poems

These are poems about poetry, poems about writing, poems about the process of composition...

The Composition of Shadows (I)
by Michael R. Burch

“I made it out of a mouthful of air.”—W. B. Yeats

We breathe and so we write; the night
hums softly its accompaniment.
Pale phosphors burn; the page we turn
leads onward, and we smile, content.
    
And what we mean we write to learn:
the vowels of love, the consonants’
strange golden weight, each plosive’s shape—
curved like the heart. Here, resonant,...

violent is violence of a secret
violent is violence of a secret identity
a secret identity is a secret violence
dust is dust of identity
identity is a dust of identity
dust to mass,mass to dust
dust to mass,mass to violence

dust to mass,mass to identity
violence is a mass of violence
violence is a mass of identity
a secret disgust is a secret identity
the government is a violent disgust
the government is a violent identity
the government is disgust as the government

POEMS ABOUT SCIENCE

These are poems about science: computers, AI, robots, drones, advanced weapons, global warming, climate change, pollution, extinction events, deforestation, evolution, physics, chemistry, etc.

Within the CPU
by Michael R. Burch

Here the electronic rush of meaning,
the impulse of mathematics
and rationality,
becomes almost a restless dreaming
never satisfied—
the first stirrings of some fetal Entity.

These are poems about flight, poems about flying, poems about flights of fancy, and poems about things that fly like planes, jets, kites, leaves, butterflies, birds and bees...

Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...

Originally published by Hibiscus (India)

Learning to Fly
by Michael R. Burch

We are learning to fly
every day...

learning to fly—
away, away...

These are poems I call my Fables...

Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find flowers,
or will she find thorns
guarding the petals
of roses unborn?

Will there be moonlight
tonight
while she gathers
seashells
and mussels
and albatross feathers?

ITALIAN POETRY TRANSLATIONS

These are my modern English translations of the Roman, Latin and Italian poets Anonymous, Marcus Aurelius, Catullus, Guido Cavalcanti, Cicero, Dante Alighieri, Veronica Franco, Guido Guinizelli, Hadrian, Primo Levi, Martial, Michelangelo, Seneca, Seneca the Younger and Leonardo da Vinci. I also have translations of Latin poems by the English poets Aldhelm, Thomas Campion and Saint Godric of Finchale.

what you fear is fear itself
what you fear is rain itself
what you fear is the rain of destruction
destruction rain down on destruction
fear rain down on fear
destiny come calling
destiny come calling on fear

destiny come calling on rain
fear come calling on fear
desire is worth a lion’s tail
desire is worth a lion’s fear
desire is worth a lion’s destiny
desire is worth a lion’s destruction
what you fear is a worth of fear

science zoom in on a disturbance
science zoom in on a lens of the universe
science disturb the lens of the universe
science create or disturb the lens of the universe
science create or zoom in on the lens of creativity
creativity zoom in on creativity
creativity is a lens of creativity

the universe create the lens of creativity
disturbance zoom in on disturbance
to zoom is to zoom in on creativity
a world create the lens of a world
a global world is a global lens
creation is a global world
a lens is a global lens

These are English translations of Spanish poems written by Pablo Neruda, along with translations of select epigrams and quotes.

PABLO NERUDA TRANSLATIONS

You can crop all the flowers but you cannot detain spring.
―Pablo Neruda, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

While nothing can save us from death,
still love can redeem each breath.
―Pablo Neruda, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bertolt Brecht Translations

These are my modern English translations of poems written in German by Bertolt Brecht. After the poems I have translations of epigrams and quotations by Bertolt Brecht.

The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.

Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he'd been excluded!