Long Michelangelo Poems

your silken skin gleams opaline
bathed in Luna's soft wash of cornflower - like a
porcelain Madonna by Michelangelo
conjured to life by the magic
of moonlight

your eyes open just long enough to
affix mine, and affirm I'm in a...

Read More

Sonnets X-XVI


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...

Read More

UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: L (50) - Tongue-Teasers

The « early bird catches the worm » only because the worm has not woken up yet.

« I don’t love you ! I hated your father ! » - must...

Read More

MICHELANGELO: Modern English Translations

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is considered by many experts to be the greatest artist and sculptor of all time. These are modern English translations of his poems and epigrams by Michael R. Burch.



SONNET:...

Read More

I'd risen from my bed quite early, in the pale silent sunshine,
And I thought to have a day out, and not waste summer's prime.

The world still was sleeping, but the bluebirds sang a tune,
And blooms...

Read More

Old Man Winter now flagging, and slip sliding along...

as his stronghold diminishes.

Signals, triggers, and ushers kickstarting debut
of demure "Flora" who slowly but surely attempts
to reveal her true colors in fits and starts,
nevertheless, she displays skittishness,
when...

Read More

I feel yet I don't feel
I crave  but I don't crave
I desire yet I don't desire
I know but I don't know
I am getting ready to start the show
But there are too many blood suckers
running...

Read More

1.    John Desmond Patrick Keegan
2.    Alfred, Lord Tennyson 
3.    Sally Aline Mae Beller
4.    Charles Edward A. Berry
5.    Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce...

Read More

The bombers began to bleed
their heavy tears of death
from 20,000 feet above the breathless battlefield, 
B-17 Flying Fortress formations
moving with apocalyptic aplomb
the shadows of high metal crosses by the hundreds
rippling along the rugged roman earth
bringing...

Read More

index finger of left hand
     (likened to Michelangelo
meticulously chiseling away
     at marble block), this poe
whit attempts to coax (zealously
     tap into his latent...

Read More

MICHELANGELO TRANSLATIONS

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet. He and his fellow Florentine, Leonardo da Vinci, were rivals for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man. Michelangelo is...

Read More

I felt as though I have been stranded in America
for  more than a century
wearing the same old clothes on my  battered back 
wearing  threadbare shoes on my tired feet
singing the same old...

Read More

Dawn is breaking as I get home from work
                          ...

Read More

Here’s to scrumptious nights.
cats and boots and cats and boots
We went clubbing last night, to recalibrate
ourselves on the dance floor, where magic happens.
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots
To focus on...

Read More

Un-revelling Rivalry

Who am I to speak of historical rivalry I cannot contest
all the clever myriad truths conjectures and refutations
about the two masters the two foes with huge presence
when history acclaim appreciation is subjective personal 
up...

Read More

"Super Hero"



Krypto Knighted
Disrobed Le Penseur 
contemplates strength
a royal monk disrobing within
Rodin begins to think
new dreams dialled in
naked vulnerability begins
hiding behind dark angel wings
pinned between the box-cadged 
dimensions of a glass onion
black crows waiting along the...

Read More

It was the time when art was king,
Of artists whose praises  we all sing.
Great minds there were in the Renaissance,
Through eons , unsurpassed, with little advance.

Greatness was embodied in the works of art,
In Lorenzo's...

Read More

Enea's Pope!  (2)

I suppose it’s common knowledge
(and not tedious, I hope!)
that two-thirds of the Sacred College
must concur to elect a pope.        

With eighteen cardinals gathered,
twelve was the...

Read More

Every time  I read Pessoa I think
I'm better than he is
Salutations to Fernando Pessoa-Alan Ginsberg
 
 Me, the monocled one, with my foppish belted waistcoat, 
I'm not unworthy of you, Walt, 
I'm not unworthy...

Read More

When their daughter asks them about the Renaissance, 
they’ll tell her about Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’, Andreas Versailus and Nicholas Copernicus but I wish them to tell her how Galileo Galilei was imprisoned by the...

Read More

From The Heart To The Cross

The burden to carry on a journey slated,
Weighs heavily on an outcome known fated.
When faith is the belief in hope for deliverance
Where humanity’s destiny hangs in the balance.
In mirrors dwell...

Read More

I look up at the clouds above me and I feel the weight of nature dancing around me and the colors keep changing, the mountains are shaking and my heart is breaking.

It is not the...

Read More

When I can't sleep my creativity is at its highest peak... 
I write poems for friends who are alone and need solace,
all my senses are at work, sharper than the owls by of the creek;
my...

Read More

What if our minds were like spider webs,   
Spreading to the invisible realm?  
Beyond the brain seems blissfully insane
Like a transcendental spell.  

While science is keen to explain our dreams 
And...

Read More

Having been born in legendary Italy,a country
as old as the stones of the Via Appia,
made me recall the fiery image of Attila...
the barbarian from Hungary,
who dared to defeat the mighty Romans: 
by sacking their imperial...

Read More