Vampires are such fragile creatures; we dread the dark, but the light destroys them ... sunlight, or a stake, or a cross―such common things. Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings, we shrink from his voice.
Centuries have taught us: in shadows danger lurks for those who stray, and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs. He has no choice.
We are his prey, plump and fragrant, and if we pray to avoid him, the more he prays to find us ... prays to some despotic hooded God whose benediction is the humid blood he lusts to taste.
Published by Monumental Moments (Eye Scry Publications), Weirdbook, Gothic Fairy, Dracula and His Kin, NawaZone and Raiders’ Digest
O, to swim in vats of blood! I wish I could, I wish I could! O, 'twould be so heavenly to swim in lovely vats of blood!
The poem above was inspired by a Josh Parkinson depiction of Elizabeth Bathory up to her nostrils in the blood of her victims, with their skulls floating in the background.
The tender weight of her sighs lies heavily upon my heart; apart from her, full of doubt, without her presence to revolve around, found wanting direction or course, cursed with the thought of her grief, believing true love is a myth, with hope as elusive as tears, hers and mine, unable to lie, I sigh ...
NOTE: This poem has an unusual rhyme scheme, with the last word of each line rhyming with the first word of the next line. The final line is a “closing couplet” in which both words rhyme with the last word of the preceding line. I believe I invented this nonce form and will dub it the "End-First Curtal Sonnet."
Come down, O, come down from your high mountain tower. How coldly the wind blows, how late this chill hour ...
and I cannot wait for a meteor shower to show you the time must be now, or not ever.
Come down, O, come down from the high mountain heather blown to the lees as fierce northern gales sever.
Come down, or your heart will grow cold as the weather when winter devours and spring returns never.
Excerpts from “Travels with Einstein”
by Michael R. Burch
for Trump
I went to Berlin to learn wisdom from Adolph. The wild spittle flew as he screamed at me, with great conviction: “Please despise me! I look like a Jew!”
So I flew off to ’Nam to learn wisdom from tall Yankees who cursed “yellow” foes. “If we lose this small square,” they informed me, earth’s nations will fall, dominoes!”
I then sat at Christ’s feet to learn wisdom, but his Book, from its genesis to close, said: “Men can enslave their own brothers!” (I soon noticed he lacked any clothes.)
So I traveled to bright Tel Aviv where great scholars with lofty IQs informed me that (since I’m an Arab) I’m unfit to lick dirt from their shoes.
At last, done with learning, I stumbled to a well where the waters seemed sweet: the mirage of American “justice.” There I wept a real sea, in defeat.
Originally published by Café Dissensus
Child of 9-11 by Michael R. Burch
a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who was born on September 11, 2001 and who died at age nine, shot to death ...
Child of 9-11, beloved, I bring this lily, lay it down here at your feet, and eiderdown, and all soft things, for your gentle spirit. I bring this psalm ― I hope you hear it.
Much love I bring ― I lay it down
here by your form, which is not you, but what you left this shell-shocked world to help us learn what we must do to save another child like you.
Child of 9-11, I know you are not here, but watch, afar from distant stars, where angels rue the evil things some mortals do. I also watch; I also rue.
And so I make this pledge and vow: though I may weep, I will not rest nor will my pen fail heaven's test till guns and wars and hate are banned from every shore, from every land.
Child of 9-11, I grieve your tender life, cut short ... bereaved, what can I do, but pledge my life to saving lives like yours? Belief in your sweet worth has led me here ...
I give my all: my pen, this tear, this lily and this eiderdown, and all soft things my heart can bear; I bring them to your final bier, and leave them with my promise, here.
“Friend, I’m no sinner; you’re merely my dinner!” the wise owl replied as the tasty snack died.
Originally published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7. In an attempt to demonstrate that not all couplets are heroic, I have created a series of poems called “Less Heroic Couplets.” I believe even poets should abide by truth-in-advertising laws! ― MRB
Step Into Starlight by Michael R. Burch
Step into starlight, lovely and wild, lonely and longing, a woman, a child . . .
Throw back drawn curtains, enter the night, dream of his kiss as a comet ignites . . .
Then fall to your knees in a wind-fumbled cloud and shudder to hear oak hocks groaning aloud.
Flee down the dark path to where the snaking vine bends and withers and writhes as winter descends . . .
And learn that each season ends one vanished day, that each pregnant moon holds no spent tides in its sway . . .
For, as suns seek horizons― boys fall, men decline. As the grape sags with its burden, remember―the wine!
Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch
The mother leopard buries her cub, then cries three nights for his bones to rise clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.
Good mother leopard, pensive thought and fiercest love’s wild insurrection yield no certainty of a resurrection.
Man’s tried them both, has added tears, chants, dances, drugs, séances, tombs’ white alabaster prayer-rooms, wombs
where dead men’s frozen genes convene ... there is no answer―death is death.
So bury your son, and save your breath.
Or emulate earth’s “highest species”― write a few strange poems and odd treatises.
The Pictish Faeries by Michael R. Burch
Smaller and darker than their closest kin, the faeries learned only too well never to dwell close to the villages of larger men.
Only to dance in the starlight when the moon was full and men were afraid. Only to worship in the farthest glade, ever heeding the raven and the gull.
Herbsttag ("Autumn Day") by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend.
Originally published by Measure
Leaf Fall by Michael R. Burch
Whatever winds encountered soon resolved to swirling fragments, till chaotic heaps of leaves lay pulsing by the backyard wall. In lieu of rakes, our fingers sorted each dry leaf into its place and built a high, soft bastion against earth's gravitron― a patchwork quilt, a trampoline, a bright impediment to fling ourselves upon.
And nothing in our laughter as we fell into those leaves was like the autumn's cry of also falling. Nothing meant to die could be so bright as we, so colorful― clad in our plaids, oblivious to pain we'd feel today, should we leaf-fall again.
Originally published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea
Willy Nilly
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped―
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
What Would Santa Claus Say? by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
What would Santa Claus say, I wonder, about Jesus returning to kill and plunder?
For he’ll likely return on Christmas Day to blow the bad little boys away!
When He flashes like lightning across the skies and many a homosexual dies,
when the harlots and heretics are ripped asunder, what will the Easter Bunny think, I wonder?
Published by Lucid Rhythms, Poet’s Corner and translated into Czech by Vaclav ZJ Pinkava
the Church must have SOMEONE to drag through the dirt.
I've got ten thousand reasons why Hell must exist,
and YOU'RE at the top of my fast-swelling list!
You're nothing like me,
so God must agree
and slam down the Hammer with His Loving Fist!
For what are the chances that God has a plan
to save everyone: even Boy George and Wham!?
Eternal fell torture
in Hell's pressure scorcher
will separate HOMO from Man.
I'm glad I'm redeemed, ecstatic you're not.
Did Christ die for sinners? Perish the thought!
The "good news" is this:
soon MY vengeance is his!,
for you're not the lost sheep I sought.
The Pain of Love
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
The pain of love is this:
the parting after the kiss;
the train steaming from the station
whistling abnegation;
each interstate's bleak white bar
that vanishes under your car;
every hour and flower and friend
that cannot be saved in the end;
dear things of immeasurable cost...
now all irretrievably lost.
Note: The title "The Pain of Love" was suggested by an interview with Little Richard, then eighty years old, in Rolling Stone. He said that someone should create a song called "The Pain of Love." I have always found the departure platforms of railway stations and the vanishing broken white bars of highway dividing lines to be very depressing.
Lean Harvests (II)
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
the trees are shedding their leaves again:
another summer is over.
the Christians are praising their Maker again,
but not the disconsolate plover:
i hear him berate
the fate
of his mate;
he claims God is no body's lover.
Published by The Rotary Dial and Angle
The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch
for Tom Merrill
The sanest of poets once wrote:
"Friend, why be a sheep or a goat?
Why follow the leader
or be a blind breeder?"
But almost no one took note.
Desdemona by Michael R. Burch
Though you possessed the moon and stars, you are bound to fate and wed to chance. Your lips deny they crave a kiss; your feet deny they ache to dance. Your heart imagines wild romance.
Though you cupped fire in your hands and molded incandescent forms, you are barren now, and―spent of flame―
the ashes that remain are borne toward the sun upon a storm.
You, who demanded more, have less, your heart within its cells of sighs held fast by chains of misery, confined till death for peddling lies― imprisonment your sense denies.
You, who collected hearts like leaves and pressed each once within your book, forgot. None―winsome, bright or rare―
not one was worth a second look. My heart, as others, you forsook.
But I, though I loved you from afar through silent dawns, and gathered rue from gardens where your footsteps left cold paths among the asters, knew― each moonless night the nettles grew
and strangled hope, where love dies too.
Published by Penny Dreadful, Carnelian, Romantics Quarterly, Grassroots Poetry and Poetry Life & Times
Impotent by Michael R. Burch
Tonight my pen is barren of passion, spent of poetry.
I hear your name upon the rain and yet it cannot comfort me.
I feel the pain of dreams that wane, of poems that falter, losing force.
I write again words without end, but I cannot control their course . . .
Tonight my pen is sullen and wants no more of poetry.
I hear your voice as if a choice, but how can I respond, or flee?
I feel a flame I cannot name that sends me searching for a word,
but there is none not over-done, unless it's one I never heard.
I believe this poem was written in my early twenties, around 1980.
Each Color a Scar by Michael R. Burch
What she left here, upon my cheek, is a tear.
She did not speak, but her intention was clear,
and I was meek, far too meek, and, I fear, too sincere.
What she can never take from my heart is its ache;
for now we, apart, are like leaves without weight,
scattered afar by love, or by hate, each color a scar.
Day, and Night by Michael R. Burch
The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters; her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms. And we who rise each day to grind a living, dream each scented night of such perfumes as drew us to the window, to the moonlight, when all the earth was steeped in cobalt blue― an eerie vase of achromatic flowers bled silver by pale starlight, losing hue.
The night begins her waltz to waiting sunrise― adagio, the music she now hears; and we who in the sunlight slave for succor, dreaming, seek communion with the spheres. And all around the night is in crescendo, and everywhere the stars’ bright legions form, and here we hear the sweet incriminations of lovers we had once to keep us warm.
And also here we find, like bled carnations, red lips that whitened, kisses drawn to lies, that touched us once with fierce incantations and taught us love was prettier than wise.
Afterglow by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
The night is full of stars. Which still exist? Before time ends, perhaps one day we’ll know. For now I hold your fingers to my lips and feel their pulse ... warm, palpable and slow ...
once slow to match this reckless spark in me, this moon in ceaseless orbit I became, compelled by wilder gravity to flee night’s universe of suns, for one pale flame ...
for one pale flame that seemed to signify the Zodiac of all, the meaning of love’s wandering flight past Neptune. Now to lie in dawning recognition is enough ...
enough each night to bask in you, to know the face of love ... eyes closed ... its afterglow.
All Afterglow by Michael R. Burch
Something remarkable, perhaps ... the color of her eyes ... though I forget the color of her eyes ... perhaps her hair the way it blew about ... I do not know just what it was about her that has kept her thought lodged deep in mine ... unmelted snow that lasted till July would be less rare, clasped in some frozen cavern where the wind sculpts bright grotesqueries, ignoring springs’ and summers’ higher laws ... there thawing slow and strange by strange degrees, one tick beyond the freezing point which keeps all things the same ... till what remains is fragile and unlike the world above, where melted snows and rains form rivulets that, inundate with sun, evaporate, and in life’s cyclic stream remake the world again ... I do not know that we can be remade―all afterglow.
Such Tenderness by Michael R. Burch
for loving, compassionate mothers everywhere
There was, in your touch, such tenderness―as
only the dove on her mildest day has, when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing and coos to them softly, unable to sing.
What songs long forgotten occur to you now― a babe at each breast? What terrible vow ripped from your throat like the thunder that day can never hold severing lightnings at bay?
Time taught you tenderness―time, oh, and love.
But love in the end is seldom enough ... and time?―insufficient to life’s brief task.
I can only admire, unable to ask―
what is the source, whence comes the desire of a woman to love as no God may require?
In this Ordinary Swoon by Michael R. Burch
In this ordinary swoon as I pass from life to death, I feel no heat from the cold, pale moon; I feel no sympathy for breath.
Who I am and why I came, I do not know; nor does it matter. The end of every man’s the same and every god’s as mad as a hatter.
I do not fear the letting go; I only fear the clinging on to hope when there’s no hope, although I lift my face to the blazing sun
and feel the greater intensity of the wilder inferno within me.
Second Sight by Michael R. Burch
I never touched you― that was my mistake.
Deep within, I still feel the ache.
Can an unformed thing eternally break?
Now, from a great distance, I see you again
not as you are now, but as you were then―
eternally present and Sovereign.
Lady’s Favor by Michael R. Burch
May spring fling her riotous petals devil- may-care into the air, ignoring the lethal nettles and may May cry gleeful- ly Hooray! as the abundance settles, till a sudden June swoon leave us out of tune, torn, when the last rose is left inconsolably bereft, rudely shorn of every device but her thorn.
The Shrinking Season by Michael R. Burch
With every wearying year the weight of the winter grows and while the schoolgirl outgrows her clothes, the widow disappears in hers.
Leave Taking by Michael R. Burch
Brilliant leaves abandon battered limbs to waltz upon ecstatic winds until they die.
But the barren and embittered trees, lament the frolic of the leaves and curse the bleak November sky ...
Now, as I watch the leaves' high flight before the fading autumn light, I think that, perhaps, at last I may
have learned what it means to say― goodbye.
This poem started out as a stanza in a much longer poem, "Jessamyn's Song," that dates to around age 14 or 15.
First Steps
by Michael R. Burch
for Caitlin Shea Murphy
To her a year is like infinity, each day―an adventure never-ending.
She has no concept of time, but already has begun the climb― from childhood to womanhood recklessly ascending.
I would caution her, "No! Wait! There will be time enough another day ... time to learn the Truth and to slowly shed your youth, but for now, sweet child, go carefully on your way! ..."
But her time is not a time for cautious words, nor a time for measured, careful understanding. She is just certain that, by grabbing the curtain, in a moment she will finally be standing!
Little does she know that her first few steps will hurtle her on her way through childhood to adolescence, and then, finally, pubescence . . . while, just as swiftly, I’ll be going gray!
Kin (I) by Michael R. Burch
O pale, austere moon, haughty beauty ...
what do we know of love, or duty?
Kindred (II) by Michael R. Burch
Rise, pale disastrous moon! What is love, but a heightened effect of time, light and distance?
Did you burn once, before you became so remote, so detached,
so coldly, inhumanly lustrous, before you were able to assume the very pallor of love itself?
What is the dawn now, to you or to me?
We are as one, out of favor with the sun.
We would exhume the white corpse of love for a last dance,
and yet we will not. We will let her be, let her abide,
for she is nothing now, to you or to me.
Bede's Death Song (circa 731 AD)
ancient Anglo-Saxon/Old English lyric poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Facing Death, that inescapable journey,
who can be wiser than he
who reflects, while breath yet remains,
on whether his life brought others happiness, or pains,
since his soul may yet win delight's or night's way
after his death-day.
I Have a Yong Suster (Anonymous Medieval English Riddle-Poem, circa 1430) translation by Michael R. Burch
I have a yong suster // I have a young sister Fer biyonde the see; // Far beyond the sea; Manye be the druries // Many are the keepsakes That she sente me. // That she sent me.
She sente me the cherye // She sent me the cherry Withouten any stoon, // Without any stone; And so she dide the dove // And also the dove Withouten any boon. // Without any bone.
She sente me the brere // She sent me the briar Withouten any rinde; // Without any skin; She bad me love my lemman // She bade me love my lover Withoute longinge. // Without longing.
How sholde any cherye // How should any cherry Be withoute stoon? // Be without a stone? And how sholde any dove // And how should any dove Be withoute boon? // Be without a bone?
How sholde any brere // How should any briar Be withoute rinde? // Be without a skin? How sholde I love my lemman // And how should I love my lover Withoute longinge? // Without longing?
Whan the cherye was a flowr, // When the cherry was a flower, Thanne hadde it no stoon; // Then it had no stone; Whan the dove was an ey, // When the dove was an egg, Thanne hadde it no boon. // Then it had no bone.
Whan the brere was unbred, // When the briar was unborn, Thanne hadde it no rinde; // Then it had no skin; Whan the maiden hath that she loveth, // And when a maiden has her mate, She is withoute longinge. // She is without longing!
That is a wickedly funny ending!
Spring by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Young lovers, greeting the spring fling themselves downhill, making cobblestones ring with their wild leaps and arcs, like ecstatic sparks struck from coal.
What is their brazen goal?
They grab at whatever passes, so we can only hazard guesses. But they rear like prancing steeds raked by brilliant spurs of need, Young lovers.
Oft in My Thought by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
So often in my busy mind I sought, Around the advent of the fledgling year, For something pretty that I really ought To give my lady dear; But that sweet thought's been wrested from me, clear, Since death, alas, has sealed her under clay And robbed the world of all that's precious here― God keep her soul, I can no better say.
For me to keep my manner and my thought Acceptable, as suits my age's hour? While proving that I never once forgot Her worth? It tests my power! I serve her now with masses and with prayer; For it would be a shame for me to stray Far from my faith, when my time's drawing near― God keep her soul, I can no better say.
Now earthly profits fail, since all is lost And the cost of everything became so dear; Therefore, O Lord, who rules the higher host, Take my good deeds, as many as there are, And crown her, Lord, above in your bright sphere, As heaven's truest maid! And may I say: Most good, most fair, most likely to bring cheer― God keep her soul, I can no better say.
When I praise her, or hear her praises raised, I recall how recently she brought me pleasure; Then my heart floods like an overflowing bay And makes me wish to dress for my own bier― God keep her soul, I can no better say.
Rondel: Your Smiling Mouth by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray, Your ample breasts and slender arms’ twin chains, Your hands so smooth, each finger straight and plain, Your little feet―please, what more can I say?
It is my fetish when you’re far away To muse on these and thus to soothe my pain― Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray, Your ample breasts and slender arms’ twin chains.
So would I beg you, if I only may, To see such sights as I before have seen, Because my fetish pleases me. Obscene? I’ll be obsessed until my dying day By your sweet smiling mouth and eyes, bright gray, Your ample breasts and slender arms’ twin chains!
The next three poems are interpretations of "Le temps a laissé son manteau" ("The season has cast off his mantle"). This famous rondeau was set to music by Debussy in his Trois chansons de France.
The season has cast its coat aside by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The season has cast its coat aside of wind and cold and rain, to dress in embroidered light again: sunlight, fit for a bride!
There isn't a bird or beast astride that fails to sing this sweet refrain: "The season has cast its coat aside!"
Now rivers, fountains and tides dressed in their summer best with silver beads impressed in a fine display now glide: the season has cast its coat aside!
Winter has cast his cloak away by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Winter has cast his cloak away of wind and cold and chilling rain to dress in embroidered light again: the light of day―bright, festive, gay!
Each bird and beast, without delay, in its own tongue, sings this refrain: "Winter has cast his cloak away!"
Brooks, fountains, rivers, streams at play, wear, with their summer livery, bright beads of silver jewelry. All the Earth has a new and fresh display: Winter has cast his cloak away!
The year lays down his mantle cold by Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The year lays down his mantle cold of wind, chill rain and bitter air, and now goes clad in clothes of gold of smiling suns and seasons fair,
while birds and beasts of wood and fold now with each cry and song declare: "The year lays down his mantle cold!"
All brooks, springs, rivers, seaward rolled, now pleasant summer livery wear with silver beads embroidered where the world puts off its raiment old. The year lays down his mantle cold.
Confession of a Stolen Kiss
by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My ghostly father, I confess, First to God and then to you, That at a window (you know how) I stole a kiss of great sweetness, Which was done out of avidness― But it is done, not undone, now.
My ghostly father, I confess, First to God and then to you.
But I shall restore it, doubtless, Again, if it may be that I know how; And thus to God I make a vow, And always I ask forgiveness.
My ghostly father, I confess, First to God and then to you.
The First Valentine Poem
Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465), a French royal, the grandchild of Charles V, and the Duke of Orleans, has been credited with writing the first Valentine card, in the form of a poem for his wife. Charles wrote the poem in 1415 at age 21, in the first year of his captivity while being held prisoner in the Tower of London after having been captured by the British at the Battle of Agincourt.
My Very Gentle Valentine by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465) loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My very gentle Valentine, Alas, for me you were born too soon, As I was born too late for you! May God forgive my jailer Who has kept me from you this entire year. I am sick without your love, my dear, My very gentle Valentine.
Caedmon's Hymn (circa 658-680 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Humbly now we honour heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the Measurer's might and his mind-plans,
the goals of the Glory-Father. First he, the Everlasting Lord,
established earth's fearful foundations.
Then he, the First Scop, hoisted heaven as a roof
for the sons of men: Holy Creator,
mankind's great Maker! Then he, the Ever-Living Lord,
afterwards made men middle-earth: Master Almighty!
Duellem (The Duel) by Charles Baudelaire loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Two combatants charged! Their fearsome swords brightened the air with fiery sparks and blood. Their clashing blades clinked odd serenades, reminding us: youth's inspired by overloud love.
But now their blades lie broken, like our hearts! Still, our savage teeth and talon-like fingernails can do more damage than the deadliest sword when lovers lash about with such natural flails.
In a deep ravine haunted by lynxes and panthers, our heroes roll around in a cozy embrace, leaving their blood to redden the colorless branches. This abyss is pure hell; our friends occupy the place.
Come, let us roll here too, cruel Amazon; let our hatred’s ardor never be over and done!
Le Balcon (The Balcony) by Charles Baudelaire loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Paramour of memory, ultimate mistress, source of all pleasure, my only desire; how can I forget your ecstatic caresses, the warmth of your breasts by the roaring fire, paramour of memory, ultimate mistress?
Each night illumined by the burning coals we lay together where the rose-fragrance clings― how soft your breasts, how tender your soul! Ah, and we said imperishable things, each night illumined by the burning coals.
How beautiful the sunsets these sultry days, deep space so profound, beyond life’s brief floods ... then, when I kissed you, my queen, in a daze, I thought I breathed the bouquet of your blood as beautiful as sunsets these sultry days.
Night thickens around us like a wall; in the deepening darkness our irises meet. I drink your breath, ah! poisonous yet sweet!, as with fraternal hands I massage your feet while night thickens around us like a wall.
I have mastered the sweet but difficult art of happiness here, with my head in your lap, finding pure joy in your body, your heart; because you’re the queen of my present and past I have mastered love’s sweet but difficult art.
O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses! Can these be reborn from a gulf we can’t sound as suns reappear, as if heaven misses their light when they sink into seas dark, profound? O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!
Les Bijoux (The Jewels) by Charles Baudelaire loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
My lover nude and knowing my heart's whims Wore nothing more than a few bright-flashing gems; Her art was saving men despite their sins― She ruled like harem girls crowned with diadems!
She danced for me with a gay but mocking air, My world of stone and metal sparking bright; I discovered in her the rapture of everything fair― Nay, an excess of joy where the spirit and flesh unite!
Naked she lay and offered herself to me, Parting her legs and smiling receptively, As gentle and yet profound as the rising sea― Till her surging tide encountered my cliff, abruptly.
A tigress tamed, her eyes met mine, intent ... Intent on lust, content to purr and please! Her breath, both languid and lascivious, lent An odd charm to her metamorphoses.
Her limbs, her loins, her abdomen, her thighs, Oiled alabaster, sinuous as a swan, Writhed pale before my calm clairvoyant eyes; Like clustered grapes her breasts and belly shone.
Skilled in more spells than evil imps can muster, To break the peace which had possessed my heart, She flashed her crystal rocks’ hypnotic luster Till my quietude was shattered, blown apart.
Her waist awrithe, her breasts enormously Out-thrust, and yet ... and yet, somehow, still coy ... As if stout haunches of Antiope Had been grafted to a boy ...
The room grew dark, the lamp had flickered out. Mute firelight, alone, lit each glowing stud; Each time the fire sighed, as if in doubt, It steeped her pale, rouged flesh in pools of blood.
The Perfect Courtesan
by Michael R. Burch
after Baudelaire, for the courtesans
She received me into her cavities,
indulging my darkest depravities
with such trembling longing, I felt her need ...
Such was the dalliance to which we agreed:
she, my high rider;
I, her wild steed.
She surrendered her all and revealed to me:
the willing handmaiden, delighted to please,
the Perfect Courtesan of Ecstasy.
Il pleure dans mon coeur (“It rains in my heart”) by Paul Verlaine loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
It rains in my heart As it rains on the town; Heavy languor and dark Drenches my heart.
Oh, the sweet-sounding rain Cleansing pavements and roofs! For my listless heart's pain The pure song of the rain!
Still it rains without reason In my overcast heart. Can it be there's no treason? That this grief's without reason?
As my heart floods with pain, Lacking hatred, or love, I've no way to explain Such bewildering pain!
Spleen
by Paul Verlaine loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The roses were so very red; The ivy, impossibly black.
Dear, with a mere a turn of your head, My despair’s flooded back!
The sky was too gentle, too blue; The sea, far too windswept and green.
Yet I always imagined―or knew―
I’d again feel your spleen.
Now I'm tired of the glossy waxed holly, Of the shimmering boxwood too,
Of the meadowland’s endless folly, When all things, alas, lead to you!
Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will
unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within
like an inchoate star―demanding our belief.
You must change your life.
Der Panther ("The Panther")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond.
Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride,
he circles, his small orbit tightening,
an electron losing power. Paralyzed,
soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing.
Only at times the pupils' curtains rise
silently, and then an image enters,
descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers
somewhere within his empty heart, and dies.
Komm, Du ("Come, You")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive.
Come, you―the last one I acknowledge; return―
incurable pain searing this physical mesh.
As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn
with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh.
This wood that long resisted your embrace
now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury
as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage―
uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré.
Completely free, no longer future’s pawn,
I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain,
certain I’d never return―my heart’s reserves gone―
to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame.
Now all I ever was must be denied.
I left my memories of my past elsewhere.
That life―my former life―remains outside.
Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here.
Liebes-Lied ("Love Song")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours?
How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone?
Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark
in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate.
There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow
enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice.
Whose instrument are we becoming together?
Whose, the hands that excite us?
Ah, sweet song!
Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I live outside your gates,
exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun;
sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear
in my right palm;
then when I speak my voice sounds strange,
alien...
I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing:
mine or yours.
I implore a trifle;
the poets cry for more.
Sometimes I cover both eyes
and my face disappears;
there it lies heavy in my hands
looking peaceful, instead,
so that no one would ever think
I have no place to lay my head.
The City Is a Garment
by Michael R. Burch
A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,― the city is a garment stretched so thin her festive colors bleed into the night, and everywhere bright seams, unraveling,
cascade their brilliant contents out like coins on motorways and esplanades; bead cars come tumbling down long highways; at her groin a railtrack like a zipper flashes sparks;
her hills are haired with brush like cashmere wool and from their cleavage winking lights enlarge and travel, slender fingers ... softly pull themselves into the semblance of a barge.
When night becomes too chill, she softly dons great overcoats of warmest-colored dawn.
Polish by Michael R. Burch
Your fingers end in talons― the ones you trim to hide the predator inside.
Ten thousand creatures sacrificed; but really, what’s the loss? Apply a splash of gloss.
You picked the perfect color to mirror nature’s law: red, like tooth and claw.
The Witch by Michael R. Burch
her fingers draw into claws she cackles through rotting teeth ... u ask "are there witches?" pshaw! (yet she has my belief)
Defenses by Michael R. Burch
Beyond the silhouettes of trees stark, naked and defenseless there stand long rows of sentinels: these pert white picket fences.
Now whom they guard and how they guard, the good Lord only knows; but savages would have to laugh observing the tidy rows.
The Aery Faery Princess by Michael R. Burch
for Keira
There once was a princess lighter than fluff made of such gossamer stuff― the down of a thistle, butterflies’ wings, the faintest high note the hummingbird sings, moonbeams on garlands, strands of bright hair ... I think she’s just you when you’re floating on air!
Album by Michael R. Burch
I caress them―trapped in brittle cellophane―
and I see how young they were, and how unwise; and I remember their first flight―an old prop plane,
their blissful arc through alien blue skies ...
And I touch them here through leaves which―tattered, frayed―
are also wings, but wings that never flew: like insects’ wings―pinned, held. Here, time delayed,
their features never changed, remaining two ...
And Grief, which lurked unseen beyond the lens or in shadows where It crept on feral claws as It scratched Its way into their hearts, depends on sorrows such as theirs, and works Its jaws ...
and slavers for Its meat―those young, unwise,
who naively dare to dream, yet fail to see how, lumbering sunward, Hope, ungainly, flies, clutching to Her ruffled breast what must not be.
Because You Came to Me by Michael R. Burch
Because you came to me with sweet compassion and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair, I do not love you after any fashion, but wildly, in despair.
Because you came to me in my black torment and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn’s foment they melt, I am undone.
Because I am undone, you have remade me as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me and bower me, somehow.
Beckoning by Michael R. Burch
Yesterday the wind whispered my name while the blazing locks of her rampant mane lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday I saw the way the wind caressed tall pines in forests laced by glinting streams and thick with tangled vines.
And though she reached for me in her sleep, the touch I felt was Time's.
I believe I wrote the first version of this poem around age 18, wasn't happy with it, put it aside, then revised it six years later.
Because She Craved the Very Best by Michael R. Burch
Because she craved the very best, he took her East, he took her West; he took her where there were no wars and brought her bright bouquets of stars, the blush and fragrances of roses, the hush an evening sky imposes, moonbeams pale and garlands rare, and golden combs to match her hair, a nightingale to sing all night, white wings, to let her soul take flight ...
She stabbed him with a poisoned sting and as he lay there dying, she screamed, "I wanted everything!" and started crying.
Besieged by Michael R. Burch
Life―the disintegration of the flesh
before the fitful elevation of the soul upon improbable wings?
Life―is this all we know,
the travail one bright season brings? ...
Now the fruit hangs, impendent, pregnant with death, as the hurricane builds and flings its white columns and banners of snow
and the rout begins.
Heroin or Heroine? by Michael R. Burch
for mothers battling addiction
serve the Addiction; worship the Beast; feed the foul Pythons your flesh, their fair feast ...
or rise up, resist the huge many-headed hydra; for the sake of your Loved Ones decapitate medusa.
Loose Knit by Michael R. Burch
She blesses the needle, fetches fine red stitches, criss-crossing, embroidering dreams in the delicate fabric.
And if her hand jerks and twitches in puppet-like fits, she tells herself reality is not as threadbare as it seems ...
that a little more darning may gather loose seams.
She weaves an unraveling tapestry of fatigue and remorse and pain; ... only the nervously pecking needle pricks her to motion, again and again.
Break Time by Michael R. Burch
for those who lost loved ones on 9-11
Intrude upon my grief; sit; take a spot of milk to cloud the blackness that you feel; add artificial sweeteners to conceal the bitter aftertaste of loss. You’ll heal if I do not. The coffee’s hot. You speak: of bundt cakes, polls, the price of eggs. You glance twice at your watch, cough, look at me askance. The TV drones oeuvres of high romance in syncopated lip-synch. Should I feel the underbelly of Love’s warm Ideal, its fuzzy-wuzzy tummy, and not reel toward some dark conclusion? Disappear to pale, dissolving atoms. Were you here? I brush you off: like saccharine, like a tear.
Distant Light by Walid Khazindar loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Bitterly cold, winter clings to the naked trees.
If only you would free the bright sparrows from your fingertips and unleash a smile―that shy, tentative smile―
from the imprisoned anguish I see.
Sing! Can we not sing as if we were warm, hand-in-hand, sheltered by shade from a sweltering sun?
Can you not always remain this way: stoking the fire, more beautiful than expected, in reverie?
Darkness increases and we must remain vigilant now that this distant light is our sole consolation― this imperiled flame, which from the beginning has been flickering, in danger of going out.
Come to me, closer and closer. I don't want to be able to tell my hand from yours. And let's stay awake, lest the snow smother us.
This is a wonderfully moving poem by Walid Khazindar, who was born in 1950 in Gaza City. He is considered to be one of the very best Palestinian poets; his poetry has been said to be "characterized by metaphoric originality and a novel thematic approach unprecedented in Arabic poetry." He was awarded the first Palestine Prize for Poetry in 1997.
Last Anthem by Michael R. Burch
Where you have gone are the shadows falling . . . does memory pale like a fossil in shale . . . do you not hear me calling?
Where you have gone do the shadows lengthen . . . does memory wane with the absence of pain . . . is silence at last your anthem?
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
Marina Tsvetaeva: Modern English Translations
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) ranks among the greatest Russian poets of all time. Along with Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandelstam, she was one of the four great poets who kept their humanity and integrity through Russia's "terrible years." Pasternak praised her "golden, incomparable genius."
I Know The Truth
by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation by Michael R. Burch
I know the truth―abandon lesser truths!
There's no need for anyone living to struggle! See? Evening falls, night quickly descends! So why the useless disputes―generals, poets, lovers?
The wind is calming now; the earth is bathed in dew; the stars' infernos will soon freeze in the heavens. And soon we'll sleep together, under the earth, we who never gave each other a moment's rest above it.
I Know The Truth (Alternate Ending) by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I know the truth―abandon lesser truths!
There's no need for anyone living to struggle! See? Evening falls, night quickly descends! So why the useless disputes―generals, poets, lovers?
The wind caresses the grasses; the earth gleams, damp with dew; the stars' infernos will soon freeze in the heavens. And soon we'll lie together under the earth, we who were never united above it.
Poems about Moscow by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
5 Above the city Saint Peter once remanded to hell now rolls the delirious thunder of the bells.
As the thundering high tide eventually reverses, so, too, the woman who once bore your curses.
To you, O Great Peter, and you, O Great Tsar, I kneel! And yet the bells above me continually peal.
And while they keep ringing out of the pure blue sky, Moscow's eminence is something I can't deny ...
though sixteen hundred churches, nearby and afar, all gaily laugh at the hubris of the Tsars.
8 Moscow, what a vast uncouth hostel of a home! In Russia all are homeless so all to you must come.
A knife stuck in each boot-top, each back with its shameful brand, we heard you from far away. You called us: here we stand.
Because you branded us criminals for every known kind of ill, we seek the all-compassionate Saint, the haloed one who heals.
And there behind that narrow door where the uncouth rabble pour, we seek the red-gold radiant heart of Iver, who loved the poor.
Now, as "Halleluiah" floods bright fields that blaze to the west, O sacred Russian soil, I kneel here to kiss your breast!
Insomnia by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
2 In my enormous city it is night as from my house I step beyond the light; some people think I'm daughter, mistress, wife ... but I am like the blackest thought of night.
July's wind sweeps a way for me to stray toward soft music faintly blowing, somewhere. The wind may blow until bright dawn, new day, but will my heart in its rib-cage really care?
Black poplars brushing windows filled with light ... strange leaves in hand ... faint music from distant towers ... retracing my steps, there's nobody lagging behind ... This shadow called me? There's nobody here to find.
The lights are like golden beads on invisible threads ... the taste of dark night in my mouth is a bitter leaf ... O, free me from shackles of being myself by day! Friends, please understand: I'm only a dreamlike belief.
Poems for Akhmatova by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
4 You outshine everything, even the sun at its zenith. The stars are yours! If only I could sweep like the wind through some unbarred door, gratefully, to where you are ...
to hesitantly stammer, suddenly shy, lowering my eyes before you, my lovely mistress, petulant, chastened, overcome by tears, as a child sobs to receive forgiveness ...
This gypsy passion of parting! by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This gypsy passion of parting! We meet, and are ready for flight! I rest my dazed head in my hands, and think, staring into the night ...
that no one, perusing our letters, will ever understand the real depth of just how sacrilegious we were, which is to say we had faith,
in ourselves.
The Appointment by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I will be late for the appointed meeting. When I arrive, my hair will be gray, because I abused spring. And your expectations were much too high!
I shall feel the effects of the bitter mercury for years. (Ophelia tasted, but didn't spit out, the rue.) I will trudge across mountains and deserts, trampling souls and hands without flinching,
living on, as the earth continues with blood in every thicket and creek. But always Ophelia's pallid face will peer out from between the grasses bordering each stream.
She took a swig of passion, only to fill her mouth with silt. Like a shaft of light on metal, I set my sights on you, highly. Much too high in the sky, where I have appointed my dust its burial.
Rails by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The railway bed's steel-blue parallel tracks are ruled out, neatly as musical staves.
Over them, people are transported like possessed Pushkin creatures whose song has been silenced. See them: arriving, departing?
And yet they still linger, the note of their pain remaining ... always rising higher than love, as the poles freeze to the embankment, like Lot's wife transformed to salt, forever.
Despair has arranged my fate as someone arranges a wedding; then, like a voiceless Sappho I must weep like a pain-wracked seamstress
with the mute lament of a marsh heron! Then the departing train will hoot above the sleepers as its wheels slice them to ribbons.
In my eye the colors blur to a glowing but meaningless red. All young women, at times, are tempted by such a bed!
Every Poem is a Child of Love by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Every poem is a child of love, A destitute b*****d chick A fledgling blown down from the heights above― Left of its nest? Not a stick. Each heart has its gulf and its bridge. Each heart has its blessings and griefs. Who is the father? A liege? Maybe a liege, or a thief.
I Loved You by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin translation by Michael R. Burch
I loved you ... perhaps I love you still ... perhaps for a while such emotions may remain. But please don’t let my feelings trouble you; I do not wish to cause you further pain.
I loved you ... thus the hopelessness I knew ... The jealousy, the diffidence, the pain resulted in two hearts so wholly true the gods might grant us leave to love again.
Attilâ İlhan (1925-2005) was a Turkish poet, translator, novelist, screenwriter, editor, journalist, essayist, reviewer, socialist and intellectual.
Ben Sana Mecburum: “You are indispensable” by Attila Ilhan translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
You are indispensable; how can you not know that you’re like nails riveting my brain? I see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions. You are indispensable; how can you not know that I burn within, at the thought of you?
Trees prepare themselves for autumn; can this city be our lost Istanbul? Now clouds disintegrate in the darkness as the street lights flicker and the streets reek with rain. You are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...
Love sometimes seems akin to terror: a man tires suddenly at nightfall, of living enslaved to the razor at his neck. Sometimes he wrings his hands, expunging other lives from his existence. Sometimes whichever door he knocks echoes back only heartache.
A screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih ... a song about some Friday long ago. I stop to listen from a vacant corner, longing to bring you an untouched sky, but time disintegrates in my hands. Whatever I do, wherever I go, you are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...
Are you the blue child of June? Ah, no one knows you―no one knows! Your deserted eyes are like distant freighters ...
Perhaps you are boarding in Yesilköy? Are you drenched there, shivering with the rain that leaves you blind, beset, broken, with wind-disheveled hair?
Whenever I think of life seated at the wolves’ table, shameless, yet without soiling our hands ... Yes, whenever I think of life, I begin with your name, defying the silence, and your secret tides surge within me making this voyage inevitable. You are indispensable; how can you not know?
Fragments by Attila Ilhan loose English translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch ***
The night is a cloudy-feathered owl, its quills like fine-spun glass.
It gazes out the window, perched on my right shoulder, its wings outspread and huge.
If the encroaching darkness seems devastating at first glance, the sovereign of everything, its reach infinite ...
Still somewhere within a kernel of light glows secretly creating an enlightened forest of dialectics.
***
In September’s waning days one thinks wanly of the arrival of fall like a ship appearing on the horizon with untrimmed, tattered sails; for some unfathomable reason fall is the time to consider one’s own demise― the body smothered by yellowed leaves like a corpse rotting in a ghoulish photograph ...
***
Bitter words crack like whips snapping across prison yards ...
Then there are words like pomegranate trees in bloom, words like the sun igniting the sea beyond mountainous horizons, flashing like mysterious knives ...
Such words are the burning roses of an infinite imagination; they are born and they die with the flutterings of butterflies; we carry those words in our hearts like pregnant shotguns until the day we expire, martyred for the words we were prepared to die for ...
***
What I wrote and what you understood? Curious and curiouser!
Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems
Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.
Snapshot by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased; even when you lie underground, it encompasses you. So, those of you who anticipate the shadows, how long will the darkness remember you?
Zulmü Alkislayamam "I Can’t Applaud Tyranny" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I can't condone cruelty; I will never applaud the oppressor; Yet I can't renounce the past for the sake of deluded newcomers. When someone curses my ancestors, I want to strangle them, Even if you don’t. But while I harbor my elders, I refuse to praise their injustices. Above all, I will never glorify evil, by calling injustice “justice.” From the day of my birth, I've loved freedom; The golden tulip never deceived me. If I am nonviolent, does that make me a docile sheep? The blade may slice, but my neck resists! When I see someone else's wound, I suffer a great hardship; To end it, I'll be whipped, I'll be beaten. I can't say, “Never mind, just forget it!” I'll mind, I'll crush, I'll be crushed, I'll uphold justice. I'm the foe of the oppressor, the friend of the oppressed. What the hell do you mean, with your backwardness?
Çanakkale Sehitlerine "For the Çanakkale Martyrs" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war?― The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara, Forcing entry between her mountain passes To a triangle of land besieged by countless vessels. Oh, what dishonorable assemblages! Who are these Europeans, come as rapists? Who, these braying hyenas, released from their reeking cages? Why do the Old World, the New World, and all the nations of men now storm her beaches? Is it Armageddon? Truly, the whole world rages! Seven nations marching in unison! Australia goose-stepping with Canada! Different faces, languages, skin tones! Everything so different, but the mindless bludgeons! Some warriors Hindu, some African, some nameless, unknown! This disgraceful invasion, baser than the Black Death! Ah, the 20th century, so noble in its own estimation, But all its favored ones nothing but a parade of worthless wretches! For months now Turkish soldiers have been vomited up Like stomachs’ retched contents regarded with shame. If the masks had not been torn away, the faces would still be admired, But the w***e called civilization is far from blameless. Now the damned demand the destruction of the doomed And thus bring destruction down on their own heads. Lightning severs horizons! Earthquakes regurgitate the bodies of the dead! Bombs’ thunderbolts explode brains, rupture the breasts of brave soldiers. Underground tunnels writhe like hell Full of the bodies of burn victims. The sky rains down death, the earth swallows the living. A terrible blizzard heaves men violently into the air. Heads, eyes, torsos, legs, arms, chins, fingers, hands, feet ... Body parts rain down everywhere. Coward hands encased in armor callously scatter Floods of thunderbolts, torrents of fire. Men’s chests gape open, Beneath the high, circling vulture-like packs of the air. Cannonballs fly as frequently as bullets Yet the heroic army laughs at the hail. Who needs steel fortresses? Who fears the enemy? How can the shield of faith not prevail? What power can make religious men bow down to their oppressors When their stronghold is established by God? The mountains and the rocks are the bodies of martyrs! ... For the sake of a crescent, oh God, many suns set, undone! Dear soldier, who fell for the sake of this land, How great you are, your blood saves the Muslims! Only the lions of Bedr rival your glory! Who then can dig the grave wide enough to hold you. and your story? If we try to consign you to history, you will not fit! No book can contain the eras you shook! Only eternities can encompass you! ... Oh martyr, son of the martyr, do not ask me about the grave: The prophet awaits you now, his arms flung wide open, to save!
Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”)
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
for the refugees
The time to weigh anchor has come; a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown, cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts. No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure; the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief, scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring ... Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing! There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life! The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile, for they cannot know where the vanished are bound. Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves, since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey.
Full Moon by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
You are so lovely the full moon just might delight in your rising, as curious and bright, to vanquish night.
But what can a mortal man do, dear, but hope? I’ll ponder your mysteries and (hmmmm) try to cope.
We both know you have every right to say no.
The Music of the Snow by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years! This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years!
Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery, It rises from a choir of a hundred voices!
As the organ’s harmonies resound profoundly, I share the sufferings of Slavic grief.
My mind drifts far from this city, this era, To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey.
Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear, With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul!
Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me; I keep them at bay all night with my dreams!
Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer.
Thinking of you by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Thinking of you is beautiful, hopeful― like listening to the most beautiful songs sung by the earth's most beautiful voices. But hope is insufficient for me now; I don't want to listen to songs. I want to sing love into birth.
I love you by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I love you― like dipping bread into salt and eating; like waking at night with a raging fever and thirstily lapping up water, my mouth to the silver tap; like unwrapping the unwieldy box the postman delivers, unable to guess what's inside, feeling fluttery, happy, doubtful. I love you― like flying over the sea the first time as something stirs within me while the sky softly darkens over Istanbul. I love you― as men thank God gratefully for life.
Sparrow by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Little sparrow, perched on the clothesline, do you regard me with pity? Even so, I will watch you soar away through the white spring leaves.
The Divan of the Lover
the oldest extant Turkish poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
All the universe as one great sign is shown: God revealed in his creative acts unknown. Who sees or understands them, jinn or men? Such works lie far beyond mere mortals’ ken. Nor can man’s mind or reason reach that strand, Nor mortal tongue name Him who rules that land. Since He chose nothingness with life to vest, who dares to trouble God with worms’ behests? For eighteen thousand worlds, lain end to end, Do not with Him one atom's worth transcend!
Fragment by Prince Jem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Behold! The torrent, dashing against the rocks, flails wildly. The entire vast realm of Space and Being oppresses my soul idly. Through bitterness of grief and woe the sky has rent its morning robe. Look! See how in its eastern palace, the sun is a bloody globe! The clouds of heaven rain bright tears on the distant mountain peaks. Oh, hear how the deeply wounded thunder slowly, mournfully speaks!
This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea.
First Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders?
For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast,
I would be lost in its infinite Immensity!
Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror;
we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us.
Every Angel is terrifying!
And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing.
For whom may we turn to, in our desire?
Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware
that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence.
Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision.
Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality―
the concrete items that never destabilize.
Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ...
But whom, then, do we live for?
That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires?
Is life any less difficult for lovers?
They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates!
How can you fail to comprehend?
Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale:
may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying!
Yes, the springtime still requires you.
Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it.
A wave recedes toward you from the distant past,
or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears.
All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ...
Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved?
(Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep
you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?)
When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite;
sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them)
because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified.
Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives;
even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth.
But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself,
as if lacking the energy to recreate them.
Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus―
how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example
and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?"
Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us?
Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved,
quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension,
so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself?
For there is nowhere else where we can remain.
Voices! Voices!
Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened,
until the elevating call soared them heavenward;
and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration.
Not that you could endure God's voice―far from it!
But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence:
It murmurs now of the martyred young.
Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome,
didn't they come quietly to address you?
And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you
recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa?
What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice―
which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing.
Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth;
to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire;
not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future;
no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands;
to set aside even one's own name,
forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything.
How strange to no longer desire one's desires!
How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space.
Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity.
The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves.
Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead.
The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom
until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar.
In the end, the early-departed no longer need us:
they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies,
as children outgrow their mothers’ breasts.
But we, who need such immense mysteries,
and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress―
how can we exist without them?
Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless―
the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy;
then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever,
we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time―
that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us?
Second Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature. As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance, stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling while the curious youth peered through the window. But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts would pound us to death. What are you?
Who are you? Joyous from the beginning; God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites; creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light; stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones; filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture; shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ... until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance.
While we, when deeply moved, evaporate; we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers; we drift away like the scent of smoke. And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room! You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us? We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out. And even the loveliest, who can retain them?
Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses. And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish. O smile, where are you bound? O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart? Alas, but is this not what we are? Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us? Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves, or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well? Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women? Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves?
Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air. For it seems everything eludes us. See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm. And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs. And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope?
Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider: You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection? Sometimes my hands become aware of each other and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them, creating a slight sensation. But because of that, can I still claim to be?
You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”; You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes; You, the one who dwindles as the other increases: I ask you to consider ... I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance, like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear. And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy, the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden: lovers, do you not still remain who you were before? If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion, still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic.
Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones? Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today? Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos. The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.” If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity, our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock. For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did. And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose.
Duet, Minor Key
by Michael R. Burch
Without the drama of cymbals
or the fanfare and snares of drums,
I present my case
stripped of its fine veneer:
behold, thy instrument.
Play, for the night is long.
Sonnet: Duet (II)
by Michael R. Burch
If love is just an impulse meant to bring
two tiny hearts together, skittering
like hamsters from their Quonsets late at night
in search of lust’s productive exercise . . .
If love is the mutation of some gene
made radiant�"an accident of bliss
played out by two small actors on a screen
of silver mesh, who never even kiss . . .
If love is evolution, nature’s way
of sorting out its DNA in pairs,
of matching, mating, sculpting flesh’s clay . . .
why does my wrinkled hamster climb his stairs
to set his wheel revolving, then descend
and stagger off . . . to make hers fly again?
Originally published by Bewildering Stories
Virginal by Michael R. Burch
For an hour every wildflower beseeches her, "To thy breast, Elizabeth."
But she is mine; her lips divine and her breasts and hair are mine alone. Let the wildflowers moan.
Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity by Michael R. Burch
“We have a common sky.” ― Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345-402)
We had a common sky before the Christians came.
We thought there might be gods but did not know their names.
The common stars above us? They winked, and would not tell.
Yet now our fellow mortals claim our questions merit hell!
The cause of our damnation? They claim they’ve seen the LIGHT ...
but still the stars wink down at us, as wiser beings might.
Note to a Chick on a Religious Kick
by Michael R. Burch
Daisy, when you smile, my life gets sunny; you make me want to spend all my damned money; but honey, you can be a bit ... um ... hazy, perhaps mentally lazy?, okay, downright crazy, praying to the Easter Bunny!
Well, Almost by Michael R. Burch
All Christians say “Never again!” to the inhumanity of men (except when the object of phlegm is a Palestinian).
Listen by Michael R. Burch
Listen to me now and heed my voice; I am a madman, alone, screaming in the wilderness, but listen now.
Listen to me now, and if I say that black is black, and white is white, and in between lies gray, I have no choice.
Does a madman choose his words? They come to him, the moon’s illuminations, intimations of the wind, and he must speak.
But listen to me now, and if you hear the tolling of the judgment bell, and if its tone is clear, then do not tarry,
but listen, or cut off your ears, for I Am weary.
O, My Redeeming Angel by Michael R. Burch
O my Redeeming Angel, after we have fought till death (and soon the night is done) ... then let us rest awhile, await the sun, and let us put aside all enmity.
I might have been the “victor”―who can tell?―
so many wounds abound. All out of joint, my groin, my thigh ... and nothing to anoint but sunsplit, shattered stone, as pillars hell.
Light, easy flight to heaven, Your return! How hard, how dark, this path I, limping, walk. I only ask Your blessing; no more talk!
Withhold Your name, and yet my ears still burn
and so my heart. You asked me, to my shame: for Jacob―trickster, shyster, sham―’s my name.
To Know You as Mary by Michael R. Burch
To know you as Mary, when you spoke her name and her world was never the same ... beside the still tomb where the spring roses bloom.
O, then I would laugh and be glad that I came, never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain ... beside the still tomb where the spring roses bloom.
I might not think this earth the sharp focus of pain if I heard you exclaim― beside the still tomb where the spring roses bloom
my most unexpected, unwarranted name! But you never spoke. Explain?
ur-gent by Michael R. Burch
if u would be a good father to us all, revoke the Curse, extract the Gall;
but if the abuse continues, look within into ur Mindless Soulless Emptiness Grim,
& admit ur sin, heartless jehovah, slayer of widows and orphans ...
quick, begin!
Bible libel (ii) by Michael R. Burch
ur savior’s a cad ―he’s as bad as his dad― according to your strange Bible.
demanding belief or he’ll bring u to grief? he’s worse than his horn-sprouting rival!
was the man ever good before made a “god”? if so, half your Bible is libel!
stock-home sin-drone by Michael R. Burch
ur GAUD created this hellish earth; thus u FANTAsize heaven (an escape from rebirth).
ur GUAD is a monster, butt ur RELIGION lied and called u his frankensteinian bride!
now, like so many others cruelly abused, u look for salve-a-shun to the AUTHOR of ur pain’s selfish creation.
cons preach the “TRUE GOSPEL” and proudly shout it, but if ur GAUD were good
he would have to doubt it.
un-i-verse-all love by Michael R. Burch
there is a Gaud, it’s true! and furthermore, tHeSh(e)It loves u! unfortunately the He Sh(e) It ,even more adorably, loves cancer, aids and leprosy.
One of the Flown by Michael R. Burch
Forgive me for not having known you were one of the flown― flown from the distant haunts of someone else’s enlightenment, alighting here to a darkness all your own . . .
I imagine you perched, pretty warbler, in your starched dress, before you grew bellicose . . . singing quaint love’s highest falsetto notes, brightening the pew of some dilapidated church . . .
But that was before autumn’s messianic dark hymns . . . Deepening on the landscape―winter’s inevitable shadows.
Love came too late; hope flocked to bare meadows, preparing to leave. Then even the thought of life became grim,
thinking of Him . . .
To flee, finally,―that was no whim,
no adventure, but purpose. I see you now a-wing: pale-eyed, intent, serious:
always, always at the horizon’s broadening rim . . .
How long have you flown now, pretty voyager? I keep watch from afar: pale lover and voyeur.
what the “Chosen Few” really pray for by Michael R. Burch
We are ready to be robed in light, angel-bright
despite Our intolerance;
ready to enter Heaven and never return (dark, this sojourn);
ready to worse-ship any gaud able to deliver Us from this flawed
existence; We pray with the persistence
of actual saints to be delivered from all earthly constraints:
just kiss each uplifted Face with lips of gentlest grace,
cooing the sweetest harmonies while brutally crushing Our enemies!
ah-Men!
wild wild west-east-north-south-up-down by Michael R. Burch
each day it resumes―the great struggle for survival.
the fiercer and more perilous the wrath, the wilder and wickeder the weaponry, the better the daily odds (just don’t bet on the long term, or revival).
so ur luvable Gaud decreed, Theo-retically, if indeed He exists as ur Bible insists― the Wildest and the Wickedest of all with the brightest of creatures in thrall (unless u somehow got that bleary Theo-ry wrong too).
A coming day
by Michael R. Burch
for my mother, due to her hellish religion
There will be a day, a day when the lightning strikes from a rainbowed mist when it will be too late, too late for me to say that I found your faith unblessed.
There will be a day, a day when the storm clouds gather, ominous, when it will be too late, too late to put away this darkness that came between us.
Hellbound by Michael R. Burch
Mother, it’s dark and you never did love me because you put Yahweh and Yeshu above me.
Did they ever love you or cling to you? No. Now Mother, it’s cold and I fear for my soul.
Mother, they say you will leave me and go to some distant “heaven” I never shall know.
If that’s your choice, you made it. Not me. You brought me to life; will you nail me to the tree?
Christ! Mother, they say God condemned me to hell. If the Devil’s your God then farewell, farewell!
Or if there is Love in some other dimension, let’s reconcile there and forget such cruel detention.
Martial Epigrams
You ask me why I've sent you no new verses?
There might be reverses.
―Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You ask me to recite my poems to you?
I know how you'll "recite" them, if I do.
―Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
NOTE: The irascible Martial is suggesting that if he shares his poems, they will be plagiarized.
You ask me why I choose to live elsewhere?
You're not there.
―Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You ask me why I love the fresh country air?
You're not befouling it there.
―Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You never wrote a poem,
yet criticize mine?
Stop abusing me or write something fine
of your own!
―Martial, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
He starts everything but finishes nothing;
thus I suspect there's no end to his stuffing.
―Martial, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
NOTE: Martial concluded his epigram with a variation of the f-word; please substitute it if you prefer it.
You alone own prime land, dandy!
Gold, money, the finest porcelain―you alone!
The best wines of the most famous vintages―you alone!
Discrimination and wit―you alone!
You have it all―who can deny that you alone are set for life?
But everyone has had your wife―she is never alone!
―Martial, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
You dine in great magnificence
while offering guests a pittance.
Sextus, did you invite
friends to dinner tonight
to impress us with your enormous appetite?
―Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
To you, my departed parents, dear mother and father,
I commend my little lost angel, Erotion, love’s daughter.
She fell a mere six days short of outliving her sixth frigid winter.
Protect her now, I pray, should the chilling dark shades appear;
muzzle hell’s three-headed hound, less her heart be dismayed!
Lead her to romp in some sunny Elysian glade,
her devoted patrons. Watch her play childish games
as she excitedly babbles and lisps my name.
Let no hard turf smother her softening bones; and do
rest lightly upon her, earth, she was surely no burden to you!
―Martial, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Alien Nation by Michael R. Burch
On a lonely outpost on Mars the astronaut practices “speech” as alien to primates below as mute stars winking high, out of reach.
And his words fall as bright and as chill as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro― far colder than Jesus’s words over the “fortunate” sparrow.
And I understand how gentle Emily must have felt, when all comfort had flown, gazing into those inhuman eyes, feeling zero at the bone.
Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought? For if he is human, I am not.
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