Long Motionless Poems

These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch

In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while...

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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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I love you only because I love you
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I love you only because I love you;
I am torn between loving and not loving you,
Between apathy and desire.
My heart vacillates...

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Sonnet LXXXI-LXXXIX

Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew...

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I listened to his heart profusely, 
For a beat like his was much to ponder
I often wondered, his thoughts, and,
A light in me knew, with wretched wonderment
What the whispers in his mutterings meant to me

They...

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Yosa Buson haiku translations

On the temple’s great bronze gong
a butterfly
snoozes.
?Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hard to describe:
this light sensation of being pinched
by a butterfly!
?Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not to worry...

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Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
written August 30, 1944
translated by Michael R. Burch
 
Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons...

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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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Deor's Lament

(Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem circa the 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland endured the agony of exile:
an indomitable smith wracked by grief.
He suffered countless sorrows;
indeed, such sorrows were his bosom companions
in that frozen...

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     We sat at the end of the bar in a seedy place on Seventh street.  Nursing our drinks, we both had a bit too much that night.  My...

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I know you're not here

but you are in my heart 

so 

you are always with me

i'll just slip into you

with these words.
 
I know 
there are mountains
dwarf the cities below 
peaks that stride above the...

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ETERNAL RECURRENCE*


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
“I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before and
 I hope to return a thousand times after.”  GOETHE 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


1.

Once upon a time, 
The Lord...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (III)

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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A prawn masquerading as a peanut can be quite disturbing. So many times a peel is a garment used to shroud. A tentacle hidden. Here and there. Then to reappear with an often violent burst...

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Self-pardoning rights of predators and pirates
emperors and kings
CEOs and wealthy competitors
follow our over investment
in separating natural land and bodies
from oceanic surfing inside spirits,
yang ecopolitical strength of communal sight
from yin personal flow of sound,
resonant orthodox positive
and
negatively...

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Can a lioness tender care
Cease towards the child she bare
Yes she may be forgetful
Yet I shall never forget you
Words of mom on that fateful day
As she lay there in the most pitiable way
She drew me...

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Stood upright, between two roads,
On a thin metal rail,
A solitary, brown coloured bottle 
Of beer,                    ...

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With the Trolls passed out on the grass...the regrettable task
    now fell to the brave Talkalot.
He moved to the gate and taking a sip from his flask...
    he stared...

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What ever is fast and cheap you say...
You are so funny -
this is not a fast thing - 
to do a video montage of 5 minutes 
may take me a lifetime
as I move from inspiration...

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LIFE IN ETERNITY*


1.

The cheerful trumpet of miraculous life, imperatively sounded in 
My mother’s life-giving womb,
Heralding with its melodic tune another animation: MINE!
And as my innocent infantile heart was provoked by
The challenging divine call, 
Started beating...

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One warm Summer’s day
As I sat in my folding chair
Something caught my eyey
Something there
Something flying through the air
It was a butterfly
It did flitter and flutter by

When it decided to land
It landed on my left hand
I...

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The sun, resplendent in its blazing might,
Burns fiercely o'er a barren, lifeless waste,
A desert dry and vast where earth is scorched
By searing radiation, deathly bright.
No sign of life but one lone phoenix flies,
Soaring precarious, close...

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During a bad storm one night I turned on my television
Grey and black flickering lines appeared, obscuring my vision
I went outside and saw the aerial had bent over but it would have to wait
Tomorrow I'd...

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Part-1: Preamble

God loves us, so He split Himself in two
Motionless as space, kinetic as time
Shiva and Shakti; truth known to but few
As the word of God - Om sounded life's chime

God's vibration caused a ripple...

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