briano alliano at saturn club rings


hi dudes and welcome to my show, the first song is born to PARTY

you see i was born to PARTY, on a sarturday night

i don’t care what the oldies say, i will just party anyway

you see i have a reason, everything is going well



so i will just party hardy, yeah i feel so cool

i want to be like the young dudes of this land

and get into the party spirit every way i can

i don’t really need a reason, no, i am cool anyway

you see i was born to party, so i will do it anyway

i will sink into the ground man, wearing high heel shoes

i will go to my mates house, with dreams of moving in

he was a bit mental, as he couldn’t understand

that i was born to party, and that is what i do

you see we will grab a methane and squirt it everywhere

and then grab a beer or two, yeah that is quite yobboish

you see we get drunk which means we are high on life

every day of the yeah, so we were born to party

like the young dudes do, ya see don’t spike my drink, man

i am too cool for you, you see i have a point in life, to never

unattend my drink, you see i know the tablet will make you drowsy

so he could kidnap you, bu i am too cool for that

you see i was born to party, and that is what i do

i was born to party, fun for me and you

hi dudes and now here is rock the party

you see i feel like i am having fun rock the party rock the party

i wanna party while the night is young, rock the party rock the party

i cheer for the ACT brumbies, well, they lost well, they lost

you see the bar is a open a open a open, and the party is turning on all the party going dudes

and the beer is selling quickly along with the gassy methane, man

ready to tip the methane on us, man, we will party

you see i saw a house which was great, and my mate wanted me to move in

so i thought about it, it’ll be fun to party, fun to party fun to party on

moving on up and moving on down and marilyin monroe put on a broadway show on neptune so cool

then sam kinison sang wild thing, and i liked his add lib, you know my heart is longing for you dude

making you wanna scream, rock the party rock the party

then i ate some cheese and bacon *****, and gusted them down with coke

the party started to form in my mouth and making me feel so cool

before i went to sleep i listened to kiss, bon jovi and a broadway show, called spiderman

and i ate mars bars and drink juice, yeah that sounds so radical

saturday night is the night to rock the party rock the party

and i opened a keg of methane and tipped it all over adam walsh and brett

to improve the quality of the olsen twins, to make them PARTY again

so really we are getting into a great rock the party rock the party

and we’ll party all saturday night long

hi dudes and now here is another tune called my life is a stinker

you see last night i was wondering why i haven’t performed on stage

could it be that i was too **** shy, or was it i was just not ready

i really want it all so ****** much, to show the world how to party party

but this is how i just relax, and let my life pass me by

you see my life is a stinker, every day and night

i want to party, but it’s a secret just between you and me

you see i spend my money on fun and games, mainly done with alcohol

i buy my girl some raggedy old fashioned sort or doll

she yelled at me from 10 to 10, it was hard for me to cope

and the only way to get past this, is switch on the TV to hear the pope

my life is a stinker, every day and night, i wish you would leave me alone, please mate yeah alright

ooooooh cosmos

my way of entertainment is the poetry slam, and bad slam no biscuit yeah

i entertain everyone oh yeah, i shake their ****** boogie, yes my dear

then my name is called and i enter the stage and slam

my poetry like it’s a good thing, dude, every day and night

my life is a stinker, every day and night

you see we will party hardy every night, no i say no to fights

cause my life is a stinker, take me away from the psych ward

that isn’t the place for me, i am too nice for that place

hi dudes, and here is another song called fly burgers

fly burgers are good enough to eat

fly burgers are such a tasty treat

just catch a blowie between two buttered buns

add some lettuce and tomato and have so much fun

now at the footy, the flies are cooking on the plate

they are saying, momma, you are stopping up too late

just catch a well cooked blowie, and throw him in the bowl

where you have the burger mix, yeah that is so cold

fly burgers, are good enough to eat

fly burgers, are such a tasty treat

just catch a blowie between two buttered buns

add some lettuce and tomato

and have so much fun

in a restaurant a fly comes in and parks on the griller

you feel like honking like dharma’s old yeller

but instead you get two buttered buns and lettuce and tomato

get the fly and serve him up, tasty as gelato

fly burgers are good enough to eat

fly burgers are such a tasty treat

just catch a blowie between two buttered buns

add some lettuce and tomato’'

and have so much fun

in the summer friends drop round to enjoy the atmosphere

some bring coke some bring wine

and most of them brought beer

the bbq man noticed a fly upon his back

he gets the fly and serves him up, OH HERE JACK

fly burgers, are good enough to eat

fly burgers are such a tasty treat

just catch a blowie between two buttered buns

add some lettuce and tomato

and have so much fun

the hospital has been busy this year since fly burgers were on the menu

people say fly burgers put germs right in you

an old man and a young boy, both died of food poisoning

but nobody knows if it was the fly burgers that did them in

fly burgers are good enough to eat

fly burgers are such a tasty treat

just catch a blowie between two buttered buns

add some lettuce and tomato, my dray

and have some and have so and have so much fun

hi dudes, this is a song called i am a family party dude

i am a family person who is looking everywhere for a party

at the club on grand final daY, and on poetry slam day

where we yell out bad slam no biscuit bad slam no biscuit

all the ****** day, we could be celebrating your daughters graduation

from a school she so adored

then we drag out the old songs, and the young dudes get bored

you see partying is so much fun, no matter how hard you try

you see you try and be a fun loving guy like who really loves to p a r t y

oooh, i wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day

how much coffee do you drink to whisk the hangover away

i used to go to the blind beggars inn, to really let my hair down

now, i party at home with youtube, yeah that sounds so rad

you see i am a family party dude, who wants to have some fun

i want music and sport, yeah alrighty, that sounds like my type of fun

cool man, cool you, i say cool me, i am a family party dude

the man of the party is here, last night i went to the club to watch the brumbies they lost i won

the chance to go home and party in front of youtube, with bon jovi and kiss as well as spiderman the musical, pretty rad

then i fell asleep on the couch, ready to come to you, and show you how to party hardy, yeah that is true blue

hey true blue, don’t say the party’s over, just because you go home, doesn’t mean you can’t party

you see i used to go to night clubs and swing with the cool dudes there, hey true blue

you see i am a family party dude, i party everywhere

i am getting younger by the minute, and i still love life, so party on dudes, no fear

i get up late on sunday morning, after this great party in the stars

and after this, i will go to jupiter and neptune to muck around in bars

tipping methane all over everyone, yeah that sounds radical dude

PARTY PARTY PARTY on saturday night, yeah i am so cool

cool you, yeah cool me, the coolest dude of the cosmic realm

ready to party yeah we will

Her pulse rate
Please match me
"Bee's high"

No fireflies to burn my money
Honeycup fingers devour it
The yellow- brick road pours it
The Van Gogh yellow
Honey Queen Bees follow
their fellows
Am I Waiting? 12345_*

The first mate
he ain't got my sting
The others don't mean a thing
The headset swirled to pitch black
Watch your tattoo back blinded
by your yellow
Too many honeycombs
spoiling his ring,
His honey like some hot disease
What an increase in salary
month of June
All the Kingsman double sting it

On the ebb, to triple play it
It's a  Lil- Deb on the ebb
buzzing the personal
Up close the sting
One of a web kind
He makes his move
"Google it" checkmate

Miss Butterfingers her
clicks get stuck
He caught her act
What a stinker

He checked her off the fate
of a singer

To update, on the ebb bees
Sting Shrine what's mine
But why on your time?
That parking meter roar lion coins
build me a buttercup
What a buzz cut please shut up
On the ebb of my interns the
a seduction that's no crime

The Queen of Cherchez
So the lemon square
Bee's at 1960 Worlds fair
He took the bait
La Femme au-fait
Post date, 
 The ebb bees
two lips stick like beeswax
The ebb of everlasting sales tax

"Les of the Mohicans"
of her most desirable
words he narrates,
The honey-blush trees
Upstate

Bees on his proposal knees down
The Queen's bees money

Money for nothing and your
checks for free our freedom
Dire Strait music shrine
Sunshine Gold free state
She donates her heart he awaits

Like 100 degrees hottest light
The golden armor shield
Bees were coming to America
Oh say can you see by the
Dawn-Sting Night

His overflow
His soul the magnitude
every heartbeat
extremity on the ebb of destruction
On the edge of our sanity web rated

Taking a long devouring breath
Like it came at birth
Ripleys believe it or not
forget me not flowers bees
Love was true never to
be false eyelashes

He touched her skin
He goes deeply drawn in
Sting shrine all the envy of mine

Ebb of the darkness her virginity
like a novice

The sting buzzes shes the naughty novella
His sunrise spread with his pocket knife
That honey (Goddess) sun Italiano

Sting shrine like Valentine her Spa treatment
To be raised in the
"Amazon Prime" Honeybee sticky hands

Facebook take a look everyone is an open book
On her ebb of the Emmy multiplying
I hear the bees **** seduction
Geology is the Bees Queen hot Sting
Her impulses she tried to hold back
But went forward with her
desires of him
Her draws bumble bee lingerie
She was the drawback
Wanting her ringback
Honey eyes were set back
And I'll be back to slingback

Asteroid Ebb of her hub ******
God
Wicked impulses being
aroused by his hot yellow rod
Like the smile increased
her face value
All body textures of virtue

What a pressure body point
Attuned to the sting shrine
The Monk the bees are alive
with the sound of
music modifying her sting Gods
Got reckless Moms whats the odds
Like a shock of eternal love, I'm sold

Toxicity facing our reality  
That's the jungle of publicity
Duplicity like the twin city
Both smiled bright yellow and black
Dress Bumblebee sexuality
To its authenticity

Her color of lips
build his sexuality
Beehive sanctuary
Playing the flute
Ebb Bees are so cute

Her name is Brooklyn
beehive of hair
Heres the shock waves bride of
Frankenstein
Changed to better
brains of Einstein

They both stare face to face
Her ebb of the tip
of her ***** with Grace
We earned this day
Be happy I crown you
Queen each and
every day

I am a lovesick puppy.

Wanting so badly,
to let my nose rest on someone's ***,
and stick my tongue
in their stinker.

Aren't we all lovesick puppies?
don't all our fingers
smell like the unloading dock
where we were first castrated?

Sorbian, meaning, tickling the armpit of Germany
in terms of what's the desired encoding;
the variations of person:
            čłowjek (upper sorban)
               cłowjek (lower   "    )
     čovjek (croatian)
                           člověk    (czech')
człowiek (polish)      clawak (polabian)
              człowiek (kashubian)     človek (slovak)
                                 człowiyk (silesian)
         чoлoвік (ukranian).

' well, there is a little misunderstanding with the
  czech caron e (ě), mind this later.

yes, the peasants spoke more softly
compared with urban sharpening of accents,
so that you knew that in urban areas South
London has hardly Hackney Cockney,
and never Richmond, like Essex never spoke
good Yorkshire -
                             so they sharpened the letters
and that translated into involving accents
to later be abused -
                             the recipe? yes,
i was cooking Ukrainian Borscht today -
apart from the fact that Borscht isn't exactly classified
as a soup, a Borscht is a *Borscht,
   it transcends the category of being a soup,
just like rosół transcends the same category of being a soup,
           it's a very fine version of what is otherwise
chicken soup -
                            and as a critique of western cuisine?
why are all western soups like puree? they have
snot consistency, they ever never see-through -
they're all ******* creamy, like toddle-pulp of mauled
faeces - as if a bird feeding its chicks with regurgitated
products - eastern soups are see through,
floating bits you can see, a bit like the sea turned into
a Narcissus clarity. let me tell you,
the nurses love hearing the answers to the questions:
do you do any exercise?
                 yes, i walk everyday, once a week a take on
the miles.
             do you smoke?
        i try to fit within a packet of 20 a day.
do you drink?
                   only on alternative days.
        do you eat your five-a-day necessary ration
of fruits and vegetables?
          i don't like fruits... i avoid them...
vegetables? sure.
the basic ingredients of an Ukrainian broth?
        carrots, beetroots, celery, parsley root,
potatoes, leeks, fibre: green broad beans,
                   mushrooms,
                         red borscht concentrate
           white borscht concentrate for the sourness -
garlic.
                             (base? chicken, salt to taste).
well, coming back to the czech variation of the word
person... i feel there's a need to somehow find
diacritical uses coherent -
                                  i can only see it as
the nakedness of the original phonta (variation
on quanta: a specified sound being encoded with each
letter) -
                      it's diacritical marks akin to punctuation
marks and a few mathematical deliberates -
                  e.g. caron:
                                                        z
                                                      š
the z is invited to be applied to the s to make a shush
stress -
                                       arms wide open looking to
the sky for manna from heaven -
soon enough and y and j were confused with
yaks, tetragrammatons and some Spanish conquistadors
named Jesus - whether jumping or yanking the
shortest straws while sitting in a kayak -
or as Jacky said yards ahead if himself -
                   for every Jew there's a yew tree blossoming.
              there should be a rule of law stating:
only such and such diacritical marks to be applied
to vowels, and such and such marks to be applied to
consonants - but, evidently, this is not the norm -
             these are not merely unconscious accepted
aesthetic consideration, when i was being taught
French at school, i was never taught that
    ê (circumflex e) does as much damage to pronunciation
as does the è (grave e) - i.e. the circumflex is binding
the two letters in-between the stressed vowel,
while the incisor e with è cuts the word off when it's used -
              so the caron (mathematically more than? i.e. >)
  asks pleading to the skies for a letter to balance on?
   and the circumflex looks to the earth to find the seashells
and pebbles?
                             as in less than? i.e. <     ?
i rose above language, i rose above spelling because
i decided i could say to Bukowski's claim of genius:
tie your shoelaces before you talk to me:
simple as simply said: whatever lessons in life
i have to learn i'll learn them by my own accord -
               being drunk in Europe is the norm,
as is prostitution -
               last time the police booked me for drinking
i wasn't there... last time i talked with the Bulgarian mafia
i went back to get my debit card back,
            the **** showed me a wallet with 100 or so more
credit cards, i said: none of these are mine...
          the police cruised pretending law abides to the
standard imposed by politicians...
                   prostitution is fair game, but
keeping the girls contrary to self-employment is abhorred....
            me? i just don't do the dating scene,
should i be harrowed from that hide & seek of western
society's women woefully fishing? can i?
i can't be bothered with the games and the Geisha.
                       - you reach the proper level of appreciation
when you start to ridicule your heroes -
                                  you overpower them,
there's no point brown-nosing them with excess over-quotation,
you brown-nose them for a while, but then the gimmicks
begin... and they know it to be true:
    i' peg down Mr. B like anyone critical of getting an
education: learn to spell, and punctuate, and tie your shoelaces.
       you can't let them get away with it... those dumb-*****,
you can't: we all have a sad story...
    does anyone give a ****? m'eh... probably not.
it's the part when he says he read philosophy
but never bothers the ideas behind into a narrative:
                                   with him your end up *******
before Sophia rather than ******* her...
                        you have to **** her at some point...
                  no point ******* women and simply
******* before the deity -
                  better nothing ******* women and not
******* before the deity of worded fertility -
i was brown-nosing him for much too long...
                 whatever he said in his defence,
i'm aiming to capture the imagination akin to ****** addicts.
                      and that's hardly a feat to undertake.
so yeah, punctuation marks and some mathematical marks
above the Latin... Greek went wholly toward the Cyrillic -
oddly enough a Persian, Cyrus, entombed it into the strength
it possesses, rather than some Saint...
                                        so if i'm a loser at considering
myself a citizen of the world... what is Syria to me?
                                               Syria to me being Anglo-Slav
is:                    when Ramses destroyed Syria...
            don't come here with Westminster, please don't,
leave it out in the open with the paedophiles...
                                            i'm a citizen of England,
not of this world: you keep concerns over Syria where
you're at... if i can't be a citizen of thee world in a world
of globalisation, don't include me!
                                    diacritical marks, punctuation
alongside mathematical Copernican -
                                             yes, umlaut and the colon:,
what's the list? an extra oh... the latter phrase for
          omicron.
                                               Boršč or z z (zed zed)
             or h h (tricky, hay hay? ****** ******?
                               hatch hatch?)
            evidently the pronounced: shoo!
                                                        stinker that one:
given z morphs into h when given s or c...
                                i guess it's easier with      šč,
                   a.k.a.           shch...
and the most frequently asked question in English?
(by the middle class), how do you pronounce this?
                   you know why gangsters don't attack
educated people?
                           they love the fact that people made
the effort to learn reading and curtail other peoples' efforts
in changing perceptions -
                  for me it was always about being taught bad
French and rewriting the laws of stress -
                       i'll never understand the caron on vowels:
sure, the French makes it assured to make the circumflex
and the grave accenting above vowels synonymous...
  &

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"

that you may read poetry without a tongue, with a plight
of sore eyes, of eager eyes, only eyes,
and shelter yourself from the rain
with a hand agreeing to greet it falling extended:
plucking mushrooms as you
might be reasonable meeting it with
umbrellas - but umbrellas
far beyond the flowery gutter of scent
and decaying ambition where the frugal
fungal arise like lechery of goblin ****
celebrated - some might add
a dice throw of Macadamia nuts -
eyed i too you the death-stinker;
this is the English revision of Zulu -
primitive tongue extended into abstract,
by those speaking English as foreign,
my English is an English reversed on
the colonialists - its a robbing tongue when
effectively used, with this in mind
i'm starting to think the Irish are bigger *****
than the Welsh even with the middle exported
as V into France and the longbow-men -
remember the antonym of German compounding
is the hyphen in English - optic talk -
failed rubrics of arithmetic for one,
failed rubrics of spelling the other -
i wish you knew English as well as you once
you knew Swahili - i actually wish you knew
Swahili ably talking to you grandparents...
i'm not your grandfather, even though
i wish he wishes he was -
you became gluttonous in tongue as they in body,
fat overdose from mono-linguistic apartheid -
you let them undermine the bilingualism
inherent in you... the Prussians
and the Russian and the Austrians never stole our
tongue... of course we devolved it borrowing
too many words, but loan nouns are never able to evolve
into slang, into urban talk that deconstructs nations,
where once was France now there's only Paris,
the same with England and London;
that you may read poetry without a tongue,
and make tongue read unto mind a Braille -
goosebump fidgety prickle - sour palette without
saying Thai in York - for the eyes to see the deformity
at hand, for the tongue to turn silent for one evening
alone, Venetian snares of the omni- eyed fake
entrusted with Cerberus' oath (only howl a wake
when your master Hades passes into the Styx for
voice of democratically reprimanding judgement over all
souls to arise from droplet into their own content
river form); for i too would have taken to resurrecting
the tongue, but the tongue was forgotten for a purpose
of agility in sports and un-thought poetics of excessive
rhyme, hardly the jazz, hardly the blues,
and hardly poetry - jazz i agree beyond measure a mint
cloud among the down-pouring heavy-clad-grey-clouds
of Mozart - i admit the blues the invigoration -
but rap? rap i just don't get.
me and this homeless man just laughed it off:
and i'm a Brazilian (blue tracksuit bottoms,
yellow t-shirt, green hoodie) - Eminem nemo Emo?
get the beach bleach out... we're going to stain those
starfish as coordinates' worth of horoscope... twirling
twirling twirling... cartwheels a'hoo a'hoo a'hoo ha hey.
i mean, sorry, i don't get the "hood" -
i don't get post-grunge either... i think i'm getting old -
and it's true what they say... the only black friend
was a drug dealer - wanted me to teach his daughter
to play the guitar... i said i listened to Bob Marley's sons
and he said i listened to culture -
racial stereotypes can be fun, i guess, if you're honest
about them... keen on the Illuminati,
so i said: anything better than Kubrick's eyes wide shut ******?
n'ah? hell, if it can't beat that, what's the interesting part?
or as i itemise the rewards the Koran states...
those 72 virgins... is that a metaphor for gym membership?
if you're a lazy drunk like me... the last thing
you want is 72 eager beavers.

Ari is a kitten
He had me quite smitten
But he’s a stinker
And he isn’t a good thinker
He chomp’s on my toes
And licks my nose
But he’s my kitten
And still has me quite smitten

yesterday may have been my birthday.

you need two hands, two feet,
a multiplication table
an abacus to count my years,
each finger, worth a decade.
each toe, perhaps, a century.

birthdays.

a point of inflection,
a point of opportunity,
a present presents itself,
to rewrite history.

a second coat of paint,
gift-wrapped in weak excuses.
how I lied, how I ain't,
grimm-fated fairy tales
somebody else created.

invisible suits of gold-cloth
worn to my party of
past rewrit and
future foretold.

one single thought,
memory,
seizes my heart,
as I fall to my knees.
cracks my temperate ease,
renders open the
woof and weave
of recycled deceptions,
causing all to be revealed
when asking myself

what if the poetry ceases?

you know prostrate?
you have tasted grief?

have you not but
a singular pain,
one act,
one deed,
one memorization,
act of cowardice,
act of desertion,
mistake made, taken,
for which
forgiveness
can never
be given,
be faked,
attained?

do, does, did.

let me then this day,
win the birthday lottery,
let floods of relief from
daily chores not drown me,
chauffeurs to drive,
masseurs to massage,
cooks to cook,
les délicieuses friandises to sweeten life,
please keep theologians, logicians,
philosophers on retainer,
even historians, those future fortune tellers,
if needed, unnecessary explanations -
or just satisfactory rationalizations.

none know,
or can provide,
still and yet,
a year round
a priestly sacred chord,
to grant relief,
absolution,
songs of hallelujah,
erasers of the ache of
perpetuity worry.

those ancient pains,
grow fresh daily,
the loss of one element
of my body,
prevents my primal knot
reasonably to be untied,
everything should be permitted
on my birthday, no?

this day, these days
breathe through words,
molecules of vowels,
stem cells of consonants,
the fabric, the tissues of life,
veins are a dictionary
of corpuscles,
red blood cells are
nouns of nutrients.

this day, these days,
the infection of my soul
is tempered, kept at bay,
tamped down from the
full flowering
of white blood cells
of rhyme, verse,
and asking myself

what if the poetry ceases?

though the bones creak,
snap, crackle and pop,
the body they carry, the heart
eccentric~centric: tire shop patched,
yom kippur white resurrected this day,
for morning, afternoon
and evening prayers,
and the last one special,
spoken standing.

thrice daily poetry I recite,
roses red, violets blue,
my marrow transfused.

though my prayers likely refused,
the poetry act immolates
the fringes of my disease,
for which the common cure
is not currently invented....
so I ask myself

what if the poetry ceases?

be assured, I am told
scientists hard at work,
on the forgive n' forget drug.

meantime,
take a bubble bath in
rosemary and mint,
trap and tap some words,
into your cell phone bone,
the poetry heat, scented waters,
provide aspirin relief.

through this poem,
on one day annual,
I am relieved, relived,
the muses, the Devils
all herein, feted, and sated

gone for few moments
concerns, worries of
exposure today,
agnostic's foxhole of hell
is dis-remembered,
the gloss returns,
the faux dispatched,

ain't birthdays grand?

yet, I cannot help but ask

what if the poetry ceases?

what rhymes with
Sorrow?
mmmmm.

could it be
Morrow?

bath drains,
rosemary and mint odors dismissed,
the Argentine disparu,
the Spanish Medievalists,
the Neo-Raphaelites,
all dispatched,
didn't they have birthdays too?
didn't you know,
Hey Michelangelo!
the Renaissance come
and gone,
nobody tole ya?

t'is the day
my sweet city recorded my
naissance in the
Hospital of the Flowers
on Fifth Avenue.

the 'crats put the datum
in the bureau with the
night creams and
the statistics
as follows:

on this day + a few,
seven or twenty decades ago +
a few centuries, some blackbirds,
a question was born,
and an ache that is
sometimes relieved,
by a poem~song.

though do not celebrate,
t'is a day to calibrate,
review, edit, tinker,
rewrite, often a stinker.

yet, but,
always one thought recycles:

**what if the poetry ceases,
how will I breathe?

The enjoyment of eating,
Marvels of television's ability to drown problems,
Games to replace reality was all he wanted.

The young life,
Reality,
Offered everything emotionally diabolic to a growing, developing mind.

Through ridicule from elementary peers; fat, ******, stinky or stinker or something relational.
Through defensive mechanisms of accepting ridicule from family.
Through seemingly harsh reactions to a young mind’s spoken word;

A growing  trait to hide thoughts, emotions, began.

Speak and be brought into pits of embarrassment, hurt and hate?
The enjoyment of hiding, an escape.

A life sentence in confined silence -
Everything
Internalized.

Problems, actions, reactions, actions to be, thoughts and emotions occurring and to be, all internalized.
Unaware the implications were to be damaging later,
He proceeded to master the skills to hide in plain sight.

An arduous battle,
An escape from confinement to undo the silence,
Creating immunity to criticisms and differing opinions began.
Not without heightened defenses to new pressures,
Success was found.

Attempts made,
Success found,
Won battles,
The internal struggle of war with self continues at dreadful paces.
Thoughts to control past silence must always be on the offensive.
Control the defensive,
The strong silence.
Perhaps always and forever.

i'll be the one fattening the nationalists like
they're worthy to inherit the swine skidding
kinds of talk of the famous winged Hussar toppling
mountain in stone as in grain of sand: avalanche -
and akin to a crows' kraken bellowing: gluttonous kra!
und tod! schatten överskuggar död:
and what yearn be dripped in acknowledged European -
loftier thought than done, kindred of what's called
the civilised / colonial world - toward the auburn horizontal -
and in due bereaving: left undone, and unduly asked for:
to be grasped as worshipped, quasi Lutheran,
mingling Calvinist and Catholic... but never the love affair
of Henry VIII. so much of modern English
history is bound to Las Vegas, and so much to the Hajj toward
Jerusalem no one cares about... then so few to mind
the invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth by the Swedes... because this is England,
and Cockney speaks, usurper of the royal tongue, due to pride,
due to the elephant man, due to jack the ripper and
harry the stinker... and the joyous rhapsody coming
from the lonely mile in Irish slang; or said: Mamelukes -
because the Mongols were at one point defeated -
and thus grieved the Baghdad skull with tinges of Hamlet -
oh the grand  library, what was left of it, could remain
enshrined in Texan avoidance - not to be:
Chilcot Coke - Cooled Coca and later Koala - Bruise and White -
thugs' select - later respect'ah - bony g and later bonbon
and much later bony m - and much much
later Alfonso Jalfrezi - alias gaga: and all the culinary sagas,
the Forsytes of Malta... or the Forsytes of Málaga?
i'm sure that question is all about:
                   wherever the peppercorn blows
        and wherever the sneeze deposits a hunch
toward an itchy cartilage - from an itch and a scratch:
                            a butterfly! well, isn't this
the most beautiful of all possible worlds...
sorta makes you want to get up in the morning
and say good-morning to someone.

The eternal deep thinker,
Vexed and perplexed, I'm a mess of quills and inkers,
Deeper than the belly of a beer-downing drinker, whatta stinker,
Deeper than the ocean,
Fishing deeper than the fisher,
Way deeper than a fishy or the hook, line, sinker.
Deeper than a creeper, keeping creeping on the DL,
Deeper than devil-infested levels, deep in the Hell,
Much deeper and way steeper than I've ever hoped to get,
Getting closer to my dreams and not a single one regret.

Everyone else's *** *** stinks
But mine, it smells just fine
Though I've never put my nose
Near a *** *** that is mine
It makes no difference, either way
I wash it at least once a day

The trouble with older women
At least once in their past
they've fallen for men
hook, line 'n stinker.

What is this?
You're a demon
disguised as Melpomene
You can't fool me
I've been around the block,
and I write about it.
I need no help
from the likes of you.

You want rhyme?
You want rhythm?
You want structure?
Do these things not exist in Hades?
Don't send me to the Goth O matic.

I'd rather write a stinker,
than to indulge your darkness.
I know the difference
between Melpomene and you.
Off you go now.

God Blessed me with these two little angels and a Prince with a curly headed crown
to spoil rotten every chance I get to see them, one day I'm gonna take you all shopping downtown
i can't help it, you three stole my heart
and I hate that we're so far apart

They are my nieces and my nephews
so forgive me if I sound sappy,
in terms of poetic value this one may be scrappy.

Shyla, you were born on Christmas eve
you're growing so fast it's hard to believe
that I once held you in my arms and Fed you with a bottle,
now you're in school, getting A's, and your uncle is just full to bursting with pride inside, like a well written novel

Taurean, my little man, you're almost an exact clone of my brother, A.K.A your dad.
I swear it's crazy how much alike you two act.
You're playing football now? and you're on defense.
hopefully when you get older you can help the bears with no pretense

And Cheyenne, little miss moody
I love you you little stinker, I swear just taking to you is always different, so I'm always a rookie.

anyway you three, I know I'm not physically there,
but know that uncle does love you three very much, and know that I'll always be there,

:)

“The law of currency” broke Britain’s
Colonies’ all citizens’ rights!
And Richard Virginsky offered Liberty’s
Light from death-throes at once!
In his Declaration he expounded
Three parts of equality – in the first
In the second chapter he stated
How Great Britain’s monarch trampled
Upon rights, as the mother-country was
Such a nice stinker, stinker, of course.
America’s people is great and free, –
The third chapter did run of this
Having broken with the mother-country,
It went forward in its bright reverie
In Unity, equality’s powers.
{04.07.2018}

4 ИЮЛЯ
«Закон о Валюте» права нарушал
Всех граждан британских колоний!
И Ричард Виргинский тогда предлагал
Свободу для всех от агоний!
В своей Декларации он излагал
Три части: про равенство – в первой;
Вторая – Монарх как права попирал –
Была метрополия стервой!
Америки вольный великий народ –
Часть третья об этом гласила –
Порвав с метрополией, шёл лишь вперёд –
В единстве и равенстве сила!
{04.07.2018}

Translator - I. Toporov

Your opinion I value
but this has nothing to do with you.

it's still only the 12th of September and the drink is not working,
maybe half a bottle in and it'll kick-start something,
my phone was off, charging,
i turned it on around 9:30pm... i hate mobile telephones,
i know that people are finding it difficult
to escape from the object's attention-draining-leech-paradigm
but me? i remember all things: old school...
stationary objects... perfect stasis of the telephone
and even those old telephones you could stand alongside
Chris Rock doing a sketch of in Lethal Weapon 4...
well... that's beside the point...
   i was cleaning the house: thinking... shouldn't we have
a contract for the upcoming events? well, i did cycle
up to Buckingham Palace from Romford only yesterday:
lost about 2kg in weight in the process...
could i get in past the queues with a bicycle? fat chance,
i.e. no chance...
    switched my telephone on: ooh! what's this?!
Lyndon: are you available on the 14th and the 19th?
i checked some other thread...
of this month? that's no tomorrow, that's the day after?
what the hell is so impor.... ah! TANT...
  she's coming down from Edinburgh...
14th is going to be big... **** me... the 19th is going to
be even bigger...
lucky for me i found €90 in my drawer...
   plus i already have £60 in my wallet...
so that's me ******* off to the brothel after these two shifts!
lucky me! i'll be part of history: not that i'm
not already: but hell knows... maybe they'll put
me in a spot where they need a camera-friendly face...
tall... you know... typical *******...
i might be even a sniff's whiff away from the coffin being
detailed from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey...
so i replied: so this is for the Big Send Off of ol' Lizzie?
i'd be daft if i didn't accept the shifts...
7am sign in at Charing Cross St.? if it was a 7am
sign in time for a football match,
like it was supposed to be this passing Saturday:
i told them "*******"... not for a football match: no chance
in hell: plus we're talking Putney Bridge:
taking that ****** District "sloth" Line is not for my sort
of adrenaline palette...
oh man: i haven't listened to this record in a... long time...
the last time i listened to Jane's Addiction's Strays
i was in a middle of a field with a knife and a bottle of whiskey...
trying to commit myself to ハラキリ:
yes, i do know the difference between ハラキリ and
seppuku... the former does not allow any dignitaries:
no superior standing over you with a katana to decapitate
your head and "shove it up your ***"...
i was that desperate, from time to time...
as you get desperate not having any visible public
presence: no work, no money, no ***...
you think about: the last song i will ever hear...
when i perform the right of ハラキリ... spilling my bowels
onto the ground among the pebbles and wheat shafts...
or hanging... i dare say i'd probably die with a hard-on
when dangling: just like that...
or walking into a petrol station and "greasing" myself
up with some petrol: lighting myself up before walking
into the oncoming traffic and getting hit by a truck...
oh: i've been to these places of the mind...
they're like art galleries...
i revisited one of these galleries only recently:
on Sept. 3rd... at the London gig in memory of Taylor Hawkins
(no relation to Stephen, Stephen and his "disability"
while cruising around: "didn't **** himself")...
who?! Epstein Island... sure... but that's understandable:
although, no... i like doughnut sized plump plum WOO-MEN...
not tiny ******* tarantula geishas of puberty...
ugh! get me away from such specimens! shiver...
insert a hieroglyph for disgust...
i look at these sort of women and think:
i'd break her... too bad for my beard envy...
never mind my ***** envy... it sort of diminishes
when i forget about the size of my hands...
everything looks small and tender when i grasp "it" with them...

yeah: he (who? Stephen) really had all my sympathies...
it's just like with prostitutes: all the beautiful ones
perform the profession...
i kneel before them... they smoke cigarettes before
******* blah blah...
next time? on the 14th? i'm going to take a different
approach... i'm going to, "****" her... whoever
it is: i'm running out of choices: i need to find a new brothel...
she'll start talking... nope...
i'll take the bra off off her... her knickers too...
i'll force her onto the bed
and then pretend i'm eating oysters with my eyes
wide open...
**** it...
the times call for it... i'l be up at 4am.... i'll leave the house
at 5am to get for a 7am shift until:
**** me... 7pm... 12 hours....
tiredness makes me so *****: death and misery makes
be doubly oh so *****...
cider makes me *****...

Stone Temple Pilots' Art School Girlfriend:
memory... eating fried chicken and listening to that song
and some Red Hot Chili Peppers while my now
estranged uncle (my mother's brother) was cleaning
his Porsche... oh well: either **** happens or **** doesn't
happen... best prepare for a waiting game...
just at every opportunity you can get...

i'll **** all of them... i'm already missing one in the arsenal...
the one with the glasses...
****-hurt, am i? you'd need to talk to my grandmothers...
one: on the maternal side...
only called me to inform me of my best friend's passing
a day before he passed away...
there's no excuse! phones work both ways!
there's never a caller and a called-on...
he was dying for a month... she made him feel like
i didn't feel crap for him...
she called me when it was no longer available to see him!
since he was isolated in the confines of a hospice:
but she made him feel like i didn't care for him!
i would have been straight up there:
picking up his **** and what not...

so... why do i over-value the value of prostitutes?!
that's the valuable essence of prostitution:
you can't sink any lower, can you? well... "lower":
you can, sink, much lower... as a man... but not as a man...
getting wed to a beached whale...
my god, i've seen a few of those...
i'm verging on every sensible limit before
i'm just ready to puke...
it's unconscious: there's no social standard of awareness
when i see these stick-insect men of "form"
with those BLOBS...
i'm like: thank **** i had enough sense to visit enough
women in order to NOT settle on this "sacred" BUT one...
oh my god...

thirsty men... fair enough... they get their archaic genealogy
project happening... their "genes": whatever the ****
that means... the children be wearing glasses?
so? aquarium category of men... short-eyed...
bad bones? not too high? DIABTES: oh... mate...
that's a real killer... i'd rather pass on my genes to a *******
that a beached whale... a big abhorrent JABBA THE HUT
sort of "body"... resembling less body and more "structure"...
because: with those dimensions...
i'd require a museum hall to stash that sort of:
it's not a relationship... it's a ******* spectacle:
it's a state-funeral!

tender my ******* ***: let me sit on some hot charcoals
and jump up exclaiming some quote of Cicero's invest!
ugh... Americans... i hate the accent...
Empire does that to people: they're so, so... so solipsistic...
they approach everyone like they're their servants...
******* ugly YANKEES...
we're not talking American "royalty"...
we're talking American commoners... ******* solipsists...
sure... if you've been fighting rock-throwers
of Afghanistan with machine-guns...
the next big threat that's Russia is... ha ha:
you what?!
oh... evil genius ****** an evil ******: hey presto:
Russia was born!

i abhor Russophobia...
                          i abhor Russophobia like i abhor:
western, white womens' fetish for African love partners...
what?! i'm drunk... i write honestly when i drink...
i'd sooner side with the Arabs than allow the CUCKS
into my cognitive ranks of: the army derived from the pleasure
of thought...

what the **** is wrong with the Russians?!
what the **** is wrong with you?!
oh... wait... "apparently" this great big: "nothing"...
my god... this Afghan "Jamie" gave me a proper
stinker... each time i open the drawer...
my god... what a stinker...
i think i'll smoke the rest of it on the 14th...
no... the 19th... anyway... i'll be at the brothel
either day... given i found the spare €90...

i'll start hovering for the Afghan hash...
   who knows: maybe i'll get lucky... the Queen:
my sovereign just died... i might as well drink and get high:
i haven't been high for well over 10 years...
the President of America dies... so?
the Pope dies... so?
Margaret Thatcher died: so?
         ah... but ol' Queenie, ol' Lizzie dies...
come on..

    yes: i am a monarchist... it's a beautiful semblance of
what constitutes authority:
the actual symbolism of it: rather than the actuality
of its non-authority is what makes it so special!
any idiot ought to be able to see that:
any dim / half-wit... for ****'s sake... ought to give
her stature the desirable recognition! well: in passing...

i know:  swear a lot... i also drink a lot:
i also like to think that i **** a lot given any available
opportunity that i have to ****...
although: you can't really drink enough,
as you can't write enough...
or for that matter: **** enough...
not when watching *******:
that's an American invention... me?
brick walls... meditation... clouds... noble swans...
i certainly avoid video games:
i've started to avoid watching movies...
music: prickly... i'm getting more and more picky...
nothing new: nothing popular...

recently i watched a video of a guy who...
ha ha... bought a lobster in a supermarket
and turned it into a pet... Luke? Liam? **** knows:
sure as **** the nick's worth of Lucky: for a lobster...
i had a "pet" fox for about a month...
fed him leftover dinners for that period of time...
he stopped coming: maybe he was run over or:
whatever...
i'd love a pet crow...

i just stopped caring about getting rejected...
   i just went back to the source...
               couple WOMAN with DARWINISM...
FAIL! i'm talking a massive ******* FAIL!
now. ****** yourself...
couple WOMAN with the COPERNICAN REVOLUTION...
what do you get?! SUCCESS!
why? does anyone know the difference
between: ASTROLOGY AND ASTRONOMY?!

ah: ha ha ha!
London: that know destination for all the peoples
of the world: the Jerusalem of the North:
here you will find all tongues of the world being spoken,
here, you will find that i will drape "ownership"
over this "barricade" with a single BREATH:
let alone a word...
i will not speak a single word of authority
over these lands...
i will claim them with a breath in my "delusional"
circumstance as i go about: "fixing the roof"...
the constellations are: "a bit wonky"...

i write these words without having endeavoured
to collect my dues from the high-jackers that
are magic mushrooms...

enough of psychiatry! enough of the drugging
of masculinity! ALCOHOL! ******!
MORE ALCOHOL! MORE ******!
i've had, ENOUGH... of this pseudo-castration
policies of:
sure thing... sure sure... the black Martin Luther Jr.,Sr...
whatever cam clap about the **** of their
"sisters": **** me: perhaps all the white girls
have a black-man fetish... i get it: they are actually
handsome... but? why can't i reciprocate?
i don't want to **** black women...
"racist" if i do, "racist" if i don't?!
ha ha!

        perfume me akin those lyrics from David
Bowie's Rebel Rebel:
ha! !god! save "they" gracious kueen...
    king?! eh? queen? qing... we're talking about
a Chinese dynasty?! they him / or / her?
in the glitter of the shadows: escaping from the castle
of the night: i ask the question:
in the realm of the Three Kings...
quis es? quo vadis?
    who are you? where are you going?
i always having to leverage this sentence with
"my" anaesthesiologist...
last time i uttered this sentence:
i was having my wisdom tooth pulled out:
i asked him before the snooze:
quis es? quo vadis?!
i asked the question like i might ask the moon:
quid: ad hoc... in situ... nox ergo qualis... cur vos?!

trouble travels far... peace is left secured
and closer to home...
there's too much jealousy in the world...

HIC AETERNUS LINGUA: this language will
never die... not the scribbling details...
unto God i give the Hebrew scribbles and the Arabic
and the Sanskrit scribbles...
unto me? the LATIN TEXT...
we will "learn" to "share"...
                               i will not give up these tongues
composed through these letters...
better my death before i give Serbia up to your
"next" Ottoman onslaught! not now! not ever!
mine! mine!

these children: are: mine!
now... that we... do we have a bargain?! we better have...
consult the Israeli republic of "things"...
i already nicknamed my Maine **** Quarus: ******...
talk to him in meow-meow... i serious don't care...
you ask for a better audience...you're note getting them!
i came among them! i listened to them!
i: worshipped, them! i, was, rejected, by them!
now? i'm accustomed to their ways...
eh... traffic: something... that's what they are, to me:
TRAFFIC, SOMETHING;
this! is! the basis! of what's! supposed! to be!
retrospective! of! what's! supposed! to be made! exemplar! of humanity! but! nonetheless! isn't!!
sure sure: let's just ******* FAKE IT... let's just: FAKE IT!
******* galore from where? most probably lazy ***
Somalia.... it's jot even "racist" by now:
just racial predictability... Somalians are either pirates
or lazy-***-munchers; it's not a ******* "mystery"...
like the god "himself" uttered: ehyeh asher ehyeh...

WHAT?1 PROBLEM?! WHITE GIRL PROBLE-
  some bM?
DON'T ******* TALK TO ME ABOUT
WHITE GIRL"PROBLEMS"!

some "baron" of a rhythm:, huphm!

You..
My little liquor drink.
What the **** was I thinking?
Sinking in the sand.
Well I'll be ******.
The lonely hearts club band
Needed a front man.
And me? I'm the poster child.
You're supposed to go wild,
But you lost control,
And you roll like thunder.
Wonder where you've been,
Since we're over my thumb,
Cause you're under my skin.
You continue to crawl
Cause I've been through it all,
And you win when you fall.
Its a sin if you call it a day
When you're halfway there.

That they stare, who really cares?
You dare
To defy me,
Try me on for size?
For shame.
Just a piece of the puzzle,
Was apart of the game,
And I tame no emotion.
Oceans coming in waves.
Break down in case of emergency.
Its urgent we use these electrons
To walk upon the earth.
Energy rebirth.
We curse,
We cry,
At first you die inside,
But you ride it through.

And you..
My little liquor drink.
I refuse to let you be the one
That puts me sick in the sink.

I'm addicted to thinking
That if the universe is bursting,
Then the world is shrinking.
Tinker with what you will.
A stinker with time to ****.
Thats all I was, now send me the bill.
And you
Go down so smooth
On the rocks
More often than not.
I forgot what felt like,
The stuper that cupid
Shoots you with is stupid.
To be concluded..
Just kidding, you did.

You, my little liquor drink
I refuse let you be the one
That puts me sick in the sink.
Slippin the pink;
I played for keeps,
And now this guitar weeps for me gently,
This reality was meant to be.
It sent for me.
I went to see the Oracle,
She said that it was horrible.
Ignore the *******, because
What I was gonna be hit with,
I could slip and slide
And send myself off of the deep end.
If we spend the energy
On what we pretend to be.
You can mend it and mould it,
And then you can hold it.
The coldest of souls
Will stoke up the coals
Because they're supposed to.
Roast you like a pig
Who was raised for bacon.
Wine and dine the swine,
So 69 and switch your line of sight.
Divine is right.
Maybe one day I might care.
Until then I'll send you a letter.
Get better
From Paradise to Nightmare.
No, I don't fight fair.
Tear you to shreds,
Embed it in your head
That you're dead to me.
What you said to me,
Its all been disregarded.
Even thinking that I may be
Broken hearted..
Nope. Only *******.
Ope.. I just farted
Even my behind started
Talking **** about you.✌

Sitting up in bed on a Sunday morning editing, re-writing, refining. A bit long but worth it in the reading - thinks I!

        Coffee (A Conflict Of Values)
Catering to a certain need for stimulation,
Even relaxation and the psychic high,
Coffee bean in cool, dark tin,
Fragrance and the oil in
The box or jar or bag’s supply
Of pleasure ought to make the drinker
Think a little about why
The bitter sweet is such a stinker,
In whose absence droops the mood
The energy, the good;
Whose undemanding look
In cafeteria or china cup and just a slurp
Creates the nervous, wrecked and hooked.
Symbol of that quiet urge
For pleasant conversation’s purge,
To say this has a feeble ring,
Insistent urge to reach a high, high as the sky
From just a thing
(to say this has a feeble ring),
Well, surely pleasure comes from means
Far less addictive than caffeine’s
Delicious smell and taste,
Java’s clutch (was Java Dutch?)
Conversation’s time-filled waste;
That needs no brew,
Nor company of two.
But then, an energy from what?
Oh dear, the will is weak
When pleasure lies within the cheek and coffee ***,
And one has never learned the art
Of keeping silence in the heart.
Bitter devil, wreaking havoc like a weevil
On plantations of the body.
To steal upon the cells by stealth,
Speed the heart, adrenals, pulse,
God knows what else;
Claiming vitamins and health –
And still the perils lie elsewhere,
Where habits have their hidden lair,
Vice/virtue, meet excess;
Battling for their piece of peace,
Posing as a social duty,
Threatening in bitter beauty.
Dear, oh dear, I fear that life (it’s clear)
with coffee’s here to stay,
My own cup one small hour away.
From Macbeth: the coffee oath:
Stir the sugar, stir the milk,
Make the coffee smooth as silk,
Help the migraine, the depression;
Be benign in our transgression.
Tranquilizing our confusion
Make gregarious the nation.
Cof-free or cof- fiend?
Or just plain coff… and what you make it be?
Coffee (A Conflict of☕Values) 4.21.1999/ 1.8.2011/2.4.2018Coffee Book II; Definitely Didactic;Arlene Corwin

i'm an egoist like i might be a spider -
a quizzical pointer and a loiter of hubris:
that word again...
   i must have mistook hubris for hiatus -
i see no future for the arguments
concerning genes -
         beside: solo project i -
                and what will continue is
the concept of a species -
i am quiet thankful that i don't demand
the face of the slobbering gods to be
of a particular inclination -
     in that: i was never fond of english:
philosophy - once the parameters
of darwinism became established:
there was no longer any blinking involved...
or at least missing the abyss -
the abyss forgot to manufacture dreams
and the darwinistic enterprise wanted
me to peer into it with unflinching metaphors:
and scarred details...
that a man might refrain from
potentially petting an arachnid...
   then again: i'm only a cat person because
******* are one thing...
but parading with genitals of dogs
is just another daydream -
      once upon a time:
                   it wasn't like the darwinistic adventure
came with a cute poetry akin
to the copernican revolution:
cited: he stopped the sun and moved the earth...
perhaps to borrow from history:
when people were wrapped up in
a "solipsism" of their own species -
           that not much from "elsewhere"
could be borrowed, tailored to
a mimic... incorporated... slyly suggested...
the full bodied and ****** consequence
of the old lies and emotions of squabbling
men and ferocious women -
beside this current neuter:
flimsy generic loaning of insect:
             ontology?
                for what was deserving for men
to imitate: a rhetorical crux / pinnacle...
that would never become a cocktail of
more robots more a priori nibbling at
the old unfathomable god:
a god outside of a polytheism that can
only become a brain-freeze and a tongue tie...
it's not that darwinism isn't... a truth beggar...
but you can't exactly make incisions
of an existentialism with darwinism -
how the 20th century becketts got "away with it"
is beside me...
but i can't be a man no more
a brick when i'm facing a comparison
from an alien revelation of insects:
to **** is to be eaten - just as much...
hell... i wouldn't mind being eaten
as long as i couldn't be milked...
         i am truly alienated by the task of
preserving genes:
there are a billion chinese and a billion
blue indian raj examples to pick... from...
it's not like the species will die...
i am no atlas and this solo project
is bothersome to have to question: to begin
with...
  i never liked darwinism because
i knew it would go far beyond a mere
observation: it had to be incorporated -
the behaviour of lions or of insects -
          after all: i am not subject to my own
undeciding human...
                  any more than i am:
objecting to: the crowd pleasing objectification
snooker or borrowing from:
these ambivalent critters of pouch shadow
and a thought...
             i'd want to summon
the old gods but there they are...
no subject matter ignites their need for
a presence...
            they might as well have secluded
themselves on the gentle silence
of a scratching orb trace to tease saturn -
i want to find the crows mystifying -
i do - but that doesn't help much...
i don't want to delve into life that's not
immediately concrete -
i followed a whiff of making concrete
but then i knew: ****'s the real stinker
and the juice...
                    i played a ****** when looking
at a spider feast on a moth...
days prior i was inviting
moths to the nursery of my bedroom...
- you simply can't create a cosmopolitan
allure for cafe existentialism with
priding yourself on darwinism -
it's not wrong it's just: i don't want to
borrow from the very base, crude:
psychopathically teasing tendencies
that... well... deviations from mammalian...
if "we" borrowed from elephants alone...
from whales...
were we oh so solipsistic prior...
yes... we must have have been...
we domesticated horses...
we domesticated dogs...
   we created bonsai tigers...
             we probably petted poster / glue
nibbling goats...
we forgave the cannibalism of chickens
when one could meet the stump
and axe: a golgotha like congregation
of drinking blood...
         a violent old god...
death and jester but a pretty innocent
apple...
now a benevolent god and a fruit:
a bundle of metaphors and metaphysics -
it's still the old trick of poetic cannibalism -
i'm sure that if i worked on the apple...
i'd get a cider from it...
am i cured from the curse of the wine -
what if my body is a rumble of whiskey
and a potato chip?
  is my corpus "antichristi" this...
wheat "buckle"... what if i can turn
the bread into a consecration of meaning
with... a ******* gnocchi or a noodle: bundle?

- catholicism - well: perhaps born into it...
but i'm missing the confirmation language
that even the great atheistic tinker and tailor
and: how biology and the rule of
the thespians killed off the alchemists and
poets...
            let's just pretend! let's... let's...
just... pretend...
             years later i can finally appreciate
Al Purdy...
   i know what put me off...
the notes in a copy of his: rooms for rent
in the outer planets...
i need to buy some rubber
to erase these pencil details...

             female handwriting -
i know it... the letters are al bubbly...
they're not akin to chicken scratchings...
bubbly ******* of toads...
"unsentimental view of nature"
a real "treasure trove of antics"...
what put me off: what always puts me off:
a need to annotate poetry:
to teach it like one might teach
a bunch of young Frankensteins
a lesson or two in anatomy...

that language so already sacred in it
being scarce has to endure...
a postmortem of additional details
of: that it can't be left alone like
a floral insignia on a base dulling of
Hittite brown:
     a bark of wood the colour of cardamom...
the argument of: well...
those egyptians were so advanced
back then... even the Iraqis...
hell... the Greeks were advanced peoples
too... looks like they took a *******
bicycle to hiatus land!

burdening me with a past and:
that darwinism doesn't really life...
a concept of / a "concept" of the Avignon
Papacy...
  i'm strapped mr. gill and mrs. gimp all
latex to a spider and some
******* chimp'zee bonanza...
           no one teaches dogs to swim...
in a priori dimming they: know
a duck from a water...
   they know a pancake from a victoria sponge:
hypothetical:
borrowing from the 1960s:
a hitchhiker in the form of a mushroom
apparently opened my eyes
and i am now: the ego-son
of the fungus with potential to:
amass the same sort of gorilla build
architecture from... scraps of...
a plethora of vitamin sources...
i'll eat the deer...
the tame the boars and shave them
to attain crick bacon...
the ******* gorilla will laugh a blank
autistic look at me:
weighing in at a K.O. from...
papyrus and twigs and perhaps
a concept of: straightening bananas...

this slow sludge of walking "backwards"
from **** sapiens to **** similis -
this opposing venture into
anti-literature -
it's not that the mirror of hopes
is now a glass grieving from a lack
of shadows...
  no one wants to find themselves
beside: an exfoliation of tongue...

once more: the church bell of the uvula...
the brain the sponge...
my liver the punching bag
of an alcoholic opponent -

    that bukowski is some this that and
the other: and he knew:
the pressures of 100 years...
that there was also this Al Purdy...
and i too made my own wine -
pretending to blindly support
a Vest Ham -
             way way out west in the east:
that i did see a tease of Venice but
that i probably will never venture
south of the thames to
this cut from the home counties
of: how Burial (dubstep)
originated...
strapped to a mythology of the north...
Thames: a river without a clarity
of mountains:
how the Thames cannot
be celebrated akin to the Vistula
or the Danube...

              murky grey fonz -
this lingering tide amass of custard...
england's last lacklustre exertion
from the 1960s...
some kingly riddle ransom of
crimea associated for the purpose
of crimson -
a taming of purple in the hue
of hooded Burgundian -
  my solving tiresome base for
eyes -
    it's not that Greenwich mean-time
could ever be "important" -
insomniac polyphony of the hours
in passing...
   is more beside the equator...
some topsy-turvy pancake a butter
lofty toast:
that toasted rye that toasted
sourdough... or a ciabatta slice...
             is more and more than this
arrogant prize of english worship
"Blumenthal"...
        
a bonsai tiger's eager inquisitive prompt
from behind a door:
retreating like a lasso or
a folding of bedsheets -
or an ironing of unironic jeans...
some things to be worn should
be best unironed -
   notably jeans -
          azure: clarity chippy of:
variation:
   death's desire to come along
the purpose of lost purples:
in denim like a...

              arbeit macht frei will
forever stand the test of time among
the workaholics...
it's as little infamous as it is:
the currency of keeping with
details of a towing of two un-opposing
factions...

these service jobs and their lowering
of physical exertion:
substituted by gym maintenance -
service jobs and the "work" of...
loitering the hours in...
                 these service jobs and the clocking
in of hours: eternity begot the yawn...
adam begot the scratching of the head:
god conceived of the hierarchy of
taking the knee:
satan borrowed a circus and
a seizure for the future of
ronin imagination...

   can a fire itch?
        i'm pretty sure the licking of ice
can be allowed a fathom of both
an itch and a burn and:
       towing glue...
pockets of dry water staging coups of
crystalised details
of attention *******...
  
and a: between...
   the suffocating mantle piece of...
morbid avenues:
the t.v. robbed the zombies
of their pitiful dues...
machinery hatchling detail...
                  a burden of phallus and
a hammer...
crude "avenue": a **** the size
of a nail...
all life a coffin an scalp that snow
is also dandruff -
and there is nothing of a limit to tow
a continuity -
the species will survive...
the species will survive:
there are enough "stupid" and *****
people to preserve it...
more ***** than "stupid"..

             they are not to be...
coerced with submissions on the grandours
of religion...
having to preserve their appetite
of disinhibition...
they are to be kept on their own
worth of: kept perpetual:
there's no siding of the **** similis project
akin to the lizard kings with the meteor...
so it happens: the moon was sleeping...
when that little nugget of: oops...
****** up the tides and sleeping
patterns of proto-happenings...

    - as i am having "my" kitchen refurbished...
the surrealism of a fride-freezer
occupying a space in "my"
living / civil room -
where the t.v. is this altar of mundane
sacrifices...
at least there's still a concept
of a bedroom and the need for
a bed and the thorough avenues
of abating sleeplessness...

       i dare to sleep because i have
no wish for a *** life that's
a demanding expansion of...
custard-**** of an alter-ego of paragraph...

biting the ******* of
a schadenfreude category:
by the time she becomes an exhausted
**** in the pornographic clogging
of exhausting the machinery:
there were some organic components?
there was a "riddle" of
a lumberjack and a carpenter..
associated to.. ahem... wood?
i want to wish for a plain & simple
trucker analogy...
but then the agony of
conjuring up a chair & table...
and a rocker... and one of those
serpents of moses...

    god blessed grievances
to make elaborations with mahogany
that it would never become:
tantalizing marble:
                            
in a periodical inconvenience of tome:
this time: my lacking...
i will never find it an easy ride
to appeal / appease the
morbidity of the throng...
  having to tow a romance
of england...
a little detail a little of everything
and everywhere...
a pact with celtic / ginger
*******...

    ooh! hot coal... i am an european
5ft8 dwarf... a 6ft6 african goliath
is picking my cotton...
and i own a whip: and i am:

       nie z tego rodzony...
                            it's my little alien
planet of: but it's not important
right now: 100 years from now
when... my contemporaries are
a wish for sanskrit in both
itch and dust...
      
                biGGer... beTTER...
tease the doubling of consonants...
i'm tired i'm just simply tired
of excusing my contemporaries...
whatever they wanted to be
achieved: they have achieve it...
i'm proto-****** little cog little
blister: tamed mustard...
my little nowhere this "here"...

                good enough...
   a variation of aleister crowley bids
you...
      a night knitted with dreams...
and no... pangs of the horror of doubt...
closure for the things eaten
raw... a beef superstition
surrounding... what came to be known
as a tartare steak.

        god - to appease a minor public...
this little ******* gauge of a little public:
this carthage beside a blooming rome...
no... i'm not: excuse me...
i'm not native: this tongue is acquired...
i will not be mentioned in
the colonial anals as
this ******* imbecile of coercion...
this past without ridicule this past
with: goliaths toying the junctions
of exhausted base q. to an "i." unfathomable
first...
               runner junction...
i'm becoming tired of either
side of this bothersome argument...

hail babylon! hail an impeding tomorrow!
**** the 100 year from now.
best of me: no fear mongering
game to tow genes as me too:
a gamer invoked...
humanity survives...
the individual dies...
perhaps a beethoven is riddling
the hive with nuance...
humanity survives:
the individual dies...
i probably wasted my life on
ambition...

   then again: i didn't waste it on
a delusion of a societal project of
poly-                 multi-culturism -
                     i wasn't born on the Faroe Islands...
i had to come about an itching for
life: ventured for a cleaning and a kippah
for a tonsure -
i came across a grief of scalping -
i came across a curry...
i imploded an empire and sent out
invitations and became...
day by day less and less of London...

i ventured out of London and i found myself
in: inbreeding territory -
i became... sick from the homogenous  
zebras of parlance...
   black on black: white is white...
       it's a sickness from detailing
the aftereffects of gravity when having
to sort-out: a belief in the promenade...
            
   whatever... 100 years from now...
i will need to be dead:
for my writing to be elevated from
mere hobby to... this suffocating pride
and orthodoxy canon i want
it to exfoliate in...
then again: no...
                  then again: i am not in a position
to leave behind a pyramid...
i might leave some rattle and bones...
but most certainly not the toils
an wavering of others...
for... a flimsy prospect of: transcending
ambitions...
best played out as truant...
gobshite a god-envy
of a rhetorician's envy...
         stutter to excavate punctuation...

   yes... tomorrow and that: again...
and come sleep come death
come... the tiresome first breathed...
red and ginger...
ginger a tinge or orange ******* with
brown... this precursor of
loiter: a dirtying of earth with ash.