Long Cervantes Poems

Poem revised Memorial Day May 30th, 2022 at 1500 hours

Flagrante delict adulterous sordid behavior 
automatically linkedin with Lothario;
an unscrupulous seducer of women, 
based upon a character 
in The Impertinent Curious Man, 
a story within a...

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Where do we come in
					in medias res  not knowing nor caring when
doesn’t everybody pine being number one we leave behind our lives in pages  pictures  or else make for images of what...

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Soliloquio del Individuo by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan


(Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of the "Cervantes Prize" (the highest literary honour for writers in Spanish), four times nominated for the...

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Unquotable quotes: Writers – XXXVIII

     for Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoieski  
     who let not even hope sustain them and who used their...

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       Hay un dia feliz by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan

      To come by a happy day

(In this poem, Parra maintains lines of...

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Unquotable quotes: Teachers – XXI

The pupil, the bitch and the walnut tree, the more the teacher beats them, the better they be.
In the old days, teachers were born to the métier like poets; today softwares...

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Unquotable quotes: The Janitor, Gardienne, Landlady, Housekeeper, Portero, Sereno and the Hausgast –XXXii Part Two

The duties of the Housekeeper in the U.K. par rapport au Portero in Spain or the Gardienne in France is that...

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Lorca Translations III

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright and theater director. He was assassinated during the Spanish Civil War and his body was never found.

Paisaje (“Landscape”)
by Federico Garcia Lorca
translation by Michael R....

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Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.

Originally published...

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Forever extinct seems the age of classical poetry,
With all its cheers from caves, cottages, marble domes and temples,

When now a country honors not classical bards:
O Hugh MacDiarmid, Petrarch, Ono No Komachi, Thomas Chatterton, Robert Browning,...

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Each single morning on my way to work
I fantasize what happens in New York
If I were to spend a long weekend there.
I'd ask you out of the blue, not despair.

Once passionate lovers, can we be...

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If ever I had to have a country victim of pedophily : LXXXVI

[Note: 216,000 cases of pedophily, perpetrated by the clergy, have been recorded by the Catholic Church in France since 1950.]

If ever I had to...

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When I was a child along with my cousins we listen to heroic tales about our ancestors and in someway the mill was always mentioned. So we went to discover these EPIC Historic site. A...

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IF YOU THINK YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE…

   “A quiet and modest life,” says he in German, the most successful of them/us all, “brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant...

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Proyecto de tren instantaneo entre Santiago y Puerto Montt by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T. Wignesan

Soliloquio del Individuo by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T Wignesan 

(Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of...

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True Love Cento 

There must be a million ways 
To say I love you
But these words will suffice for now 
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
If ever two were one, then...

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Various Heresies 12

God Had a Plan
by Michael R. Burch

God had a plan
though it was hardly “divine.”
He created a terror: 
Frankenstein.

He blamed death on man:
was that part of the plan
so hard to define,
or did he just...

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...Shakespeare and his pentameter, vital after four centuries,
Cervantes and his man Sancho,
Dumas and Montecristo,
the great tales of Boccaccio,
Dicken and his fine ghosts three.

Beethoven's sonic fury still staggers even jaded minds,
Tchaikovsky made eighteen-twelve
sound utterly epic as...

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A cool September day
We came to La Magdalena of Santander
Next to the Beach of Sardinero
To see the penguins and the seals
And the galleons "Ana de Ayala"
The "Cantabria" and the "Quitus Amazonas"
Stranded in the air
In the...

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To Don Quixote, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet : A Don Quichotte

         (Poem written in March 1861 that I would Verlaine had
dedicated to the Grand Dear Old...

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Yesterday’s September is gone…
Our love at first sight, our time together in 
good times and bad…
Your strong embrace and true love 
I will always remember…

Your faith so strong, anxious for nothing…
knowing your day was close...

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Villanelle : Merchants of the Word make Writers write for Prizes

Merchants of the Word make writers write for prizes
Does not the failed writer pose as house editor
Great treasures of the past were weaned without judges

Prized-writers...

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Bludgeoning gray towers randomly spread, ingesting the living in their walls and beds.
Skeletal dragons seen through Cervantes eyes yet no whirling windmills in Manchester's skies.
A flag flutters freely where the wind takes it mind, red...

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I see you there,
painting a literary facade,
thumbing through Cervantes
as though it has usurped your very being.
Your unenthused stance reveals your ruse
as do your constant glances in my direction.
In my quixotic state, I wonder if you
fancy...

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The Old Man and the Seine


      For the legendary George Whitman

              (1912 – December 13, 2011)

 

King...

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