Translated Poems by Michael R Burch. (Basho,Sappho,Shugyo.)

(i.)

Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
―for the children of Gaza

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
 
Michael R Burch
 
(ii.)

Eros shakes my soul:
a wind on desolate mountains
leveling oaks.
 
Sappho, fragment 42, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

(iii.)

The butterfly 
perfuming its wings
fans the orchid
 
 
Matsuo Basho, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

(iv.)

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I’d leap into the torrent! 

 
― Takaha Shugyo, loose translation by Michael R. Burch
 
 
Mike Burch Face Book_n
 
Michael R. Burch’s poems, translations, essays, articles and letters have appeared more than 2,000 times in publications which include TIME, USA Today, Writer’s Digest and hundreds of literary journals and websites. His poetry has been translated into Arabic, Czech, Farsi, Gjuha Shqipe, Italian, Macedonian, Russian, Turkish and Vietnamese. He also edits www.thehypertexts.com.

*Translator’s note: I consult a wide range of sources before I do a translation, since I’m not an expert on other languages. For instance, before doing my translations of Basho and Sappho, I studied hundreds of translations and comments about their work by various experts.

robin@artvilla.com
www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes

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“Shakespearean Sound” Poem. Kimmy Van Kooten

De signare
Appellare, get a sip of what’s unaware
Feel the firm in issued hands
On solid ground, weigh who that stands!
 
Cognomen? Who are you?
Name yourself, O’ maiden rues!
Sobriquets, doeth fade alas
An alias? Don’t be an ass!
 
A’point, by signuum, infer, select
Pro bare yourself a non-elect
Co-optations, brand new leaf
Show them all just what you sheaf!
 
Re your world
Your tick still ticks…
Climb up higher to where the echo sticks!
Bid, hold your peace and speak to it. . . .
 

 

 

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Eros Thimbles Under the Moon of the Evening Grosbeak. Poem. Sage Sweetwater

clouds of incense
sewn with threads of
the Silver Cord,

out of body nakedness
stitch-by-niche drifting under
the moon, luna parts the dark side
of her thighs to let in some ethereal light,

 ’tis the passerine
bird who scolds us out
of the physical body into
the astral body –

the polyphyletic
assemblage of the
songbird, the evening
grosbeak branching on
what is balanced of All-That-Is
going out on the astral limb of a
protector of love –

the eros thimble
under the moon of
the evening grosbeak
to repel the puncture of
the needle; the closer I get
to the honeycreeper’s nectar
the more I drip with sweet prophetic
wisdom stitch-by-niche.

Copyright © Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist

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My Balcony Garden.Poem.Carmen Ruggero.2012

 

On a balmy summer evening

the scent of jasmine’s in the air

and I sit on my balcony

counting stars – just killing time.

 

I breathe the night air

and an awesome sense of comfort

comes over me.

 

That taste of vanilla on my lips

such sweet essence

suddenly turns bitter in my mind

because… because…

 

It was so long ago,

another time, another place,

a different moon, and peaceful nights

and you were there,

then you were gone.

 

Perhaps my fault,

no… no perhaps

I know it was.

 

Some nights, when I sit on my balcony,

I hear the sound of broken voices,

muddled bits of conversation;

so I close my eyes and dream of yesterday

when life was good

 

when we talked to each other,

and whispered little secrets,

and I wish I could hear them now.

 

Some nights I hear the neighbors argue.

Their voices are harsh

and I struggle to remember yesterday.

 

And the guy from-thirty six B

makes frequent visits to twenty-four A,

none of my business…

 

I’ve seen misery happen once or twice,

but last night,

hard to tell who was racing hell

and I don’t care.

 

Night time is cool in my balcony.

Let the neighbors sprinkle their dust

as they go along.

 

Let me just dream of vanilla

and pipe tobacco…

…my own dirt’s under control

neatly tucked inside tiny terracotta pots.

 

Carmen Ruggero©2012

 

 

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Absinthe. Poem. Sara L Russell. 2012

 

She stares into a pool reflecting midnight stars
A scrying glass of mystic mystery
A portal to dimensions where the brave may pass
Without a password or a golden key.

The shimmer of green oceans in the mind’s third eye
Reflects a myriad of distant lands
A chalice raised; a sip that brings the lips to sigh
Wingbeating spirit hears and understands.

The trees are hung with lanterns giving amber light
The sky’s festooned with stars in veils of cloud
Reflecting in her eyes. In decadent delight
She takes another sip and sighs aloud.

The light green potion lingers lightly on her tongue
Unfolding tastes of mint and aniseed
Promising deeper pleasure while the night is young
Where evening moths and fairies stop to feed.

***

Sara L  Russell 5/6/12

@pinkyandrexa 

Poet, Artist, Cartoonist, Goth, Time Traveller, UFO Spotter, Friend of cats everywhere. Former Editor of Poetry Life & Times. Founder of

http://thevideopoets.ning.com/ 

creativethinkersintl.ning.com/profile/SaraLouiseRussell
Poetry Lifetimes http://paper.li/pinkyandrexa/1321389290#

 

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But Somehow You Decide. Poem. Guy Kettelhack

But Somehow You Decide

Strange, the charge – the larger thrust –

the feeling that you must – the yen to thrive –
the urge to amplify all senses you’re alive –

strange when they don’t come. Reassurance

shuts you up, and – dumb and deaf to it –
and left to the conundrum of your inanition –

your ambition seems to be less to establish

some new basis to arrive more widely
into consciousness than to retreat to stasis.

Pep talks sound like parakeets. All the sweets

Enthusiasm eats taste bitter in your mouth.
Hope goes south. You sigh. You can’t

say you feel better. But somehow you decide

you don’t feel worse. Perhaps that signals
something like the lifting of a curse.

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Free Fall. Poem. Sonnet by Michael R Burch



These cloudless nights, the sky becomes a wheel 
where suns revolve around an axle star …
Look there, and choose. Decide which moon is yours. 
Sink Lethe-ward, held only by a heel. 

Advantage. Disadvantage. Who can tell? 
To see is not to know, but you can feel 
the tug sometimes: the gravity, the shell 
as lustrous as damp pearl. You sink, you reel 

toward some draining revelation. Air: 
too thin to grasp, to breath. Such pressure. Gasp. 
The stars invert, electric, everywhere. 

And so we fall, down-tumbling through night’s fissure: 

two beings pale, intent to fall forever 
around each other—fumbling at love’s tether …
now separate, now distant, now together.

Originally published by Sonnet Scroll

 
 
Mike Burch Face Book_n
 
Michael R. Burch’s poems, translations, essays, articles and letters have appeared more than 2,000 times in publications which include TIME, USA Today, Writer’s Digest and hundreds of literary journals and websites. His poetry has been translated into Arabic, Czech, Farsi, Gjuha Shqipe, Italian, Macedonian, Russian, Turkish and Vietnamese. He also edits www.thehypertexts.com.

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