war

We are left speechless by man's inhumanity to his fellow man, to his brothers and sisters and their children. This collection includes poems about the Holocaust, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Gaza, terrorism and 9-11, war, and other forms of human violence...

Speechless at Auschwitz
by Ko Un
translation by Michael R. Burch

At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
mountains of shoes
returning, we stared out different windows.

***

These are poems about war and other calamities such as school shootings and floods...

War is Obsolete
by Michael R. Burch

War is obsolete;
even the strange machinery of dread
weeps for the child in the street
who cannot lift her head
to reprimand the Man
who failed to countermand
her soft defeat.

These are poems about war and defenses, and how those defenses may not be so defensive, after all. 

Defenses
by Michael R. Burch

Beyond the silhouettes of trees
stark, naked and defenseless
there stand long rows of sentinels:
these pert white picket fences.

Now whom they guard and how they guard,
the good Lord only knows;
but savages would have to laugh
observing the tidy rows.

Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Tursun has been described as a "self-professed Kafka character" and that comes through splendidly in poems of his like "Elegy." Unfortunately, Tursun was "disappeared" into a Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. According to a disturbing report he was later "hospitalized."

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Your soul is the entire world."
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. Her bio appears after her poems, and it is a fascinating bio...

Temple Hymn 15
to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most ancient and terrible shrine,
set deep in the mountain
like a mother's womb ...

Dark shrine,
like a mother's wounded breast,
blood-red and terrifying ...

These are poems for Ukraine, written in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and with everyone who opposes murder and mayhem as a means to achieve political ends. 

We Are Here
by Michael R. Burch

“We are here.” – Volodymyr Zelensky

We are here. Were are here.
And we won’t disappear.
We are here. We are here. We are here.

We are here. Have no fear,
our position is clear.
We are here. We are here. We are here.

These are War poems and Anti-War poems, including a hymn for fallen soldiers and poems I wrote about 911 and its aftermath. 

Hiroshima Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

Hiroshima shadows ... mother and child ...
Oh, when will our hearts ever be beguiled
to end mindless war ... to seek peace,
                                     reconciled
to our common mortality?

***

Upon the darkened prairie
a Comanche Moon shines,
rising from the horizon
and a swath of yellow pines.

Rousted from the tall grass
where buffaloes once roamed--
rabbits, ferrets and bobwhites
from the safety of their homes.

The ground doth tremble
and the earth doth quake.
Advancing shadows from the forest
disrupt the peaceful state.

Grasshoppers fly from their perch.
Wolf packs bound out of sight.
Something deadly stalks the prairie
shedding blood on the moon this night.