art

MICHELANGELO TRANSLATIONS

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564)was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet. He and his fellow Florentine, Leonardo da Vinci, were rivals for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man. Michelangelo is considered by many to be the greatest artist of all time.

MICHELANGELO EPIGRAM TRANSLATIONS

I saw the angel in the marble and freed him.―Michelangelo, translation by Michael R. Burch

I hewed away the coarse walls imprisoning the lovely apparition.―Michelangelo, translation by Michael R. Burch

These are my modern English translations of poems by the French poet Stephane Mallarme, including his elegy for Egar Allan Poe. 

The Tomb of Edgar Poe
by Stéphane Mallarmé
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Transformed into himself by Death, at last,
the Bard unsheathed his Art’s recondite blade
to duel with dullards, blind & undismayed,
who’d never heard his ardent Voice, aghast!

Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch

after Richard Thomas Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”

i am a clay statue, suspended in elegance.
how sweet, how lovely, for one's job to be to convey emotion endlessly.
how sweet to be carved carefully by a master craftsman,
every vein, every muscle, and every crease on my body
unconditionally beautiful just because of the amount of thought.
to be admired by all the world,
to be critiqued,
to be complimented,
to teach,
to be taught--
such is the life of a statue. 
to transcend generations, allowing my paint to chip,
allowing my features to weather, because it conveys wisdom.