Long Catullus Poems

just a kiss from CHRIST--

Who’ll see your beauty? 
Who now will you love?
Whose will they say you’ll be?
Who will you kiss? 
Will you be missed?
But you, Catullus, be resolved to be firm
Mankind  has a...

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Grab Bag Poems and Epigrams

POEMS

Less Heroic Couplets: Dark Cloud, Silver Lining, Dupes
from “Love in the Time of the Coronavirus”
by Michael R. Burch

Every corona has a silver lining:
I’m too far away to hear your whining,
and despite...

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CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS 2

Catullus CI: 'His Brother's Burial'
translation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Through many lands and over many seas
I have journeyed, brother, to these wretched rites,
to this final acclamation of the dead...
and to speak — however ineffectually...

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CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS 4

Catullus LXV aka Carmina 65
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hortalus, I’m exhausted by relentless grief,
and have thus abandoned the learned virgins;
nor can my mind, so consumed by malaise,
partake of the Muses' mete fruit;
for...

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CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS 3


Catullus VII: 'How Many Kisses'
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You ask, Lesbia, how many kisses
are enough, or more than enough, to satisfy me?

As many as the Libyan sands
swirling in incense-bearing Cyrene
between the torrid...

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CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS



Catullus LXXXV: 'Odi et Amo'
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I hate. I love.
You ask, 'Why not refrain?'
I wish I could explain.
I can't, but feel the pain.

2.
I hate. I love.
Why? Heavens above!
I wish I could...

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I’m not some filthy slut
who calls your poems 
a joke; I like them. 
But here’s advice, 
take it or ignore it:  
You lard a poem with myths 
that weigh it down; half 
the young...

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That night you came and dined with us
there was a wind, then soft rain. 
My hair was dressed by Aemilia               ...

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Listen to the music of centuries
Remembering looking toward peace
"We must disentral ourselves"
The congressmen
Big black tires
Big black men,black suits
Siphoning your GRIT
The corporate war profiteers
Who are they as bats at night
Chameleons in all natures
Camouflaged at appropriate times
Demagogues!the...

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A TEN MILE DRIVE
-
I walked a country road once
In New England, in October.
In a gorgeous colored paradise
You’d think you were not sober.
-
A car approached, my thumb went out
He stopped. I boarded, saw the man,
And nearly...

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"Now Spring restores the balmy heat, now Zephyr's sweet breezes calm the rage of the equinoctial sky." -  Catullus

One god of wind blows from the west.
Zephyros was that Greek god’s name.
Of four wind gods...

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I want to be known by one name
Like Dessalines, Christophe and Pétion
Like Pelé, Ali or a Great Champion
Like Edison, Jefferson and Washington.

I want to be known by just a name
By my pretty and sweet surname
Like...

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G-ood health of the humankind
A-voids the lethal link; 
I-solating the ferocious flu, 
U-ntil the dirt and grime
S-ink.

V-irus spares the man of good health, 
A-ttacking the vulnerablebody; 
L-eaving him grasping for breath, 
E-mploying the menace's mystery.
R-emaining...

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So, you think my poems obscene?  Read Catullus. 
Graffiti-ed lavatories are more apt sites
for his scatological puerile poem writes. 
Yet, today his leather bound tomes enthrall us. 

Vicariously momentarily shot
back over two thousand years...

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Two thousand years ago a tiny bird
Loved by a Roman beauty met his death.
Catullus, a poet, was by passion stirred
And penned light lines, as fresh as baby’s breath.
“She loved him more than her own eyes,”...

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