Long Petals Poems

When you came to me...

Not that you wanted me.  Oh, no!  It was I who wanted you,
Your comfort... your caring... your
... compassion, your compassion...
Your body, beautiful and young, perhaps that as well at...

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Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.


The...

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Zen Death Haiku

Brittle cicada shell,
little did I know
you were my life!
—Shuho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Returning
as it came,
this naked worm.
—Shidoken, translation by Michael R. Burch

As dew glistens
on a lotus leaf,
so too I soon must vanish.
—Shinsui,...

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"As other spirits sail on music, mine, oh my love, swim on your perfume." Charles Baudelaire

"Sometimes you find an old bottle from which the soul returns." 
Charles Baudelaire

"Smell is a Word. Perfume is Literature."

"There are...

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“Forever”



When The Terrors came,
The Uncontrollable Ones,
she closed her eyes
and listened for the notes
her mother had planted
amongst the deep blues,
beds of Forget-Me-Nots,
she followed the 
labyrinthine trail 
and through a gate unhinged,
it would seem destroyed, thrown aside,
she...

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“Éagmais croí a dhíscaoileadh ar gach eagla.
Faoi dhíon taobh istigh de na blianta seo.
Fanacht i bhfianaise, a dhíscaoileadh ar gach eagla.
Ós rud é go ndearnadh tú a chaitheamh.
Briseadh an tost seo”



"An Bee Cailleach"


She lives to...

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Fahr an' Ice
by Michael R. Burch

From what I know of death, I'll side with those
who'd like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker),
and real fahr...

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Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

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The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

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Dusk-gliding swallow, 
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers! 
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,...

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Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter hoar
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers—nude, forlorn.

Published...

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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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Poems about Poems IV

The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems X

These are early poems written in my teens and twenties.

Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear...

once starlight
languished
in your hair...

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret,
a pain
I chose to bear...

unleash
the torrent
of your hair...

and show me
once...

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Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
—Yamaguchi Seishi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow...

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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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Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch
											
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred...

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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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"The Sleeper and The Supernaturalist"


The Sleeper
shone as she walked 
through the Woods

shining alive 
like nothing
natural could

caught 
in the moonlight 
unaware

the innocent
red-caped roses stared
the trees whispered,

"beware, beware"

barefoot softly 
the Supernaturalist 
transfigures instead

from under shine 
she bares...

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Sonnets LII-LX

The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch

How sweet the endeavors of lips: to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is...

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Poems about Children IV

Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the...

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A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch

Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the darkening...

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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...

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LOVE POEMS V

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch, about life, the dream of love, virtue, a first kiss, a first crush, the birth of a first relationship, the joy of a first love...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VII

These are early poems I wrote as a boy and as a teenager.

The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men...

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