Long Rondeau Poems

Charles d'Orleans: a Medieval Marvel


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...

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Spring
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)
loose translation 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...

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

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

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has...

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Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux

These are poetic forms similar to villanelles, with refrains (repeated lines) and sometimes double refrains.



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

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot...

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Oft in My Thought
by Charles D'Orleans
translation 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...

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This hasn't quite worked, so I'll have to revisit it. I listened to Chopin Opus 9 number 1 for inspiration and got lots of sprawling thoughts. I tried to put them into a Rondeau Redoublé...

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Thomas Hardy the Poet, spoke with me last night,
Speaking of his thoughts, as I sat in bed upright,
Though twas in a dream, I never thought it strange,
That we enjoyed a moment for literary exchange.

In his...

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“I remember...” an old man said,
“When the first shot rang out,
When the rebels held their stead,
The British bullets flew about,
And through our ranks they sped.”
Though soldiers fall and cannons shout,
The Flag flies proud and strong,...

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The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where real love resides.
My heart has taken me down trapped into your Pure...

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In the war of words count the cost                           ...

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In wooden covered wagons on the out 
Flanks of town is where you will find the
Gypsy encampment.
Do you have an inquisitive mind?
They have all kinds of entertainment
That has to be lucrative for them to stay
Alive...

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I'll be thinking of you as the cloak of night weeps lullabies to the waiting moon,
where morning star through cloudless sky sips the sweet of morning dew,
still, if the light should forget to shine, the...

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Your chase!
Reminiscing on the oceans I had to dry up
and the volcanos I had to ice up
just to capture the epicenter of your heart
well protected by strong canines
of your carnivorous standards.

Hanging with the clouds of...

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Kneeling in prayer, I ask God for wisdom today;
Can you hear me God in your sanctuary way up high?
Yes, God knows my soul for he is my true pathway;
And I hear God's silent words...

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The first time I saw her playfully dancing in the breeze
to the soft rustling music played by the bright autumn leaves.
Under the dusky rose sky bursting in shades of red flame,
she looked like a quaint...

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How Poetry Began, such plots you tell!
A Tale Of Fire And Ice you wrote so well
Poor Peter Pumpkin bid a sad adieu
Pink Cherry Blossoms was your first haiku
You Echo, Silent Still - love's dream come...

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Though I knew not whether you'd be boy or girl,
I needed to give you a name.
I wanted for it to be a meaning of special
As you are to me the same.
In as the dawn brings...

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The sun shines brightly, it's a beautiful day                           ...

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LOVER AND FRIEND


Relationships are precious, like lover and friend 
Cherished much longer – built on trusting love and care	
Hence, losing one: melancholy – a tragic end	
Why have to lose one? Is life really that unfair?...

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Long time in the agricultural field , working under the rising sun ,
counting the amount of time , to lead a lax time with my wife and son ,
the time never came , but I...

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Music of My Soul 

The earth ever composes mystical arias for me
That taste the splendor in thunder’s profusion,
Then touch the silent metronomes of lyric waves free
To hypnotize my pulse in movements of fusion.

The sounds of...

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Crimson Rose 

Against all odds, your destiny, 
To live and grow, your history...
You grew and bloomed with all your might 
With drops of rain and harsh sunlight 
Through crack in earth you came to be....

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I DELIGHT AT HER CURVES


Her curves sparkles in the night
I, beguiled to play with her in delight
Gently, I pick her arch to steady
Deep breath slips, we both are ready

My breath softly tiptoes upon her neck
as...

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Escape
roundel by Geoffrey Chaucer
translation by Michael R. Burch

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

He may question...

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Once I loved you, through sunlit passions' myopic gaze,
     when beauty burned deep in this fervid breast,
     and envisioned desire beamed bright past the haze,
  ...

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