Long Cyprus Poems

Sappho fragment #155
translation by Michael R. Burch 

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

*

Sappho fragment #156
translation by Michael R. Burch 

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable...

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Poems of Recanted Bachelorhood

bachelorhoodwinked
by Michael R. Burch

u
are
charming
& disarming,
but mostly ALARMING
since my resolve
dissolved!

*

Disconcerted
by Michael R. Burch

Beth, my sweet,
fresh as a daisy,
when I’m with you
my heart beats like crazy
& my future gets hazy ...

*

What Goes Around, Comes
by...

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The First Valentine Poem

Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465) has been credited with writing the first Valentine poem for his wife in 1415. Charles wrote the first Valentine poem in the first year of his captivity while being...

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Epigrams by Michael R. Burch



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch
 
Show me your most intimate items of apparel:
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Negotiables
by Michael R. Burch

Love should be more than the sum of its...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (II)

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot...

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POEMS ABOUT EROS AND CUPID

These are translations of ancient Greek poems about Eros. Eros was the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Cupid. While today we tend to think of Cupid as an angelic cherub...

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LOVE POEMS I by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, sex, a first date and dating, a first crush, a first girlfriend and...

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Arni Kleftiko Stolen Lamb


The Cypriots and Greeks have a few differences,
And can argue a great deal,
But both agree when it comes to ‘Kleftiko”
It has forever been, the most delectable 
Traditional Greek meal,
That ever a bandit...

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Pete Kovacs was a cop based in Cyprus, a small mid-western town
Nothing much happened with regards to crime from sunup to sundown
But on the 4th of June a couple came in to report their daughter...

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I have been instructed to release the following
manuscript on the death of my client
Mr John Phillips. Who was a former officer in the Royal Air Force.

Mr P.J .Carruthers.  LLB.
Solicitor for estates and wills.
London.
16th February...

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Whoever might with just free words beside
Speak of the blood and in full too of sores
Which I saw now, with a narration wide?

Any speech will sure fail to open doors
To our sermon and for the...

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You put him in a cage
That pilot you shot down
Pour gasoline on him
And set him ablaze

And the world is silent...

That seventeen year old girl
Writhes on that soiled bed
As you let all those other men
Rape her...

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Sappho fragment 22
loose translation by Michael R. Burch 
 
That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.
 
NOTE: This is a translation of...

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"The Tree Hugger and the Lost Paradise"

They called her 
the tree hugger,
her forest was full 
of trees that watched
silently, they had 
no mouth to speak,
rustling their leaves
like fingers writing 
strange stories coded
for decoding a mystery
on...

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Sappho Translations IX


Sappho, fragment 17
translation by Michael R. Burch

Hear me, Queen Hera, as your delightful festival nears,
you to whom the sons of Atreus performed vows,
those dazzling kings who did such amazing things,
first at Troy, then...

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Sappho Translations XIII by Michael R. Burch

In these translations the fragment numbers are mostly Lobel-Page. All translations are by Michael R. Burch and should be so credited if they are used in any way, shape...

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Sappho, fragment 118
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Sing, my sacred tortoiseshell lyre;
come, let my words
accompany your voice.

"Quoted by Hermogenes and Eustathius. Sappho is apparently addressing her lyre. The legend is that Hermes made the first...

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When one makes viable peace 
Between erstwhile colonial whites 
And erstwhile colonized blacks 
To the advantage of the whites
We urge for a Nobel Peace Prize
Such was the case in South Africa. 

‘It is all for...

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From the Gardens of Babylon,
to the walkways of Palestina,
to the grand temples of Jerusalism,
to the sandy beaches of Syria and Cyprus.
Went my Persian Queen riding,
upon her golden, firery chariot.

Her black hair, like silk long and...

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“Where is it?” I asked the art dealer with no preamble whatsoever. The tears were about to spill down my cheeks, and I found it hard to get the words past the lump in my...

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Sappho Translations IV by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 133
translation by Michael R. Burch

Blushing bride, brimful of rose-petaled love,
brightest jewel of the Goddess of Paphos,
come to the bridal bed,
tenderly entice your bridegroom.
May Hesperus lead you starry-eyed
to...

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England had joined WW II,
War declared against Germany
All men and women of the age
Required for conscription, joined,
Bravery had to be shown,
Even cowards could not decline.
Trembling they stood in line.
Excitement, fear, yet only teenagers,
Adrenaline, anxiety, eagerness,
These...

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The Dogs we called Family

Tara came first and then there was Ben,
When both of them died we said never again.
Then Sam the runner, got killed in the street,
Prince came and went quick, we didn't know...

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Some things are lost along the line
Some things, beautiful and fine
Driving down the lone road to the stream in my hamlet
It’s like yesterday; like catching birds from their nest
I giggled as I drove by
Mothers breast...

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Oh captcha squares, oh captcha squares
What are these objects in your frames?
Oh captcha squares, oh captcha squares
Why must they gotta be the same?

    Cars and busses, traffic lights
    Bicycles...

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