love poetry

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about love, passion, desire, sex, flirting, dating and marriage. On an amusing note, my steamy Sappho and Baudelaire translations have become popular with the pros ― porn stars and escort services!

Preposterous Eros
by Michael R. Burch

“Preposterous Eros” – Patricia Falanga

Preposterous Eros shot me in
the buttocks, with a Devilish grin,
spent all my money in a rush
then left my heart effete pink mush.

Bitter Love

 
Li Bai (701-762)
 
 
The beauty sits behind a jeweled screen,
Lamenting him with lovely, furled brows.
When all I see are cheeks stained wet with tears,
I wonder, where’s the one who broke his vows?
 
 

Center of my soul
Joined in the union of desire
Lost in the kiss, unwound in all directions
I revel in your loneliness
I revel in your missed road signs
Along the map we cannot read together
It is sweet, this darkness
That draws us together, slowly
Breaking apart into the abyss

Fresh Wood (for Luo Xue)

from the shore
where I can see it all
as it floats away
 
to some other land
where the sun continues to shine
for centuries
 
and treetops
sway in the wind
filling the grass
with wandering pollen
 
          *
 
worn out
like a flag flown
for many years
 
          *
 
alone here
where your lips once
had left a mark
 
          *
 
once
I looked up
at the stones
and there opened a path
 
into the night
lit by torchlight

The friends we had, the friends we left
Along the siren streets
A signal past, a thousand thefts
In red light, white light beats
 
Oh, where can I rest in this hidden town
As wind comes whistling through
In light and dark, as it rains down,
A dancer flails there too
 
Somewhere she dwells, the chastised nun,
A remnant work of whim
Perhaps it’s one or maybe none
She waits and waits for him
 
The courtyard halls where beauty haunts
In bellows of burial bells
At night it sleeps its lot of want

seeds
impregnate the earth
 
whispering and loving its children
grown among the wandering souls
 
each morning in spring
where it is quiet
 
where we sit in silence
to behold the morning sun