Long Minstrel Poems

They were gambling in front of the house.
Manservants and pages bustled about
Serving Suitors who just curse and carouse.
Few mix wine with water. I heard one shout,
"Clean down the tables with wet sponges! Rouse
Yourselves! And when...

Read More

Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

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

Because death...

Read More

Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and...

Read More

She stood with her back turned to me
Leaning slightly towards where the light tapered off into darkness
Her faced buried deep inside her cupped hands 
Her own shadow towered over her seemingly at odds with her...

Read More

KGOD presents ...

SALUTATIONS!!! 

Well.  Let’s just get started! 
Here at the Ogden!  The God den of music and soul! 
So, let me introduce myself to thee, 
I am DJ Multi-Di-Minstrel Messenger!!! 
Thanking you...

Read More

Contend with me while you can 
Contend with me and I will deliver the master plan
Contend with me and I will make you smile
We have been through worse than this
And we have always rise up...

Read More

Song from Aella: Under the Willow Tree, or, Minstrel's Song
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17 or younger
modernization/translation by Michael R. Burch

MYNSTRELLES SONGE ("MINSTREL'S SONG")

O! sing unto my roundelay,
O! drop the briny tear with me,
Dance no more...

Read More

In The Valley Of Avalon

This day the master of my Fate
Is none of those who lead shuddering
Through mazes of wizardry,-
Nor Trachmyr the Hunstman,
Nor Tannwein the daughter of Gweir,
Nor Penpingyon the porter of the palace,
Nor the...

Read More

In history one can read of an earlier time,
When poetry and lyrics written in rhyme,
Were commonplace.  A travelling band
Of troubadours would wander the land,
Writing and singing, to bestow delights
On ladies, peasants, and errant knights.

Their...

Read More

Bombarded by myriads of daily data without cease,
I suggest a forthright discourse on this topic,
carousel of trend and sound adherence  merely looming?
some unwitting sentiment  an aspirational diction,
reverberation or innuendo pending aftermath augur,
the world...

Read More

Keep moving when times are tough, keep moving when you are out of luck, keep moving when the days are dark, keep moving when you hear the sound of the lark. Keep moving if you...

Read More

"I follow the Moskva
and down to Gorky Park-
listening to the winds of change" - Scorpions

All the heads of state and their spouses (or significant others) have arrived and been seated for this, my last show...

Read More

Otter trance dance meets mice, worms and soups

A single iron is fed up with flattening material. In fact it has spoke of breaking. It considers such actions as pointless and therefore fruitless. And creases are...

Read More

I saw one flag raised and another fall
I saw the great lie of justice and equity for all

I saw a crisis that stopped the world
I saw a wall to keep out the cold

I saw a...

Read More

The day has just dawn and the infidels are all over the lawn, they are setting up tents in the field and continue to ignore the written deal, the widows and single women are at...

Read More

You were brought in at a special time to stop a situation from growing wild, there was chaos everywhere and the multitude began to fear, and your ingenuity and strategy brought back the global stability....

Read More

with midnight dreams we dance
unyielding, i stir unwilling to awaken
incessantly seeking
You

like virgin wings of the monarch, your shape gently unfolds
i clutch the edges of slumber
aware in my wakening you will be gone
Again

you have come before,...

Read More

Yes, I read my Dragon, the story of good old… ‘Robin Hood’.
You know, the first super hero, who was really… super good.
Now, with Dragon, things don’t always end up, exactly… as they should!
His eyes lit...

Read More

Widsith the Far-Traveler, Part III
ancient Anglo-Saxon poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I was also with Eormanric for many years,
as long as the Goth-King availed me well;
he gave me six hundred shillings of pure gold
beaten into...

Read More

Forever extinct seems the age of classical poetry,
With all its cheers from caves, cottages, marble domes and temples,

When now a country honors not classical bards:
O Hugh MacDiarmid, Petrarch, Ono No Komachi, Thomas Chatterton, Robert Browning,...

Read More

On a Los Angeles street - play it brother, ladle it on black delirium
         A wind blows – from trumpets, oboes, and saxophones
    ...

Read More

I am waiting for the sun to come out so that the children can run about. I   am waiting for the suns to come out so that I can get up and shout....

Read More

Widsith was a traveling minstrel who "sang for his supper" but may have been prone to exaggeration...

Widsith, the Far-Traveler, Part I of III
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 680-950 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Widsith the...

Read More

I knew she was leaving when she walked through the door, I knew she was going when she kept asking for the final score, I knew she was going from the
moment she starts singing, her...

Read More

She walked down the street with her hands clasp in thine and for one moment it felt like something divine; she was walking out of an old life into a new one, but I couldn’t...

Read More