Long Odes Poems

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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Femme Fatale By A Wishing Well 
  (In The Wastelands Of War)

Warm as breath on placid skin,
Soft as gentle summer rains,
Loud as natures angry clouds
That gather in ambushed lanes,
To confer with the wounded boys
Whose...

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"Dandylion" 

The guy was a 
Dandylion 
there was 
no denying it

full of promises
and making wishes
residing over 
this new world

poetically 
speaking, he
shone like 
the Sun

he sat on his throne
for all to see
the mane man
roaring non-garrulous

declaring 
to...

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Woven are these pages in poetic verse,
With bare threads of our deepest feelings,
You will find laughter, tears and remorse,
and words of wisdom, prayer and healings. 
Krish Radhakrishna

The words herein form an anthology of love
From the...

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I, heart on sleeve ... proudly? I suppose, in a contrite way ...
          but it's beyond my breadth to control, so it is what it IS.
...

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These are modern English translations of Chinese poems of The Shijing or Shi Jing ("Book of Songs" or "Book of Odes")

Shijing Ode #4: “JIU MU”
ancient Chinese rhyming poem (c. 1200-600 BC)
loose translation by Michael R....

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In the heart of the night, next to the unmoved clock,
She lies, with the pillow—a saline lake of pagan scents,
Mourning something that was never spoken.
Prisoner in the castle of shadows, where darkness
Bearer of chaos, stretches...

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[This is an advanced version of a poem
that I wrote on the 5th of February 
2008,
titled "The 15th of June" in
commemoration to my late 
Grandmother,
Jane Mvula]
_______An Ode To My Grand(Mother)__ 
______
15 June 1918, was when...

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Chinese Translations III

Quiet Night Thoughts
by Li Bai aka Li Po
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight illuminates my bed
as frost brightens the ground.
Lifting my eyes, the moon allures.
Lowering my eyes, I long for home.


Lines from Laolao...

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What could be better than the sight of my room
After a day which nearly did echo with the Devil's name
A day running around to the whims of my boss
A day during which I did feel...

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Fall in love with a poet at your own risk.

She’ll woo your mind with serenading

notes and undress your defenses

behind metaphors and rhymes.

She’ll merge emotions with home-made

verses in a nectarous word play, opening

the mansion of your...

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The Shijing or Shi Jing or Shih-Ching (“Book of Songs” or “Book of Odes”) is the oldest Chinese poetry collection, with the poems included believed to date from around 1200 BC to 600 BC. According...

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A cme  yourself, but first be in friendship with the books.
B ooks  never  beguile you....but always be with you.
C ompanion is word.....and book makes it complete sense.
D istinct  aroma of its...

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You've visited me after a long time: Remember; once, I was brimming with might? Named babbling brook, revered as a singing deity, how blissful was my sight! Have reminiscences of your childhood, in my mellow...

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I was cursed with 
ink intoxicating 
blank canvases 
with toxic scribbles,
releasing twisted tales 
of suppressed troubles.
I was a forsaken 
           ebony rose 
in satan's grasp,
kneeling...

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Such heavy artillery,
To whom shall we run,
To God have we come,
In pain and sad form,
To state our hearts' deform,
To stake our rights and reforms,
You know that where two Elephants fight the grass suffers,Do be well...

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I write my thoughts 
on paper,
 let  ink of my soul
      glow, amidst the grief
     I carry in echoing stillness, 
   for it...

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There was an old lady, a frumpy old bag
who people called horrid, a witch and a hag
And 'though she was ugly and danced 'mid moonbeams
all was not quite as it might've then seemed

Old-fashioned black clothing...

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[Continued from Part 1]

“And the efforts of the Senate to extinguish all this fury
Were frustrated by convictions that their god would promptly hurry
To reward and praise the burning of the books in Caesar’s hall:
Pliny, Tacitus...

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In the land of silvery mists, where dreams touch the ground,
A being-abyss struggles, wishing to rise in docile flight and facing a deep fear,
Striving to be a fruitful field, the most fertile version of its...

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Oh, the poet sees you not just as a fleeting shadow that fades into horizons,
He falls in love as the sun in gold transfigures the curve of your cheeks,
In the line of the smile that...

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     " In titanium haze of love,
             truth is but a mere lie, 
     ...

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Once upon a stranger
A girl A well intentioned woman
With open and adorned soul
Askance behind silvered eyes and sighs,

Revealing her concealed seraphic smiles
In an unending sequence.
Yielded in gleams in day dreams,
With folklores and odes chronicling her...

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Nested like treasures priceless, eagle parents watch over the brood
On an island far away from the city, I beheld in a vision of azure blue
A rural settlement in waste laying, arid with black bile
A desolate,...

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ALABASTER ANTHEMS

As artists we should realize that inspiration is often born of pain,
Of loss, suffering, of cob-webbed corners with spiders the size of cats.
But even we eschew the dark masterpieces written for catharsis
In favor of...

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