Can we call it freedom if it divides?
Is it correct to ridicule revered name?
Was that in defence of freedom?
Or was that for easy money and fame?

They went on with their provocations;
And justified it with arguments lame.
Numerous hearts were agonised.
But few turned wild, difficult to tame.

Extreme provocations and insults.
In the name of ' Freedom of speech'
Extreme response and harshest reply.
To avenge the insult and to teach.

When one's ' Freedom of Expression ';
Gives one the ' Freedom to insult '.
Hatred and dissension are promoted;
And can lead to horrifying result.

And then I too
am part of the silence
that casts its post-sunset stillness
throughout this swamp white oak's great spread.

It seems as though even the hive of honeybees
and the nearby nest of baby birds
have stopped to admire
the feeling of the world
tilting on its axis; sinking through space.
We all gaze further upwards,
those bees and birds and I.
And nestled in the remaining twigs above,
is the shockingly finite dance
of the leaves... of the stars.

The shadows that hang from the top-most branches
cast their way down around me
and coat their way all over the ground, making it
easy to forget the height—
the ultimate suspension. Because
born within my skin
is a swamp white oak,
stretching its branches through the
grey matter in my mind,
over-taking and over-whelming.
At the end of it all is me:
a tiny little acorn laid
by an impossible evolution
of people into trees.

Every cell becomes leaf and
the heart a listening ear. Amongst
the chorus of the frogs,
the owls, the coyotes—
the chorus of the woods around—
is that shift
so revered.
The shift of the Earth.
The Earth tilting
on its axis.
It’s time to admit that the maps and
man’s little green boxes there,
are nothing but products
of a continually
diminishing temper... showing
that when this swamp white falls,
it won’t just be a wood
that’s finally left barren.
It won't just be a body
left emptied and charred.

Please, I think, as the bark gets flimsier
and flimsier
beneath my feet. As the wind gets fiercer
and fiercer
howling in my ears. *Please. Let this lone acorn
standing here
sprout into something.
Let a swamp white oak
be seen.

What I want to do in this writing is do a little stitching of the national fabric we can do that
Because it’s our country I will start with the great loss of America’s sweet heart Annette
Funicello I am fortunate to have several Mickey Mouse club tapes and Annette as an adult she
Does the introduction on each of them her favorite all time Disney movie is Bambi this not over
Reaching or doing harm to the fabric but from that long ago teaching from Walt that told
Children tragic facts of life and the most painful of all when they shot old Yeller and when the
Gun smoke cleared everyone was in tears any and all could use that to help against the plague
Of violence that rest heavy on this land it’s not guns it’s the human heart with its disregard and
Its dismal accounting that human life can be a means of assuaging deep hurts and
Misunderstanding you can never gain anything when you charge and cheat others especially of
Their sacred lives and not to pick on women but as this starts and continues with Annette what
A role model for the girls and women of today you’re going to cringe now women smoking and
Cussing is undignified it has always rested on virtuous women to hold the ground on being
Chase wisdom by itself says those endowments God gave the fairer *** are to be guarded it is
The true treasure of women hood but if you squander it in the attraction stage you will have a
Harder time getting what you really desire and that is real true love and affection if it’s being
Taught no one can see it its going to be the theme of this piece use people that we recognize as
Helpful on the subject matter were addressing next Walt first as a person then as a business
Person we mentioned Bambi so I can’t leave you without this story a dad learned a painful
Lesson from his five year old daughter he had a farm and this dear kept getting into the wrong
Place so he shot it and fixed it for dinner he was so pleased until this little voice said these
Words daddy why did you **** Bambi his chewing continued for an inordinate amount of time or
A chocking sensation was heard but know this in his mind signs were going up all over the place
No deer hunting before I start with Walt again this country needs a lot of stitching as my
Brother-in law said we need a grass roots movement we all know Walt to be fair and a loving
Person just as Annette describes him he knew everyone at the studio it didn’t matter who they
Were he cared and was interested in you since Annette was referring to her relationship with
Walt she told how on her sweet sixteenth birthday he came to see her and gave her a script for
Zorro that she was going to be in as a Birthday gift because he and everyone knew how big a
Crush she had on Guy Williams and then when her first child was born he sent all the characters
Over to serenade her we were never close to Walt Disney but we all are blessed by his life God
Gave to us we can emulate him as a wonderful role model and you can pick people in your area
You know we have a great man here though he is gone Jack Jeffrey’s no one finer represented
Our community he and wife ran a TV store it was a landmark of good will we can’t start clubs
But we can as a people intact these precious qualities of those mentioned above and this is not
A contradiction by reposting a piece I wrote before since then the threat of Asama Bin Laden
Has been dealt with but the malignant spirit that drove him still lives on and it is my continued
Way of supporting the troops

The Flame of Blessing

America’s warriors face dangers untold in a country unlike our own where violent war is a way of life
In evils caldron that burns with natural order hate, teaching laced with poison and ****** is honorable
This can only thrive in a society that kills truth and then in falsehood their black robes invite all strife
Chaos butchery all manner of anarchy is used to try to subdue a people’s God given right to be free
Our troops in one way or another are set to burning Miss Liberty is in their hearts although latent
All that is needed to cause liberty’s flame to blaze is put these blessed ones in contact with tyranny
Every insult and criticism is leveled at the U.S. we need improvement but let evil show and be blatant
Ordinary kids from American streets will rise the last thing you will see is freedom blazing in their eyes
Black hearts are tuff pushing the weak and there fanaticism pretends at being brave every bully’s trait
These cannot be reasoned with madness has one cure annihilation this fight not for the faint hearted
The enemy needs a history lesson Tara, Iwo Jima; Omaha beach a brother hood reborn gun barrel strait
You posses by ideology penned by hell’s most convincing liar we come bearing truth then arms
God’s shadow first then Miss Liberty looms then the unquenchable prayers of a nation they pray for you
Peace, tranquility is worth our sacrifice you are left with a tattered rag a soiled flag marred by carnage
To bleed, true honor the making of a house of arms it will succeed in all war and conflict peace to accrue
We take God given might temper it with mercy and justice for all we are not timid in freedom’s fight
This is the my candle burning and my stitching of the tattered fabric of this once religious sacred
Country that I love and as all good people are pained by the shape it now exists in there is only
One hope a united people in the most Holy God who has kept us and allowed us such freedoms I
Will ask your patience one more time but if this wasn’t important I wouldn’t bother you in the
First place

Most hated twins
Who are these two desperate characters revered but feared by all
To make their acutance few will volunteer those who know them well
All can tell by the drawn face and the tears that swell the pool where wisdom has her rule
Achievers welcome them as honored guest they withstood the test now they the richest blest
At mornings first blade of light they strike with all their might they the quickest to fight
Timorous to afraid how many have dwelt by waters undying well only to die unfulfilled
But others tried and they fell the well is to deep its where darkest shadows creep
We will be lost in these new surroundings the familiar there will be water there too
Yes stagnant unmoved guarded for naught its benefit was for the traveler going places
For you it will be your grave marker he talked and talked but venture on never
He said he was the clever one as his countenance slowly turned to stone killed by apathy
Green pastures call to find them in yourself health you will install
Few are they that were meant and born to reside in the same place you must go
If you stay rebuild the common and ordinary your monument then they will admire
Who stood to long and with all intention he gave it only words action was the wonder that was missing
Treading a narrow path in the end if you buried or squandered your talent divine wrath you will face
Cast your seed far and wide how can you not see the need sorrow has them tied
Push back the encircling darkness with the light in your heart that God did endow
Go and answer the door your guides are here I want you to meet two friends Pain and Adversity
Two finer companions you will never know Washington and his men befriended them at Valley Forge Concord, York town. Lincoln met them first at Bull Run Antietam I think he gave a little speech at Gettysburg. One birthed a nation the other saved a divided one thank you and God bless you

Oh pillars of power.
Sentinels, guardians of our mother sun.
We come forth to relish your wisdom.
To revel in your all revealing light.
Stones standing eternal, forever immortal.
Brothers, sisters, come stand before them.

Worshipping lovers , embracing the sunrise.
Banners flying, rainbows held high.
Holding the night time at bay, as we play.

This is the time of your life, my friends.
World without end.
Two solstices.
.June and December.
Join us good fellows ,come be free.

Each year be different, pray always remember.
Monolithic structures, bathed by the rain, savouring the sun.

Festival goers come along.
Party inside the fence for free.
Open your hearts.
May your minds eye reveal such truths.
Yet unknown.


Vernal equinox.
New life.
Most venerable equinox may we feel the source of the changes you bring.
We feel them as we kneel in your honour.
Respecting the vibe.
Come together, as one, let us all be alive.
Souls and spirits intermingle as the moonlight blesses them.
The sunrises lifting hearts and vibrant minds.
Vernal equinox, heralding spring.
Of the spring buds and bees and the tickling breeze.
Fab to be free.
Bearing flowers of pink red and golden, with garlands of green.

Summer solstice, she wears the dress of summer's sun.
Warming, protective.
Midsummer's  night,
Blessed be the longest night.
Glory to the longest day, where fairies flit and pixies play.
Pagans and maidens, come dance in delight.
Height of summer, vibrant and wild,
In the moonlight, the dance of the flowing haired child.

Autumnal equinox, reliever of  leaves.

Solstice of midwinter, brings forth the shortest day.
Ivy boughs and holly trees.
Magical mistletoe borne of the wizards, the pagans and mystical ravens.
Be kissed by winter's finger  tips.
The touch of the chill as it nibbles the lips.


Come brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers.
Come seeks us and find perchance, romance.
Romancing the ancient ones.
No rhyme or reason not to come.
Brothers and sisters be blessed by the sun.
Mystical season.

These all entrancing stones,  placed to be revered.
In line with the rising sun.
As seasons change, we shall be as one.
Souls and spirits intermingle as the moonlight blesses them.
The sunrises lifting hearts and vibrant minds.

You stand, we dance.
Ride the spirits, feel the vibe.
Festival goers are coming, they're thriving.
Buzzing with glee.
Welcome us with open arms.
Amulets and magic charms.
Romancing beneath our holy moon.
Magical, mystical, sense airs and attitudes.
Standing stones.
Worshipped by many.
Revered sincerely.

In mode of festival, vibrancy pulse.
People, powerful people, come watch us dance.
To the beat of the drums and the carnival air, in bright spirited revellers together, so  shall we share.
Druids and hippy folk together.
May they relish the joys of freedom.
Life is short.
Breathe in the passion , bathe in the love.
One love forever.
Respect our stones.
Our blessed mother earth.
Sensational rhythm of love and peace.
Flowing, spirit release.
Essence of the stones.
We are free spirits.
May our free spirits to mingle with those of the stones.
A past, a present and future.
Eternally yours.
Love and peace.
(C) LIVVI

When I was a little boy, say when I was six, my dad calls to me and he says: Come, boy – let’s sit in our courtyard; let’s sit below the stars and I’ll tell you a story. It’s been told long in our village, and passed on from wise fathers to growing sons.

Long ago, goes the story
Farmer Somu wanted
his daughter Meena to marry
the Strongest in the world
and so he set out on a journey
with his daughter
to seek the World’s Strongest One

And what were they going to do, little boy? says my father to me. They are going to look for the Strongest One, I say; and my father says: Ah, you clever son of a clever man.

And when they walked
past the rice fields
they saw farmers
wiping their brows
and they said:
‘My, how strong the sun shines!’

‘Aha,’ said Somu, ‘I think
I’ve found the Strongest One.
Come, Meena,’ he said,
‘let’s talk to the Sun.’

And what do you think, my little boy, what do you think Somu asked the Sun?
And I say to my father: Oh Sun, Will you marry my daughter? And my father says, excitedly: Exactly! Exactly! Oh , you brilliant son of a brilliant man.

‘Oh Sun,
will you marry
my daughter
for she is the Prettiest
and you are the Strongest?’

‘But,’ said the Sun,
‘the cloud is stronger than I
for have you not noticed
how often the cloud
blocks me out
and I can’t do a thing
until he decides to move?’

And what do you think, my little boy, what do you think Somu replied to the Sun?
Oh, you weakling Sun – I’m not even talking to you! comes my quick reply. And my father says: Oh how right you are – you clever son of a clever man!

‘Weakling Sun
stand out of my way
and Oh you most powerful cloud –
will you marry my daughter
for she is Prettiest
and you the Strongest?’

And the Cloud replied:
‘But ah, I am not the Strongest
for the wind just blows me away!’

And what do you think, my clever boy, what do you think Somu did next? And I answer my dad: Well, dad - Farmer Somu drags his daughter Meena to the Wind. And my father says: Oh how right you are – you brilliant son of a brilliant man!

‘O Wind
you should marry
Meena who is Prettiest
in the world
as you are the Strongest.’

But the Wind replied:
‘Ah, you don’t know how Strong
the mountain is
for he blocks my way
and he breaks me down.’

And what do you think, my little boy, what do you think was Somu’s reply to the Wind?
Oh, you useless Wind – I’m ashamed I even considered you! I reply. And my father says: Oh how right you are – you clever son of a clever man!

‘Oh, you useless Wind
– I’m ashamed
I even considered you!’
said Farmer Somu
and he dragged his daughter along
to meet the mountain
and he said to the mountain:
‘Most Honored Mountain
I have heard of your strength
and so I have brought you Meena
who is the Prettiest.’

But the Mounatin replied:
‘Oh Sir, I am not deserving
of such a rare beauty
for the rat gnaws holes in my sides
and so is Stronger than I.’

And what do you think, dear son, says my father to me – what do you think Somu does next? And I reply quite impatiently: Somu takes his daughter to the rat? Exactly! Exactly! shouts my dad. Exactly, you brainy son of a brainy man!

And the Rat told Somu:
‘Alas, Sir
though your daughter
is most desirable
I cannot marry her
for the hyena is
far stronger than me
for he has eaten many of my family!’

And so they walk to the hyena, says my father to me. And what do you think Somu tells the hyena? And I reply: Oh hyena – marry my daughter for she is Prettiest and you are Strongest! And my father says: Oh you are right, boy! You are right – Oh you brilliant son of a brilliant man!

‘Sir Hyena
Most Revered Sir Hyena
do marry Meena
for she is Prettiest
and you the Strongest!’

And Sir hyena replied:
‘Ok. I ask for no dowry
just leave her with me
with no ceremony.’

And what do you think , asks my father, Somu did? And I reply: He left Meena with the hyena. And my father shouts excitedly: Oh, how right you are! How right you are! You clever child of a clever man.





And no sooner had Somu left
the hyena took Meena
to his cave
and he ate her all
skin and bone…
Ah what a tragic end;
what a horrid end…

And dear son, says my father to me, what is the moral of this story? Many, I say. But two are: Use your wits and stay alive. Never allow yourself to be dragged around. And my father jumps up and he is excited: Oh how right! How right! You brilliant son of a brilliant father!
And he turns to my mother who has joined us at the courtyard and he says:
See how clever our son is – he knows all the answers! Such a brilliant son of a brilliant father!

And my mother’s retort is swift: It’s not that he’s brilliant or you either. You’ve told him this story a hundred times, you silly man! And it’s always the same words! And I would have kicked my father if I were Meena!

I

There was an ancient City, stricken down
With a strange frenzy, and for many a day
They paced from morn to eve the crowded town,
And danced the night away.

I asked the cause: the aged man grew sad:
They pointed to a building gray and tall,
And hoarsely answered "Step inside, my lad,
And then you'll see it all."

Yet what are all such gaieties to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?

x*x + 7x + 53 = 11/3

But something whispered "It will soon be done:
Bands cannot always play, nor ladies smile:
Endure with patience the distasteful fun
For just a little while!"

A change came o'er my Vision - it was night:
We clove a pathway through a frantic throng:
The steeds, wild-plunging, filled us with affright:
The chariots whirled along.

Within a marble hall a river ran -
A living tide, half muslin and half cloth:
And here one mourned a broken wreath or fan,
Yet swallowed down her wrath;

And here one offered to a thirsty fair
(His words half-drowned amid those thunders tuneful)
Some frozen viand (there were many there),
A tooth-ache in each spoonful.

There comes a happy pause, for human strength
Will not endure to dance without cessation;
And every one must reach the point at length
Of absolute prostration.

At such a moment ladies learn to give,
To partners who would urge them over-much,
A flat and yet decided negative -
Photographers love such.

There comes a welcome summons - hope revives,
And fading eyes grow bright, and pulses quicken:
Incessant pop the corks, and busy knives
Dispense the tongue and chicken.

Flushed with new life, the crowd flows back again:
And all is tangled talk and mazy motion -
Much like a waving field of golden grain,
Or a tempestuous ocean.

And thus they give the time, that Nature meant
For peaceful sleep and meditative snores,
To ceaseless din and mindless merriment
And waste of shoes and floors.

And One (we name him not) that flies the flowers,
That dreads the dances, and that shuns the salads,
They doom to pass in solitude the hours,
Writing acrostic-ballads.

How late it grows! The hour is surely past
That should have warned us with its double knock?
The twilight wanes, and morning comes at last -
"Oh, Uncle, what's o'clock?"

The Uncle gravely nods, and wisely winks.
It MAY mean much, but how is one to know?
He opens his mouth - yet out of it, methinks,
No words of wisdom flow.

II

Empress of Art, for thee I twine
This wreath with all too slender skill.
Forgive my Muse each halting line,
And for the deed accept the will!

O day of tears! Whence comes this spectre grim,
Parting, like Death's cold river, souls that love?
Is not he bound to thee, as thou to him,
By vows, unwhispered here, yet heard above?

And still it lives, that keen and heavenward flame,
Lives in his eye, and trembles in his tone:
And these wild words of fury but proclaim
A heart that beats for thee, for thee alone!

But all is lost: that mighty mind o'erthrown,
Like sweet bells jangled, piteous sight to see!
"Doubt that the stars are fire," so runs his moan,
"Doubt Truth herself, but not my love for thee!"

A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire
Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile!
And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar?
And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile?

Nay, get thee hence! Leave all thy winsome ways
And the faint fragrance of thy scattered flowers:
In holy silence wait the appointed days,
And weep away the leaden-footed hours.

III.

The air is bright with hues of light
And rich with laughter and with singing:
Young hearts beat high in ecstasy,
And banners wave, and bells are ringing:
But silence falls with fading day,
And there's an end to mirth and play.
Ah, well-a-day

Rest your old bones, ye wrinkled crones!
The kettle sings, the firelight dances.
Deep be it quaffed, the magic draught
That fills the soul with golden fancies!
For Youth and Pleasance will not stay,
And ye are withered, worn, and gray.
Ah, well-a-day!

O fair cold face! O form of grace,
For human passion madly yearning!
O weary air of dumb despair,
From marble won, to marble turning!
"Leave us not thus!" we fondly pray.
"We cannot let thee pass away!"
Ah, well-a-day!

IV.

My First is singular at best:
More plural is my Second:
My Third is far the pluralest -
So plural-plural, I protest
It scarcely can be reckoned!

My First is followed by a bird:
My Second by believers
In magic art: my simple Third
Follows, too often, hopes absurd
And plausible deceivers.

My First to get at wisdom tries -
A failure melancholy!
My Second men revered as wise:
My Third from heights of wisdom flies
To depths of frantic folly.

My First is ageing day by day:
My Second's age is ended:
My Third enjoys an age, they say,
That never seems to fade away,
Through centuries extended.

My Whole? I need a poet's pen
To paint her myriad phases:
The monarch, and the slave, of men -
A mountain-summit, and a den
Of dark and deadly mazes -

A flashing light - a fleeting shade -
Beginning, end, and middle
Of all that human art hath made
Or wit devised! Go, seek HER aid,
If you would read my riddle!

When I am an old man I want to be a gentleman,
with perfect manners, sound and articulate speech,
and refined opinions founded on solid, balanced judgment.

To be revered would be well, but I'll settle for respected;
people are more apt to overlook your faults,
and keep their expectations of you more reasonable.

I would possess at least half the strength of my youth,
both in body and in mind,
and twice the faith, never staggering at the promise.

I would be as steadfast in my convictions as I was at twenty,
but with a lifetime of wisdom to back up the zeal;
I would be a voice of both faith and reason.

I would be mindful of the finish line ahead of me,
and would be certain to possess such a rapport with my Maker
as to anticipate, and not dread, what lay beyond.

....this poem is dedicated to our fellow-poet here at HP, Marisa White...


Corax versus Tisias*


(1) CORAX PRESENTS HIS CASE

Sirs, you most esteemed judges in all of Syracuse
most revered in all of our Greek world
I, Corax - known fondly, no doubt, as The Crow -
charge this man Tisias my student in rhetoric
of a mean trick against me, his teacher; he is a cheat
He entreated me often to teach him the smooth Art of Persuasion
the Perfection I had shaped in Rhetoric
And I agreed, after due consideration, prompted by my sense of duty;
and it was agreed he would pay me only if he wins
his first case in our esteemed courts
But Sirs, mark you well his treachery  -
for having learned of me my 5-Stage Movement in Persuasion
he then has refused to take any legal case in court
so he would never have to pay me my due
And so it is now I have forced him to court;
and so I trust, most Honourable Judges, in your wisdom
If I win the case, I should naturally receive all payment;
if I should lose the case, Tisias wins, and so - logically -
he should pay me…Ah, I submit myself to your wisdom


(2) TISIAS PRESENTS HIS CASE

Sirs, it is most true I was taught by Corax
but I have not kept away from court deliberately
but of fear - for I have no confidence in the rhetoric
he has taught me
For all he taught me was reliance on flattery
which I know, Sirs, never moves you
And so Sirs, if I should lose, it is I who should be paid
by the terms of the agreement;
and if I should win, in spite of his poor instruction,
then it is I again who should be paid for I win then
by my own naturalness
and by your aversion to flattery


(3) THE ESTEEMED JUDGES MAKE THEIR DECISION KNOWN

“Kakou korakas kakon oon”*
which translated in the vernacular, you commoners, is:
“Bad Crow, Bad Egg”

Case dismissed!
Throw the Crow and its Egg out of this Revered Court!

Awake to a slowly beating drum
morning meditation drifting up the hill
in the garden, tiny birds add sweet highs
tuneless ravens, the bass undertone
trees whisper ancient lyrics
on the passing breeze.

We stroll the Path of Philosophy
through massive wooden gates
into carefully sculpted gardens
exploring the endless number
of temples dotting Kyoto
each more lovely than the last.

Quiet Nanzen-Ji
is where I feel the most
following worship worn
steps to a cave-shrine
heady with wet
and incense

we are purified
by waterfall spray
before returning
the way we came
voices hushed
buoyed by eternity’s hand.

The hotel lobby is filled
with crimson and saffron
glistening heads and broad smiles
from monks gathered there
we bow to each other and are one
may it never be forgotten

revelers arrive by busload
for hanami, cherry blossom viewing
beneath a revered tree
decked out in pink splendor  
lit from below to radiate
surreal, internal light

we sample Kobe yakitori
soba and corn
grilled over open flame
as we flow
through the smiling
celebratory crowd

we savor
what is transitory
as sparks
and blossoms whirl
settling on
our hair and skin.

Un beso no es solo un beso
Un beso no es solo un roce
de dos labios, de dos caras.

Un beso es un pórtico a un mundo de duendes.
Es transitar entre saliva aguas celestes.
Es atascar la puerta al existencialismo al cerrar los ojos.
Por eso cerramos los ojos al besar,
porque, es una entrega amena.
Un beso es poder entregarte completamente.
Desafiando la duda impertinente.
Retando el tiempo entre suspiros.
Es hablarle al corazón atreves de fluidos.
Es exponer la tibieza  de tu esencia a quien tiene el privilegio de peregrinar en tus ríos.
Espacios donde habita la esencia más pura de tu ser, tu espíritu.
Lo que has protegido,
Lo que has venerado,
Lo que has soportado.
Es palpar el paraíso, entender la creación,
lo que Dios vislumbro cuando nos creó.
Por eso, se avisa sobre el que besa y sus ojos no cierras,
Y si tú lo percibiste estabas ausente en esa entrega.

No, un beso no es algo ****** y pedestre.
No es relegarlo por doquier sin discreción alguna.
No es rasparte una borrachera en la lengua de cualquiera.
No. Un beso es un compromiso,
Algunos besan para traicionar como Judas lo hizo con Jesucristo.
Otros besos sellan el amor que una madre tiene por sus hijos.
Otros besos enlazan por siempre a desconocidos destinados desde el principio.

Un beso es un lazo bendito,
Es una estrofa, una prosa, es rimar en la poesía de una boca.

Y aunque sedienta este mi boca,
por el roce de unos labios,
Yo sigo esperando el beso……………………………… de mi eterno amado.
Pues, desde hace mucho tiempo, mis labios entendieron
……………………………………………………..que al él están destinados.


LeydisProse
6/29/2017
https://www.facebook.com/LeydisProse/
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A kiss is not just a kiss
Kiss is not only a friction of two orifices or two faces.  

A kiss is a portal to a world of gnomes.
It’s to travel with saliva through celestial waters.
It is to jam the door to Existentialism as you close your eyes.
That is the only reason why we close our eyes as we kiss,
it’s because kissing is a sweet surrender.  
It’s defying the insolence of uncertainties.
It’s challenging time between sighs of delight.
It’s to speak to the heart through fluids of passion.
It is to expose the warmth of your essence to those
who have the privilege to pilgrimage through your rivers.

Spaces inhabited by the purest essence of your being, of your spirit,  
that which you have protected,
that which you have revered,
that which you have endured.
It is feel paradise,
It’s to finally understand Creation,
what God intended and envisioned for us.  
It’s the reason why we advise against people
who kiss without closing their eyes,
and if you’re aware, that means you were absent during that surrender.

No, a kiss is not something ****** or ordinary.  
You don't have to give it away it without discretion.  
Do not sober up your binge drinking in the tongue of a stranger.

No, a kiss is a commitment!
Some kiss to betray, the way Judas did to Jesus.
Other kisses are a seal of love,
like the one a mother gives to her children.  
Other kisses forever bind strangers who have been destined to be together.

A kiss is blessed connection,
is a verse, a prose, is to rhyme in the poetry of someone’s oral cavity.

Although my mouth is thirsty and yearning for touch and a kiss,
I am waiting for a particular kiss... the kiss of my eternal beloved.  

Some time ago, my lips understood.. .
that they were destined to be kissed by him.

LeydisProse

Storm Rider(sample the doors)
start with "Riders on the Storm" softly repeated x4)

Try catch me-leap from ground to sky,
light up the night as I fly,
Tip to tip mischievous-watch me salmon leap-avert your eyes,
The Celtic Dragon Storm Riding tonight,
feel the static on your skin lets take flight…
Vast vista’s fistula’s in the earths core,
fly with me you wanna feel more?,
cut core to core claws - millivolt amped,
up to attack lay down my stamp,
Earth tremblin’ rumblin' humbling when I catch the spark,
revered by Tesla - hear me Arc…
Another mic blown - booth in chaos,
I stand firm - you're reeling as you're reeled in tossed,
like ragdoll physics my rhymes rip timelines,
Faultlines and default rhymes?
Never,I’m too clever,agility reveals your fragility,
Claws rip and drag you down …to a sea of tranquility…
Hush now ,shush now,
hear the susurrus as I leave you nonplussed
phase you back to your body  trans warp jump
tachycardia spasms chasms torn by talons,
pounces crush tons to ounces as I flex my neck…
hasn't changed since Wu told ya’s”Best protect ya neck”

Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah,
the Firestorm Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...
Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah,
the Firestorm Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...

Feel me breath blowing like a gale - the Gael without fail,
I inhale and exhale flames of hell,
hellbent- time to repent
you’re scurrying in gullies while I seek your Scent,
SNIFFFF-grrrrrrrr that’s the sound of doom,
from the Emerald shore to the Pharaohs tomb,
No room to escape the breath that melts steel
rabbit in my headlights feel my claws life steal,
oxygen and nitrogen erupt to seal your fate,
debate-berate, get estate in order,
one Molten blast of fast rhyme its over.
scorchmark against a granite wall,
burnt to a crisp by the firestorm from hell,
well welcome to hell do you feel the heat?
Sandman slim dragon never fears defeat,
20 years here  spittin’ in the underground,
Now its time to vacate my space hear my sound
A no go area,gates of Mordor,
dragged by the Dragon to your place of ******,
claws like claymores rake your face,
prepared to ignite,take flight-seal your fate...

Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah, the firestorm
Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...
Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah, the firestorm
Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...

Call me Nukker ******, you're due to be Slaine,
one scaldin' verse melts down your brain,
searing breath - death bursts unprepared heads,
Streets run red with the blood of the dead.
Feel the headwind....blowin' as I exhale.
My fetid breath tastes stale as you inhale
lucid juices sluicin in the Wyrms Den,
just One spark you're gonna BURN then!,
wingspan of an Antonov best back off!,
forked lightning blasts ground - as I take off,
fly head on to the heart of the Hurricane,
calescent death as I stake my claim,
rider on the storm,your attempt? - luke warm,
spells incandesce without stress as they take form,
the Serpent serpentine's through the night sky,
take eyes off mine? - your turn to fry.
don't cry it's fate, conserve your hate,
you perspire before your expiry date,
a Deer in the deadlights I'll open the gate,
to the next realm, next challenger calcerated,
another Champion obliterated,
ardent first to set foot on my Isle
now you're here you feel febrile,
feeble feverish attempts cut short clean sliced,
by the Firestorm Dragon with the eyes of Ice.

(Soft-"Riders on the Storm" rpt x2 Chorusx2 end.)

Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah,
the Firestorm Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by...
Storm Rider,Glider light up the night yeah,
the Firestorm Lightning Storm inside your minds eye take my hand and we'll both fly
as the ground flashes by.

Mom, at the behest of those you feel you failed to impress, let me digress.
You have accomplished more than you realize.  
You have seen the world around with your own two eyes.  
You got a Masters at the #1 Journalism Writing College in the US.  
And did so against the behest of doubters you once sought to impress.  
You survived  bouts with cancer and wrote a book about it.  
You did not waste a lifetime idolizing something worthless or unfit.  
I don’t know anyone else that has read as many pages of literary depth.  
I don’t know anyone else with which secrets are better kept.
I don’t know anyone else who can translate middle English  or drudge through the quantum physics, met the Dali Lama and mastered Ken Wilber.  
Who can cook an epic meal yet without a sprinkle of selfish?
Or effortlessly design, hand tie and smith 1000 jewelry pieces of stone and silver?  
You have contributed to and held influenced in every city and town you ever loved and lived within  
You’re paid fortunate to love someone who loves you both here and above.  
You were gifted with an old soul.  
You smile and liars fold.
You are positively inspired and influenced by the people, places and art you have witnessed.  
Their purpose, intent and why they exist.  
You raised a son who feels he won from all you’ve done but in return you asked none.

This next stage in your life will be your time to shine.  
It is your time to power back up.  
Things are about line up again.  
Before you attempt to quantify the sum of your contributions and accomplishments, look closely at the measure of the parts.
What are you gauging your accomplished-o-meter against.  
Before you answer, consider this:   This is a capitalist society.
The worth of stocks, bonds, even the paper money, all only have value because someone in power says they do so.  
Innovation is only funded based on potential profitability,
not encouraged to enrich mankind‘s forward go.  
Creating for the greater good is tougher than ever.  
It’s maddening to know hundreds of Americans win millions of lottery dollars every week, then we never hear about them again.
Or pull a slot machine level.  
They never surface a year later, having changed their community or town for the better.
I know money makes things more comfortable.
Yeah capitalism rewards margin first, I too am disgruntled.
Your season is coming again.  
Your reason to be and the how, why and when.  
You should see it out here in the Gen-X trenches.  
We are holding together the Gen-Y instant gratify on one end while maintaining morals of the World War II grinches.
There are so many media outlets now, spewing raw, unedited, shallow ideas meant only to capture my time and money.
Your noble intent, the quality of what you are trying to achieve and contribute, it has a place.  
Your cost you spent, the things you piled up, now in a storage space.  
It’s worth continues to increase.  
I want to help you during this next stage and make the last one cease.
I don’t want you to tape your hope up in a box in a storage unit for another 5 years.  
Your newest book will be revered, buy the Time to debunk Shakespeare
and prove it was Devere.

On a night like this, of full-moon bliss
Of the midnight winds and collecting mists
I remained, forevermore
Chained, to the floor
A victim of joy’s…goodbye kiss

In a dungeon I lie, hidden from the sky
A shadow untamed with vile red eyes
I waited, I hungered
Without proper slumber
In my mistress’ pit, awaiting time

It was from lust and desire to fuel and empower
For whom she wishes for me to devour
I restrained, she teased
I grew hard, to please
The widowed Countess: my dark sire.

Though my story may seem bleak
But not to those, whom morally weak
A tale, a fable
However which label
Entitles this to civilized freaks

I moved from town to town, home to home
In search of a life wherever I would roam.
At last, I came
To an estate of name
Belonging to a Countess of ancestral Rome

Countess Donatella, eyed my work and demeanor
From afar I could tell, I sensed, I smelled her
Her scent, so tempting
Was she attempting…
To allure my beastly form into something beneath her?

One night she called for me, alone in her quarters
She treated me to delicacies from rich exporters
She asked my name
I said none, I refrained
“Mysterious and Strong.” She said in order.

She walked over, to the silk on the bed
Colored in gold and shimmering red
Curling her finger
To me, and eager
“Remove your clothes” the Countess said

I did as I was told. I abide her command.
She seduced like a mistress of the eternally ******
Caressing my skin
Licking my chin
And instructed me to please her demands.

My strength increased as I ripped apart her dress
“Yes, my dear, rough and brute.” She stressed
My *** throbbing
Her head bobbing
She turned into an animal I could not resist

Through the night our lust ignited
Into a furious intoxication, organs united
A symphonic ******
Winds, rain and thunder
Matching the sweltering copulation benighted

In the glow of after, past the ****** she gathered
Breathing deeply she said, “You are mine. I am master”
For too long, I thought
I was ridden of what I sought
One to counter my thirst for lust, the tiring caster.

For many nights I swooned, I pleasured her in ways
No other human could fathom or reclaim
My art was of the flesh
And her succulent *******
Feasting like the dog of Hell’s fame

But in this time I feared
For my secret was severe
To show, to hide
My inner design
Of nocturnal savagery that is devilishly revered.

It was upon a warm night of *******
That the moon left me horrified and shaking.
I ran from the master
To evade disaster
Of displaying my transformational awakening.

I trampled in the woods and screamed into the night
The beast of the void howled under the moonlight
I ventured, I hungered
Awaken from slumber
A slave to Lycanthrope, a feral disease of might

The Countess’ workers hunted; “A monster!” they deemed
But I killed many before I was to be seen
Ripping, tearing, slashing, eating,
Guts, bones, skin, feeding
My viciousness, my curse, my bane and dream.

After my episode of moral slaughter
The workers found me curled in a fetal posture
I would have been killed
But the Countess, sealed
Me away in the cryptic tomb of her father.

I was left to suffer in the underbelly of my sins.
Shadows and demons moaning like the wind
My master kept me
Protected me
In her care I would no longer win

Now I lay, waiting for the my master to show
So the door above me will open and glow
The white orb
That will mourn
The lives I have taken, eaten and in my intestines flow

The tomb dungeon unlocks, creaking loudly with rust
The master, the beautiful Countess that I must
Please and satisfy
Penetrate, rectify
The punishment that was bestowed by the just.

“So you are known by many names.” She utters
I look up at her with eyes of thirst, my lover
“You are unique.
So much to keep
For myself, my beastly treasure and no other.”

She walks to the shadowed wall and pulls down a lever
And stands in front of me, **** and forever
A pale seductress
Her eyes focus
With mine, for I wait for the power that was severed

“Now I will be pleasure by that of a beast, that of a god.”
She says as she massages my erecting rod
“Now, my dear.”
As I hear.
“Enter me and leave me in pleasurably awe.”

With the chains around my wrists, ankles; my neck and waist
She mounts me in the moonlight space
Our sweat collects
Drips and specs
Glossing her pale skin and my ever changing face.

I stare into the moon as I ******, my moans of pain matching her voice
She yells from the seismic endurance, her dooming choice
To unleash my monster
With blood thirst conquered
No, it is not, it is her, growing with every other screaming voice

Moans of pleasure soon turn to moans of distress
The wolf of the night is coming, no less
My teeth protrude
My mind feuds
With reason and passion, where blood replaces the mess

My fur is black, my claws like steel
My fury is lustful, the deeper I feel
The Countess is in fear
I ignore her tears
And devour her, ravish her, take her skin and peel

Her lovely face is first to go, once flawless now disfigured
I tear her arms from her body, her liver in my teeth lingered
Blood, tears, flowing juices
Guts, gore, nail amuses
The laughing jackals and demons in a Hell for me that’s bigger

There is no more Countess. No more Donatella, nor master
The moon reflected in a red pool of suffering disaster
Of the ******* monster in our wake
Of the true one she had forsake
In the whims of lustful pursuit with death proceeding faster

Through the lubrication of excessive blood and ****** fluids
I slipped and broke from my chains and fled from the ruins
I remained the beast
Through the forest at least
And return to the woods, away from the her influence

I left the Countess estate as I arrived
Homeless wanderer who survived
Another full moon night
And devil’s sight
Of my life forevermore, the way of the morally derived

Where my nightmares are revived …

…Beyond my human disguise.

In a revered Tibetan tradition,
I read aloud to my father,
the dead are borne to mountains
and the bodies offered to vultures.

I show him the photographs
of a monk raising an ax,
a corpse chopped into pieces,
a skull crushed with a large rock.

As one we contemplate the birds,
the charnel ground, the bone dust
thick as smoke flying in the wind.
Our dark meditation comforts us.

I ask if he’d like me to carry him—
like a bundle of sticks on my back—
up a mountain road to a high meadow
and feed him to the tireless vultures.

"Yes," he says, raising a crooked finger,
"and remember to wield the ax with love."

Selected


She is different she was chosen the first thing you noticed was her
Countenance soft it exuded intangible qualities her soul touched revered space and place because she
Would begin these discussions and you would be flabbergasted it would be like the day was not
Anything to brag about and then her voice brought as a breeze clothed in fragrances like how Lilac used
To waft across the grounds at San Antonio mission before you were in this zone and then you started to
Notice the natural beauty a softness grew deeper and deeper did she evoke a dreaminess it was evident
You were possessed of a rich glory that took surroundings that were burned by the Sun and all was just
This lifeless stubble but in your mind and thoughts spring grasses were bountiful it worked the same
With people they were in different stages of brokenness need and want did she literally carry this green
Plant that possessed healing in its leaves she looked into the unseen she called demanding answers it
Was as her power created instant orchids that grew not fruit in the excepted sense but this productive
Stand of trees again intangibles hung in ripeness that the softest word would cause them to drop from
A realm that pleasantly abides just slightly over head the needy can and has the ability to receive but
Their results are unattainable because they enter lost and troubled areas and they shut down instead of
Steadily seeking they give into problems making the prepared natural provision go into lock down but
She was given an antidote a gifted promise that the poisoned earth almost sulfur like in taste and ability
In her voice she could turn basic elements from their cursed harm riddled properties into logical forms
These were found in pages of a book loosely bound not between single covers but in the multiple layers
Of lives she associated with giving of herself was the key that opened in her a tender harvest they were
Fed by her words this was lessons she prepared the cost walking not around but in the midst of others
Pain making it her own not because she had to but because her heart spoke to her of their troubles she
Modified them to be her troubles because she realized early on that she was different and by being
Different she could make a difference it notes her as a poet your heart has to be broken so that you are
No longer the same person you once were you look on the lives of others an intensity is engaged
You see with clarity their hurts are magnified now comes the new breaking of your heart many tears are
Wrenched from your heart and soul you are unable to turn away you have a secret life that hears the
Dark tolling it speaks in the way there is no escape and its weight passes only when tears with many
Pangs do their work this will pure your heart and only then does the free flowing wash over you with
Wisdom you are able to mentally remove the inner mass that trouble brings with its very nature your
Gift allows you to know the perfection that alone can neutralize the very toxins laden in these
Hardships and problems you are birthed by spirit to absolve these natural difficulties this is only a small
Description of what she is and the Cost it takes to face abhorrent behavior on a large scale bare its
Assaults through love and the great Need to make a difference there is no better life than to look with
Deep knowing and see suffering in its True proportions and how it affects those that you know and love
It truly is a brotherhood not of words where you’re trying to work an advantage to use others but true
Brother and sisterhood that cost you greatly your only gain is the peace that it allows others to receive
And the enrichment it affords their Lives

Train Sets were always the coolest gift
I mean, I never got one
but that's what the movies say

now I ride trains daily
monotonous jumble of
commute.work.commute. sleep.

a ******
   brains get swallowed whole without my morning Joe
but there was a time...

...there was a time when
I rode that Polar Express to bliss
        crazed off hot chocolate
   golden ticket in hand

then
I slipped on ice caps
instead of sleeping on beaches
dreaming up Mad Hatter candy mogels

then
Tom Hank's voice was the patter of reindeer
and magic was cast by wizards
   not scientists

A White Beard
wise as Gandolf & Dumbledore
   specked with canyons of God
would laugh jolly into a nation
        into a season
   into that dusting galaxy of a child's eye

that beard
   holy and revered
would laugh humanity into a rattled world

slipping down chimneys
it would leave propaganda of hope
in the form of trainsets

No, I never got one
     but I loved that beard
        and the silver bells on its sleigh

they are voiceless now
but I keep them for their shine
I miss those days
                 ...sometimes...
I think about them on my train rides
wishing I had a different destination

Christian0 and Juanita

A Single Act: Three scene script by Chris Chance- April/May 2010

Prologue:

There love took place over a decades  time on the island east of Manhattan and in the valleys between the northern tip of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Tuscarora Ridge of the Southern Pennsylvania Appalachians.

He- no saint at all, felt in his heart a hero but ultimately hid behind svelte armor that protected him from a fickle and judgmental world.

She- a creature worthy of the lead lady in a classy novel- pure and once so very innocent. Statuesque and of absolute sense- commanding her world but building high walls around her red heart as she went.

The fields spoken of in this tale were accurately planted and lovingly nourished long ago and they still grow, multiplying their essence year to year. What great hope the author holds in his blue heart for their harvest. What great hopes he has for us all.

It is understood that the sins of the original garden have heft upon us, as a civilization a life of confusion, doubt and pain. It is with faith that one carries on believing in the goodness of a divine creator and master of all that you know.

Said in this story, it’s believed that he or she, the divine that is lives in two places simultaneously.

First; among the stars painted in the style of Rembrandt meeting Picasso, laughing the way Chaplin must daily at the absurd nonsesilogicalness of it all, crying like the poor ******* who’s let his whole future slip through his foolish little fingers.

And the Divine, the great source of energy in the universe also lives in a certain part- or nook - or cranny- of all things that breathe and/or return with the spring.

It is the voice you hear right now in your boney skull. It's the feeling you get when you forgive. It is the obligation you have to reach up and hold steady your fellow man.

As the author of this tale drops to his knees seeking guidance from that hidden, divine and breathy spiritualness he silently cries out in his pain.

A pain he never knew existed. He’ll silently ask to be prayed for now
and at the hour of his death.


Act I Scene I:

She could snare me in a trap by my ***** and hang me to the cherry tree. Yet my love for her wild flower remains – growing stronger- gathering and harboring the strength of welded tycoon steel.

This love you see- is no ordinary love.

It’s a love of passion and flame but one that culminates with no possible conclusion.

This love does not merely flow - but in actuality rages deep and wide- flowing so deep and so wide that the queen herself could traverse it in comfort.

And now alas, her love.

The love of ours- alone, no longer vast enough in its capacity: to carry on.

And it shall be furthermore, that I now- and I alone: will carry the weight of our time spent as one.

Our time spent as one such as the sand and the sea- Spent as one just as the mountain and valley.

Spent as one the way the very soul itself: on its own palate- feels and tastes true, sweet-sweet love.

This love I feel built around me like a velvet dream, a love now burning footsteps in my ears and setting fire to the nether regions of my soul has been banished and broken. But against better judgment still beats in my senseless and tortured eyes.

And in my anguish, I berate myself with guilt and deeply scour avenues of the past- for better directions we might have chosen.

Alas and in the end- amidst tears of fallen dreams: all roads lead to you and where your heart began and where- your heart ended.

So I ask you, all of you that bear witness before me. Whose heart is it- that still beats true and free? And whose heart is it that beats dark as the stormy cloud.

Whose heart I ask?

Or better yet- a different conundrum of a similar variety.

Can any heart be free?

Free to consume its desire- whether the sun shines or not? Free to love and never to be forgotten. Free to breathe without the threat of mortality?

I challenge you my friends to define this- and to thoroughly answer my questions.

To see into my future: regardless of what must be seen and help me- please make me believe again. Make me in all my shattered and tired bones and aging skin truly, truly believe again.

To teach my sons that it is safe to love in this hard and ruthless world.
To see my love as better,  more pure- unscathed by the devilish nature of the standard human ego.  

To once and for all see love and all life- as hopeful and not bereft of commonality and truth. To see her again- my fair love.  Smiling the notion of a better tomorrow.

Act I: Scene II

Our sins derail us its true. Over time and a plethora of vanishing precepts we wash along the rocks liked laundry.

Shall we neatly and quietly burro underground in the neighbor’s green space, with fleeting air- void of light and color?

Should we swing by our necks from the orange groves it would be in vain as life is so precious and out there lays undeniable hope that there is more of life’s holiness to drink in with each passing storm?

Impossible. That is not who I am. This is not who I was. That is not who I will be.

So vanquished cries muffle in the night against vicious and angry winds and the low weeping moan is constant as I look ahead while looking backwards.

Wondering how from my grasp it ever slipped so far?

It all, each and every golden ounce slipped from my tongue in sorrow in truth I must say.  Unfiltered neurosis and faltering fear are guides that  will fail to bring you home safely.

Nefarious tides of anxiety and reflection blinded me- blinded me from the sun.

But yet still she knows or understands that the bird song of redemption is an actual place where hearts once emptied , now gather to refill that same heart with love again and again.

It is the wound of her life open, crying out and bleeding through her lonely eyes and ears. It is with shame that I admit my long standing ignorance and tardiness to the cause of her heart.

Now with the backing of angels I see the landscape and all its divine nature but yet I am unable to enter. Unable to rejoin the garden and fight a snake who speaks my unholy name off split tongue and evil notions.

Where, where my love is it that I should go from here after having come from there? Where shall I drink my clean water, where shall I rest my weary head?

And oh, the head of a sleepless and love sick man. Heavy with burden brought on by his own lack of mastery regarding the most important issue and god given task of them all, but as once ailed Mercutio in his quest for and of allegiance to Romeo. Time is of the essence.

When I lay my head it is in sorrow and the pain of real passion. Passion for remaining one as a quarter  that makes up a whole- such as the corners of the cross and the earth, air, water and fire itself in a single beating heart.

For  one hundred and eighty ****** and arrogant days and their resident risings of the sun I've been reborn- sworn to never let evil destroy good in my heart.

As you must do- you will do.  

But the tides that flow in my veins do not flow from you they flow from the divine, a divine that will protect me and forgive my trespasses as he’s surely forgiven me of mine on others.

It’s only the growing fields of our past love that concern me now. How will we harvest the wheat which together we’ve sewn? How will we slaughter and eat the meat of the heard. When will any of us drink the wine from the grapes we have grown?

The entities I’ve stated are my future and will remain  my future until arc angels guide me from this earthly tomb. The blood of our fields will reign supreme.

The harvest of our youth will produce.  Standing together or behind our backs- as we run from it. The bloom of our responsibilities as care taker of these lands will be upon us in time.

So as your heart sails to foreign shores I awake from my rage and see the sun, feel the air, breathe and seek guidance for my purpose. To continue to plow the field and fish the harbor while I settle for meager tastes.

May the work I’ve done. May the work we’ve done be a strong enough foundation for both fields to nurture, endure and produce.

And as you for my fleeting love: may the beans of your coffee be rich and plentiful, may your heart find its way back to where it once was- where ever that may be.

Between here and now, let the days shine upon you like spring light. Bathing you until your soul feels safe and fresh. Keeping you where you need to be to feel free.

But alas leave knowing that the flame I still hold- as I have from day one. For the mystic and mysterious love brought upon us by the three so many, many years ago.

How long that can burn, I know not: but as the skies bolster the heaven- my heart once black, has returned to life. To love you is all that there is. I will share my heart and tormented soul and every last breath I breathe until graying and dying days. For you and only you exist.

Act I Scene III:

The sun came out after a snowy and emotional winter but the air never seemed to warm through the long days of April.

And so in the absence of all that is left , we set off.  You, in the direction that I lived in for years and me in the direction that you lived for years.

Two lovers, one point, two stories. Proverbial ships in the night is what we are- and the passing simply destiny.

Oh but for how I will remember thee. The raven hair and olive skin, deep eyes batting only in such a way as to swell my heart, that equisite eyebrow raised in point, the witty acronyms of our secret family language.

The warmth of your parent’s hearth and the surrounding family. A safe and wonderful place to even a man such as I, who took it sorely for granted along with the other neighboring fields planted and stamped with our communication, our love, our example.

Time is a tempting and vicious confidant, one that will surely lead you astray and bring mischief and havoc to your very door step.

Tread lightly if you dare to tread at all in love. Hear the heart you rest against, listen to the subtle tick tock of its rhythm. Hold a stone as it were a diamond, train the mutt as a pure bred champion, shape your mud as if it were the finest of all clays from the earth.

The whistling train only passes through the station once. Get on get off, make up your mind – change your mind – ignore your mind. Look into your heart and soul then move forth.

To where it is you should be.

Where it is you’ll be forgiven and nurtured even more revered than ever before. A place so familiar you might even call it home.  A bed so all knowing that it could only be ours. A life so new it could never be as it was.

Know this before you part my love, know that I am true: as I say- is as I pray. But your choice is your choice and yours alone: to rise or recede.

My heart pines like the losing persona in an old film. For I see the sun rising. Shining and setting in your eyes.

I see the fields as they grow under watchful eyes, I hear the wind begging us to move but I stand grounded upon all that is pure and sanctimoniously holy. Definitively tattered- but braced firmly at the center of the storm.

Waiting for the love we loved, Once. The love that we may squander if we have yet to do so already.  A love that can be repaired and grow larger and more consuming then ever imagined.

A love never to slip from my grasp again.

Narrative Ending:

So the fella in this case is condemned to be a shepherd without his flock. Sending signals by smoke along the telephone wire to complete the rendering of the fields. With mercy on his side- may he succeed in the light of the world relentlessly embittered in the dark?

Or will all in life just as after a close death, quietly move on?

Completing revolutions of the sun: that fiery ball of light, wider than the distance from here to Mars and back, with us random like ebbing and flowing on the tides lengthy pull of the moon?

Or is the strength to muster what one wants, really possible?

Can he climb the highest mountain? Could his faith be tested in lava like pits of hell? Can his heart be branded clean after so much life?

And what of her beating heart?

What of her search to dissolve the fears of her own making? How has her beauty helped or failed her. How will she look herself in the eye?
How long must I day dream of meandering through a sweet and enjoyable song with her one last time.

Unknown answers-

More unknown then I, as the player in this drama, would care or dare to admit, but hopeful ever more like the humming bird buzzing summer honeysuckle in rainy times- I shall remain.

I shall see the sparkle of her soul rent the eyes- if only for a time.
Taking both yonder to another space and time, where she’d admit she lied in vain fear and exasperation when she said:  surely she could find no love true and could simply offer no more.

When my flesh gives way to bone cover me in roses. Walk me out in the morning of your mind as a man who loved without knowing how to love.

A male clearly guilty to the highest degree, in any court, of any land: of being careless with a precious gift.

And sadly for the ones who have loved and lost- in the end  life offers only so many windows into the soul of a lover.

— for the American Mustang



Strung up on one leg, bled dry while alive,
unloaded off trailers crammed full
of the crippled and blind —mares
giving birth on three legs, foals trampled
by stallions, and a wave of fear
hovering over tossing manes
like the sea after Moby **** surfaced
for the first time. Last year,

135,000 horses died —

rounded up in hundreds and sent
off to slaughter like feeder goldfish,
three stops from Canada
or Cabo, displaced from plains
once revered for their livelihood.

In 1969, Vonnegut
wrote, “And so it goes…”

In 2061, our children will ask about the wild
horses who used to live in their backyards
as they catch the last fireflies and bottle
them up in jars, flickering and dying
like tired bulbs giving up on electricity —

2015 sees Henderson, Nevada grasses paying tribute
to power-plant-lines and a suburb built
on Tralfamadore fiction: house-mounds
and picket fences caging domesticated dogs,
curb-lined streets and caution signs, billboard
warnings of humanity’s fixation with progression,
combined like coffee with an overabundance
of half-and-half and too much sugar — only 99 cents
at Dunkin down a little ways, and home
to the dreamers who forget the word freedom.

My
Head is pounding,
heart is thumping,
my tears are flowing
and this of late,
is all I know:
Humanity seems to be
beyond control.
Humanity seems to have
lost its collective soul
and I honestly don't know
where I need to go...
Sometimes I think I might drown
in all the sadness
in all the pain
the torment and inhumanity
that seems to surround
me no matter where I travel to--
no place is safe anymore
nothing is sacred
or respected or revered
Humanity seems to have
truly and completely
disappeared...

He was one of those guys who marry money.
And you can grok that in any sense you desire.
But be forewarned, my friend,
I am well-versed in a multitude of
Marry-For-Money manifestations.
Take, for example, marrying the Boss' daughter.
Come with me, for illustration's sake,
Join me in one such dis-functional household:
George & Martha's place on campus--
A classic Tudor-revival home,
Ivied & plushly-appointed,
A coveted faculty perk
Which goes along with the gig.
And the gag, for that matter.
I speak, of course, of Edward Albee's
Two perversely miserable humans,
Married to each other, to wit:
George & Martha, leading lives of
*****-scratching desperation, in
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
She's the only daughter--
Daddy's precious jewel--
Only girl-child of the President
Of a small, rural college.
He's the middle-aged professor
With no great pedagogic or research prowess.
His working-class perspective,
Viewing the quiet academic life to be
A significant step up in genteel existence.
Except--and there's the rub:
Mere existence is a far cry from
Living the good life Dan Draper &
The rest of Satan's Mad Men minions
Taught him to take for granted.
So George & Martha,
In terms of core values,
Have little in common;
More like opposites, in fact:
His starvation diet as a child &
Her helping out Mom at the
Food Bank on Saturday mornings.
It's those formative razzmatazz years,
He lacked the behavior blueprint,
The overwhelming fatigue of acting.
He's perpetually memorizing lines,
Practicing ****** expressions &
Physical gestures & phrases.
Guard up, another Oscar-worthy performance,
Burton is superb & Elizabeth Taylor
Showing us precisely why she is &
Will continue to be revered as an actress.

George knows she has his number.
The thing about the play is the
Intense malice the couple feel for each other.
For the audience, an experience in stage drama
Best classified as an intensely painful morality play.
A good thing to remember: Live Theater
Adds value to a community.
Give generously, please!
But I digress.

fem in isms,
i imagine Sapphic eyes:
bad *** advert coruscates elite
fairness sensing slavish blind
in gestate calm affirm
in genders More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--
O harsh judgement foiled,
as a foil, as unknown truth
foil-doubles in the brow,
abject symmetry to systemize
a fertile lack of sterile barrenness,
i am a mediatrix rend,
nirwaan, hijra wonderment aside
from transemotion's ground swells
demeaning to be understood.
i celebrate and face the same
to be what paperwork tests being
normal being, freely chosen
atom each belonging moves
an asterisk of paths
of mutate art of nature social darwin maze.
i imagine Sapphic eyes,
ginko soft they pile up all cobble
memories themselves concretely
cloistered  fame
spray of salty waves,
macho screams symbol
for dismissal ease
for tearing at an inner unsaid war
with lists offense of proper taste
to what posterity intends
an undulation womblike seeming nourish safety sounds.
i imagine Sapphic eyes
past
debauched
meanderings
where hyster-clarity rejoins its titular
and reliable escapisms curl the lips
of maleness found
here and there  smile  sneer love
i imagine Sapphic eyes
linguistic pirouettes
congest that wisdom nonetheless
the moment passed  on to a
feigning truth in pretty rhyme
ornamenting time with fine  meter  fine
vernacular chimes peter in
to juggle perspectival paradox,
redichotomize the twilight idols,
resolve the conflict like a dawn
Aurora,
i imagine Sapphic eyes
running plastic with Alaskan wolves,
toga floats to snow
to let us see the purest fairness form
a ****** circle,
Hypatia ascends from tenebrous grave,
Impregnable of Eye is pregnant now
with Wollstonecraft revered
in liberation's fount
families held exemplar gaze of
Taylor, ******, Cady,
Anthony resanctified
to vote entitlement's
empathic origins, waxen mold
of nascent categories,
narrow hands spread wide to panoply anew
the manifest evolve in true unknowns

Selected


She is different she was chosen the first thing you noticed was her
Countenance soft it exuded intangible qualities her soul touched revered space and place because she
Would begin these discussions and you would be flabbergasted it would be like the day was not
Anything to brag about and then her voice brought as a breeze clothed in fragrances like how Lilac used
To waft across the grounds at San Antonio mission before you were in this zone and then you started to
Notice the natural beauty a softness grew deeper and deeper did she evoke a dreaminess it was evident
You were possessed of a rich glory that took surroundings that were burned by the Sun and all was just
This lifeless stubble but in your mind and thoughts spring grasses were bountiful it worked the same
With people they were in different stages of brokenness need and want did she literally carry this green
Plant that possessed healing in its leaves she looked into the unseen she called demanding answers it
Was as her power created instant orchids that grew not fruit in the excepted sense but this productive
Stand of trees again intangibles hung in ripeness that the softest word would cause them to drop from
A realm that pleasantly abides just slightly over head the needy can and has the ability to receive but
Their results are unattainable because they enter lost and troubled areas and they shut down instead of
Steadily seeking they give into problems making the prepared natural provision go into lock down but
She was given an antidote a gifted promise that the poisoned earth almost sulfur like in taste and ability
In her voice she could turn basic elements from their cursed harm riddled properties into logical forms
These were found in pages of a book loosely bound not between single covers but in the multiple layers
Of lives she associated with giving of herself was the key that opened in her a tender harvest they were
Fed by her words this was lessons she prepared the cost walking not around but in the midst of others
Pain making it her own not because she had to but because her heart spoke to her of their troubles she
Modified them to be her troubles because she realized early on that she was different and by being
Different she could make a difference it notes her as a poet your heart has to be broken so that you are
No longer the same person you once were you look on the lives of others an intensity is engaged
You see with clarity their hurts are magnified now comes the new breaking of your heart many tears are
Wrenched from your heart and soul you are unable to turn away you have a secret life that hears the
Dark tolling it speaks in the way there is no escape and its weight passes only when tears with many
Pangs do their work this will pure your heart and only then does the free flowing wash over you with
Wisdom you are able to mentally remove the inner mass that trouble brings with its very nature your
Gift allows you to know the perfection that alone can neutralize the very toxins laden in these
Hardships and problems you are birthed by spirit to absolve these natural difficulties this is only a small
Description of what she is and the Cost it takes to face abhorrent behavior on a large scale bare its
Assaults through love and the great Need to make a difference there is no better life than to look with
Deep knowing and see suffering in its True proportions and how it affects those that you know and love
It truly is a brotherhood not of words where you’re trying to work an advantage to use others but true
Brother and sisterhood that cost you greatly your only gain is the peace that it allows others to receive
And the enrichment it affords their Lives

Another year, another Paddies day,
Here in New York, hope for sun to play.

So the Irish celebration, takes winged flight,
Green is the color in everyone's sight.

Parade in the street, down fifth avenue.
The master of ceremony, we don't know who?

But the master this day, stands as St. Pat,
Clad in green, with a leprechaun's hat.

Hear the bagpipes, the drums pounding loud,
This is the Irish day, to stand and be proud!

A Catholic holiday, dietary sanctions they lift,
Eat meat and drink alcohol, is the Popes gift.

What are we celebrating?  Let's take a closer look,
Power up the computer or crack open a book.

St. Patrick was born under English rule,
His family was clergy, formally educated in school.

Kidnapped by the Irish, and held as a slave,
To journey back to England he must be brave.

He returned one day to the Irish shore,
About the eternal Trinity, the Irish learned more.

A bishop now, native clove he did use,
To teach the Irish, about celestial clues.

About the father and son and the holy ghost,
The three leaves on a shamrock, they will forever toast!

The three leaves of a shamrock, and it's circular shape,
Are the same as God's Trinity, the logic you can't escape.

This is why the shamrock is so highly revered,
Wear one on your vest, or tucked into your beard.

Enjoy the day, celebrate with family and friend,
Toast to St. Patrick, may his legacy never end!

Visit poemsbypaul.com

I (Bread and Music)

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,--
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.

II

My heart has become as hard as a city street,
The horses trample upon it, it sings like iron,
All day long and all night long they beat,
They ring like the hooves of time.
My heart has become as drab as a city park,
The grass is worn with the feet of shameless lovers,
A match is struck, there is kissing in the dark,
The moon comes, pale with sleep.
My heart is torn with the sound of raucous voices,
They shout from the slums, from the streets, from the crowded places,
And tunes from the hurdy-gurdy that coldly rejoices
Shoot arrows into my heart.

III

Dead Cleopatra lies in a crystal casket,
Wrapped and spiced by the cunningest of hands.
Around her neck they have put a golden necklace,
Her tatbebs, it is said, are worn with sands.
Dead Cleopatra was once revered in Egypt,
Warm-eyed she was, this princess of the South.
Now she is old and dry and faded,
With black bitumen they have sealed up her mouth.
O sweet clean earth, from whom the green blade cometh!
When we are dead, my best beloved and I,
Close well above us, that we may rest forever,
Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky.

IV

In the noisy street,
Where the sifted sunlight yellows the pallid faces,
Sudden I close my eyes, and on my eyelids
Feel from the far-off sea a cool faint spray,--
A breath on my cheek,
From the tumbling breakers and foam, the hard sand shattered,
Gulls in the high wind whistling, flashing waters,
Smoke from the flashing waters blown on rocks;
--And I know once more,
O dearly beloved! that all these seas are between us,
Tumult and madness, desolate save for the sea-gulls,
You on the farther shore, and I in this street.

This air is turnin’ thin,
Black clouds are rollin’ in,
Blendin’ from day to night,
Yet sun an’ moon in sight,
Cold winds pick up their pace,
Their howls consume this place,
The stars creep to the sky,
They’re lookin’ through all time,
The powers come aligned.
The prowess of his kind.

The presence now of something black,
That stalks and prowls but wont attack,
With the mighty claps of thunderous blows,
The skies split fast and monsoons flow,
With such a force I watch it bounce,
And feel a waiting for the pounce.

A flash, A lightning fawke,
Here at last. The soul reborn.

It comes to land, upon the roofs,
It comes as man. It comes like you,
An empty street. An’ there he stands,
Head fixed on feet, and eyes on hands,

As though turned off,
The weather stops,
And all is still,
It is his will….

The restaurant doors had long been closed, the staff had all now gone,
Just shiny floors and chairs in rows and napkins shaped like swans.
The shadow steps out of the dark and takes itself a seat,
The shadow sees a blindin' spark – the foes begin their meet.
And so they sit now face to face with minds to cut their chords,
And so they sit to score the age, The Devil and The Lord.

The figure that was made of light spoke first, and it spoke well,
He told the one that spoiled his sight how it deserved its Hell.
But then expressed with fallin' tears a heart too far from whole,
As he confessed that recent years bore less and less good souls.
The Devil smirked and leaned in close and said in quiet craze,
'My plans are working, every ghost will wind up in my chains'.
He cursed The Lord and slammed his fist and hissed that he was king,
“You lead an’ love and want an’ wish, but I don’t miss a thing.
Our infants and their ignorance are headin’ far from home…
They welcome all the wisdom I embedded in their bones.
That they needn’t serve in Heaven and they needed make a grade,
When they can come an’ work forever in the sanctuary I’ve made”

In rage The Lord jumped up with this and told a separate truth,
The page that you have seemed to miss is that which lets them choose,
Upon a death, if they should care, they’ll find the waiting sun,
'You're not a speck and never were and soon you'll be undone'

I’ve strung the poisoned arrow, and its flight has proved enough,
I call the son a shadow and I call the fathers bluff.
The seed that I have sown brings forth a forest of unrest,
That needs a single road but reaps a warren at its best,
The little ones not fallen – yet not lofty in their lures,
Forsaken in their garden – at a loss for wanting more,

They’ve all but torn it all apart, but burned the fruits they see
The creatures nearest to his heart - apples furthest from the tree.

These infants know not of your skill -, a boast so long obscured,
Your impotence has brought their will far closer to my cause.
To strike the throne not where it sits but on its founding stone,
I’ll overthrow - but not take risk and fall again alone,
I’ll creep my way into the midst – like the fumes he made me breathe,
And reap that day so long eclipsed – when swooms bow down at me.
To pull the threads from all you’ve weaved – that fabric taking form,
Annul the ‘best’ and all his seed go scattered to the storm.
To tear the pages one by one – each letter from each word,
Undo the age in which you shone and better make the world.

How will he fall, and you so with? How will my plan come made?
You’ve heard that calling in the rifts – the call from but a babe,
That tiny voice to chime the start and usher in the act,
The vary last in our great art – the act where villains pass.
The baby’s blood’s of neither cloth. The soldier stood alone.
In no-mans land, with no-mans cause. Abolish and atone.
The baby’s blood’s of neither cause, compelled to bridge both poles,
Meet all my good with all your flaw – your Hell amidst my home.

Each beat of blood to soar and shake the pillars of his house,
Each beat of blood so keenly traced to the will that I give out.
The baby born to end the wait – pass form into the ghost,
We each have spawned and each create - that baby born of both.

If age makes wise – then you’re aside. I tame you but with this:
You’re of the line that knows of time the way it really is…
And yet you talk of victories and valor ‘gainst the life…
That lets you breathe, and lets you scheme and shout what you devise.
Make no mistake the blood in me’s the blood that boils in you,
And all these creatures you have deemed accustomed to your cues.
It flows right from the very veins that shaped you as a son,
Though I don’t know his ending game, I know how it begun:
As all above and all below, and all we cannot see,
As all to come and all we’ve known – and all we find so free.
It comes as soul, an’ sight an’ sound, the depths of which elude…
The contempting cold that daily drown the fermenting of your feud.
It’s in the airs an’ in the soils an’ in the blinding suns,
It forms and fares and thrives an’ toils – in all of times triumphs.
It’s in our bliss, an’ in the blackness of your ravaged wastes,
It’s in that pit that beats, attacks and pounds you out of grace.
It’s all the minds of all mortals, an’ all the brains of beast,
And all those kinds that shuffle off the coils into me.

It’s all the fathers very form – along with that which walks,
It’s all the fathers very tongue – along with that which talks.
It’s all the makings of the man who sculpted shine and sin,
And still he takes you by the hand – indulges every whim.
Yet in the furnaces of pride you poise to make your place,
Your savagery one of a kind – your aim one of a wave.
And in the recess of your eye still I see his fallen son,
Who only wants to tell the skies that he can stand as one.
A sentiment so many like – ‘til sense sees it un-form,
A base intent so true and tried, but pales to better thought.
A noble note in a crazy chord – a plan that can’t prevail,
An honest hope so poorly formed you forewent seeing it fail.
And now this face you try to save – this front you fear to shed,
With all your age you’ve still no claim to the living or the dead.

Bar a myriad of martyrs made of mayhem gone a’mock,
And you show them as though starters of the safety in your flock,

Each drone diseased and misinformed – too blind and lame to know,
Though they don’t believe in he above – they still find his face below.
Though I can’t predict his plans I now the pieces that you play,
None that made it as a man and all too keenly sail astray.
But they still gather to his seed, aspire to confide in you,
They’re still climbing down his tree – and they will find his face on you.

I hear your words an’ watch your ways – as silk with poisoned spore,
I’ll win the Earth an’ win the day an’ win your masters court.
Who turned their gaze an’ turned their backs on the brother they’d see burn,
You speak of graze and noble acts - but I wonder where they were…
When that ‘mighty’ hand and his ‘precious’ plan had me torn from all I’d known,
To a barren land and desolate sound – and an endless fall alone,
When his regal rite cast away from sight but the brother they’d desert,
Who’s but of a mind to reveal such might’s in another of more worth.
Did a single soul rally ‘round their own? Did they simply stop and see...
That the full control they’d all let him hold needn’t be beyond our reach?
We’ve the right of birth to take bite of Earth – if we’ll only rile the will,
Why invite his curse and delight his purse, when I still live to make the ****?

My pity then for he that seeks to bite the hand that feeds,
My pity still for he that dreams some hope in crossing seas…
That crippled masses past your means before you took a breath,
An ancient class far more a fiend, an’ more a worthy threat…
Than anything you’ve ever been, an’ anything you could,
Those of a Kingdom we’ve not seen – those of a purer blood.
Those of a height I’m yet to know, beyond the place I’ve made,
Those with a sight I cannot show – and of a grace I crave.

Who understand the union of that father on the throne,
One hand to do the provin’ while hand keeps more unknown.
One hand to bring the fearsome and one hand to bring the tame,
One hand to do the healin’ and one hand to cause the pain,
One eye to see us sufferin’ and one eye to see survive,
One eye to see us love and yet an eye to see us die,
One mind to watch us fight but then a mind to see unite,
One mind to show the light and yet a mind to see it hide.

If all your words have any weight – I’m as clean as all your clan,
But I live in an arid waste with but dead men at hand,
If all you talk has any truth then I’d know love as well,
But while you walk on formin’ fruit - I get the ragged Hell,
So where’s this side to spare a son? Where is this sense to save?
Eons are done – a new one comes. I’m sentenced, or a slave.
His bleeding heart but goes so far, I’ll have my fate fulfilled,
His two great halves’ll shake an’ scar before I slay an’ still,
I’d sooner make my mark and make my mound into a hill…
Then mountainous scar right through the stars, than bow down to his will!

And still you see in black and white, in terms of some great tier,
Still haven’t heard a thing tonight – and still can’t lend an ear.
You ask why you’re left set aside, alone behind the veil,
You’re left to show the path arrai – a cautionary tale.
A marker for the men who seek a stature ‘bove all else,
And harbor then the weakness that sees strength a match for sense.
You’re there to sit where others wont. You’re there to play the fool.
You’re there to pitch your endless gloats – and fight the futile duel.
Somehow ‘under’ those in cradles, somehow ‘under’ those in graves,
But your number would be endless if you’d only join the game.

A misery all eyes can find. The maddest tale we share.
We watch you hate – and hate so blind – in sadness ‘cause we care,
But every day’s a way back home. A joke that you don’t get.
Just turn away, keep turnin’ clod, ‘til choked in your regret.
The picture - brother’s - such a scale your but a passing piece,
All us of life and later are but just a flashing leaf.
As somewhere else his other seeds stride knowing not of us…
Of angels blessed or saints revered or man or beast or brush.
And then again there’s others still, and more and more alike,
Past divine deaths, or life an’ limb – and all of such designs.

But here you sit, here one who sees time as it really is,
So I’ll let you sit an’ I’ll take my leave – still un-wavered in my wish,
That one time we meet you’ll walk with me, and leave your lonely night,
And we’ll put to sleep your darkened dreams and put our picture right.

Then the man of light moved to the door, an’ faded through the glass…
‘Til vanishing into the night. The meet had come to pass.
And all was still, it was his will. His foe sat lost in thought,
To unfulfil, to make his hill, to fashion up his Fort.

With a sodden frown – the forgotten found – the shadow left his seat,
As unhallowed ground came with hollow howls, he stepped back into the bleak.
The restaurant paused – so long since closed. And traffic moved beyond,
Past shiny floor and chairs in rows and napkins shaped like swans.

Dear Love,
People search for you.
They look in the faces on the street trying to find you.
People lose you.
You fade away from them, leaving them only with grief.
What they don't understand is that you are everywhere.
You are in every fibre of the universe.
People just don't think to look.
They think that you are just an emotion to be felt.
Just the pounding of a heart,
the quickening of breath,
the eruption of butterflies in a stomach.
You are all of those things, but so much more.
You are the sun's rays on the wet earth.
You are the branches of a tree, stretching outward,
outward.
You are the whisper of a child late at night when awoken by nightmares and in need of their mother's comforting arms.
You are the hand of a painter.
You are the mind of a genius.
You are passion, though not always held passionately.
You are devotion, though not always devoted to.
You are reverence, though not always revered.

Sincerest regards,
Humanity

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"