A rose in the high garden that you desire.
A wheel in the pure syntax of steel.
The mountain stripped of impressionist mist.
Greys looking out from the last balustrades.

Modern painters in their black studios,
Sever the square root's sterilized flower.
In the Seine's flood an iceberg of marble
freezes the windows and scatters the ivy.

Man treads the paved streets firmly.
Crystals hide from reflections' magic.
Government has closed the perfume shops.
The machine beats out its binary rhythm.

An absence of forests, screens and brows
Wanders the roof-tiles of ancient houses.
The air polishes its prism on the sea
and the horizon looms like a vast aqueduct.

Marines ignorant of wine and half-light,
decapitate sirens on seas of lead.
Night, black statue of prudence, holds
the moon's round mirror in her hand.

A desire for form and limit conquers us.
Here comes the man who sees with a yellow ruler.
Venus is a white still life
and the butterfly collectors flee.

Cadaqués, the fulcrum of water and hill,
lifts flights of steps and hides seashells.
Wooden flutes pacify the air.
An old god of the woods gives children fruit.

Her fishermen slumber, dreamless, on sand.
On the deep, a rose serves as their compass.
The ****** horizon of wounded hankerchiefs,
unties the vast crystals of fish and moon.

A hard diadem of white brigantines
wreathes bitter brows and hair of sand.
The sirens convince, but fail to beguile,
and appear if we show a glass of fresh water.

Oh Salvador Dalí, of the olive voice!
I don't praise your imperfect adolescent brush
or your pigments that circle those of your age,
I salute your yearning for bounded eternity.

Healthy soul, you live on fresh marble.
You flee the dark wood of improbable forms.
Your fantasy reaches as far as your hands,
and you savor the sea's sonnet at your window.

The world holds dull half-light and disorder,
in the foreground humanity frequents.
But now the stars, concealing landscapes,
mark out the perfect scheme of their courses.

The flow of time forms pools, gains order,
in the measured forms of age upon age.
And conquered Death, trembling, takes refuge
in the straightended circle of the present moment.

Taking your palette, its wing holds a bullet-hole,
you summon the light that revives the olive-tree.
Broad light of Minverva, builder of scaffolding,
with no room for dream and its inexact flower.

You summon the light that rests on the brow,
not reaching the mouth or the heart of man.
Light feared by the trailing vines of Bacchus,
and the blind force driving the falling water.

You do well to place warning flags
on the dark frontier that shines with night.
As a painter you don't wish your forms softened
by the shifting cotton of unforeseen  clouds.

The fish in its bowl and the bird in its cage.
You refuse to invent them in sea or in air.
You stylize or copy once you have seen,
with your honest eyes, their smal agile bodies.

You love a matter defined and exact,
where the lichen cannot set up its camp.
You love architecture built on the absent,
admitting the banner merely in jest.

The steel compass speaks its short flexible verse.
Now unknown islands deny the sphere.
The straight line speaks of its upward fight
and learned crystals sing their geometry.

Yet the rose too in the garden where you live.
Ever the rose, ever, our north and south!
Calm, intense like an eyeless staute,
blind to the underground struggle it causes.

Pure rose that frees from artifice, sketches,
and opens for us the slight wings of a smile
(Pinned butterfly that muses in flight.)
Rose of pure balance not seeking pain.
Ever the rose!

Oh Salvador Dalí of the olive voice!
I speak of what you and your paintings tell me.
I don't praise your imperfect adolescent brush,
but I sing the firm aim of your arrows.

I sing your sweet battle of Catalan lights,
you love of what might be explained.
I sing your heart astronomical, tender,
a deck of French cards, and never wounded.

I sing longing for statues, sought without rest,
your fear of emotions that wait in the street.
I sing the tiny sea-siren who sings to you
riding a bicycle of corals and conches.

But above all I sing a shared thought
that joins us in the dark and the golden hours.
It is not Art, this light that blinds our eyes.
Rather it is love, friendship, the clashing of swords.

Rather than the picture you patiently trace,
it's the breast of Theresa, she of insomniac skin,
the tight curls of Mathilde the ungrateful,
our friendship a board-game brightly painted.

May the tracks of fingers in blood on gld
stripe the heart of eternal Catalonia.
May stars like fists without falcons shine on you,
while your art and your life burst into flower.

Don't watch the water-clock with membranous wings,
nor the harsh scythe of the allegories.
Forever clothe and bare your brush in the air
before the sea peopled with boats and sailors.

These are modern English translations of poems written in Middle English by the medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer. A Chaucer bio follows the translated poems.

THREE RONDELS BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER: MERCILESS BEAUTY, ESCAPE, REJECTION,

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

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

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

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



Original Middle English text:

Your yën two wol sle me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene,
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.

And but your word wol helen hastily
My hertes wounde, whyl that hit is grene,
Your yën two wol sle me sodenly;
may the beaute of hem not sustene.

Upon my trouthe I sey yow feithfully,
That ye ben of my lyf and deth the quene;
For with my deth the trouthe shal be sene.
Your yën two wol sle me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene,
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.



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

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

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

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



Original Middle English text:

Sin I fro love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
Sin I am fre, I counte him not a bene.

He may answere, and seye this or that;
I do no fors, I speke right as I mene.
Sin I fro love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene.

Love hath my name y-strike out of his sclat,
And he is strike out of my bokes clene
For ever-mo; ther is non other mene.
Sin I fro love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
Sin I am fre, I counte him not a bene.
Explicit.






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

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

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

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



Original Middle English text:

So hath your beaute fro your herte chaced
Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne;
For Daunger halt your mercy in his cheyne.

Giltles my deth thus han ye me purchaced;
I sey yow soth, me nedeth not to feyne;
So hath your beaute fro your herle chaced
Pilee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne

Allas! that nature hath in yow compassed
So gret beaute, that no man may atteyne
To mercy, though he sterve for the peyne.
So hath your beaute fro your herte chaced
Pitee, that me ne availeth not to pleyne;
For daunger halt your mercy in his cheyne.



The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When April with her sweet showers
has pierced the drought of March to the root,
bathing the vines’ veins in such nectar
that even sweeter flowers are engendered;
and when the West Wind with his fragrant breath
has inspired life in every grove’s and glade’s
greenling leaves; and when the young Sun
has run half his course in Aries the Ram;
and while small birds make melodies
after sleeping all night with open eyes
because Nature pierces them so, to their hearts―
then people long to go on pilgrimages
and palmers to seek strange lands ...



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

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

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

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

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



To Rosemounde: A Ballade
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Madame, you’re a shrine to loveliness
And as world-encircling as trade’s duties.
For your eyes shine like glorious crystals
And your round cheeks like rubies.
Therefore you’re so merry and so jocund
That at a revel, when that I see you dance,
You become an ointment to my wound,
Though you offer me no dalliance.

For though I weep huge buckets of warm tears,
Still woe cannot confound my heart.
For your seemly voice, so delicately pronounced,
Make my thoughts abound with bliss, even apart.
So courteously I go, by your love bound,
So that I say to myself, in true penance,
"Suffer me to love you Rosemounde;
Though you offer me no dalliance.”

Never was a pike so sauce-immersed
As I, in love, am now enmeshed and wounded.
For which I often, of myself, divine
That I am truly Tristam the Second.
My love may not grow cold, nor numb,
I burn in an amorous pleasance.
Do as you will, and I will be your thrall,
Though you offer me no dalliance.



Original Middle English text:

Madame, ye ben of al beaute shryne
As fer as cercled is the mapamounde,
For as the cristal glorious ye shyne,
And lyke ruby ben your chekes rounde.
Therwith ye ben so mery and so jocounde
That at a revel whan that I see you daunce,
It is an oynement unto my wounde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce.

For thogh I wepe of teres ful a tyne,
Yet may that wo myn herte nat confounde;
Your semy voys that ye so smal out twyne
Maketh my thoght in joy and blis habounde.
So curtaysly I go with love bounde
That to myself I sey in my penaunce,
"Suffyseth me to love you, Rosemounde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce."

Nas neuer pyk walwed in galauntyne
As I in love am walwed and ywounde,
For which ful ofte I of myself devyne
That I am trew Tristam the secounde.
My love may not refreyde nor affounde,
I brenne ay in an amorous plesaunce.
Do what you lyst, I wyl your thral be founde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce.



A Lady without Paragon
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hide, Absalom, your shining tresses;
Esther, veil your meekness;
Retract, Jonathan, your friendly caresses;
Penelope and Marcia Catoun?
Other wives hold no comparison;
Hide your beauties, Isolde and Helen;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.

Thy body fair? Let it not appear,
Lavinia and Lucretia of Rome;
Nor Polyxena, who found love’s cost so dear;
Nor Cleopatra, with all her passion.
Hide the truth of love and your renown;
And thou, Thisbe, who felt such pain;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.

Hero, Dido, Laodamia, all fair,
And Phyllis, hanging for Demophon;
And Canace, dead by love’s cruel spear;
And Hypsipyle, betrayed along with Jason;
Make of your truth neither boast nor swoon,
Nor Hypermnestra nor Adriane, ye twain;
My lady comes, all stars to outshine.



“Cantus Troili” from Troilus and Criseide
by Petrarch
“If no love is, O God, what fele I so?” translation by Geoffrey Chaucer
modernization by Michael R. Burch

If there’s no love, O God, why then, so low?
And if love is, what thing, and which, is he?
If love is good, whence comes my dismal woe?
If wicked, love’s a wonder unto me,
When every torment and adversity
That comes from him, persuades me not to think,
For the more I thirst, the more I itch to drink!

And if in my own lust I choose to burn,
From whence comes all my wailing and complaint?
If harm agrees with me, where can I turn?
I know not, all I do is feint and faint!
O quick death and sweet harm so pale and quaint,
How may there be in me such quantity
Of you, ’cept I consent to make us three?

And if I so consent, I wrongfully
Complain, I know. Thus pummeled to and fro,
All starless, lost and compassless, am I
Amidst the sea, between two rending winds,
That in diverse directions bid me, “Go!”
Alas! What is this wondrous malady?
For heat of cold, for cold of heat, I die.



GEOFFREY CHAUCER BIO

Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1340-1400) is generally considered to be the first major English poet, the greatest English poet of the Medieval Period, and the greatest English poet before Shakespeare. Chaucer is best known for The Canterbury Tales but was also a master of lyric forms such as the rondel and balade. Chaucer has been called the "Father of English literature" as well as the "Father of English poetry" and has been credited with helping to legitimize the English vernacular for literary purposes at a time when French and Latin were preferred by England's "upper crust." In fact, for more than three centuries after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, no English king had spoken English! Chaucer helped change that, and he was also the first writer to have been buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Translator's note: There has been considerable confusion between the terms rondeau, rondel and roundel. Rather than dwelling on technicalities, I prefer the "a rose by any other name" approach. I believe "rondel" was the term being used for the English variety in Chaucer's day, although spellings were haphazard back then.



THE CONTINUING INFLUENCE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER
by Michael R. Burch

This is my answer to a question posed on Quora ...

How did the literature of the Middle Ages affect the poetry of the ages to come?

It was like a chain reaction!

Take just one writer, Geoffrey Chaucer. He influenced English poets, poetry and literature in profound and important ways.

Chaucer was the first major poet to write primarily in English. Before Chaucer the majority of poetry produced in England had been written in other languages: Anglo-Saxon (heavily Germanic), French, Greek and Latin. At the time Chaucer wrote, English kings were still speaking French, the language of the crown, and the courts of law were still being conducted in Latin. Obviously, the choice of a major poet to write his masterpieces in “******” English had a profound influence on writers to come. And not only on poetry, but on all English literature and even the language itself.

But for all his English-ness, Chaucer was a cosmopolitan poet. His influences included French poets, Ovid, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Through his continental influences, Chaucer helped broaden and deepen English poetry and literature. For example, Chaucer wrote English rondels patterned after the French.

Chaucer’s characters such as the Wife of Bath seem alive and fully-fleshed, and no doubt influenced how Shakespeare drew characters of his like Falstaff. Thus Chaucer had tremendous influence on English playwrights, through his own and Shakespeare’s continuing influence.

Chaucer has also been credited with introducing iambic pentameter and rhyme royal to the English language. With his early version of iambic pentameter, Chaucer was able to write longer poems that seemed natural and conversational while maintaining an enjoyable rhythm. The more musical English poets would follow his lead. For instance, the mellifluous Edmund Spenser claimed to be the reincarnation of Chaucer. That is some influence!

We can see the influences of Chaucer — iambic pentameter, fully-fleshed characters, etc. — in the highly popular plays of playwrights like Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. So Chaucer helped make English poetry popular. He was like Elvis inspiring the Beatles. John Lennon once said, “Before Elvis there was nothing.” Modern English language poets might opine, “Before Chaucer there was nothing, or very little.”

Keywords/Tags: Geoffrey Chaucer, roundel, rondel, translation, escape, escaped, love, fat, prison, break, lean, bean, free, plan, roster, list, book, books, clean, count

wee ribbit, hoppin, daftie beastie
a rebber baind is in tha breastie
thou needs but waindie baindie up
and off tha hop
i *** be laith to rin an chase thee
tha niver stop

wee hoppin freggie tha smal laigs
is baitter spring than sailver stail
but i wud giv ye this advaice:
dinna tak a chance
some think tha laigs a taestie meal
dinna *** ta france

nu laieth flattie en the wa'
laik paice o' paeper gon astra'
nae mair tha hoppin in the aer
sae daft an barmy
the ainly fewture fair thee now
is origami

A smal book of illustrated poems in my new book
Animal Crackers
Now on Amazon.com/author/richardratliff
My quirky humor available for all
Order now help a starving poet

Smal at first,
Distracting even.
Annoying perhaps?
Grow bigger and bigger,
Still you push them aside.
Nobody notices, nobody cares
Take it out on yourself
Don't let them know
Your better off without them
Suddenly there bigger then you
You no longer can control them
And suddenly your gone there gone
But you've somehow created more.

Animal Crackers
A smal book of illustrated poems in my new book
Animal Crackers
Now on Amazon.com/author/richardratliff
My quirky humor available for all
Order now hellp a starving poet
Great Christmas guilt

Lungs were made for oxygen.
If anything, you could probably give
them the lack and they would still be fine
for a smal fraction of time
So when you add something new
they don't know what to do.
They freeze up and just let you be you

ope n al l t h e smal lt hin gs (between)
th ei rmiddle s i swri th e ge n tl         y
m yst er y (that which tiny wanders
awe) brigh tfast bl indl ingly w i t h e r s

                   faceshands

into dust stumbling minutely though
g   r   a    s  p in ga nd b    i   t  i n       g
so open all the small things (boys and
girls open them they have empty which
like you have and faster more colorful
nothing they) s                                        o
open all the small things boysandgirls
spilling from them running rivers of
poppies splayed out in raw pallid eve
rushing through cambered fragility
(that instantly with precise mess flair
with the curving orange of death       )

My fingers are powdered with vitamin C residue
as I place the smal pill on my tongue
and taste the bitter thing
with buds eager for something strong and overpowering
...too strong...
and the taste matches my mood
with tangy, heavy shock
I swallow it in hopes that it will help
with my swollen bronchial... whatever...
I finger the bottom of the bottle
for a second pill
2 left...
2 to go...
2 to overload my body with it's immune health properties
more powder on my fingers
I **** it off in a mindless manner
as only a bitter stillness has taken me over this morning
eyes still swollen
from the night of crying before
...more powder from the bottom
I need more of that bitter taste

the soil is baked hard and crusty,
I dig in my toes but barely manage
to scrape it.  a dry wind
like hot breath scours,
soaking into every fingerprint formed
in the landscape.
I stand on a rock face some hundred feet
above it, the arrid plain featureless
allowing the eye to see endlessly
til the edge of the planet rolls off
into the horizon. the sky
like a sentinal with stone clouds
moving quickly, pounding their way
along the glittering dome.
for a moment one obscures the
sun and I am bathed in
shadows, the edges of which
like torn paper against
a bare lightbulb: blinding.
I scream and my voice is absorbed
by the dirt and rocks and smal
tufts of wild grass which crinkle
dry: the sound is hollow and
seems to burst from somewhere
that isnt me.
here ambition is meaningless
and humanity is dead ear
and I am nothing and
so are you.

Dear mother,
You say you feel hurt by what I have done.
You say that my issues are affecting you.
But dear mother,
Do you not know where these issues come from?
I think you do, but your ego is too high for you to climb off it.
Dear mother
You say you love me,
But then you never show me.
I get guilt trips and tounge lashings.
You control every aspect of who I am.
You say I'm not valid.
You reject my love,
No matter how I explain it.
The things you make me do to make myself fit into your smal margine of "exceptable" make me sick to the stomach.
Dear mother,
Don't you know that when you get in my face about how I'm a girl and that's just the way it is and it won't ever change, just because I said I'm not a girly girl
Don't you know how much that ******* hurts?
You tear apart every aspect of myself and then wonder why I'm not perfectly put together.
Dear mother
When you get mad at me for being me. You're not keeping a daughter, you lost her long ago but you were too busy with yourself to notice.
But now you're not gaining a new child in her place.
You made sure if that.
Dear mother
Why do I try and do things my way?
I don't know, maybe because you abondond us and I had to fill your shoes.
I grew up by the age of 12.
I have had enough time to learn how things work for me, yet you insist on your way only.
And I'm a failure if I do it any way but yours.
Dear mother
You say you know everything about me.
But do you know about the nights spent crying,
The lunches spent hiding,
Or my head throbbing?
Do you know how dysphoria racks through my entire being, killing me a bit more everyday.
How about the things I write, or the thoughts in my mind slyly trying to turn me to their side.
Dear mother
Do you know that wasn't my only try?
That was only the one that would have worked.
I tried to reach out but you only swept me under the rug and then stomped on it.
Dear mother
I am aware of my chance at a new start in Sweden,
But dear mother do you realize you are the one stopping me from that.