Long Strident Poems

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,...

Read More

Dear neighbors,

I realize we have not met,
other than the guy next door
but that doesn't really count
cause that was just to put up a fence between us,
and I have met Marvelously Mad Max,
behind me, on the...

Read More

Enheduanna is the first writer we know by name. She created the first poetry anthology and hymnal, circa 2250 BC, in ancient Sumer. She was the daughter of King Saragon the Great. 

Lament to the...

Read More

I sung all the night with the Devil,
It seemed harmony had found itself spooning with dissonance
Not indeed needing to be one or the same
Yes—the light indeed could sustain itself in the midst
Of what then was...

Read More

The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts 
by Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and high priestess of Inanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers!
Lady of the resplendent light!
Righteous Lady...

Read More

Dear Toni,

I saw you on The Daily Show
the other day
having your way
with Trevor,
or was it the other way around?
Not sure.

I'm also not sure where we first went wrong,
but I'm sorry for once having thought you...

Read More

Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy the land:
raging like thunderstorms,
howling like hurricanes,
screaming like...

Read More

"Conceits"



Such conceits
as veils between 
our windowed worlds 
torn torrential incomplete

mayst thou watch and learn 
the one I spawned, 
strength beats weakness
carried soft and harsh

one direction or the other
strength and weakness
both carried soft and harsh
ego and...

Read More

The Deception of Free Verse: Dreams I, Translation of Etiemble’s L’imposture du vers libre by T. Wignesan 

(From René Etiemble’s only poetry collection: le Coeur et la cendre: soixante ans de poésie (the heart and...

Read More

The crime is snowed over, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s  Il neige sur le crime

Are we buried under snow holding our silence
in what immense Cimmerian (collision) of terror ?
The mouth kept open in the shriek...

Read More

His was,
A kiss of promise
A kiss of challenge
A kiss of power
And a kiss of doom
Where our lips had met
He was a threat, a strident peril
And yet a strange safety,
To which I held such visions
To which...

Read More

Mayst tell them, though they leave a sacred land,
Where every inch with rich conception spanned,
With diligence, in Hades mayst they find
A path that to Elysian Fields doth wind.

So many burdens, all the Earth now mars;
So...

Read More

On reflection, a shining  mirror lays my core ethos bear,
inkling etched on mien can’t escape deep probing,
tilted jaw, gleaming eyes, vivacious aspect,
express an ardent quest for exponential flourish,
in this life of mine, and its...

Read More

Against a willowy wailing backdrop of inner chaos,
an indignant incendiary mask stifles the simmering cauldrons,
of a stoic stage clown post lachrymose performance wearily stunning yet stung,
or the surreptitious posture of the laugh it off as...

Read More

Sunday cockcrow nascent promulgate aural essays reveal,
laissez-faire luscious lustrous buoyant  raptures,
radio behemoth prompt to that untamed erudite fantasist,
me the one possessing rippled rampant penchant,
for titanic exploit extraordinaire beyond dimension heftiness,
 a stimulant patently innocuous...

Read More

                                  It’s...

Read More

Fukuda Chiyo-ni Haiku

Fukuda Chiyo-ni (1703-1775) was a celebrated Japanese poet and painter of the Edo period, also known as Kaga no Chiyo.

CHIYO-NI POEMS ABOUT WOMEN AND DESIRE

How alarming:
her scarlet fingernails
tending the white chrysanthemums!
—Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation...

Read More

I am strange—so strange
that I self-destructed and don't regret it.
—Jaun Elia, translation by Michael R. Burch

The wound is deep—companions, friends—embrace me!
What, did you not even bother to stay?
—Jaun Elia, translation by Michael R. Burch

My nature...

Read More

Safe Harbor
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin N. Roberts

The sea at night seems
an alembic of dreams—
the moans of the gulls,
the foghorns’ bawlings.

A century late
to be melancholy,
I watch the last shrimp boat as it steams
to safe harbor...

Read More

Paying The Bill
 
You may come to this some day
It may issue from nowhere
A moment un-strident
A loose flagging half remembrance
Something which neither carries
Nor contains
But a fickle shadow 
Thin and as meaningless with an empty whimper
Not...

Read More

Ares
by Hesiod
translation by Michael R. Burch

Ares, exceeding all men in manliness, bronze-harnessed charioteer, golden-helmed gladiator, strong-armed spear-hurler, dauntless shield-bearer, courageous of heart, father of warlike Victory, able ally of Themis and Divine Law, dauntless defender...

Read More

POEMS ABOUT OPHELIA

Ophélie (“Ophelia”)
by Arthur Rimbaud
translation by Michael R. Burch

On pitiless black waves unsinking stars abide
while pale Ophelia, a lethargic lily, drifts by.
Here, tangled in her veils, she floats on the tide.
Far-off, in the woods,...

Read More

"Ocelots"

It was during that time 
they all decended into the lush fields of poetic madness,
swaying indolently with the other tall green poppies, 
who for once in their small lives basked in noticeability,
their blooming heads bending...

Read More

The Vessel pt. 2 - Leviæthan
 
                       I

'neath the grim pallor of a...

Read More

Lion Dancing To A New Year

It is that time of the year, you'll know it by the din reaching your ears...
Thunderous gong beats, clashing cymbals that's all you can hear...

It is a most riotous time...

Read More