epigram

These are my modern English translations of poems, epigrams, sayings and quotes by Rumi. 

Elevate your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder.—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Forget security!
Live by the perilous sea.
Destroy your reputation, however glorious.
Become notorious.
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your heart’s candle is ready to be kindled.
Your soul’s void is waiting to be filled.
You can feel it, can’t you?
—Rumi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are Michael R. Burch's modern English translations of the immortal Sappho of Lesbos, the great lyric poet who was called The Tenth Muse by her ancient peers. The other nine muses were goddesses, so Sappho was held in the very highest regard!

SAPPHO TRANSLATIONS BY MICHAEL R. BURCH

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!
—Sappho, fragment 177, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are original epigrams and parodies by Michael R. Burch ...

Brief Fling I
by Michael R. Burch

“Epigram”
means cram,
then scram!

Published by Brief Poems and The HyperTexts

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Brief Fling II
by Michael R. Burch

To write an epigram,
cram.
If you lack wit, scram!

Published by Brief Poems and The HyperTexts

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These epigrams include my modern English translations of Galileo, Confucius, Gandhi, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Rene Descartes, Jorge Luis Borges and Euripides.

These are my modern English translations of epigrams and poems by Leonardo da Vinci. I suspect da Vinci's “Paragone of Poetry and Painting” may have been aimed like a dart at his greatest rival, Michelangelo! 

Once we have flown, we will forever walk the earth with our eyes turned heavenward, for there we were and there we will always long to return.—Leonardo da Vinci, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are humorous epigrams about love, sex, procreation, politics, God, the Bible, religion, life and death.

Less Heroic Couplets: Midnight Stairclimber
by Michael R. Burch

Procreation
is at first great sweaty recreation,
then—long, long after the sex dies—
the source of endless exercise.

Published by: The HyperTexts

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Less Heroic Couplets: Liquidity Crisis
by Michael R. Burch

These are my modern English translations of epigrams by ancient poets like Homer, Rumi and Seneca.

Elevate your words, not their volume. Rain gros flowers, not thunder.
—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch

For the gods have decreed that unfortunate mortals must suffer, while they themselves are sorrowless.
—Homer (circa 800 BC), Iliad 24.525-526, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are original epigrams and translations of epigrams that I have produced over the years ...

Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that every leaf must finally fall,
it’s just that we can never catch them all.

Published by Verse Weekly, Brief Poems, Setu and Borderless Journal and translated into Russian, Macedonian, Turkish, Arabic and Romanian

Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we’ll discover what the heart is for.