Long Herbs Poems

Medieval Poems



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English circa 990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on...

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- 2016 -

- JANUARY -

A freezing cold evening

Where the stars shining bright

With frost blade flanks

From mouth and nose steam

In the clear silence

White untrodden snows

Nature's frozen pulse

Sleep like a little baby

One gracious moon

After the night the...

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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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History’s Greatest Miracle Play

Let me tell you a story - Prologue

Actors gather to play their parts
To set the stage – backdrops and props –
In history’s greatest miracle play
Called to speak their lines
On redemption’s stage
In a...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (I)

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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"The Swoon Hypothesis" - Part 2



Arimathea stands next to you and I on the deck, soon we are back in Nazareth, you press into my palm, 
“A very rare Dubunni coin” you say - on...

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For Pharaoh still exalts himself and thinks he’s in control,
But if he won’t release my folk, he’ll pay a heavy toll.
Tomorrow I will bring down hail like Egypt’s never seen,
On plants and trees and man...

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Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that...

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I met with some bankers in fine textured suits.
I struck a deal quick. (I had such a knack.)
I offered rare cacti and tropical fruits – 
a cure-all for things that ail your back.

I served 'em...

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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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Of new pains new verses must be composed 
To give matter for the canto twenty
Of the canticle first, treating sunk posed.

I just was inclined with desires many
To thoroughly look at the open deep,
Which was moisten...

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How one twenty first century married mortal male (me - Matthew Scott Harris)...
found himself bewitched about Circe,
particularly after reading book title by the same name.

An enchantress and a minor goddess
in ancient Greek mythology and religion
depicted...

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foisted upon her was the merry go round crystal chandelier

it stuck in her beautiful mind like a beacon of flaming desire

of clouds fried by a cuckoo with an indestructible socket

her eyes wide upon pupils dilated...

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There was a noble sadness hiding in her eyes.
She wears a smile, though elements of insecurities
Trembled in its corners...
Dignity and suffering, combating
for the control of her expression.
Hiding the battle scars of her life; 
Intending to...

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To witness no trace of a step, that has lingered beneath the dewy lush grass.
Then to gaze upon greatest glory! While creation unfolds right in front of you.
Revealing its treasured secrets, while you stand stunned,...

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I inherited a restaurant, from my parents who had retired.
It was a classy one, and only the best of staff were hired.

Overseeing its operation, was genuinely a labor of love,
As the noon warming sunshine, oversees...

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Now that Crimson Fire was gone
Fire Eagle needed to gain experience.
For over ten years he travelled the lands
helping people, learning from many other druids.
One day he knew he would be called up on to
take the...

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PRINCESS DIANA POEMS

Fairest Diana: an Epitaph for Princess Diana
by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger?so solemn, so lovely?
an orchid ablaze in a crevice...

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Sam woke up all excited, his first circle would take place tonight,
He saw Crimson Fire sat deep into mediation, still as a rock
and noticed the white robes, belts and staffs laid out ready.
He knew from...

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I  sat at my desk in the early hours of the morning listening to the words of the mighty one calling “windows to my soul” kept warning. I didn’t question it, I didn’t understand...

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Indefinable Love...

Duty without love makes us hard and dictatorial.
With Love, we are softer, have a clearer, wider understanding. And: Accountable for what we do and who we are.

Education without love creates efficient, obedient but heartless...

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The forgotten god
 
Whose rage should burn hotter
than mine; melt the noon day sun,
dry up all thy rivers, scorch the earth, that
thy crops may burn to ashes before
thine eyes, and the heat from the
very earth...

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I woke last night and read my Poe
and asked is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream of a dream?
I know what I don’t know what I know.

In Bethlehem’s cradle, a...

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Afterwards.

Didn’t we once used to smile and laugh?
I can see that we seemed to be happy 
As I look at an old photograph.
But now our mouths
Seem almost paralysed
Or are tight and grim.
I vaguely recall a...

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