Long Piteous Poems

Poems about Dogs

This Dog
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Each morning this dog,
who has become quite attached to me,
sits silently at my feet
until, gently caressing his head,
I acknowledge his company.

This simple recognition gives my...

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Medieval Poems



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English circa 990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on...

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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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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

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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My most popular poems on the Internet (I)

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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Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that...

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The day was going off, and the brown air
To the terrestrial animals gave rest
For their labors; and only me was there

Just ready to withstand the war at best
Both of the journey and of the torment,
Which...

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POEMS ABOUT EROS AND CUPID

These are translations of ancient Greek poems about Eros. Eros was the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Cupid. While today we tend to think of Cupid as an angelic cherub...

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I was pushed to write this comparison after reading the poem on Byron by the souper poet Gary Bateman.
Wandering on internet I found the Byron's version of Francesca's words in CANTO V of Dante's Hell...

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POTD 30th August 2018 

The gently swaying branches of the old oak should elicit calmness
And yet a sense of foreboding permeates the midnight air
Wild imaginings?  Or did shadows flit across the leaf strewn path?
No...

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Thru horrendous acts of lore within the aperture of the Earth’s core
Lays Evil of a wrathful whore to which you find stimulating and abhor
Within frozen fear, you do attest as you suckle on the beastly...

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PRINCESS DIANA POEMS

Fairest Diana: an Epitaph for Princess Diana
by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger?so solemn, so lovely?
an orchid ablaze in a crevice...

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After I just heard my guide in this trip
Speaking of ancient women and of  knights,
Pity I felt, then had loss to outstrip.

I began: “Poet , desire now me incites
To speak with those two going...

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Cabbage grew ears in a silver basin. How rare! Wow! Exclusive is extremely experienced erotic erogenous errors but tremors can often be counted in the folding, unfolding and refolding of long heavy curtains. A lengthy...

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In the beginning was the word-
and the word was…

light darkness 
dawn promise  dusk despair.

I was a tempest
child a feral cat-
alone wild and
untamed eyes a
jigsaw of shattered chaos.

Mom sighs a rustle
Autumn leaves of
disappointment her gaze
a...

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Love ever green
attributed to King Henry VIII
translation by Michael R. Burch

If Henry VIII wrote the poem, he didn’t quite live up to it! – MRB

Green groweth the holly,
so doth the ivy.
Though winter’s blasts blow never...

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Sotoba Komachi is a modern Noh play by Yukio Mishima (1925-1970). Mishima's play is based on an ancient work by Kan'ami Kiyotsugu (1333-1384). The first kanji means "stupa" (the dome of a shrine) while the...

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Prospector Hank rode down the canyon cold
Ten years on the trail, out looking for gold,
Hank found a camp, not long abandoned then
In the dust lay tracks, of cows and of men.
Why cows would be here,...

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In open Nebraska, eighteen eighty-six,
lived a man named Floyd Belgard.
Only twenty years, he lived with his pa,
a ranching man named Richard.

Richard had moved out this way
about seven long years before.
After loosing his wife and dry-goods...

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Listen and you can hear the wind whisper 
the name of a lost ship and its skipper.
The wind’s name is Favonius, winged god
His sotto voce is but a whimper.

Gentle breeze doth tell of China Clipper...

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The Seashore Gathering
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

On the seashores of endless worlds, earth's children converge.
The infinite sky is motionless, the restless waters boisterous. 
On the seashores of endless worlds earth's children gather...

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In the season of the ballot
He came on his knees
Like a servant and saint
He sought to be crowned leader
He reminded us of his humble breeding
In the creeks of our land
He was our very own
And so,...

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...She had a surprised look when he knocked on the door,
had trouble meeting his eyes, and glanced at the floor.
Jack too was nervous, had trouble speaking his minds,
stammered and said,”Hello Kay…it’s been a long time.”
She...

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Bowing humbly, before "The Father of Light!"
That I could gather in, the four corners of the earths wind
To spread them out as a garment, before their vision
As the stars within the firmament, across the night...

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the serene people whose ease of manner
once made him yearn and confabulate
are laughable cartoonish and piteous now
could have been much worse he said
as his last breath left his scarred throat
feral hand closing his own eyes
St....

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