Long Couplets Poems

Willy Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge aka Yahweh and Jehovah 

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...

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Doggerel I or Nonsense Verse

A$$tronomical
by Michael R. Burch

Einstein, the frizzy-haired,
proved E equals MC squared.
Thus, all mass decreases
as activity ceases?
Not my mass, my a$$ declared!



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.

I came up...

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Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the bloody wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;

but when at last...
I soar the...

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Come Down
by Michael R. Burch

for Harold Bloom

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...

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What Good Are Our Tears?
by Michael R. Burch

What good are our tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is our concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm benevolence...

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Limericks VI - Religion

Pell-Mell for Hell Mel
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a Baptist named Mel
who condemned all non-Christians to hell.
When he stood before God
he felt like a clod
to discover His Love couldn’t fail!



Why I...

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Veronica Franco translations

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose.

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I) 
by Veronica Franco
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of...

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Rejection Slips

With over 5,700 publications if I count poems that have gone viral, I suppose I shouldn’t complain … but I do have some poems that have never been accepted for publication. Here are a...

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Villanelle: No man can on his own escape written fate

         For Thiru-Valluvar, the “nameless” author of 
the THIRUK-KURAL

Note: In my previous posts, especially on Canto 38, I...

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On the need to avoid being envious: Canto XVII, K161, K162 of the THIRUK-KURAL, Translation with Commentary

[ ENVY, of course, knows no racial nor ethnic boundaries, but I wouldn't be wrong, I dare say, ...

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Limericks IV - Donald Trump

The Hair Flap
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

The hair flap was truly a scare:
Trump’s bald as a billiard back there!
The whole nation laughed
At the state of his graft;
Now the...

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Niithaar Perumai, the Fundamental Role of Ascetics, Canto 26 of the Thirukkural, the Tamil Classical Treatise on Ethics, Translation and Commentary by T. Wignesan 


[Given the scarcity of information (mostly conflicting even then) on the...

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Book Three of the THIRUK-KURAL on Un-Authorised (concealed) and Authorised (religion-ordained) LOVE: Cantos 109 THAGAIANANGKURAITHTHAL to 133

(Note: Love between mainly the wedded pair from the standpoint of the fair liana-like “lady” of the pliant bamboo-shoulders,...

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As I watched my daughter playing with her son, I couldn't help but see myself in her. I still think of her as a child, but I guess parents always see their grown children as...

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Translation of Kendji Girac and Claudio Capeo's Que Dieu me pardonne by T Wignesan 

Lyrics by Kendji Girac and Renaud REBILLAUD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP2jp31jFMc

(The two young French songsters' duet, now, yo-yo-ing in the upper echelons of c-Star...

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Telling tales or stories is a favourable pasttime;
But using pictures to tell stories of past and present,
Yours remind me of days back in time,
Would not be all very  recent,
Last ones of grateful recline
To golden...

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The Anatomy of a Kural: Maxim Number 245 (taken at random) of the Thirukkural, the Tamil Classic on Ethics by Thiruvalluvar 

allal arulaalvaarkku illai valivalangum

mallalmaa naalam kari (K245)

“The teeming earth's vast realm, round which the...

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Samara...

Brilliant sunshine, silvery cloud;
looked down and found me lost in a crowd.
Some nights, I flew and followed the breeze.
Some nights, my world turned into a freeze.
Sometimes, I was lost, going my way;
it didn't matter night...

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Niitthaar Perumai, The Fundamental Role of the Ascetic: Canto 3, K29 and K30 of the Thirukkural by Thiruvalluvar
(In these kurals, I give both the "unrefined" versions using connective particles and modified post-positions (in Tamil: according...

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When the American flag waved bravely, for women it did not FURL.
However, many bold and determined women have changed the WORLD.

I am a proud bother of 8 sisters;
Two of whom are older and 6 are...

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What are words other than coffin nails be?
Who does it belong to when it rails me?
An empty vessel at best that bails thee.

Lend me your ear and draw your heart near;
my words might seer, but...

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 Was privileged to have sedentary on the seashore in seraphic poetic submersion;
 the ringing sounds from the distant horizon made me entirely lost in  speculation;
 when the sounds of waves from far nimbly...

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The root word for religion is not kind – 
Latin verb that means to tie or to bind – 
as it tends to play tricks on anyone’s mind. 

For some, the edicts lash; they mercilessly...

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Typically,  a pantoum is made up of two rhyming couplets, however, Western writers altered and adapted the form, the importance of rhyming and brevity diminished. So, pantoums do not need to rhyme.

https://www.poetrysoup.com/dictionary/pantoum


I started off...

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Dear budding poet,

Regarding modern poetry this is a result of poets such as you redesigning forms of poetry written through the ages by different nationalities, famous and just ordinary people like you and me.

When composing...

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