Long Translated Poems

This is the second part of Rabindranath Tagore's Narrative poem - Phanki (Deception). The first part has been already posted. 




              ...

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Raisin liked to make her bed upon a shelf up high
She said she likes the feeling that she’s almost in the sky
One day she fell and bonked her head and Rum could only stare
And wondered...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers I

I translated the first six Native American poems for my father when he chose to enter hospice and end his life by not taking dialysis …


Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation...

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Nemesis, Confrontation And The Rejoined Battle,
Now Completed


(Nemesis) - Part One

O'lord of blight dare thee to now abide
Leaving thy abode to earthen realm ride
As punisher with dark universal might
As grief bearer, humanity to smite!

Dar'est thee enter,...

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Native American Translations

Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own...

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Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to 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 front porch swing,
dangling his long...

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An old Greek word, ecclesia,
is often translated as church,
but could also be thought of as a civilization
acting civilly,
as a citizenry
acting as responsible citizens.

The noun side of Ecclesia
casts residents as consumers
of democratic and economic cooperative systems,
while...

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Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by...

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“Warrior” 

When the Argonauts, came across 
the abandoned Starship, they 
found within the wrecked 
command console, a DNA code
with encrypted message. 
It took several attempts to 
reactivate, but when opened, 
the following was translated: ...

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Math speaks through us
within us
of cognitive landscapes
imagined still and/or moving.

Primal metrics are rational and symmetrical,
good as true as straightforward,
complex creation story problems
unfolding with precise answers,
right as at least not not ecologically wrong,
ecopolitically suboptimal perhaps,
yet at...

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English translations of Arabic poems by Fadwa Tuqan aka "The Poet of Palestine"

Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink...

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Veronica Franco translations

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose.

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I) 
by Veronica Franco
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of...

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Sharing my translation of a famous poem (Sadharan Meye) written by Rabindranath Tagore, who won Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. It's one of his story-like poems, written in Bengali, which is one of the...

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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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This is a translation from a Poem (Title - Niskriti) by Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel-Laureate philosopher poet (1861 - 1941) from India. The story successfully depicts the status of women in a patriarchal society of nineteenth...

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The Song of Amergin: Modern English Translations

The Song of Amergin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea breeze
I am the ocean wave
I am the surf's thunder
I am the stag of the seven tines
I am...

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Translation of the Elegy: On Marceline Desbordes-Valmore - À L'amour - Poem by Marcel Moreau Translated by T. Wignesan

Reprends de ce bouquet les trompeuses couleurs,      (Take back the dubious colours...

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Bharathidasan’s “Pulikku nay enta muulai” (To the Tiger, the Dog knows no safe dwelling!) translated by T. Wignesan 

Bharathidasan (1891-1964) was a self-proclaimed disciple of the eminent Brahmin poet: Cuppiramania Bharathiyar (cf. two poems of...

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“There,” Lumi said suddenly and Joulupukki looked through the trees, seeing a small house. 
     “Wait here said Joulupukki, I'll be right back.”
He made his way to the house and called...

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S/he is controversially counter-cultural

And yet,
MotherEartha defensively claims,
not so:

We grow trans-regenerational
transubstantiating substances
and subjects
to integrate more sacredly organic

Positive passions
re-connecting
re-membered past peak
pleasures restoring universal EarthJustice
and unitarian EarthMother peace.

I stand before you today
not to bury every conservative re-ligion
but to...

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Translations of the Oldest English Rhyming Poems

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem aka The Riming Poem
Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

(excerpt)
He who granted me life...

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This is the Second Part of the Translation from Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel-Laureate Philosopher Poet from India. 





Father only smiled; thought, "women
are emotionally heated balloons! 
Life is a difficult  salvation, they don't have that knowledge", 
After...

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I wondered how that I could be a child of the King.
A long lost soul, I had no goal, but to maybe act and sing.
I believed in Jesus, a man of love,
But scared to death...

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Brian’s Poet of Note – ‘Herman Hesse’ Week 2

This week I thought I would discuss translating poetry from another language. I just finished retranslating from German this poem ‘Stufen’ from Hesse’s famous novel ‘The Glass...

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The people began to say that I am the richest woman in Linstead town, and that cause many people to flock around, me and started to beg me money. Not a dollar in my pocket...

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