my way or the highway
my way or the heartache
my way or minus the highway
my way or minus the heartache
minus the heartache,minus the highway
minus the soul,minus the heartache
minus the soul,plus the soul
minus the soul,plus the heartache
the mind,body is a plus of the soul
minus the soul,minus the body,plus the mind
plus the mind,plus the body,minus the soul
minus the soul is plus the body
the soul is at peace with the mind
the soul is at peace with the body
Ho Xuan Huong (1772-1882) was a risqué Vietnamese poetess. Her verse — replete with nods, winks, double entendres and sexual innuendo — was shocking to many readers of her day and will doubtless remain so to some of ours. Huong has been described as "the candid voice of a liberal female in a male-dominated society." Her output has been called "coy, often bawdy lyrics." More information about the poet follows these English translations of her poems.
Ốc Nhồi ("The Snail")
by Ho Xuan Huong (1772-1882)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
These are my English translations of poems by the Jewish Holocaust poet Miklos Radnoti, the Scottish poet William Dunbar, the German poet Georg Trakl, the English poet Pauline Mary Tarn who wrote poems in French as Renee Vivien, and other poets.
Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti, written August 30, 1944
translation by Michael R. Burch
This is my modern English translation of the poem "To the boy Elis" by Georg Trakl.
To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.
Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.
Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.
We sing in the branches,
The birds of night, born brittle
In broken words and melancholic memes,
As holy as the body in a dream
Woven in, set upon a tree,
Old and scorned, played out like a fiddle
With worn out strings, a holy see
That’s thrown upon the body in a dream
Windows open and close down here—
We listen with fear but cannot hear
And feel we’re being seen
In silence as the body in a dream
Until, at last, the knock that rocks the door,
With words that whisper no more—
