Long Wilts Poems

My most popular poems on the Internet (II)

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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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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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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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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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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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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Perhaps you hear and see a yet emerging trend
among TransMillennials,
those born at end of the second millennium
carrying and burying ourselves in the third,
yet to die Post Bi-Millennially.

We hear a son who knows,
as his cells know...

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As ev’ry flower wilts and ev’ry youngster				11
Must age, so manifests each stage of living,				11
All wisdom blossoms too and ev’ry virtue				11
Enjoys its time, and cannot last forever.				11
At ev’ry call of life, the heart of man should,				11
(Without...

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Their rending cries, when all is still, reecho in the moonlight;
They lie about in fitful slumber on the ground at noonlight,
Their virgin hair spread in the dust; for nothing really matters:
Who then will see their...

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I guess the candidates and polity saying "no"
to Earth's human refugees
during this their Thanksgiving time,
did not finish their Darwin biographies.

While endosymbiotic evolution,
indigenous to any one species,
can devolve to survival of the fittest,
this is most likely...

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1	A plume of dirt and grime envelops sky;
		The hellish slug of gas does creep along.
		It casts an orb three hundred stories high
		Over the Sun and ends his morning song.
		The birds and trees now stand a...

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Gaia’s love first embraces Earth’s tribes
who then embrace Her back
through Gaia’s co-redeemer enculturation gift,
pay-it-forward grace of permacultured history,
karma of EarthTribe’s economy,
mutually-parasitic subsidiarity
embracing universally regenerate Host
in political-through-personal empowering solidarity
of EarthTribe's Eco-Passionate Universal Rights.

She paid the health...

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It was tranquil sultry August, and the birds were singing,
The insects were all buzzing, and toad frogs were springing.

And I was deep in the mountains, taking snapshots of nature;
For I felt I was a good...

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Once within our time,
SkyPrince and SunGod talk,
as usual,
endlessly actually,
sending their radiant messages
out toward mutually gravitating receivers,
no Yins allowed to pitch;
just catch integrative flow.

SkyPrince wonders if SunGod might consider turning down his heat,
and wanders aloud as...

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' The gods' spake to all who had 'wide' ears...
but all they heard was Apollo's muse....'
   

How leavened my soul to search,
   
   wooly and wild to the waxxen...

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When nature wilts into 
                  a colorless haven, 
metaphors of death sprout 
     ...

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I found comfort in hope, a raw reality in regret.
And lost my way in the game of life, all my chips in on a bet.
I stared at an amaranthine desert that stretched out to the...

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How leavened my soul to search,
   
   wooly and wild to the waxxen wind,
   
   how swift my wings though my fancy yearns,

   catching sights...

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The only woman I ever loved gives joy and love, For I have met and loved other women but not with such satisfaction I feel now. For she turns a dark day bright and shares...

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If I had the time,
I’d sit on the front porch…
With you,
Gossiping about the fireflies this June,
Whispering in colors, brilliant 
Gasps of forever, painted on the midnight…
Moon, glowing through the sky,
Escorted by the escaping stars, graceful,
Flickering,...

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A heavy fog, misty gloom, sadness
Spreads all around me, sinking deeper
Into my spirit, my heart – my depths
Singling me out for the doubt
That feasts on my broken dreams
Devouring all my happiness and breathing
Slowly, urgently…. Through...

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                Connections, how are they made?
Perceptions waved in radio, station identification 
made, declared, paved.
Frequency paired by molecules in fertile atmosphere.
Staging...

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Several
times I have walked by Arlington Cemetery
and felt my face wilt.
I’ve waded through Washington D.C’s ever-present puddles
to work every day and thought of stopping, reading the yellow,
moss ruined words on the graves of people who...

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O, solemn harmony of lonesome waves
Whose power tolls the bell of dreams!
Your passioned voice of rising freedom braves
All force whose will unfolds resentful streams!

The longing for past lives—though fading—may, 
Below the burning sky, adopt a...

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Throwing back the sun light to shower the world
Skin stretched out as much as possible, trying to flood the universe with his infinite cheer
Little feat scurry around, little hands wave up and down
Seeking more, finding...

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