Long Rainer Poems

Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old and rolling
carefully in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains...

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have...

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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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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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Come, You
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the...

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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 lamp lit from within,...

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The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand...

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New Year Poetry

Auld Lange Syne
by Robert Burns
translation by Michael R. Burch 

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And days for which we pine?

For times we shared, my darling,
Days passed,...

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This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on...

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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...

Read More

This is my translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's second elegy from his Duino Elegies, which he began composing at Duino Castle in 1912. 

Second Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Every angel...

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Take me to the tombstone 
let me touch the gray stone that stands
where life could not
I will put my face to that touchstone of deaf thunder,
What happened  to your breath baby brother,
what happened in...

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Deep In Newly Disturbed Soil, Lies My True Love

(  “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them” – George Eliot.)

Deep in newly disturbed soil, lies my true love
'neath a canopy...

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Come, You
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, you--the last one I acknowledge; return--
incurable pain searing this physical mesh.
As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn
with you; meanwhile, you consume...

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Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours?
How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone?
Oh, I would gladly find...

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 dodoitsu series (rhymed) 

Winter is taking the reins
speeding past days of autumn -
Jack Frost smears the windowpanes
forefingers and thumb.

You who have no house to own,
too proud to seek charity,
you choose your path all alone
that’s...

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Who am I? 

I live amongst the clouds; converging all around the clock. My bottom is so very far away from my tippy-tippy-top.

I live among my range, yet stand out from all above.
Ice and rock...

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Water

To obey no law, but gravities very 
own and harbor so much life; so 
much death.
Power in every ounce to sway to an 
unheard rhythm danced by only 
streams, 
lakes and rivers. Yes they feel...

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“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” Quote by Rainer Maria Rilke
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Medusa cactus
in large blue ceramic pot
blooms a burst of sunshine
over her green appendages.

A sparrow narrowly escapes
from...

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- expressing buddhist psychology with the aid of quotes -

'...we are doomed not to know the truth exactly
                 ...

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(On Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, The Louvre, Paris)


Antiquity is rarely of one piece
as this torso is witness to – no head,
no arms, no legs, no genitals. Yet Time
has not dismembered him completely
for there is left...

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On seeing a photograph

“Our task is to listen to the news that is always arriving out of silence”
                 ...

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With Rainer
I would rain love letters
into this Universe
but, once started,
how could such love expressed
ever warmly end
with grateful sufficiency?

Grace unfolding within each well-placed letter
forming welcoming word families
drawn into long healthy and love-filling sentences
recomposing polypathic paragraphs,
regimes of...

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Work of the eyes is done, now
go and do heart work
on all the images imprisoned

— Rainer Maria Rilke


  Crucible: A severe test, as of patience or belief; a trial.  
   and
...

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Autumn Day
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits...

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