has grown afraid of her nervously shuffles brushes rag in hand guardedly opens door there stands Reiko Lee Furshe shoulders pulled back arms akimbo black leather jacket black tight jeans black pointed toe boots hair cut extremely short looks like handsome young boy grinning “hi aren’t you going to invite me in? want to **** and ****?” Reiko’s altered appearance suddenness alarm Odysseus "why did you cut your hair Reiko Lee?" she says "it’s my hair and I can do what I want with it i shaved my legs armpits and ***** too want to have a look?" he replies "no no way why? why did you cut your hair?" she says "because i felt like it and because i know how much you love my hairiness Odys i wanted to displease you i’m female again!" she defiantly glares at him he looks away slowly closes door hears her holler “*******!” listens as footsteps race down stairs out building he drops paintbrushes rag rushes to front window looks out watches her saunter away down street until she is gone writes Reiko Valentine poem he will never send

love listens when you speak understands what you think love watches while you sleep love holds back as you leap love lounges while you run frantic love picks your pocket puts you in checkmate love builds nest hatches egg love rips open your chest plucks heart away love is racehorse love is rattlesnake love pretends not to notice while you ******* love swings on gate love visits your grave love impersonates a poet love slits your throat love devours everything leaves crumbs for hate

he receives Valentine card in mail from Mom wonders if ultimately his fate is somehow sorely connected to her what if Mom stands in way of every woman? what if stars lead away from recognition as painter instead steer straight back to Mom? what if each is trial to other as if their souls are entangled in insolvable riddle ancient curse? he drinks himself to sleep

Laius and Jocasta are king and queen of Thebes in ancient Greece they have baby boy oracle prophesies boy will grow up **** father marry mother to nullify prophecy Laius Jocasta decide to **** their son back then it is common to abandon unwanted or damaged baby on mountain for vultures child survives grows to be man he travels gets into fight on road kills stranger who unaware to him is his father King Laius traveler Oedipus goes to Thebes solves Riddle of Sphinx saves city he is made king unknowingly marries his own mother King Laius's widow Queen Jocasta Oedipus rules wisely he and Jocasta have four children eventually Oedipus and Jocasta realize what ******* Oedipus is Jocasta commits suicide Oedipus pokes out his own eyes becomes wandering beggar assisted by daughter Antigone at time of their marriage Oedipus is young naive but Jocasta is middle-aged woman maybe deep down Jocasta knows she is marrying her handsome son it is thrill to sleep with him maybe it is only after Oedipus realizes truth in disgust confronts Jocasta that she is driven to suicide Jocasta cannot live with herself because she has known truth all along and now she is found out Oedipus can live with himself yet he plucks out eyes because he never wants to see truth again

Odysseus continues to work on black painting many weeks pass slowly snowdrifts begin to melt on occasion sun appears in sky Penelope calls to catch up with him says she is in hurry has met really cool guy is falling in love again their conversation is brief he hangs up receiver considers how resilient Penelope’s heart is she seems so much more capable of getting over heartbreaks

Prophesies of impending fall
     creep stealthily over the Great Divide.
Gold-green Aspens shiver in the breeze
     like leagues of fibrous wind chimes
serenading the mountain slopes
     with aires of shimmering gold.

A few distant bugle calls echo
     across the Big Thompson valley
as bull elks warm up for the autumn rut.
     Sudden early gusts of frigid wind
bring waves of sleet and snow -
     in tune with the turning polar axis.

The greater chill is soon to come.
     The animals know it as do we.
Bears bulk up on grasses, roots and berries.
     Elk and deer drift down from the heights
To show their young the ways
      of the plains and river valleys.

We pull our sweaters on
     and toss another log on the flames
and greet the harbingers of approaching fall
    creeping stealthily over the Great Divide.

September, 2018

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and main;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
- The other seeming to look on -
And stands anonymous again

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances surficed
To fable them : faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes -

Silks at the start : against the sky
Numbers and parasols : outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass : then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries -
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies :
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,
With bridles in the evening come.

Look at all the parrots--
Parroting the words
Of all the other parrots--
Of all the other birds--

Parroting profusely
All the same refrains--
Parroting the constant patter
In their parrot brains--

Parroting the preaching
From the pulpit to the pews--
Parroting their parents'
And their parents' parents' views--

Parroting their leaders
And their pompous platitudes--
Parroting their peers'
Pretentious attitudes--

Parroting the patriarchs'
Proselytizing that'll
Put your teeth on edge
With their pathetic prattle--

Parroting the poppycock
Of trite pontifications--
Parroting pernicious
And sly manipulations--

Parroting the pretty birds
Whose pageantry and glory
Appeal to their prurient tastes
In each pathetic story--

Parroting the songsters
With parasitic pleasure
And counting out the rhythm
Of every pitiful measure--

Parroting the powerful
Whose ploys are so profuse,
Leaving the powerless
Pummeled with abuse--

Parroting with passion
Presumptuous prophesies
With putative contrition,
"Humbly" on their knees--

Parroting themselves--
Together all in sync--
How they love to parrot
So they don't have to think!

- by Bob B

Epigrams by Michael R. Burch



Conformists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael R. Burch

(Winner of the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition)



My objective is not to side with the majority, but to avoid the ranks of the insane.—Marcus Aurelius, translation by Michael R. Burch



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

(Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Super Highway, Poets for Humanity, Daily Kos, Katutura English, Genocide Awareness, Darfur Awareness Shabbat, Viewing Genocide in Sudan, Better Than Starbucks, Art Villa, Setu, Angle, AZquotes, QuoteMaster; also translated into Czech, Indonesian, Romanian and Turkish)



Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.



Stormfront
by Michael R. Burch

Our distance is frightening:
a distance like the abyss between heaven and earth
interrupted by bizarre and terrible lightning.



Laughter's Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death is a mystery, we cry
when one is gone, our numbering thrown awry.

(Originally published by Angelwing)



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally fall,
it's just that we can never catch them all.

(Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, this poem has been translated into Russian, Macedonian, Turkish and Romanian)



Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover what the heart is for.

(Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea, this poem has been translated into Russian, Arabic, Turkish and Macedonian)



*** Hex
by Michael R. Burch

Love's full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes) .

(Published by ***** of Parnassus and Lighten Up)



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters—deep and dark and still.
All men have passed this way, or will.

(Published by The Raintown Review and Blue Unicorn; also translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. This is one of my early poems, written as a teenager. I believe it was my first epigram.)



Fahr an' Ice
by Michael R. Burch

(apologies to Robert Frost and Ogden Nash)

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.



Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

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



Multiplication, Tabled
or Procreation Inflation
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

"Be fruitful and multiply"—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, "WHEN! "



The Whole of Wit
by Michael R. Burch

If brevity is the soul of wit
then brevity and levity
are the whole of it.

(Published by Shot Glass Journal)



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

Abbesses'
recesses
are not for excesses!

(Published by Brief Poems)



Saving Graces, for the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

Life's saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.

(Published by Shot Glass Journal and Poem Today)



Skalded
by Michael R. Burch

Fierce ancient skalds summoned verse from their guts;
today's genteel poets prefer modern ruts.



Not Elves, Exactly
by Michael R. Burch

Something there is that likes a wall,
that likes it spiked and likes it tall,
that likes its pikes' sharp rows of teeth
and doesn't mind its victims' grief
(wherever they come from, far or wide)
as long as they fall on the other side.



Self-ish
by Michael R. Burch

Let's not pretend we "understand" other elves
as long as we remain mysteries to ourselves.



Piecemeal
by Michael R. Burch

And so it begins—the ending.
The narrowing veins, the soft tissues rending.
Your final solution is pending.
(A pale Piggy-Wiggy
will discount your demise as no biggie.)



Liquid Assets
by Michael R. Burch

And so I have loved you, and so I have lost,
accrued disappointment, ledgered its cost,
debited wisdom, credited pain...
My assets remaining are liquid again.



**** Brevis, Emendacio Longa
by Michael R. Burch

The Donald may tweet from sun to sun,
but his spellchecker’s work is never done.



Cassidy Hutchinson is not only credible, but her courage and poise under fire have been incredible. — Michael R. Burch



Brief Fling
by Michael R. Burch

Epigram
means cram,
then scram!



To write an epigram, cram.
If you lack wit, scram!
—Michael R. Burch



Fleet Tweet: Apologies to Shakespeare
by Michael R. Burch

A tweet
by any other name
would be as fleet.

@mikerburch (Michael R. Burch)



Fleet Tweet II: Further Apologies to Shakespeare
by Michael R. Burch

Remember, doggonit,
heroic verse crowns the Shakespearean sonnet!
So if you intend to write a couplet,
please do it on the doublet!

@mikerburch (Michael R. Burch)



Love is either wholly folly,
or fully holy.
—Michael R. Burch



Civility
is the ability
to disagree
agreeably.
—Michael R. Burch



****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

“****** most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.

“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner.

As you fall on my sword,
take it up with the LORD!”

the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.

(Published by Lighten Up Online and Potcake Chapbooks)



The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...)
by Michael R. Burch

Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts
at “meter,” I crossly concluded
I’d use each iamb
in lieu of a lamb,
bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded.

(Originally published by Grand Little Things)



Midnight Stairclimber
by Michael R. Burch

Procreation
is at first great sweaty recreation,
then—long, long after the *** dies—
the source of endless exercise.

(Published by Angelwing and Brief Poems)



Love has the value
of gold, if it's true;
if not, of rue.
—Michael R. Burch



Teddy Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a big stick;
Donald Trump speaks loudly and carries a big shtick.
—Michael R. Burch



Nonsense Verse for a Nonsensical White House Resident
by Michael R. Burch

Roses are red,
Daffodils are yellow,
But not half as daffy
As that taffy-colored fellow!



There's no need to rant about Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The cruelty of "civilization" suffices:
our ordinary vices.
—Michael R. Burch



Sumer is icumen in
a modern English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

(this update of an ancient classic is dedicated to everyone who suffers with hay fever and other allergies)

Sumer is icumen in
Lhude sing achu!
Groweth sed
And bloweth hed
And buyeth med?
Cuccu!

Originally published by Lighten Up Online (as Kim Cherub)

NOTE: I kept the medieval spellings of “sumer” (summer), “lhude” (loud), “sed” (seed) and “hed” (head). I then slipped in the modern slang term “med” for medication. The first line means something like “Summer’s a-comin’ in!” In the original poem the cuckoo bird was considered to be a harbinger of spring, but here “cuccu” simply means “crazy!”



The Complete Redefinitions

Faith: falling into the same old claptrap.—Michael R. Burch

Religion: the ties that blind.—Michael R. Burch

Salvation: falling for allure —hook, line and stinker.—Michael R. Burch

Trickle down economics: an especially pungent *******.—Michael R. Burch

Canned political applause: clap track for the claptrap.—Michael R. Burch

Baseball: lots of spittin' mixed with occasional hittin'.—Michael R. Burch

Lingerie: visual foreplay.—Michael R. Burch

A straight flush is a winning hand. A straight-faced flush is when you don't give it away.—Michael R. Burch

Lust: a chemical affair.—Michael R. Burch

Believer: A speck of dust / animated by lust / brief as a mayfly / and yet full of trust.—Michael R. Burch

Theologian: someone who wants life to “make sense” / by believing in a “god” infinitely dense.—Michael R. Burch

Skepticism: The murderer of Eve / cannot be believed.—Michael R. Burch

Death: This dream of nothingness we fear / is salvation clear.—Michael R. Burch

Insuresurrection: The dead are always with us, and yet they are naught!—Michael R. Burch

Marriage: a seldom-observed truce / during wars over money / and a red-faced papoose.—Michael R. Burch

Is “natural affection” affliction? / Is “love” nature’s sleight-of-hand trick / to get us to reproduce / whenever she feels the itch?—Michael R. Burch



Translations

Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!

Raise your words, not their volume.
Rain grows flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch

The imbecile constructs cages for everyone he knows,
while the sage (who has to duck his head whenever the moon glows)
keeps dispensing keys all night long
to the beautiful, rowdy, prison gang.
—Hafiz loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

An unbending tree
breaks easily.
—Lao Tzu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Little sparks ignite great Infernos.—Dante, translation by Michael R. Burch

Love distills the eyes’ desires, love bewitches the heart with its grace.―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Once fanaticism has gangrened brains
the incurable malady invariably remains.
—Voltaire, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.
—Thomas Campion, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No wind is favorable to the man who lacks direction.
—Seneca the Younger, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hypocrisy may deceive the most perceptive adult, but the dullest child recognizes and is revolted by it, however ingeniously disguised.
—Leo Tolstoy translation by Michael R. Burch

Just as I select a ship when it's time to travel,
or a house when it's time to change residences,
even so I will choose when it's time to depart from life.
—Seneca, speaking about the right to euthanasia in the first century AD, translation by Michael R. Burch

Improve yourself through others' writings, thus attaining more easily what they acquired through great difficulty.
—Socrates, translation by Michael R. Burch

Fools call wisdom foolishness.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

One true friend is worth ten thousand kin.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Not to speak one’s mind is slavery.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

I would rather die standing than kneel, a slave.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch

Fresh tears are wasted on old griefs.
―Euripides, translation by Michael R. Burch



Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Before you judge
a man for his sins
be sure to trudge
many moons in his moccasins.



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

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



Native American Proverb
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Let us walk respectfully here
among earth's creatures, great and small,
remembering, our footsteps light,
that one wise God created all.



The Least of These...

What you
do
to
the refugee
you
do
unto
Me!
—Jesus Christ, translation/paraphrase by Michael R. Burch



The Church Gets the Burch Rod

The most dangerous words ever uttered by human lips are “thus saith the LORD.” — Michael R. Burch

How can the Bible be "infallible" when from Genesis to Revelation slavery is commanded and condoned, but never condemned? —Michael R. Burch

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
—Michael R. Burch

I have my doubts about your God and his "love":
If one screams below, what the hell is "Above"?
—Michael R. Burch

If God has the cattle on a thousand hills,
why does he need my tithes to pay his bills?
—Michael R. Burch

The best tonic for other people's bad ideas is to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch

Hell hath no fury like a fundamentalist whose God condemned him for having "impure thoughts."—Michael R. Burch

Religion is the difficult process of choosing the least malevolent invisible friends.—Michael R. Burch

Religion is the ****** of the people.—Karl Marx
Religion is the dopiate of the sheeple.—Michael R. Burch

An ideal that cannot be realized is, in the end, just wishful thinking.—Michael R. Burch

God and his "profits" could never agree
on any gospel acceptable to an intelligent flea.
—Michael R. Burch

To fall an inch short of infinity is to fall infinitely short.—Michael R. Burch

Most Christians make God seem like the Devil. Atheists and agnostics at least give him the "benefit of the doubt."—Michael R. Burch

Hell has been hellishly overdone.
Why blame such horrors on God's only Son
when Jehovah and his prophets never mentioned it once?
—Michael R. Burch

(Bible scholars agree: the word "hell" has been removed from the Old Testaments of the more accurate modern Bible translations. And the few New Testament verses that mention "hell" are obvious mistranslations.)



Clodhoppers
by Michael R. Burch

If you trust the Christian "god"
you're—like Adumb—a clod.




If every witty thing that's said were true,
Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You!
—Michael R. Burch



Questionable Credentials
by Michael R. Burch

Poet? Critic? Dilettante?
Do you know what's good, or do you merely flaunt?

(Published by ***** of Parnassus, the first poem in the April 2017 issue)



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

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



Lines in Favor of Female Muses
by Michael R. Burch

I guess ***** of Parnassus are okay...
But those Lasses of Parnassus? My! Olé!

(Published by ***** of Parnassus)



Meal Deal
by Michael R. Burch

Love is a splendid ideal
(at least till it costs us a meal) . 



Long Division
by Michael R. Burch as Kim Cherub

All things become one
Through death's long division
And perfect precision.



i o u
by mrb

i might have said it
but i didn't

u might have noticed
but u wouldn't

we might have been us
but we couldn't

u might respond
but probably shouldn't




Mate Check
by Michael R. Burch

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



Incompatibles
by Michael R. Burch

Reason's treason!
cries the Heart.

Love's insane,
replies the Brain.

(Originally published by Light)



Death is the ultimate finality
of reality.
—Michael R. Burch



Stage Fright
by Michael R. Burch

To be or not to be?
In the end Hamlet
opted for naught.



Grave Oversight
by Michael R. Burch

The dead are always with us,
and yet they are naught!



Feathered Fiends
by Michael R. Burch

Fascists of a feather
flock together.



Why the Kid Gloves Came Off
by Michael R. Burch

for Lemuel Ibbotson

It's hard to be a man of taste
in such a waste:
hence the lambaste.



Housman was right...
by Michael R. Burch

It's true that life's not much to lose,
so why not hang out on a cloud?
It's just the bon voyage is hard
and the objections loud.



Ah! Sunflower
by Michael R. Burch

after William Blake

O little yellow flower
like a star ...
how beautiful,
how wonderful
we are!



Descent
by Michael R. Burch

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



Reading between the lines
by Michael R. Burch

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



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!



Imperfect Perfection
by Michael R. Burch

You're too perfect for words—
a problem for a poet.



Expert Advice
by Michael R. Burch

Your ******* are perfect for your lithe, slender body.
Please stop making false comparisons your hobby!



Thirty
by Michael R. Burch

Thirty crept upon me slowly
with feline caution and a slowly-twitching tail;
patiently she waited for the winds to shift;
now, claws unsheathed, she lies seething to assail
her helpless prey.



Biblical Knowledge or "Knowing Coming and Going"
by Michael R. Burch

The wisest man the world has ever seen
had fourscore concubines and threescore queens?
This gives us pause, and so we venture hence—
he "knew" them, wisely, in the wider sense.



Snap Shots
by Michael R. Burch

Our daughters must be celibate,
die virgins. We triangulate
their early paths to heaven (for
the martyrs they'll soon conjugate) .

We like to hook a little tail.
We hope there's decent *** in jail.
Don't fool with us; our bombs are smart!
(We'll send the plans, ASAP, e-mail.)

The soul is all that matters; why
hoard gold if it offends the eye?
A pension plan? Don't make us laugh!
We have your plan for sainthood. (Die.)



I sampled honeysuckle
and it made my taste buds buckle.
—Michael R. Burch



The Editor

A poet may work from sun to sun,
but his editor's work is never done.

The Critic

The editor's work is never done.
The critic adjusts his cummerbund.

The Audience

While the critic adjusts his cummerbund,
the audience exits to mingle and slum.

The Anthologist

As the audience exits to mingle and slum,
the anthologist rules, a pale jury of one.



Athenian Epitaphs

How valiant he lies tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument!
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
But go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
Michael R. Burch, after Plato

We who left behind the Aegean’s bellowings
Now sleep peacefully here on the mid-plains of Ecbatan:
Farewell, dear Athens, nigh to Euboea,
Farewell, dear sea!
Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Passerby,
Tell the Spartans we lie
Lifeless at Thermopylae:
Dead at their word,
Obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus

They observed our fearful fetters, braved the overwhelming darkness.

Now we extol their excellence: bravely, they died for us.
Michael R. Burch, after Mnasalcas

Blame not the gale, nor the inhospitable sea-gulf, nor friends’ tardiness,
Mariner! Just man’s foolhardiness.
Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

Be ashamed, O mountains and seas: these were men of valorous breath.
Assume, like pale chattels, an ashen silence at death.
Michael R. Burch, after Parmenio

These men earned a crown of imperishable glory,
Nor did the maelstrom of death obscure their story.
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Stranger, flee!
But may Fortune grant you all the prosperity
she denied me.
Michael R. Burch, after Leonidas of Tarentum

Now that I am dead sea-enclosed Cyzicus shrouds my bones.
Faretheewell, O my adoptive land that nurtured me, that held me;
I take rest at your breast.
Michael R. Burch, after Erycius

I am loyal to you master, even in the grave:
Just as you now are death’s slave.
Michael R. Burch, after Dioscorides

Stripped of her stripling, if asked, she’d confess:
“I am now less than nothingness.”
Michael R. Burch, after Diotimus

Dead as you are, though you lie still as stone,
huntress Lycas, my great Thessalonian hound,
the wild beasts still fear your white bones;
craggy Pelion remembers your valor,
splendid Ossa, the way you would bound
and bay at the moon for its whiteness,
bellowing as below we heard valleys resound.
And how brightly with joy you would canter and run
the strange lonely peaks of high Cithaeron!
Michael R. Burch, after Simonides

Having never earned a penny,
nor seen a bridal gown slip to the floor,
still I lie here with the love of many,
to be the love of yet one more.
Michael R. Burch, after an unknown Greek poet

I lie by stark Icarian rocks
and only speak when the sea talks.
Please tell my dear father that I gave up the ghost
on the Aegean coast.
Michael R. Burch, after Theatetus

Everywhere the sea is the sea, the dead are the dead.
What difference to me—where I rest my head?
The sea knows I’m buried.
Michael R. Burch, after Antipater of Sidon

Constantina, inconstant one!
Once I thought your name beautiful
but I was a fool
and now you are more bitter to me than death!
You flee someone who loves you
with baited breath
to pursue someone who’s untrue.
But if you manage to make him love you,
tomorrow you'll flee him too!
Michael R. Burch, after Macedonius



Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt

Between the prophesies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.

The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,

and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.

What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.



The Greatest of These ...
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The hands that held me tremble.
The arms that lifted
  fall.

Angelic flesh, now parchment,
is held together with gauze.

But her undimmed eyes still embrace me;
there infinity can be found.

I can almost believe such love
will reach me, underground.



Love Is Not Love
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love is not love that never looked
within itself and questioned all,
curled up like a zygote in a ball,
throbbed, sobbed and shook.

(Or went on a binge at a nearby mall,
then would not cook.)

Love is not love that never winced,
then smiled, convinced
that soar’s the prerequisite of fall.

When all
its wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed,
where does Love find the wherewithal
to try again,
endeavor, when

all that it knows
is: O, because!



Stay With Me Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

Stay with me tonight;
be gentle with me as the leaves are gentle
falling to the earth.

And whisper, O my love,
how that every bright thing, though scattered afar,
retains yet its worth.

Stay with me tonight;
be as a petal long-awaited blooming in my hand.
Lift your face to mine

and touch me with your lips
till I feel the warm benevolence of your breath’s
heady fragrance like wine.

That which we had
when pale and waning as the dying moon at dawn,
outshone the sun.

And so lead me back tonight
through bright waterfalls of light
to where we shine as one.

Originally published by The Lyric



Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung their medal to the river, child.

They hung their coin around my neck; they made
my name a bridle, “called a ***** a *****.”
They say their gold is pure. I say defiled.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.

Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong
that never called me ******, did me wrong.
A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild.
I flung their notice to the river, child.
I flung their notice to the river, child.

They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun,
and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.”
At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.

My face reflected up, dark bronze like gold,
a coin God stamped in His own image―BOLD.
My blood boiled like that river―strange and wild.
I died to hate in that dark river, child,
Come, be reborn in this bright river, child.

Originally published by Black Medina

Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. Confirming his account, the medal was recovered by Robert Bradbury and his wife Pattie in 2014 during the Annual Ohio River Sweep, and the Ali family paid them $200,000 to regain possession of the medal. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying: “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a ******.” The notice mentioned in my poem is Ali's draft notice, which metaphorically gets tossed into the river along with his slave name. I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in an Iranian publication called Bashgah. ―Michael R. Burch



The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and takes my hand.

We are walking somewhere that her feet know to go,
so I smile, and I follow ...

And the years are dark creatures concealed in bright leaves
that flutter above us, and what she believes―
I can almost remember―goes something like this:
the prince is a horned toad, awaiting her kiss.

She wiggles and giggles, and all will be well
if only we find him! The woodpecker’s knell
as he hammers the coffin of some dying tree
that once was a fortress to someone like me

rings wildly above us. Some things that we know
we are meant to forget. Life is a bloodletting, maple-syrup-slow.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly



Departed
by Michael R. Burch

Already, 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.



Roses for a Lover, Idealized
by Michael R. Burch

When you have become to me
as roses bloom, in memory,
exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot,
will I recall―yours made me bleed?

When winter makes me think of you,
whorls petrified in frozen dew,
bright promises blithe spring forgot,
will I recall your words―barbed, cruel?



Ibykos Fragment 286, Circa 564 B.C.
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come spring, the grand
apple trees stand
watered by a gushing river
where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver
and the blossoming grape vine swells
in the gathering shadows.

Unfortunately
for me
Eros never rests
but like a Thracian tempest
ablaze with lightning
emanates from Aphrodite;
the results are frightening—
black,
bleak,
astonishing,
violently jolting me from my soles
to my soul.



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

Weland endured the agony of exile:
an indomitable smith wracked by grief.
He suffered countless sorrows;
indeed, such sorrows were his ***** companions
in that frozen island dungeon
where Nithad fettered him:
so many strong-but-supple sinew-bands
binding the better man.
That passed away; this also may.

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

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

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

We have heard too of Ermanaric's wolfish ways,
of how he cruelly ruled the Goths' realms.
That was a grim king! Many a warrior sat,
full of cares and maladies of the mind,
wishing constantly that his crown might be overthrown.
That passed away; this also may.

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



Infatuate, or Sweet Centerless Sixteen
by Michael R. Burch

Inconsolable as “love” had left your heart,
you woke this morning eager to pursue
warm lips again, or something “really cool”
on which to press your lips and leave their mark.

As breath upon a windowpane at dawn
soon glows, a spreading halo full of sun,
your thought of love blinks wildly ... on and on ...
then fizzles at the center, and is gone.



The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak and scarred and lone,
for seas reflecting distant suns
and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown,
for waltzes ending in a hush
and rhymes that fade as pages close,
for flames’ exhausted, graying ash,
and petals falling from the rose,
I raise my cup before I drink
in reverence to a love long dead,
and silently propose a toast—
to passages, to time that fled.

Originally published by Contemporary Rhyme



Veiled
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 Super Highway and Modern War Poems.



Twice
by Michael R. Burch

Now twice she has left me
and twice I have listened
and taken her back, remembering days

when love lay upon us
and sparkled and glistened
with the brightness of dew through a gathering haze.

But twice she has left me
to start my life over,
and twice I have gathered up embers, to learn:

rekindle a fire
from ash, soot and cinder
and softly it sputters, refusing to burn.

Originally published by The Lyric



Prose Epigrams

We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it.—Michael R. Burch

When I was being bullied, I had to learn not to judge myself by the opinions of intolerant morons. Then I felt much better.—Michael R. Burch

How can we predict the future, when tomorrow is as uncertain as Trump's next tweet? —Michael R. Burch

Poetry moves the heart as well as the reason.—Michael R. Burch

Poetry is the art of finding the right word at the right time.—Michael R. Burch



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?



Your e-Verse
by Michael R. Burch

—for the posters and posers on www.fillintheblank.com

I cannot understand a word you’ve said
(and this despite an adequate I.Q.);
it must be some exotic new haiku
combined with Latin suddenly undead.

It must be hieroglyphics mixed with Greek.
Have Pound and T. S. Eliot been cloned?
Perhaps you wrote it on the ***, so ******
you spelled it backwards, just to be oblique.

I think you’re very funny—so, “Yuk! Yuk!”
I know you must be kidding; didn’t we
write crap like this and call it “poetry,”
a form of verbal exercise, P.E.,
in kindergarten, when we ran “amuck?”

Oh, sorry, I forgot to “make it new.”
Perhaps I still can learn a thing or two
from someone tres original, like you.



Haiku Translations of the Oriental Masters

Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
― Yamaguchi Seishi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow low
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness!
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

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

One apple, alone
in the abandoned orchard
reddens for winter
― Patrick Blanche, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The poem above is by a French poet; it illustrates how the poetry of Oriental masters like Basho has influenced poets around the world.

Graven images of long-departed gods,
dry spiritless leaves:
companions of the temple porch
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

See: whose surviving sons
visit the ancestral graves
white-bearded, with trembling canes?
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I remove my beautiful kimono:
its varied braids
surround and entwine my body
― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This day of chrysanthemums
I shake and comb my wet hair,
as their petals shed rain
― Hisajo Sugita, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This darkening autumn:
my neighbor,
how does he continue?
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Let us arrange
these lovely flowers in the bowl
since there's no rice
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

An ancient pond,
the frog leaps:
the silver plop and gurgle of water
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The butterfly
perfuming its wings
fans the orchid
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Pausing between clouds
the moon rests
in the eyes of its beholders
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The first chill rain:
poor monkey, you too could use
a woven cape of straw
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

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

Like a heavy fragrance
snow-flakes settle:
lilies on the rocks
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

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

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

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

Will we meet again?
Here at your flowering grave:
two white butterflies
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Fever-felled mid-path
my dreams resurrect, to trek
into a hollow land
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Too ill to travel,
now only my autumn dreams
survey these withering fields
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this has been called Basho's death poem

These brown summer grasses?
The only remains
of "invincible" warriors...
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

An empty road
lonelier than abandonment:
this autumn evening
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Spring has come:
the nameless hill
lies shrouded in mist
― Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The Oldest Haiku

These are my translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into poetic forms such as tanka, renga and haiku over time. My translations are excerpts from the Kojiki (the "Record of Ancient Matters"), a book composed around 711-712 A.D. by the historian and poet Ō no Yasumaro. The Kojiki relates Japan’s mythological beginnings and the history of its imperial line. Like Virgil's Aeneid, the Kojiki seeks to legitimize rulers by recounting their roots. These are lines from one of the oldest Japanese poems, found in the oldest Japanese book:

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Here's another excerpt, with a humorous twist, from the Kojiki:

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

Here's another, this one a poem of love and longing:

Onyx, this gem-black night.
Downcast, I await your return
like the rising sun, unrivaled in splendor.
― Ō no Yasumaro (circa 711), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

More Haiku by Various Poets

Right at my feet!
When did you arrive here,
snail?
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Our world of dew
is a world of dew indeed;
and yet, and yet...
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, brilliant moon
can it be true that even you
must rush off, like us, tardy?
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

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

The pigeon's behavior
is beyond reproach,
but the mountain cuckoo's?
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Plowing,
not a single bird sings
in the mountain's shadow
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The pear tree flowers whitely―
a young woman reads his letter
by moonlight
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

On adjacent branches
the plum tree blossoms bloom
petal by petal―love!
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Picking autumn plums
my wrinkled hands
once again grow fragrant
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Dawn!
The brilliant sun illuminates
sardine heads.
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The abandoned willow
shines
between rains
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

White plum blossoms―
though the hour grows late,
a glimpse of dawn
― Yosa Buson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch; this is believed to be Buson's death poem and he is said to have died before dawn

I thought I felt a dewdrop
plop
on me as I lay in bed!
― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot see the moon
and yet the waves still rise
― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The first morning of autumn:
the mirror I investigate
reflects my father’s face
― Shiki Masaoka, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Wild geese pass
leaving the emptiness of heaven
revealed
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Silently observing
the bottomless mountain lake:
water lilies
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Cranes
flapping ceaselessly
test the sky's upper limits
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Falling snowflakes'
glitter
tinsels the sea
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Blizzards here on earth,
blizzards of stars
in the sky
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Completely encircled
in emerald:
the glittering swamp!
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The new calendar!:
as if tomorrow
is assured...
― Inahata Teiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

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

Because morning glories
hold my well-bucket hostage
I go begging for water
― Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Spring
stirs the clouds
in the sky's teabowl
― Kikusha-ni, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight I saw
how the peony crumples
in the fire's embers
― Katoh Shuhson, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It fills me with anger,
this moon; it fills me
and makes me whole
― Takeshita Shizunojo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

War
stood at the end of the hall
in the long shadows
― Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Because he is slow to wrath,
I tackle him, then wring his neck
in the long grass
― Shimazu Ryoh, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Pale mountain sky:
cherry petals play
as they tumble earthward
― Kusama Tokihiko, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The frozen moon,
the frozen lake:
two oval mirrors reflecting each other.
― Hashimoto Takako, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The bitter winter wind
ends here
with the frozen sea
― Ikenishi Gonsui, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, bitter winter wind,
why bellow so
when there's no leaves to fell?
― Natsume Sôseki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Winter waves
roil
their own shadows
― Tominaga Fûsei, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

No sky,
no land:
just snow eternally falling...
― Kajiwara Hashin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Along with spring leaves
my child's teeth
take root, blossom
― Nakamura Kusatao, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Stillness:
a single chestnut leaf glides
on brilliant water
― Ryuin, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

As thunder recedes
a lone tree stands illuminated in sunlight:
applauded by cicadas
― Masaoka Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The snake slipped away
but his eyes, having held mine,
still stare in the grass
― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Girls gather sprouts of rice:
reflections of the water flicker
on the backs of their hats
― Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Murmurs follow the hay cart
this blossoming summer day
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The wet nurse
paused to consider a bucket of sea urchins
then walked away
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

May I be with my mother
wearing her summer kimono
by the morning window
― Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887-1946), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The hands of a woman exist
to remove the insides of the spring cuttlefish
― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The moon
hovering above the snow-capped mountains
rained down hailstones
― Sekitei Hara, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

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

Spring snow
cascades over fences
in white waves
― Suju Takano, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Tanka and Waka translations:

If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here —
as fearless, and as blameless?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Submit to you —
is that what you advise?
The way the ripples do
whenever ill winds arise?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Watching wan moonlight
illuminate trees,
my heart also brims,
overflowing with autumn.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I had thought to pluck
the flower of forgetfulness
only to find it
already blossoming in his heart.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

That which men call "love" —
is it not merely the chain
preventing our escape
from this world of pain?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Once-colorful flowers faded,
while in my drab cell
life’s impulse also abated
as the long rains fell.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I set off at the shore
of the seaside of Tago,
where I saw the high, illuminated peak
of Fuji―white, aglow―
through flakes of drifting downy snow.
― Akahito Yamabe, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.

Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers,
packed tightly here
despite once repellent hate?
Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state.

These arms and hands, they once were so delicate!
How articulately
they moved! Ah me!
What athletes once paced about on these padded feet?

Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls!
Deprived of graves,
forced here like slaves
to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls!

Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained?
Except for me;
reader, hear my plea:
I know the grandeur of the mind it contained!

Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir
here, where I stand
in this alien land
surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer!

Even in this cold,
in this dust and mould
I am startled by an a strange, ancient reverie, …
as if this shrine to death could quicken me!

One shape out of the past keeps calling me
with its mystery!
Still retaining its former angelic grace!
And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ...

Swept by that current to where immortals race.
O secret vessel, you
gave Life its truth.
It falls on me now to recall your expressive face.

I turn away, abashed here by what I see:
this mould was worth
more than all the earth.
Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free!

What is there better in this dark Life than he
who gives us a sense of man’s divinity,
of his place in the universe?
A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse!



To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
translation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?

A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss

from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:

the lost gold of vanished stars.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.



Farewell to Faith I
by Michael R. Burch

What we want is relief
from life’s grief and despair:
what we want’s not “belief”
but just not to be there.



Farewell to Faith II
by Michael R. Burch

Confronted by the awesome thought of death,
to never suffer, and be free of grief,
we wonder: "What’s the use of drawing breath?
Why seek relief
from the bible’s Thief,
who ripped off Eve then offered her a leaf?"



Anyte Epigrams

Stranger, rest your weary legs beneath the elms;
hear how coolly the breeze murmurs through their branches;
then take a bracing draught from the mountain-fed fountain;
for this is welcome shade from the burning sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here I stand, Hermes, in the crossroads
by the windswept elms near the breezy beach,
providing rest to sunburned travelers,
and cold and brisk is my fountain’s abundance.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sit here, quietly shaded by the luxuriant foliage,
and drink cool water from the sprightly spring,
so that your weary breast, panting with summer’s labors,
may take rest from the blazing sun.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is the grove of Cypris,
for it is fair for her to look out over the land to the bright deep,
that she may make the sailors’ voyages happy,
as the sea trembles, observing her brilliant image.
—Anyte, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Nossis Epigrams

There is nothing sweeter than love.
All other delights are secondary.
Thus, I spit out even honey.
This is what Gnossis says:
Whom Aphrodite does not love,
Is bereft of her roses.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most revered Hera, the oft-descending from heaven,
behold your Lacinian shrine fragrant with incense
and receive the linen robe your noble child Nossis,
daughter of Theophilis and Cleocha, has woven for you.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stranger, if you sail to Mitylene, my homeland of beautiful dances,
to indulge in the most exquisite graces of Sappho,
remember I also was loved by the Muses, who bore me and reared me there.
My name, never forget it!, is Nossis. Now go!
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pass me with ringing laughter, then award me
a friendly word: I am Rinthon, scion of Syracuse,
a small nightingale of the Muses; from their tragedies
I was able to pluck an ivy, unique, for my own use.
—Nossis, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Excerpts from “Distaff”
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

… the moon rising …
      … leaves falling …
           … waves lapping a windswept shore …

… and our childish games, Baucis, do you remember? ...

... Leaping from white horses,
running on reckless feet through the great courtyard.  
“You’re it!’ I cried, ‘You’re the Tortoise now!”
But when your turn came to pursue your pursuers,
you darted beyond the courtyard,
dashed out deep into the waves,
splashing far beyond us …

… My poor Baucis, these tears I now weep are your warm memorial,
these traces of embers still smoldering in my heart
for our silly amusements, now that you lie ash …

… Do you remember how, as girls,
we played at weddings with our dolls,
pretending to be brides in our innocent beds? ...

... How sometimes I was your mother,
allotting wool to the weaver-women,
calling for you to unreel the thread? ...

… Do you remember our terror of the monster Mormo
with her huge ears, her forever-flapping tongue,
her four slithering feet, her shape-shifting face? ...

... Until you mother called for us to help with the salted meat ...

... But when you mounted your husband’s bed,
dearest Baucis, you forgot your mothers’ warnings!
Aphrodite made your heart forgetful ...

... Desire becomes oblivion ...

... Now I lament your loss, my dearest friend.
I can’t bear to think of that dark crypt.
I can’t bring myself to leave the house.
I refuse to profane your corpse with my tearless eyes.
I refuse to cut my hair, but how can I mourn with my hair unbound?
I blush with shame at the thought of you! …

... But in this dark house, O my dearest Baucis,
My deep grief is ripping me apart.
Wretched Erinna! Only nineteen,
I moan like an ancient crone, eying this strange distaff ...

O *****! . . . O Hymenaeus! . . .
Alas, my poor Baucis!



On a Betrothed Girl
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of Baucis the bride.
Observing her tear-stained crypt
say this to Death who dwells underground:
"Thou art envious, O Death!"

Her vivid monument tells passers-by
of the bitter misfortune of Baucis —
how her father-in-law burned the poor ******* a pyre
lit by bright torches meant to light her marriage train home.
While thou, O Hymenaeus, transformed her harmonious bridal song into a chorus of wailing dirges.

*****! O Hymenaeus!



Sophocles Epigrams

Not to have been born is best,
and blessed
beyond the ability of words to express.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It’s a hundred times better not be born;
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night!
—Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Never to be born may be the biggest boon of all.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oblivion: What a blessing, to lie untouched by pain!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The happiest life is one empty of thought.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Consider no man happy till he lies dead, free of pain at last.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What is worse than death? When death is desired but denied.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When a man endures nothing but endless miseries, what is the use of hanging on day after day,
edging closer and closer toward death? Anyone who warms his heart with the false glow of flickering hope is a wretch! The noble man should live with honor and die with honor. That's all that can be said.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Children anchor their mothers to life.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How terrible, to see the truth when the truth brings only pain to the seer!
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wisdom outweighs all the world's wealth.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fortune never favors the faint-hearted.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wait for evening to appreciate the day's splendor.
—Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Homer Epigrams

For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they themselves are sorrowless.
—Homer, Iliad 24.525-526, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

“It is best not to be born or, having been born, to pass on as swiftly as possible.”
—attributed to Homer (circa 800 BC), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Ancient Roman Epigrams

Wall, I'm astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
—Ancient Roman graffiti, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R Burch

There is nothing so pointless, so perfidious as human life! ... The ultimate bliss is not to be born; otherwise we should speedily slip back into the original Nothingness.
—Seneca, On Consolation to Marcia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: elegy, eulogy, child, childhood, death, death of a friend, lament, lamentation, epitaph, grave, funeral, epigram, epigrams, short, brief, concise, aphorism, adage, proverb, quote, mrbepi, mrbepig, mrbepigram, mrbhaiku

Published as the collection "Epigrams"

Don't hate owl.
It doesn't prophesies omen.
It reminds us our sins of past.

You were born better than me for now
More prepared, your skin smoother, even,
Your black boots that look like
They’ve been licked by junkies
Your oil-eyes are able to divide the images
T.V. orange and a tangerine
One is not the other
When I will seep inside the hole in you head
I’ll pick and pull to get you
Really get you
Before your full mouth moves
I’ll nod and tell you
Quiet quiet, I know I know
I am an idiot, I run scared
I hide in cars, I cry at celebrity gossip
The red carpet is the ****** scene
Your tongue rolls the same way
Unrolls, let’s the stars fall out
Then rolls, let’s me disappear inside
I hate myself
I reach for better thing than the sky
I grab your hand in mine and I reach for
Toy monsters
For romances written by wine and ****-buddies
For meaningless problems
For music carved in plastic
I let you unguide me, undo the zipper, unbreak my glasses, the ones that are tiny mirrors
But then you speak
And it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen
So
I make surgeries on myself like a night-doctor
I build a tree house in a pear tree that you can’t see

Yes, that’s me buried up to my head in your yard
Yes, that’s me telling strangers I am dying of sadness and lack of substance
Yes, that’s me trying to fit in your head
Yes, this is me setting myself on fire wearing nothing but your black boots
I win.
Keep ignoring me
I write better poetry (and we all know I hate poetry)

La. La. La. La.

The cursed and fated prince had prophesies, I’ve got soap operas
I’ve got night and nights of blank, blank, ****
I’ve got a freezer-burnt heart
And pictures of you drinking neon drinks
I’ve got the dichotomy and pungent mixture of art and ****, of God found in the gutter
You’re drinking anti-freeze aren’t you?
That would mean so much if you were
Keep ignoring me
I’ll send you my hands when you’re done with them
They won’t work
               But you can touch yourself with them
     They will be gray
Paint them red
A red that can’t wash off.

I don't want to go
Please don't make me stay
I don't know who I'll be
When I am away

The purpose of it all
Alludes me to a fault
I fool myself
Allude myself
Who am I anyway

Has my life been torn up pages
Or poetry in white
Is mentality contagious
Will you get me through the night?

Am I full or am I empty
Am I weak or am I strong
Is this life just one big journey
To find where I belong

Please take me home
and make me whole
I, who cannot fail
I work, I dream, I strive for
A happy ending to this tale

Are endings just beginnings?
Can prophesies come true?
Anyway, who am I?
Perfect, when I'm with you

Thou Messiah preaching Change, art thou true to thy words? 
Fighting bribery and corruption yet with cheap sentiments, 
Judgeth thou not thy biased - honest actions to be corrupt? 
Thou that prophesied an economy of sweet change,
How is it that thou considereth not the masses interest? 
Inventor of Change, thy prophesied words art without works; 
Even thy supporters yearn in regret for voting thee in.
Is this the change that thou for long prophesied? 
I yawn tears for the future of Nigeria and her unborn child. 
Thou art trusted to be the man after the peoples heart
And loved by all cause of thy prophesies of change,
But how be it that thou art different from thine own self?

Savior of the people, why art thou adamant to the peoples cry? 
Thy poisonous deeds have caused much great pain and suffering, 
Why not invest thy ears on the sweat of the poor and helpless?
Did ye deceive the ants and termites that voted thee in to save them? 
Remember thou thy words and promises made before being elected. 
Thou surrounds thyself with chameleons occupying seats of filtered ambitions,
Woe betide thee for thy conscience have refused to judge thee. 
Art thou not guilty of prophesying false prophesies of change? 
Thou that killeth the rosy wealth of the nation's pride,
Why doth thou not consider the sufferings of the poor ants? 
I mourn for the bitter death of the nation's sweet economy.
Savior of the people, why art thou so heartless a Messiah?

Howbeit in thy regime, hunger and suffering is the income of ants?
The marketplace has become an ocean of expensive - cheap items,
Cost of petrol waxing hot and higher amidst the harsh economy; 
Savior was thy coming to destroy or redeem the helpless ants?
Thou promised hope to educated ants and graduated termites, 
Yet not an iota of thy prophesied promises or words art come to pass; 
Chancellor of Change, judge it if thou art true to thine own self.
Thou that prophesied promises, howbeit thy words art not fulfilled?
Mind thee the poor ants and termites voted thee in to save them,
Messiah did ye deceive the ants with thy deceptive - genuine lies?
Savior thy heresies has become a poisonous venom to the poor,
Wilt thou not resign seeing thou be not true to thine own words?

What guile is this, that the Inventor of Change is cruel,
He invests not his ears on the sweat of the poor and helpless;
Like a tyrant, he feeds sweet tears to ants for a gruel,
Is he not guilty of false hope of Change to the hopeless?

How is it that he's different from his own self
In that he considers not the interest of the termites,
And being voted in by ants, is now a Mighty elf;
Is he not deceptive in his honest dealings with termites?

We must change the CHANGE, for cunning is his agenda,
Henceforth, must we not be enslaved in his guileful net
In that he entrapped the poor ants to enrich his blender,
Out of his duplicity, must we by all means be fret.

Folly it was, that he promised us as Change
To covet beacons of wealth, from the hopeless ants,
Is he not guilty of prophesying false prophesies of Change?
We must Change the CHANGE for the safety of the helpless ants.

He pledged Change, but chained the CHANGE, and left us hopeless,
Is he not guilty of duplicity, and sabotage of the nation's economy?
None of his agenda was in the interest of the poor and helpless;
We must Change the CHANGE, for CHANGE threatens the economy.

(I)
People used to light candles to ward off

prophesies such as this. Stopping, each
motherly representative, for 75 seconds 
or less,
to tip match-spark to wax-thread
and hope for the best.

What ceremonial significance now

do we seek for to slow the approach

of what we know is waiting?
Oncoming march of death-knolls and unhappiness

bound up in silence 
where
once we laughed uncensored at and for

the characters who spun throughout
this town, that school, the city, our lives.

All being, understandably, becomes

efficiently replaced with obvious simplicity.

From effortless performances

of what made our lives important

back in childhood years when living
was stable and guaranteed,

now to this mongrel era of constant migration

beckoning....


The familiar is no longer our youth’s
careless summer holidays.

The Familiar is now a land where 
people don’t bother with any ideas

of an ideal existence beyond

what lottery tickets may bring.

Those who inhabit here are

more alerted to the purpose of lighting

coals in winter to shelter the children

and to keep the windows from cracking.

In summer find these same awaiting with

patient ears to heed any advice
which keeps them from going completely insane.

(II)
Go now, away
,begin
your quest, foolish schoolboy.

An entire adolescence’s
 comeuppance is due. 


Time now to seek recompense
for the years you waited

for anything significant to happen. 

Time to seek girls with inviting eyes

and lilting vowels to offer favors to.

Abled with a catalogue of charmed

intoxicants. All softened by
a plentitude of weekdays waking
at three in the afternoon.

(Does “afternoon” exist in layman’s terms? Does

he simply made do with morning, day and night?)

Then on your flight make haste

to ensure your visit merely brief.

Like only one dimension of

your day-persona be a hawk

that delivers messages

back to the ivory towers of

new central HQ, while remaining 

all cloak and whisper.

Messages from where people live

but no longer speak,

as result of an assigned sense

of failure,or complimentary

wrongdoings sought, what sorrow achieves.

Shattered lives, Ending dreams.

My brother,
unravel your fist.
Part your lips and taste
bittersweet oxygen;
Breathe in sin
and lust and sore eyes
and Lover’s skin
and the crushed aspirin on
Her bedside
one-night
stand.
Taste the sharp-edged thrill of
Medicine,
let it make your head spin
like when children wove
Wind and Sky with cobalt
threads of moonlight
and hummingbird hands.
I can see it in your eyes,
they pray like the curling fingertips
of tidal waves, and I am
here to tell you,
You
are not alone.

I’ve seen men with canyons
cut across their face;
deep and sad and dirtied
with their grandfather’s gunpowder.

I’ve seen men who’ve blacked-out
their irises with full-feathered crows
whose toes curl from the corners
to catch drops of their
Oceans
and hide them where ‘real men’
stow theirs:
In the bottom of a bottle,
“Boy” they say,
“drink every **** drop
‘till that pain goes away.”
These are the same men who
read ghost hieroglyphics
and practice bed-sheet rhetoric
that lingers longer than
certain cases of Cancer.

My brother,
you’ve lived too many starless nights
in this era of broken jaws
and bitten lips.
I am a twenty-year-old,
sleep-deprived daylight dreamer,
naïve enough to still
believe in true love, but
even I’ve really lived life
at least once,
or twice.
I’ve learned that the purest gold,
pink and orange burn
in Mountain West sunsets.
I’ve learned that it takes a long time
to find your way home
when all you keep
wrapped beneath this skin is bone.
So turn to the sky.
Constellations pedal everything from
Prophesies to pipedreams
and the only thing that’s constant
is the direction
North.

Today, I plan on catching hummingbirds.
I kissed open the face
of a dusty, old pocket watch
which I adopted from
a bent-spined,
curbside Saint
on the corner of First and Main
in exchange of the cure
for cracked vertebrae
and an honest conversation.
I clogged its clicking gears
with precious stones
to induce a temporary comatose,
so we’ve got until the
backwards time it takes
to grind diamonds into coal dust
to string those beating wings,
feathers and fluttering heartbeats
to the weathered backside
of our palms.
Brother, I want you to come with me.
Bring your chipped,
white porcelain bathtub
We’ll drag it to the coast.
Forget about that diamond powder,
there’s plenty laced in the sea.
We’ll spell out our goodbyes
in the lines our feet leave in the sand;
messages that will only be
read by free hands,
who find the courage to cross them.
By the tail-end of dusk,
We’ll tear clouds from this overhead
Mosaic,
and moonbeam-stitch them
to head winds and comet tails.
Together
we’ll sail this makeshift porcelain vessel
to the Eighth Sea.

I’ve heard,
from folklore and
childhood bedtime stories,
that long ago
Wise men with bare toes,
grass-stained knees
and arthritic elbows
mapped out the sky
on the ocean floor there.
It’s said,
they whispered the secret
to the man in the moon
before he was silenced
by mathematics and meteorites.
a secret that
only the guy with a
three-point belt overheard,
so scour the sharp bedrock with me
because I can see the need
to feel the crunch of autumn
alpine leaves
beneath your feet.
Read the contour lines of the sky
magnified by ripples and
a pulsing tide that sings hymns
about desert winds and cactus thorns.
take a deep breath
once more
before we begin;
fill your lungs with all the beauties
of Human Pollution.
Let your dizzy vision
spin with the pale-blue winds,
which will blow us to
a decrepit island,
that once was a burning star.

Because I need you to navigate.

I’ve been there once before,
but I can’t remember the way.
All I recall was
hitch-hiking with the ghost greens
of Aurora’s borealis,
and an ancient Man
with marked knees,
calloused toes
and cracking elbows
who, with frail voice, told me:
“From the curve of the moon
sewn to the tune of hummingbird wings,
you’ll find what you’re looking for.
But when you’ve discovered it, come back to this
canyoned skin and brittle bone.
Because Orion and I are trying to find
a reason to follow the North Star back
Home."

Dusk is a promise of Dawn
As long as Life is LORD
And night can be long
As it was once years ago
A day in many thousands
An utterly unworldly terror
Or briefly: Old to New Moon
Or Three Days and Nights
Evil prophesies and rejoices
At Dusk, Night without End
Indeed it shall be, a Shadow
Of Day, A Day without End

The Wordsmith
He looked exactly like the type. A boy who would grow up to be a man married to a woman who would raise his beautiful children, three or five of them, would soon find himself facing a mid-life crisis. Bored and lost, he goes out to find himself---in the arms of another much younger, more beautiful woman. Finally finding what he has always been missing, he divorces his wife, blinded by the intense emotion he feels for the younger one.

He forgets--- they all forget that the youth are restless.
And he would soon find himself alone.

Watch out for the wordsmith. He comes in a distinct form. Hair unwashed for a day or two, beard long and over-grown; normally hunched with a hand underneath his chin, eyes luxuriously grazing through the pages of his book. In his bag a journal or a sketchpad, or maybe even both may always be found.

He is loyal to none but one: loneliness.

Beware of the wordsmith, his words will echo through the bowels of your mind after he has been long gone.

2. The Good-doer
He is perfect; the sort of fella that makes up every parent’s wet-dream. He would have graduated high school with honors, went home before his curfew, received a college-scholarship, and attends religious activities zealously.
You would see him for the first time in a congregation or talk of some sort, engaged in a deep conversation with a friend or two.
They might’ve been arguing about probabilities and theories; existential questions and what-not. You’d give him a second glance… or a third. You’d notice the book he holds and chat animatedly about it.
He’ll be amused, or in awe.
You won’t be quite sure which.
He’s the type who has never met a pretty girl who can hold intelligent conversation about books.

Raised well, he treats women politely and correctly, through and through a gentleman. But he secretly demeans them.

Stay away from this sort.

He’s bound to marry a trophy: a lady of the same background, who knows nothing but to raise children.
Five years down the road, you would see his picture-perfect family. They all happily walk out the doors of the church.

3. The Player
No. He is not a Casanova, not a smooth talker, not the Romeo. He is the man who never grew up. He is the one who is plagued with the Peter-pan syndrome, in constant need of stories and games. He will claim to need you—believe him. He does. Every baby needs its care-taker.
You would want to be needed the way he needs you. You would want to worry and fuss after him but you will tire, the way all mothers do.
Soon, instead of being thankful, he will grow weary of you. He will isolate himself in the bedroom. Playing endlessly the games you have gifted him; emerging from his cave from time to time—only when he’s ***** or hungry—never when you need him.

Years would pass him by.

He’ll realize how sad and lonely he has become.
One day, they’ll find him cold dead on the bedroom floor.

4. The Seeker
He knows what he wants and makes sure he gets what he wants. A top-notch business man, a CEO of some company; grew up in a rich family. This man knows what he wants and makes sure he gets what he wants.

Be sure you can’t be bought.

Lock your heart, for there lies your treasure. Treasure this dragon will surely devour.

5. The Savior*
He has always been there since Day 1.

You had never noticed... till *it was too late.

Oh, how I’ve missed you,
Shining jewel of the Caribbean,
Petite isle of the eccentric.
I still remember your streets,
The way they curve up the mountains,
Mountains that you can see from the coast
Where the water rages war against
The corals and the sea wall.

I’ve seen you at your lowest,
Broken down by the winds
Of prophesies,
Your people cried blood
And sweated through your
Unrelenting days.

Oh, but the way the cosmos dressed
The night sky, clashing with your beauty.
It was almost worth all the pain and suffering.

Righteous
by Michael R. Burch

Come to me tonight
in the twilight, O, and the full moon rising,
spectral and ancient, will mutter a prayer.

Gather your hair
and pin it up, knowing
that I will release it a moment anon.

We are not one,
nor is there a scripture
to sanctify nights you might spend in my arms,

but the swarms
of bright stars revolving above us
revel tonight, the most ardent of lovers.

Published in Writer’s Gazette and Tucumcari Literary Review.
Keywords/Tags: righteous, love, lovers, night, stars, twilight, moon, spectral, ancient, scripture, arms, hair, revel, ardent, passion, passionate, desire, lust, ***, lovers



Only Let Me Love You
by Michael R. Burch

after Rabindranath Tagore's "Come as You Are"

Only let me love you, and the pain
of living will be easier to bear.
Only let me love you. Nay, refrain
from pinning up your hair!

Only let me love you. Stay, remain.
A face so lovely never needs repair!
Only let me love you to the strains
of Rabindranath on a soft sitar.

Only let me love you, while the rain
makes music: gentle, eloquent, sincere.
Only let me love you. Don’t complain
you need more time to make yourself more fair!

Only let me love you. Stay, remain.
No need for rouge or lipstick! Only share
your tender body swiftly ...



Homeless Us
by Michael R. Burch

The coldest night I ever knew
the wind out of the arctic blew
long frigid blasts; and I was you.

We huddled close then: yes, we two.
For I had lost your house, to rue
such bitter weather, being you.

Our empty tin cup sang the Blues,
clanged—hollow, empty. Carols (few)
were sung to me, for being you.

For homeless us, all men eschew.
They beat us, roust us, jail us too.
It isn’t easy, being you.

Published by Street Smart, First Universalist Church of Denver, Mind Freedom Switzerland and on 20+ web pages supporting the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities



Minor Key Duet
by Michael R. Burch

Without the drama of cymbals
or the fanfare and snares of drums,
I present my case
stripped of its fine veneer:
Behold, thy instrument.

Play, for the night is long.

Originally published by Brief Poems



****** Errata
by Michael R. Burch

I didn’t mean to love you; if I did,
it came unbid-
en, and should’ve remained hid-
den!



If Love Were Infinite
by Michael R. Burch

If love were infinite, how I would pity
our lives, which through long years’ exactitude
might seem a pleasant blur—one interlude
without prequel or sequel—wanly pretty,
the gentlest flame the heart might bring to bear
to tepid hearts too sure of love to flare.

If love were infinite, why would I linger
caressing your fine hair, lost in the thought
each auburn strand must shrivel with this finger,
and so in thrall to time be gently brought
to final realization: love, amazing,
must leave us ash for all our fiery blazing.

If flesh’s heat once led me straight to you,
love’s arrow’s burning mark must pierce me through.



The Drawer of Mermaids
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Alina Karimova, who was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers missing. Alina loves to draw mermaids and believes her fingers will eventually grow out.

Although I am only four years old,
they say that I have an old soul.
I must have been born long, long ago,
here, where the eerie mountains glow
at night, in the Urals.

A madman named Geiger has cursed these slopes;
now, shut in at night, the emphatic ticking
fills us with dread.
(Still, my momma hopes
that I will soon walk with my new legs.)

It’s not so much legs as the fingers I miss,
drawing the mermaids under the ledges.
(Observing, Papa will kiss me
in all his distracted joy;
but why does he cry?)

And there is a boy
who whispers my name.
Then I am not lame;
for I leap, and I follow.
(G’amma brings a wiseman who says

our infirmities are ours, not God’s,
that someday a beautiful Child
will return from the stars,
and then my new fingers will grow
if only I trust Him; and so

I am preparing to meet Him, to go,
should He care to receive me.)



Almost
by Michael R. Burch

We had—almost—an affair.
You almost ran your fingers through my hair.
I almost kissed the almonds of your toes.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

You almost contemplated using Nair
and adding henna highlights to your hair,
while I considered plucking you a Rose.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

I almost found the words to say, “I care.”
We almost kissed, and yet you didn’t dare.
I heard coarse stubble grate against your hose.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

You almost called me suave and debonair
(perhaps because my chest is pale and bare?).
I almost bought you edible underclothes.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

I almost asked you where you kept your lair
and if by chance I might ****** you there.
You almost tweezed the redwoods from my nose.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

We almost danced like Rogers and Astaire
on gliding feet; we almost waltzed on air ...
until I mashed your plain, unpolished toes.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

I almost was strange Sonny to your Cher.
We almost sat in love’s electric chair
to be enlightninged, till our hearts unfroze.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.



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



Egbert the Adorable Octopus

Egbert the Octopus
is so **** cute
& smarter than u
(the point is moot)
’cause he doesn’t pollute
when he commutes,
only, perhaps,
when he (ahem) “poots”!
—michael r. burch

I have also seen the diminutive Einstein’s name rendered as Eggbert the Octopus. Check him out on YouTube!



A Possible Explanation for the Madness of March Hares
by Michael R. Burch

March hares,
beware!
Spring’s a tease, a flirt!

This is yet another late freeze alert.
Better comfort your babies;
the weather has rabies.



Cold Snap Coin Flip
by Michael R. Burch

Rise and shine,
The world is mine!
Let’s get ahead!

Or ...

Back to bed,
Old sleepyhead,
Dull and supine.



Monarch
by Michael R. Burch

I had a little caterpillar,
it wove a cocoon for its villa.
When I blinked an eye
what did I espy?
It flew off, a regal butterfly!



Moonflower
by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Hayden

Marveling,
we at last beheld the achieved flower—
both awed and repelled by its alienness,
its moonlit petals,
its cloying fragrance,
its transcendence,
its shimmering and wavering intimations of mortality ...



Ebb Tide
by Michael R. Burch
after Goethe

Ebb tide.
The sea is wide.
In the depths
dark things abide.

Hush, pale child.
Never fear.
None as dark
as men, my dear.

Ebb tide.
The sea is wide.
In the depths
dark creatures glide.

Hush, now father.
Never fear.
Men are nothing
where you are.



How could I understand?
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts

How could I understand
that light
might
be painful?

That sight
might
be crossed?

How could I understand
the cost
of my ignorance,
or the sun’s
inflorescence?

Who was there to tell me
that I, too,
might be one of the
Lost?



TRANSLATIONS OF PERSIAN POETRY

Two Insomnias
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When I’m with you, we’re up all night;
when we’re apart, I can’t sleep.
Thank God for both insomnias
and their inspiration.



I was so drunk my lips got lost requesting a kiss.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



She Was Very Pretty
by Michael R. Burch

She was very pretty, in the usual way
for (perhaps) a day;
and when the boys came out to play,
she winked and smiled, then ran away
till one unexpectedly caught her.

At sixteen, she had a daughter.

She was fairly pretty another day
in her squalid house, in her pallid way,
but the skies ahead loomed drably grey,
and the moonlight gleamed jaundiced on her cheeks.

She was almost pretty perhaps two weeks.

Then she was hardly pretty; her jaw was set.
With streaks of silver scattered in jet,
her hair became a solemn iron grey.
Her daughter winked, then ran away.

She was hardly pretty another day.

Then she was scarcely pretty; her skin was marred
by liver spots; her heart was scarred;
her child was grown; her life was done;
she faded away with the setting sun.

She was scarcely pretty, and not much fun.

Then she was sparsely pretty; her hair so thin;
but a light would sometimes steal within
to remind old, stoic gentlemen
of the rules, and how girls lose to win.



Song Cycle
by Michael R. Burch

Sing us a song of seasons—
of April’s and May’s gay greetings;
let Winter release her sting.
Sing us a song of Spring!

Nay, the future is looking glummer.
Sing us a song of Summer!

Too late, there’s a pall over all;
sing us a song of Fall!

Desist, since the icicles splinter;
sing us a song of Winter!

Sing us a song of seasons—
of April’s and May’s gay greetings;
let Winter release her sting.
Sing us a song of Spring!



Over(t) Simplification
by Michael R. Burch

“Keep it simple, stupid.”

A sonnet is not simple, but the rule
is simply this: let poems be beautiful,
or comforting, or horrifying. Move
the reader, and the world will not reprove
the idiosyncrasies of too few lines,
too many syllables, or offbeat beats.

It only matters that she taps her feet
or that he frowns, or smiles, or grimaces,
or sits bemused—a child—as images
of worlds he’d lost come flooding back, and then . . .
they’ll cheer the poet’s insubordinate pen.

A sonnet is not simple, but the rule
is simply this: let poems be beautiful.



The Less-Than-Divine Results of My Prayers to be Saved from Televangelists
by Michael R. Burch

I’m old,
no longer bold,
just cold,
and (truth be told),
been bought and sold,
rolled
by the wolves and the lambs in the fold.

Who’s to be told
by this worn-out scold?
The complaint department is always on hold.



These are poems written for my grandfathers and grandmothers.

Sunset
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr., the day he departed this life

Between the prophesies of morning
and twilight’s revelations of wonder,
the sky is ripped asunder.

The moon lurks in the clouds,
waiting, as if to plunder
the dusk of its lilac iridescence,

and in the bright-tentacled sunset
we imagine a presence
full of the fury of lost innocence.

What we find within strange whorls of drifting flame,
brief patterns mauling winds deform and maim,
we recognize at once, but cannot name.



Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat...
though first, usually, he'd stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long thin legs, watching the sweat bees drone,
talking about poke salat—
how easy it was to find if you knew where to seek it...
standing in dew-damp clumps by the side of a road, shockingly green,
straddling fence posts, overflowing small ditches,
crowding out the less-hardy nettles.

"Nobody knows that it's there, lad, or that it's fit tuh eat
with some bacon drippin's or lard."

"Don't eat the berries. You see—the berry's no good.
And you'd hav'ta wash the leaves a good long time."

"I'd boil it twice, less'n I wus in a hurry.
Lawd, it's tough to eat, chile, if you boil it jest wonst."

He seldom was hurried; I can see him still...
silently mowing his yard at eighty-eight,
stooped, but with a tall man's angular gray grace.

Sometimes he'd pause to watch me running across the yard,
trampling his beans,
dislodging the shoots of his tomato plants.

He never grew flowers; I never laughed at his jokes about The Depression.

Years later I found the proper name—"pokeweed"—while perusing a dictionary.

Surprised, I asked why anyone would eat a ****.

I still can hear his laconic reply...
"Well, chile, s'm'times them times wus hard."

Keywords/Tags: Great Depression, greatness, courage, resolve, resourcefulness, hero, heroes, South, Deep South, southern, poke salad, poke salat, pokeweed, free verse



All Things Galore
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfathers George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

Grandfather,
now in your gray presence
you are
somehow more near

and remind me that,
once, upon a star,

you taught me
wish
that ululate soft phrase,
that hopeful phrase!

and everywhere above, each hopeful star

gleamed down

and seemed to speak of times before
when you clasped my small glad hand
in your wise paw
and taught me heaven, omen, meteor . . .



Dawn
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

Bring your peculiar strength
to the strange nightmarish fray:
wrap up your cherished ones
in the golden light of day.



Mother's Day Haiku
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmothers Lillian Lee and Christine Ena Hurt

Crushed grapes
surrender such sweetness:
a mother’s compassion.

My footprints
so faint in the snow?
Ah yes, you lifted me.

An emu feather ...
still falling?
So quickly you rushed to my rescue.

The eagle sees farther
from its greater height:
our mothers' wisdom.



The Rose
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandmother, Lillian Lee, who used to grow the most beautiful roses

The rose is—
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.

This poem above is my translation of a Sappho epigram.



Mother’s Smile
by Michael R. Burch

for my wife, Beth, my mother and my grandmothers

There never was a fonder smile
than mother’s smile, no softer touch
than mother’s touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than “much.”

So more than “much,” much more than “all.”
Though tender words, these do not speak
of love at all, nor how we fall
and mother’s there, nor how we reach
from nightmares in the ticking night
and she is there to hold us tight.

There never was a stronger back
than father’s back, that held our weight
and lifted us, when we were small,
and bore us till we reached the gate,
then held our hands that first bright mile
till we could run, and did, and flew.
But, oh, a mother’s tender smile
will leap and follow after you!



The Greatest of These ...
by Michael R. Burch

*for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, and the grandmother of my son Jeremy

The hands that held me tremble.
The arms that lifted
fall.
Angelic flesh, now parchment,
is held together with gauze.

But her undimmed eyes still embrace me;
there infinity can be found.
I can almost believe such infinite love
will still reach me, underground.



Sailing to My Grandfather
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfather, George Edwin Hurt Sr.

This distance between us
—this vast sea
of remembrance—
is no hindrance,
no enemy.

I see you out of the shining mists
of memory.
Events and chance
and circumstance
are sands on the shore of your legacy.

I find you now in fits and bursts
of breezes time has blown to me,
while waves, immense,
now skirt and glance
against the bow unceasingly.

I feel the sea's salt spray—light fists,
her mists and vapors mocking me.
From ignorance
to reverence,
your words were sextant stars to me.

Bright stars are strewn in silver gusts
back, back toward infinity.
From innocence
to senescence,
now you are mine increasingly.

Note: "Under the Sextant’s Stars" is a painting by Benini.



Attend Upon Them Still
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George and Ena Hurt

With gentleness and fine and tender will,
attend upon them still;
thou art the grass.

Nor let men’s feet here muddy as they pass
thy subtle undulations, nor depress
for long the comforts of thy lovingness,

nor let the fuse
of time wink out amid the violets.
They have their use—

to wave, to grow, to gleam, to lighten their paths,
to shine sweet, transient glories at their feet.

Thou art the grass;
make them complete.



Be that Rock
by Michael R. Burch

for George Edwin Hurt Sr.

When I was a child
I never considered man’s impermanence,
for you were a mountain of adamant stone:
a man steadfast, immense,
and your words rang.

And when you were gone,
I still heard your voice, which never betrayed,
"Be strong and of a good courage,
neither be afraid ..."
as the angels sang.

And, O!, I believed
for your words were my truth, and I tried to be brave
though the years slipped away
with so little to save
of that talk.

Now I'm a man—
a man ... and yet Grandpa ... I'm still the same child
who sat at your feet
and learned as you smiled.
Be that rock.

I wrote the poem above for my grandfather when I was around 18.



Joy in the Morning
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandparents George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Christine Ena Hurt

There will be joy in the morning
for now this long twilight is over
and their separation has ended.

For fourteen years, he had not seen her
whom he first befriended,
then courted and married.

Let there be joy, and no mourning,
for now in his arms she is carried
over a threshold vastly sweeter.

He never lost her; she only tarried
until he was able to meet her.

Keywords/Tags: George Edwin Hurt Christine Ena Spouse reunited heaven joy together forever



Come Spring
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

Come spring we return, innocent and hopeful, to the ******,
beseeching Her to bestow
Her blessings upon us.

Pitiable sinners, we bow before Her,
nay, grovel,
as She looms above us, aglow
in Her Purity.

We know
all will change in an instant; therefore
in the morning we will call her,
an untouched maiden no more,
“*****.”

The so-called Religious Right prizes virginity in women and damns them for doing what men do. I have long been a fan of women like Tallulah Bankhead, Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, who decided what’s good for the gander is equally good for the goose.



HOMELESS POETRY

These are poem about the homeless and poems for the homeless.



Epitaph for a Homeless Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Homeless Us
by Michael R. Burch

The coldest night I ever knew
the wind out of the arctic blew
long frigid blasts; and I was you.

We huddled close then: yes, we two.
For I had lost your house, to rue
such bitter weather, being you.

Our empty tin cup sang the Blues,
clanged—hollow, empty. Carols (few)
were sung to me, for being you.

For homeless us, all men eschew.
They beat us, roust us, jail us too.
It isn’t easy, being you.

Published by Street Smart, First Universalist Church of Denver, Mind Freedom Switzerland and on 20+ web pages supporting the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities



Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch

for homeless mothers and their children

Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...

Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...

Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...



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

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

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

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



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are tears?
Will they spare the dying their anguish?
What use, our concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm benevolence of tears
without action?
What help, the eloquence of prayers,
or a pleasant benediction?

Before this day is over,
how many more will die
with bellies swollen, emaciate limbs,
and eyes too parched to cry?

I fear for our souls
as I hear the faint lament
of theirs departing ...
mournful, and distant.

How pitiful our “effort,”
yet how fatal its effect.
If they died, then surely we killed them,
if only with neglect.



PETRARCH

Sonnet XIV
by Petrarch
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lust, gluttony and idleness conspire
to banish every virtue from mankind,
replaced by evil in his treacherous mind,
thus robbing man of his Promethean fire,
till his nature, overcome by dark desire,
extinguishes the light pure heaven refined.
Thus the very light of heaven has lost its power
while man gropes through strange darkness, unable to find
relief for his troubled mind, always inclined
to lesser dreams than Helicon’s bright shower!
Who seeks the laurel? Who the myrtle? Bind
poor Philosophy in chains, to learn contrition
then join the servile crowd, so base conditioned?
Not so, true gentle soul! Keep your ambition!

Sonnet VI
by Petrarch
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I once beheld such high, celestial graces
as otherwise on earth remain unknown,
whose presences might earthly grief atone,
but from their blinding light we turn our faces.
I saw how tears had left disconsolate traces
within bright eyes no noonday sun outshone.
I heard soft lips, with ululating moans,
mouth words to jar great mountains from their traces.
Love, wisdom, honor, courage, tenderness, truth
made every verse they voiced more high, more dear,
than ever fell before on mortal ear.
Even heaven seemed astonished, not aloof,
as the budding leaves on every bough approved,
so sweetly swelled the radiant atmosphere!



The Inconstant Cosmologist
by Michael R. Burch

An incestuous physicist, Bright,
made whoopee much faster than light.
She orgasmed one day
in her relative way,
but came on the previous night!



Pale Ophelias
by Michael R. Burch

Ever in danger of a lethal tryst,
with a comical father crying, “Desist!”
We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist.

“Children, be careful!” our mothers insist,
and yet we plow forward, in search of bliss,
ever in danger of a lethal tryst.

“Remember Eve’s apple,” some inner voice hissed,
which of course we ignored, the prudish miss!
We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist.

Such a sweet temptation!, and who can resist
the enticements of such a delectable dish,
whatever the dangers of a lethal tryst?

“Stay away, Cupid!” With a balled-up fist,
we lecture the stars when things go amiss.
We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist.

Lovers are criminals & need to be frisked!
We’re up to the task, like lobsters in bisque.
Ever in danger of a lethal tryst,
We’re all pale Ophelias in the mist.



Asleep at the Wheel
by Michael R. Burch

Florida will not be woke.
DeSantis made it clear.
The world may well go up in smoke,
but Ron will snore, no fear.

For Florida will not be woke.
Conservatives will snooze
with blinders shutting out all light
and any factual news.



When I visited Byron's residence at Newstead Abbey, there were peacocks running around the grounds, which I thought appropriate.

Byron
was not a shy one,
as peacocks run.
—Michael R. Burch



That country ***** bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art’s
hiking her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!
Sappho, fragment 57, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



My religion consists of your body's curves and crevasses.—attributed to Sappho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



I discovered the Goddess in your body's curves and crevasses.—attributed to Sappho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



How Could I Understand?
by Michael R. Burch

The intense heat and light of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts left ghostly silhouettes of human beings imprinted in concrete, whose lives were erased in an instant.

How could I understand
that light
might
be painful?

That sight
might
be crossed?

How could I understand
the cost
of my ignorance,
or the sun’s
inflorescence?

Who was there to tell me
that I, too,
might be one of the
Lost?



EGBERT THE OCTOPUS

Egbert the Octopus can be viewed here, in all his high-IQ’d-ness and adorability:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V32yeA9yUuk

Eggbert the Octopus
is so **** cute
& smarter than u
(the point is moot)
’cause he doesn’t pollute
when he commutes,
only, perhaps,
when he (ahem) “poots”!
—michael r. burch

I have also seen the diminutive Einstein’s name rendered as Eggbert the Octopus.



Driedel!
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 18

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.” – Revelation 5:12

On Erble's fiery mountain
she lifts her eyes to greet
the avalanche of lava
as it cascades through the peaks.

Her eyes are fiery systems
burning with wonder,
all-seeing yet unseeing;
her voice is like thunder!

Soft as a thrummingbird she speaks;
she whispers to the dawn
of Erble's final awakening,
and the Void gives voice to song.

Driedel!  Driedel!  Driedel!
****** of the heights,
shed your gown of alasty
and come to meet Dark Night!

Her cheeks like alabaster,
her tentacles aflame,
she leaps to greet her Lover
and screams his godly name!

Her throat is black and violet,
her teeth are plated sjurl.
The fire licks her features
and laps her smoking curls.

A palatable offering!
The work is done; the deed
has been executed
exactly as decreed.

Driedel!  Driedel!  Driedel!
Go to meet your Lord,
and through your new alliance,
keep your people pure.

Driedel!



Daredevilry
by Michael R. Burch

Trees
full of possibilities
whisper of ancient mysteries—
mysteries of birth, of life and death.
Each leaf—illuminated, light as breath—
gives up clinging to the old verities,
embraces its frailties,
skydives …



Overshadowed
by Rahat Indori
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The brilliance of stars goes unnoticed
since the moon overshadows them every night.



So Be It
by Rahat Indori
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

If we’re opposed, so be it; there’s more to life.
There’s more to the skies than mere smoke.
When a fire breaks out, many wounds abound;
it’s not just my home in flames.
Yes, it’s true that many enemies also abound,
but they don’t control life with their fists.
What comes out of my mouth, are my words alone;
they don’t speak for me, do they?
Today’s rulers will not be tomorrow’s;
We’re all tenants here, not owners.
Everyone's blood irrigates Earth’s soil;
India is no one’s paternal possession.



Speak
by Faiz Ahmad Faiz
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Speak, while your lips are still free.
Speak, while your tongue remains yours.
Speak, while you’re still standing upright.
Speak, while your spirit has force.

See how, in the bright-sparking forge,
cunning flames set dull ingots aglow
as the padlocks release their clenched grip
on the severed chains hissing below.

Speak, in this last brief hour,
before the bold tongue lies dead.
Speak, while the truth can be spoken.
Say what must yet be said.



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

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

I began to realize that, just as the exact shape of darkness is a shadow,
even so the exact shape of fog is disappearance
and the exact shape of a human being is also disappearance.
At this moment it seemed my body was vanishing into the human form’s final state.
After I arrived here,
it was as if the danger of getting lost
and the desire to lose myself
were merging strangely inside me.
While everything in that distant, gargantuan city where I spent my five college years felt strange to me; and even though the skyscrapers, highways, ditches and canals were built according to a single standard and shape, so that it wasn’t easy to differentiate them, still I never had the feeling of being lost. Everyone there felt like one person and they were all folded into each other. It was as if their faces, voices and figures had been gathered together like a shaman’s jumbled-up hair.
Even the men and women seemed identical.
You could only tell them apart by stripping off their clothes and examining them.
The men’s faces were beardless like women’s and their skin was very delicate and unadorned.
I was always surprised that they could tell each other apart.
Later I realized it wasn’t just me: many others were also confused.
For instance, when we went to watch the campus’s only TV in a corridor of a building where the seniors stayed when they came to improve their knowledge. Those elderly Uyghurs always argued about whether someone who had done something unusual in an earlier episode was the same person they were seeing now. They would argue from the beginning of the show to the end. Other people, who couldn’t stand such endless nonsense, would leave the TV to us and stalk off.
Then, when the classes began, we couldn’t tell the teachers apart.
Gradually we became able to tell the men from the women
and eventually we able to recognize individuals.
But other people remained identical for us.
The most surprising thing for me was that the natives couldn’t differentiate us either.
For instance, two police came looking for someone who had broken windows during a fight at a restaurant and had then run away.
They ordered us line up, then asked the restaurant owner to identify the culprit.
He couldn’t tell us apart even though he inspected us very carefully.
He said we all looked so much alike that it was impossible to tell us apart.
Sighing heavily, he left.



I was so drunk my lips got lost requesting a kiss.—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Road to Recovery
by Michael R. Burch

It’s time to get up and at ’em
and out of this rut that I’m sat in,
and shat in.



The childless woman,
how tenderly she caresses
homeless dolls ...
—Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Clinging
to the plum tree:
one blossom's worth of warmth
—Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch



What would Mother Teresa do?
Do it too!
—Michael R. Burch



Kabir Das (1398-1518), also known as Sant Kabir Saheb, but often called simply Kabir, was an Indian mystic, saint and poet who wrote poems in Sadhukkadi, a vernacular dialect of the Hindi Belt of medieval North India. Sadhukkadi was a mix of Hindi languages (Hindustani, Haryanvi, Braj Bhasha, Awadhi, Marwari) along with Bhojpuri and Punjabi.

The world grows weary reading scripture’s tomes
but a leaf of love enlightens us.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Without looking into our hearts,
how can we find Paradise?
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How long will you live by eating someone else’s leftovers?
Find your own way, don’t live on regurgitated words!
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keep the slanderer near you, build him a hut near your house.
For, when you lack soap and water, he will scour you clean.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A true wife desires only her husband;
a starving lion will not eat grass.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Certainly, saints, the world’s insane:
If I tell the truth they attack me,
if I lie they believe me.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When you were born, you wept while the world rejoiced.
Live your life so that when you die, the world weeps while you rejoice.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The one who enlightens the world remains unseen,
just as we cannot perceive our own eyes.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No medicine rivals Love:
one drop transforms you whole being to pure gold.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Either grant me death or reveal yourself:
this separation has become unbearable.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

They called the doctor to investigate Kabir’s illness;
the doctor checks my pulse to diagnose my disease.
But no doctor can understand what ails me.
It cuts too deep.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I neither have faith in my heart, nor do I know anything about Love.
And what do I know of Love’s etiquettes?
How will I ever live with my Beloved?
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My Beloved calls me with such intense love,
but I am sinful and gone astray.
The Beloved is pure but the bride is soiled.
How dare she touch his feet?
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Kabir kept searching and searching until he was completely lost.
The drop dissolves in the ocean; now nothing can be discovered.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Whatever you need to do tomorrow, do today,
for time evaporates and vanishes like a mist.
Thus work undone remains undone forever.
—Kabir, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Autumn Lament
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14

Alas, the earth is green no more;
her colors fade and die,
and all her trampled marigolds
lament the graying sky.

And now the summer sheds her coat
of buttercups, and so is bared
to winter’s palest furies
who laugh aloud and do not care
as they await their hour.

Where are the showers of April?
Where are the flowers of May?
And where are the sprites of summer
who frolicked through fields ablaze?

Where are the lovely maidens
who browned beneath the sun?
And where are the leaves and the flowers
that died worn and haggard although they were young?

Alas, the moss grows brown and stiff
and tumbles from the trees
that shiver in an icy mist,
limbs shivering in the breeze.

And now the frost has come and cast
itself upon the grass
as the surly snow grows bold
and prepares at last
to pounce upon the land.

Where are the sheep and the cattle
that grazed beneath tall, stately trees?
And where are the fragile butterflies
that frolicked on the breeze?
And where are the rollicking robins
that once soared, so wild and free?
Oh, where can they all be?

Alas, the land has lost its warmth;
its rocky teeth chatter
and a thousand dying butterflies
soon’ll dodge the snowflakes as they splatter
flush against the flowers.

Where are those warm, happy hours?
Where are the snappy jays?
And where are the brilliant blossoms
that once set the meadows ablaze?

Where are the fruitful orchards?
Where, now, all the squirrels and the hares?
How has our summer wonderland
become so completely bare
in such a short time?

Alas, the earth is green no more;
the sun no longer shines;
and all the grapes ungathered
hang rotting on their vines.

And now the winter wind grows cold
and comes out of the North
to freeze the flowers as they stand
and bend toward the South.

And now the autumn becomes bald,
is shorn of all its life,
as the stiletto wind hones in
to slice the skin like a paring knife,
carving away all warmth.

Alas, the children laugh no more,
but shiver in their beds
or’ll walk to school through blinding snow
with caps to keep their heads
safe from the cruel cold.

Oh, where are the showers of April
and where are the flowers of May?
And where are the sprites of summer
who frolicked through fields ablaze?

Where are the lovely maidens
who browned beneath the sun?
And where are the leaves and the flowers
that died worn and haggard although they were young?

This is one of the earliest poems that I can remember writing. The original use of “’neath” is an indication of its antiquity. Unfortunately, I don’t remember when I wrote the first version, but I will guess around 1972 at age 14.




Keywords/Tags: homeless poetry, homeless poems, homelessness, street life, child, children, mom, mother, mothers, America, neglect, starving, dying, perishing, famine, illness, disease, tears, anguish, concern, prayers, inaction, death, charity, love, compassion, kindness, altruism

Fluttering at shutter speed.
Is it my heart inside my chest,
or my lungs palpitating.

It is my veins.  
Rushing with blood, or collapsing for lack of.

It is my stomach. Eating away its own lining;
Acidic paint splattered across its walls. Whitewashing them
With every sporadic convulsion I feel.

A fortnight,
No sleep.

When I do sleep, I do not sleep.

I am depressed. Unhappy.  Not entertained.  

Overly-dramatic.

Questioning every decision I’ve ever made about life,
I inflate with anger.

I think about opportunities passed.

I revolt with envy when I see artists prevail.

I am a miserable **** brimming with unseen talent.




I miss cigarettes.

I miss *******.

Cheap whiskey and grinding my teeth
until 2 in the afternoon when my bloodshot eyes’ll tell you more
than you could ever learn reading my palms.

Fake prophesies of people who never really cared,

and rooms lit up with cheap disco lights and moist carpets.
Perfectly ripened with mildew and sweat and DNA.


The saved lives of unborn infants.


The lucky few.

For Aleš, who reads pacifist novels during wartime

I

For the Millennials:
Victims of opportunity,
Saviors of humanity.

Muse-less, useless, a twentynothing!

We, the Confounded Chiliads,
are the electrified pulsating
offspring of the digital age:
Serendipitous,
enigmatic
vagabonds of the modern world.

Standing juxtaposed between
two centuries,
two generations:
Redeemers of the new millennium.

We’ve read the writings on the wall,
for they have been by our own hand.
Blood dripping down the fluorescent page,
the endless scroll that consumes our gaze.

Gaping holes in our hands and feet,
screaming telephone poles pin us to the magnetic current.

We are trapped but we are not alone.

With every word we bleed,
with every eye to our flesh,
our cries are drowned in the digital void.

We have been washed away by alluded idiosyncrasies,
never unanimous nor harmonious;
feeling our fingers tie into knots,
mangled, finagled, wringing, hovering like a
Ouija board over menacing letters.

We close our eyes and feel them
burning within our skull.

So many voices, so many bodies,
pouring into our thoughts;
endless rainfall
drowning the long coveted silence.

So desperate for the parting
of ***** storm clouds,

for a sign from heaven
to pierce through the ceaseless night,

to cast its lovely gaze upon us
like a father’s warm and gentle hand,
lifting up downcast faces.

We toil in our anguish,
suffering information overload;
a whole race of individuals
accumulating into a massive “I told you so.”

Every wish, every genius mind,
every glance into the future,
every crystal ball rubbed,
Electric Eye awakened

as the dream sighs into existence;
the blending of fact and fiction
in the prophesies of Fathers Orwell and Huxley:
maddened forlorn oracles of modernity.

As we cross the rivers of Babylon
to find ourselves swimming in
the Fountain of Youth
we escape dripping, exhausted;
aching bodies shivering.
They drape expensive towels around us,
breathing warmly on our exasperated shells
of humanity.

Our mortal vessels no longer capable of
carrying our fragile identities,
we leap out of their torpid mouths
exposing the gelatinous crustacean.

Amorphous brain matter
sponge-like, soaking up
the sweat of our plunder and plight—
Clinging desperately as our liberators

pry us off the wet earth
like barnacles off a ship’s keel,
wringing us out
over the supper bowl:
the thin soup of mortal consciousness.

Feeling our voices and vices,
virtues and virulence,
mingling together;
meshing into one.

The hive mind descends upon us,
protruding a gaping straw
from its abdominous being;
sticking it into the electric ocean,
proceeds to **** life up into its
wrinkly, sickly tightened mouth.

Past the gleeful tongue,
down the throat;
tumbling over each other aimlessly
in the darkness—
limitless potentialities.

Directionless;
ambiguous
voices in the dark:
cavernous, mindless cacophony.

Echoes bouncing off
the windows of my soul,
I tumbled into the darkness
lost, and afraid.

“The world is yours!”

I never feel my feet stop moving.

Our nightmarish episode of consumption concludes,
leaving us moaning, naked, confused in the depths:
Haunting spirits wandering these novel dwellings
built on the backs of the olden brutes
and the barbarous archetypic minds of the Marxist prophets.

In this world of post-civilization,
we are post-human(e) in our efforts;
unable to gain a foothold in the foundation—
more quicksand than earth and stone.

Our seeds were thrown to the weeds and the crows.

II

Muse-less, useless, a twentynothing!

I glance at the others: gangly gangrenous guiles!
Feasting on each other, never growing any stronger;
clawing out each other’s eyes, spitting in their mouths,
screaming utterances most foul in their ears.
Climbing over each other in the obscurity, unseen.  

I want them to take my eyes.
I want them to take my ears.
I want them to take my voice.
I want them to squelch the flame
that burns within my cadaverous chest.

Surrendering any chance of agency;
if there were hands to bite,
I couldn’t see.
I hear the voices shouting,
but I can’t cut through the discord.

What if I hold my breath?
But I know that won’t last.
Feeling my lips turn purple,
the kick drum in my chest:

furious relentless crescendo
pace quickening mind’s racing
all the sins in the world
rotting in my soul inescapable
pounding at the door
clock ticking through the floor
lungs shrivel can’t take anymore—

Exhale.

Panting, hands on my knees,
ears perk up to the sound of malicious snickering.
I lift my gaze up to an eclipse of the moon,
so ghastly in fresh blemishes plaguing its majesty.

Squinting,
I see smiling faces,
eyes full of mocking laughter,
belonging to snide children
anxiously peering into the crowded fishbowl.

They watch us squirm without water,
dancing in aching bodies,
craving the touch of something cool,
and refreshing.

They dangle hope and promise like
lifeless puppets encircling
an infant’s crib.

I watch them tie onto simple strings:
wealth, and
power, and
love, and
belonging.

Reaching higher, and higher,
straining formless muscles,
feeling weakness overcome
creeping up like a tired conscience
climbing over the golden crest
atop the transparent foothills
encased in the nicotine screen skyline.

It hangs its head low
on its hands and knees,
lifting up a weary voice
so familiar and ignored.

A final sigh ringing in the ears of a generation:
A cough, and then a final weak sputter:
“I Told You So.”

III

Muse-less, useless, a twentynothing!

Anchored to the next big thing
sitting below deceptive still waters
murky mysterious
loathesome beast
peeking an eye out to catch us peering
over the edge of the docks
a glimpse at the promised eternity
immortality
delusion of grandeur
our eyes to the shore
nostalgia preserved
in the retellings of folklore
childhoods never forgotten
for fear of being lost in the present
and the forthcoming future
always a step away
how can we move on
when we’re busy cutting off our legs
to be eye level with our inner child
more like an exoskeleton
more exposed than our need
to grow
we sit huddled in our bemired despair
grinning sheepishly exposing our sin
crying out to the gargantuan
overlord of childlike fantasy
wielding our innocence
like a button-eyed ragdoll gluttonous treasure keeper
playing with fire in the alchemist’s den
so close to our material wealth
with the flames roaring lapping at our heels
feeling the dock begin to break from dry land
from the weight of our inflated consciences/consciousness
following the fangs of the snake to our parents
on the shore
with one hand sweating on the television remote
strangling in its grasp
they have no choice
but to squeeze the pump
harder and faster
legs of flesh and bone
break and give way
we begin to drift from the shore
pulling closer to the murky behemoth
that lurks under the perpetual offing
in the empty horizon we cry our broken hearts
into its cosmic bowels
feeling ourselves being sifted through
the hungry machinery of death
eyes luminous we shield our faces
from its rapturous gaze
fearful of the pillar of salt
that will stand in our place
but we look back
we take our hand off the plow
with ***** and Gomorrah at our backs
we peer through the electric eye
the sands of time
pouring through the hourglass
that spits us into the depths
of eternal strife.

IV

Muse-less, useless, a twentynothing!
Twentynothing!
Twentynothing!
Twentynothing!

Tw­entynothing in the classrooms!
Twentynothing in the workforce!
Twentynothing in the bathrooms!
Twentynothing in our parents' wars!

Twentynothing in the golden streets!
Twentynothing in the broken homes!
Twentynothing in the dusty libraries!
Twentynothing in the TV's drone!

Twentynothing in the Promised Land!
Twentynothing in the songs we sing!
Twentynothing in the secret plans!
Twentynothing in freedom ring!

Twentynothing in hands over hearts!
Twentynothing in our love in bed!
Twentynothing in the obscure route’s start!
Twentynothing in the lies we've read!

Twentynothing in the lives we fear!
Twentynothing in the scholar’s debt!
Twentynothing in our guns held dear!
Twentynothing in the tables set!

Twentynothing in the colors of skin!
Twentynothing in the reality show!
Twentynothing in the losses and win!
Twentynothing in the nightmares below!

Twentynothing in the kisses we hide!
Twentynothing in the I O U’s!
Twentynothing in the chanting of pride!
Twentynothing in the love you too’s!

Twentynothing in the hope we give!
Twentynothing in the dread they moan!
Twentynothing in the time we live!
Twentynothing in the chance we own!

Muse-less, useless, Twentynothing!

In the post-modern world aimless!

We, the Confounded Chiliads:
We are dangerous,
We are longing,
We are hopeful,
We are broken,
We are serendipitous—
We are eternal.

We Are Twentynothing.

…and that’s **** well something.

Medicinally induced
Theory of sleep

Theory of sleep
Theory of sheep
and its undeniable
counting properties

counting properties
counting prophesies
of wise men in lab coats
Medicated lies

Medicated lies
Dedicated lies
mindful rejection of drugs
convincing promise

convincing promise
convincing solace
drug induced eye-lid droop
Yet still fighting

      Yet still fighting

              Yet still fighting
           The drugs that force
        sleep, doctor recommended
     non-hospitalized coma
induced sleep, deprived

Yet still fighting

Yet still fighting
the convincing promise
of medicated lies
and their counting properties
Theory of Sleep

I take a step back, pivoting on my right foot

to remember behind me a clearing in the trees

by the old apartment complex

where dirt raked over by lifetimes of weary

American walkabouts 

snakes down hawk-eyed, single-minded

toward the old muddy river.

One might brush aside broken branches 

blocking the way like so many nails and thorns

but I know the way.

At the bank where acid rain and sewage 

can lick the dying summer dandelions

I try to cash a check for one epiphany 

before it starts to rain more violently.

A suitcase probably designed to hold a laptop

lies abandoned by a crushed beer can and

a newspaper clipping filled with prophesies

written to a dying world about a world soon to be dead.

I look inside but no glint of metal shines back

at unsuspecting hopeful children eyes.

Turned over with a fallen stick 

lying in a field of blood nearby

a giant slug is stuck to the back of 

the faded leather bag dropped for

God-knows-what-reason.

A snake slithers away back up the trail,

I hear a hawk screech into the gray sky,

and I swat a spider hanging from 

the nearest tree almost alive in the sunset

bearing the weight of the world.