heart

 In the quiet chambers, where the soul resides, There lies a sacred wisdom, where true knowledge hides. Beyond the realms of logic, beyond the mind's vast art, There blooms a deeper knowing, the knowledge of the heart. It whispers in the silence, in the spaces in between, In moments soft and tender, in visions deeply seen. It's felt in every heartbeat, in the rhythm of life's song, A truth that's pure and timeless, where hearts forever long. This knowledge needs no language, no words to understand, It's written in the actions, in the touch of a loving hand.

Shattered
by Vera Pavlova
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I shattered your heart;
now I limp through the shards
barefoot.

Untitled

Little sparks may ignite great Infernos.—Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A question that sometimes drives me hazy:
am I or are the others crazy?
—Albert Einstein, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Medusa
by Michael R. Burch

Friends, beware
of her iniquitous hair—
long, ravenblack & melancholy.

"AFTER CUMMINGS" POEMS

These are poems that I have written "after" e. e. cummings. Many of these poem were written during my early "Cummings Period," which started around age 14-15 when I discovered his poems in an English textbook. I have a cummings-ish type of poem that I call a "ur" poem. I will explain that modus operandi when we get to the first "ur" poem.

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

Hugh MacDiarmid wrote "The Watergaw" in a Scots dialect. I have translated the poem into modern English to make it easier to read and understand. A watergaw is a fragmentary rainbow. 

The Watergaw
by Hugh MacDiarmid
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch. Some are poems about love in desert places where Bedouins have learned to do without. The poems include everything from heroic couplets, sonnets and villanelles, to free verse and haiku. 

Sonnet: Once (a confirmed bachelor recants)
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name ...

Ono no Komachi translations

These are my modern English translations of the ancient Japanese poems of Ono no Komachi, who wrote tanka (also known as waka) and was renowned for the beauty of her verse as well as for her physical beauty. Komachi is best known today for her pensive, melancholic and erotic love poems. Her bio follows the poems.

If fields of autumn flowers
can shed their blossoms, shameless,
why can’t I also frolic here —
as fearless, wild and blameless?
—Ono no Komachi, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are my modern English translations of poems by Hafez aka Hafiz. 

The heart is the thousand-stringed lyre
Tuned to the chords of Love.
—Hafez, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

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Dispensing Keys
by Hafez
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are Romantic poems (with a capital R) that I have written under the influence of feminine beauty and poets like Sappho, e. e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Kevin N. Roberts, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Dylan Thomas.

She Gathered Lilacs
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She gathered lilacs
and arrayed them in her hair;
tonight, she taught the wind to be free.

We fall for pretty faces,
pretty smiles,
looking for that perfect match,
We flirt, text back and forth
thinking we have a little chance,
We have days full of sunshine,
relationships burning in fire and flames,
We take too much risks
wearing our heart to the collarbone,
We choose dates, dates turned moments,
We became insecure and less confident
hugging our deepest fears,
We accept someone new, embrace them
forgetting our last relationship was beyond repairs,
We remember the old flames