Long Elegies Poems

Athenian Epitaphs

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls
in their...

Read More

The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand...

Read More

Translation of Eric Mottram’s Courbet: Elegy 8 by T. Wignesan

Blanches oeuvres ouvertes
résident dans les jours
la surface du banc de travail est noire
les géraniums-lierres
les fougères et les adragans
accumulent leurs oeuvres et jours:
La toile noire de Courbet
un...

Read More

This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on...

Read More

This is my translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's second elegy from his Duino Elegies, which he began composing at Duino Castle in 1912. 

Second Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Every angel...

Read More

Deep In Newly Disturbed Soil, Lies My True Love

(  “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them” – George Eliot.)

Deep in newly disturbed soil, lies my true love
'neath a canopy...

Read More

Final Wishes of a Poet 
Arabic poem By: Rukn-al-Din Yunus
Translated into English By: 
Inaam Al-Hashimi (Gold_N_Silk)
========================
(Part 1 of 3)

Lend me a handful of earth
So that I may make you a statue 
You have not seen...

Read More

In the twilight of life, when the sun weeps its rays on the reddened sky of memories,
I feel how autumn weaves its golden and rusty web over the garden of my weary soul,
Each falling leaf...

Read More

Epigrams/Epitaphs

Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.

***

Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch 

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.
Because death...

Read More

As the peacock-sage 
waves of whimsical peace
faded in silence's 
pale watercolors, 
I masked my 
eerie eyelashes, 
with drifting 
angel-mist smog. 
For, I sensed the 
wistful wailings of 
ambrosial lilies, 
encased in my 
heart's crystal casket,...

Read More

O' moment 
of mist-glazed melancholia ~
I'm shrinking in paper-cut smokes
of shrivelling sunsets, 
amidst the seizures of silence, there I surf ~ 
in swollen skulls of selfless swan-orchids, 
that once splattered pigments of poisoned pearls
upon navy-neon...

Read More

Exracted from Gerald Nforche's Epic, The Slave's Tale


-Across the Atlantic, 1793-

And as days tumbled away, we staggered
Along, knock-kneed, dead beat and haggard.
Our bodies singing to the tune of the whip
Whizzing on morsels of flesh, so...

Read More

Based on the famous linguist, poet Humayun Azad Sir's poem "SAB KICHU NOSHTODER ODHIKARE JABE". However, it is not an exact English translation from Bengali. Edited in different places with tense. Apologies for any mistake...

Read More

Echoes of your diffusive elegies, in the core of your rare piercing beautiful soul, recollections of somber yesteryears, sprouting deep lacerations and stigmatized unseen wounds, blackened in your gold heart, bleeding out your profundity, engulfed...

Read More

Life is a song, where you are the deep 
breathtaking words of your heartbeats,
in mellifluous melodies that play every day, 
beneath starlight and the shimmering sun, rhythmically with your sapphire emotions, 
my Venus.
Your rare beautiful...

Read More

(for chikbok girls four years after elegies of lost) 

And we opened the book of remembrance again
Tickling all ears that are designed to be deadly.
We filled the cups & buckets with tears of blood,
Bloody tears...

Read More

My muse is a poetic
flower garden,
blooming lilacs in 
barren meadows,
but I still remember 
how I heeded
haunting heartbeats
in paradise,
whilst praying 
for your lustrous light,
to descend onto 
my hazy horizons.

Your eyes like 
captivating sunsets,
made me dream away,...

Read More

Written: May 12, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Kai Michael Neumann

Quote: “Set yourself on fire and seek those who fan your flame.” By Rumi
           ...

Read More

Somewhere between fallen flares
of an untouchable phoenix~
and the nostalgic red of crimson horizons,
I feel the amethyst embers of longing
illuminate rambling roses
that mourn within my hibiscus heart.

O beloved Love,
I long to be your tulip twilight
adorned with...

Read More

Ancient Greek and Roman Epigrams I

Wall, we're astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
Ancient Roman graffiti, translation by Michael R. Burch

You begrudge men your virginity?
Why? To what purpose?
You will find no...

Read More

People are, constantly, selfishly numbering their troubles endlessly 
While you are listening to them patiently and hopelessly
They write elegies describing unrequited love, themselves,
Their pain, feeling blue,
But this elegy is only for you-
Everyone is writing sad...

Read More

In the morning,
I am not a poet.
This is no matter of opinion,
It is an undisputable fact, and don't I know it.

I am not a poet
In the afternoon, either.
Not for a lack of trying,
The words simply...

Read More

I still follow
the blinking spells
of the rose wine sunsets
before surging sandstorms,
believing in the euphoric breeze
floating across the
shivering skyline,
echoing vermilion voices,
lost in the limestone grains,
as questions of change
interrogate the empathy
encrypted within
my inhibited intuition,
like spices of kismet...

Read More

An alchemical raven's gray rhapsody awakens those cynical roses who
Breathe-in the ebony beams of blood-bathed sun, exhaling
Cacophonies that ricochet across these truthful horizons where, 
Depressive roars embalm Lilith's lawns. Awash with smoked prairies and 
Equinoctial...

Read More

I call it a palace - my life - gilded and draped in fine silks, where chandeliers shine like false smiles,
And the walls echo laughter that isn't mine, but beneath the velvet curtains lies the...

Read More