Long Moonless Poems

Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow...

leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed...
such are the things we are unable to know

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us...

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Watching wan moonlight
illuminate tree limbs,
my heart also brims,
overflowing with autumn.
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As I slept in isolation
my desired beloved appeared to me; 
therefore, dreams have become my reality
and consolation. 
—Ono...

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As I slept in isolation
my desired beloved appeared to me; 
therefore, dreams have become my reality
and consolation. 
—Ono no Komachi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Submit to you—is that what you advise? 
The way the ripples...

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Pellucid pachyderms wade across
the purpling River Manjees
and Tozzath watches from the bank, 
the seat of his maroon pantaloons soaked with mud,
his nostrils flaring with the fragrance of ombadalias,
whose lacey petals flutter
like the wings of long-dead...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XII

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly,...

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LOVE POEMS IV by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about love, passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, romance, relationships and marriage. 



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by...

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Last Night 
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
translation by Michael R. Burch

Last night, your memory stole into my heart
as spring sweeps uninvited through barren gardens
as morning breezes revive dormant deserts
as a patient suddenly feels better for no...

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Harry Horsman's treatment was withdrawn over a week ago and they are making him comfortable, he is now in Hospice care.

Susan Ashly…we can only hope that Hospice care can keep Harry comfortable. May comfort be...

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They’d crossed the great divide, to the other side of the ‘Oh My God River’.
Our Trolls were struck by the ‘Bridge Too Far’, it set their hearts, to quiver.
Yes, their curiosity and their great big...

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In my sanctuary’s hush where Poe’s tales I clasp
Into his world I plunge with a breath, a rasp.
Beneath the creaking floorboards a heart's pulse
In my mind, my mind, oh it throbs and gasps;
Suddenly then I'm...

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It was a dark and moonless night. The lights were out. The TV low.
My hubby and I were relaxed, cuddled close, as the TV set the room aglow.
The telly had a “Flying Saucer Abduction”, with...

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The wails that disturb very few in their bed
Reach only the ears of the psychic… or dead

                  ...

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In seventy-eight, my steel-stallion, KZ1000, 
   pride, wind in my hair.
Its Sissy Bar, firm tether, bag secured, 
   my wanderlust's prayer.

Where sun, snow, wind sculpt my journey's theme 
  ...

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You Have The Power

My youth was evaporating, I needed to go back 
to my doctor, run towards his clinic which 11 
years ago I stood at that door, helpless, bloody, 
lost, angry, vindictive, and alone,...

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One fine blustering autumn day an old man puts on his boots pulls up his trousers off he goes,
If anyone wondered where he was going it was to a forest a good long walk it...

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I am an unvoiced breeze~
a sea warrior 
    kite-surfing through 
    heinous waves, 
knitting cobalt chronicles 
    from smooth syllables~ 
tackling chaotic currents 
with chamomile magic...

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These are my modern English translations of the ancient Japanese poems (waka/tanka) of Ono no Komachi…

"It's over!"
Your words drizzle like dismal rains,
bringing tears,
as I wilt with my years.
—Ono no Komachi, translation by Michael R. Burch

The...

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ZEN DEATH HAIKU XI

These are my modern English translations of Japanese Zen Death Haiku. 

Above the garden
the camellia tree blossoms
whitely...
—Uejima Onitsura, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Moonlit hailstones: 
the night hawks return.
—Uejima Onitsura, loose translation...

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Evils with machine Guns to kill,
Ghost of my imagination were there to kill 
Or to protect me from the evils.
Believing in myself was what left within me, 
Left with my heart, my soul, and my...

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I still reminisce when it was raining incessantly at 3:55 a.m. in the nascent ticks of time on a wistful wednesday. My skin felt the spark of crying hail and maybe, the snow-storms melted too...

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I can tell you about the elongated nights.
The pain and agony endured to the soul.
The hammer of reality that aims to chisel at my pride 
until it resembles a statue of anguish and defeat.
The way...

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It may be in the evening,
When you are sitting home alone,
And you have time watching the sun goes down,
Sinking slowly over the ocean blue,
As the clock ticks loudly on the shelf, 
You listen to children...

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What Happened to Them?
by Nasir Kazmi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Those who came ashore, what happened to them?
Those who sailed away, what happened to them?

Those who were coming at dawn, when dawn never arrived ...
Those...

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Oh I am but a simple leaf
         withering within the gutter
         one summer of bliss
    ...

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