East Devon BeaconA Poem by Michael R. Burch These are poems about shadows, poems about darkness, poems about shades in the form of ghosts and spirits. These are poem about being lost, poems about being directionless and out of sorts... skirting the headlamps, fugitive. Why have we come, Why do we sit, Why the preemptive frowns, Roses for a Lover, Idealized by Michael R. Burch When you have become to me as roses bloom, in memory, exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot, will I recall�"yours made me bleed? When winter makes me think of you�" whorls petrified in frozen dew, bright promises blithe spring forsook, will I recall your words�"barbed, cruel? Herbsttag (“Autumn Day”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Epitaph for the Child Erotion by Marcus Valerius Martial loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lie lightly on her, grass and dew ... So little weight she placed on you. Springtime Prayer by Michael R. Burch They’ll have to grow like crazy, the springtime baby geese, if they’re to fly to balmier climes when autumn dismembers the leaves ... And so I toss them loaves of bread, then whisper an urgent prayer: “Watch over these, my Angels, if there’s anyone kind, up there.” Originally published by Borderless Journal (Singapore)
by Michael R. Burch for Caitlin Shea Murphy To her a year is like infinity, each day�"an adventure never-ending. She has no concept of time, but already has begun the climb�" from childhood to womanhood recklessly ascending. I would caution her, "No! Wait! There will be time enough another day . . . time to learn the Truth and to slowly shed your youth, but for now, sweet child, go carefully on your way! . . ." But her time is not a time for cautious words, nor a time for measured, careful understanding. She is just certain that, by grabbing the curtain, in a moment she will finally be standing! Little does she know that her first few steps will hurtle her on her way through childhood to adolescence, and then, finally, pubescence . . . while, just as swiftly, I’ll be going gray! These are poems about shadows, poems about darkness, poems about shades in the form of ghosts and spirits... Shadows by Michael R. Burch Alone again as evening falls, I join gaunt shadows and we crawl up and down my room's dark walls. Up and down and up and down, against starlight�"strange, mirthless clowns�" we merge, emerge, submerge...then drown. We drown in shadows starker still, shadows of the somber hills, shadows of sad selves we spill, tumbling, to the ground below. There, caked in grimy, clinging snow, we flutter feebly, moaning low for days dreamed once an age ago when we weren't shadows, but were men... when we were men, or almost so. What is life? The flash of a firefly. The breath of the winter buffalo. The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset. �"Blackfoot saying, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch As the moon flies west the flowers' shadows creep eastward. �"Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Leaves like crows’ shadows flirt with a lonely moon. �"Fukuda Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch War stood at the end of the hall in the long shadows �"Watanabe Hakusen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Snapshot by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased; even when you lie underground, it encompasses you. So, those of you who anticipate the shadows: how long will the darkness remember you? Hiroshima Shadows by Michael R. Burch The intense heat and light of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts left ghostly shadows of human beings imprinted in concrete, whose lives were erased in an instant. 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? Where We Dwell by Michael R. Burch Night within me. Never morning. Stars uncounted. Shadows forming. Wind arising where we dwell reaches Heaven, reeks of Hell. Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology) Bound by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15 Now it is winter�"the coldest night. And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground, I have lost what I once found in your arms. Now it is winter�"the coldest night. And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes, I have remade all my chains and am bound. When last my love left me by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16 The sun was a smoldering ember when last my love left me; the sunset cast curious shadows over green arcs of the sea; she spoke sad words, departing, and teardrops drenched the trees. Last Anthem by Michael R. Burch Where you have gone are the shadows falling... does memory pale like a fossil in shale ...do you not hear me calling? Where you have gone do the shadows lengthen... does memory wane with the absence of pain ...is silence at last your anthem? Sharon by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15 apologies to Byron I. Flamingo-minted, pink, pink cheeks, dark hair streaked with a lisp of dawnlight; I have seen your shadow creep through eerie webs spun out of twilight... And I have longed to kiss your lips, as sweet as the honeysuckle blooms, and to hold your pale albescent body, more curvaceous than the moon... II. Black-haired beauty, like the night, stay with me till morning's light. In shadows, Sharon, become love until the sun lights our alcove. Red, red lips reveal white stone: whet my own, my passions hone. My all in all I give to you, in our tongues’ exchange of dew. Now all I ever ask of you is: do with me what now you do. My love, my life, my only truth! In shadows, Sharon, shed your gown; let all night’s walls come tumbling down. III. Now I will love you long, Sharon, as long as longing may be. In the Twilight of Her Tears by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19 In the twilight of her tears I saw the shadows of the years that had taken with them all our joys and cares ... There in an ebbing tide’s spent green I saw the flotsam of lost dreams wash out into a sea of wild despair ... In the scars that marred her eyes I saw the cataracts of lies that had shattered all the visions we had shared ... As from a ravaged iris, tears seemed to flood the spindrift years with sorrows that the sea itself despaired ... Musings at Giza by Michael R. Burch In deepening pools of shadows lies the Sphinx, and men still fear his eyes. Though centuries have passed, he waits. Egyptians gather at the gates. Great pyramids, the looted tombs �"how still and desolate their wombs!�" await sarcophagi of kings. From eons past, a hammer rings. Was Cleopatra's litter borne along these streets now bleak, forlorn? Did Pharaohs clad in purple ride fierce stallions through a human tide? Did Bocchoris here mete his law from distant Kush to Saqqarah? or Tutankhamen here once smile upon the children of the Nile? or Nefertiti ever rise with wild abandon in her eyes to gaze across this arid plain and cry, “Great Isis, live again!” Dark Twin by Michael R. Burch You come to me out of the sun �" my dark twin, unreal... And you are always near although I cannot touch you; although I trample you, you cannot feel... And we cannot be parted, nor can we ever meet except at the feet. The Beautiful People by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16 They are the beautiful people, and their shadows dance through the valleys of the moon to the listless strains of an ancient tune. Oh, no ... please don't touch them, for their smiles might fade. Don’t go ... don’t approach them as they promenade, for they waltz through a vacuum and dream they're not made of the dust and the dankness to which men degrade. They are the beautiful people, and their spirits sighed in their mothers’ wombs as the distant echoings of unearthly tunes. Winds do not blow there and storms do not rise, and each hair has its place and each gown has its price. And they whirl through the darkness untouched by our cares as we watch them and long for a "life" such as theirs. Shadowselves by Michael R. Burch In our hearts, knowing fewer days�"and milder�"beckon, still, how are we to measure that wick by which we reckon the time we have remaining? We are shadows spawned by a blue spurt of candlelight. Darkly, we watch ourselves flicker. Where shall we go when the flame burns less bright? When chill night steals our vigor? Why are we less than ourselves? We are shadows. Where is the fire of our youth? We grow cold. Why does our future loom dark? We are old. And why do we shiver? In our hearts, seeing fewer days�"and briefer�"breaking, now, even more, we treasure this brittle leaf-like aching that tells us we are living. Once Upon a Frozen Star by Michael R. Burch Oh, was it in this dark-Decembered world we walked among the moonbeam-shadowed fields and did not know ourselves for weight of snow upon our laden parkas? White as sheets, as spectral-white as ghosts, with clawlike hands thrust deep into our pockets, holding what we thought were tickets home: what did we know of anything that night? Were we deceived by moonlight making shadows of gaunt trees that loomed like fiends between us, by the songs of owls like phantoms hooting: Who? Who? Who? And if that night I looked and smiled at you a little out of tenderness . . . or kissed the wet salt from your lips, or took your hand, so cold inside your parka . . . if I wished upon a frozen star . . . that I could give you something of myself to keep you warm . . . yet something still not love . . . if I embraced the contours of your face with one stiff glove . . . How could I know the years would strip away the soft flesh from your face, that time would flay your heart of consolation, that my words would break like ice between us, till the void of words became eternal? Oh, my love, I never knew. I never knew at all, that anything so vast could curl so small. Transplant by Michael R. Burch You float, unearthly angel, clad in flesh as strange to us who briefly knew your flame as laughter to disease. And yet you laugh. Behind your smile, the sun forfeits its claim to earth, and floats forever now the same�" light captured at its moment of least height. You laugh here always, welcoming the night, and, just a photograph, still you can claim bright rapture: like an angel, not of flesh�" but something more, made less. Your humanness this moment of release becomes a name and something else�"a radiance, a strange brief presence near our hearts. How can we stand and chain you here to this nocturnal land of burgeoning gray shadows? Fly, begone. I give you back your soul, forfeit all claim to radiance, and welcome grief’s dark night that crushes all the laughter from us. Light in someone Else’s hand, and sing at ease some song of brightsome mirth through dawn-lit trees to welcome morning’s sun. O daughter! these are eyes too weak for laughter; for love’s sight, I welcome darkness, overcome with light. Shark by Michael R. Burch They are all unknowable, these rough pale men�" haunting dim pool rooms like shadows, propped up on bar stools like scarecrows, nodding and sagging in the fraying light . . . I am not of them, as I glide among them�" eliding the amorphous camaraderie they are as unlikely to spell as to feel, camouflaged in my own pale dichotomy . . . That there are women who love them defies belief�" with their missing teeth, their hair in thin shocks where here and there a gap of scalp gleams like bizarre chrome, their smell rank as wet sawdust or mildewed laundry . . . And yet�" and yet there is someone who loves me: She sits by the telephone in the lengthening shadows and pregnant grief . . . They appreciate skill at pool, not words. They frown at massés, at the cue ball’s contortions across green felt. They hand me their hard-earned money with reluctant smiles. A heart might melt at the thought of their children lying in squalor . . . At night I dream of them in bed, toothless, kissing. With me, it’s harder to say what is missing . . . Solicitation by Michael R. Burch He comes to me out of the shadows, acknowledging my presence with a tip of his hat, always the gentleman, and his eyes are on mine like a snake’s on a bird’s�" quizzical, mesmerizing. He c***s his head as though something he heard intrigues him (although I hear nothing) and he smiles, amusing himself at my expense; his words are full of desire and loathing, and although I hear, he says nothing that I understand. The moon shines�"maniacal, queer�"as he takes my hand and whispers Our time has come . . . and so we stroll together along the docks where the sea sends things that wriggle and crawl scurrying under rocks and boards. Moonlight in great floods washes his pale face as he stares unseeing into my eyes. He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine, and my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face. He unfastens my dress till the white lace shows, and my neck is bared. His teeth are long, yellow and hard. His face is bearded and haggard. A wolf howls in the distance. There are no wolves in New York. I gasp. My blood is a trickle his wet tongue embraces. My heart races madly. He likes it like that. Vampires by Michael R. Burch Vampires are such fragile creatures; we fear the dark, but the light destroys them . . . sunlight, or a stake, or a cross�"such common things. Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings, we heed his voice. Centuries have taught us: in shadows danger lurks for those who stray, and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs. He has no choice. We are his prey, plump and fragrant, and if we pray to avoid him, he prays to find us, prays to some despotic hooded God whose benediction is the humid blood he lusts to taste. The Wild Hunt by Michael R. Burch Few legends have inspired more poetry than those of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. These legends have their roots in a far older Celtic mythology than many realize. Here the names are ancient and compelling. Arthur becomes Artur or Artos, “the bear.” Bedivere becomes Bedwyr. Lancelot is Llenlleawc, Llwch Lleminiawg or Lluch Llauynnauc. Merlin is Myrddin. And there is an curious intermingling of Welsh and Irish names within these legends, indicating that some tales (and the names of the heroes and villains) were in all probability “borrowed” by one Celtic tribe from another. For instance, in the Welsh poem “Pa gur,” the Welsh Manawydan son of Llyr is clearly equivalent to the Irish Mannanan mac Lir. Near Devon, the hunters appear in the sky with Artur and Bedwyr sounding the call; and the others, laughing, go dashing by. They only appear when the moon is full: Valerin, the King of the Tangled Wood, and Valynt, the goodly King of Wales, Gawain and Owain and the hearty men who live on in many minstrels’ tales. They seek the white stag on a moonlit moor, or Torc Triath, the fabled boar, or Ysgithyrwyn, or Twrch Trwyth, the other mighty boars of myth. They appear, sometimes, on Halloween to chase the moon across the green, then fade into the shadowed hills where memory alone prevails. Published by Borderless Journal, Celtic Twilight, Celtic Lifestyles, Boston Poetry and Auldwicce Ibykos/Ibycus Fragment 286, circa 564 BCE loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Come spring, the grand apple trees stand watered by a gushing river where the maidens’ uncut flowers shiver and the blossoming grape vine swells in the gathering shadows. Unfortunately for me Eros never rests but like a Thracian tempest ablaze with lightning emanates from Aphrodite; the results are frightening�" black, bleak, astonishing, violently jolting me from my soles to my soul. Dunkles zu sagen (“Expressing the Dark”) by Ingeborg Bachmann, an Austrian poet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I strum the strings of life and death like Orpheus and in the beauty of the earth and in your eyes that instruct the sky, I find only dark things to say. The dark shadow I followed from the beginning led me into the deep barrenness of winter. Annual by Michael R. Burch Silence steals upon a house where one sits alone in the shadow of the itinerant letterbox, watching the disconnected telephone collecting dust ... hearing the desiccate whispers of voices’ dry flutters,�" moths’ wings brittle as cellophane ... Curled here, reading the yellowing volumes of loss by the front porch light in the groaning swing . . . through thin adhesive gloss I caress your face. Snapshots by Michael R. Burch Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows. And there you go, skipping your way to school. And here we are, drifting apart like untethered balloons. Here I am, creating “art,” chanting in shadows, pale as the crinoline moon, ignoring your face. There you go, in diaphanous lace, making another man’s heart swoon. Suddenly, unthinkably, here he is, taking my place. Ghost by Michael R. Burch White in the shadows I see your face, unbidden. Go, tell Love it is commonplace; Tell Regret it is not so rare. Our love is not here though you smile, full of sedulous grace. Lost in darkness, I fear the past is our resting place. Herbsttag (“Autumn Day”) by Rainer Maria Rilke loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go. Lay your long shadows over the sundials and over the meadows, let the free winds blow. Command the late fruits to fatten and shine; O, grant them another Mediterranean hour! Urge them to completion, and with power convey final sweetness to the heavy wine. Who has no house now, never will build one. Who's alone now, shall continue alone; he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends, and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down, restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend. Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. I stalk the streets, silent and starving. Bread does not satisfy me; dawn does not divert me from my relentless pursuit of your fluid spoor. I long for your liquid laughter, for your sunburned hands like savage harvests. I lust for your fingernails' pale marbles. I want to devour your breasts like almonds, whole. I want to ingest the sunbeams singed by your beauty, to eat the aquiline nose from your aloof face, to lick your eyelashes' flickering shade. I pursue you, snuffing the shadows, seeking your heart's scorching heat like a puma prowling the heights of Quitratue. Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda loose translation by Michael R. Burch I do not love you like coral or topaz, or the blazing hearth’s incandescent white flame; I love you like phantoms embraced in the dark ... secretly, in shadows, unrevealed & unnamed. I love you like shrubs that refuse to bloom while pregnant with the radiance of mysterious flowers; now thanks to your love an earthy fragrance lives dimly in my body’s odors. I love you without knowing�"how, when, why or where; I love you forthrightly, without complications or care; I love you this way because I know no other. Here, where “I” no longer exists ... so it seems ... so close that your hand on my chest is my own, so close that your eyes close gently on my dreams. Pan by Michael R. Burch ... Among the shadows of the groaning elms, amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves ... ... Once there were paths that led to coracles that clung to piers like loosening barnacles ... ... where we cannot return, because we lost the pebbles and the playthings, and the moss ... ... hangs weeping gently downward, maidens’ hair who never were enchanted, and the stairs ... ... that led up to the Fortress in the trees will not support our weight, but on our knees ... ... we still might fit inside those splendid hours of damsels in distress, of rustic towers ... ... of voices heard in wolves’ tormented howls that died, and live in dreams’ soft, windy vowels ... Violets by Michael R. Burch Once, only once, when the wind flicked your skirt to an indiscreet height and you laughed, abruptly demure, outblushing shocked violets: suddenly, I knew: everything had changed ... Later, as you braided your hair into long bluish plaits the shadows empurpled �"the dragonflies’ last darting feints dissolving mid-air�" we watched the sun’s long glide into evening, knowing and unknowing ... O, how the illusions of love await us in the commonplace and rare then haunt our small remainder of hours. Ebb Tide by Michael R. Burch Massive, gray, these leaden waves bear their unchanging burden�" the sameness of each day to day while the wind seems to struggle to say something half-submerged planks at the mouth of the bay might nuzzle limp seaweed to understand. Now collapsing dull waves drain away from the unenticing land; shrieking gulls shadow fish through salt spray�" whitish streaks on a fogged silver mirror. Sizzling lightning impresses its brand. Unseen fingers scribble something in the wet sand. The Endeavors of Lips by Michael R. Burch How sweet the endeavors of lips�"to speak of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak: for there is no illusion like love ... Grown childlike, we wish for those storied days, for those bright sprays of flowers, those primrosed ways that curled to the towers of Yesterdays where She braided illusions of love ... “O, let down your hair!”�"we might call and call, to the dark-slatted window, the moonlit wall ... but our love is a shadow; we watch it crawl like a spidery illusion. For love ... was never as real as that first kiss seemed when we read by the flashlight and dreamed. If You Come to San Miguel by Michael R. Burch If you come to San Miguel before the orchids fall, we might stroll through lengthening shadows those deserted streets where love first bloomed ... You might buy the same cheap musk from that mud-spattered stall where with furtive eyes the vendor watched his fragrant wares perfume your breasts ... Where lean men mend tattered nets, disgruntled sea gulls chide; we might find that cafetucho where through grimy panes sunset implodes ...
Where tall cranes spin canvassed loads, the strange anhingas glide. Green brine laps splintered moorings, rusted iron chains grind, weighed and anchored in the past, held fast by luminescent tides ... Should you come to San Miguel? Let love decide. At Once by Michael R. Burch for Beth Though she was fair, though she sent me the epistle of her love at once and inscribed therein love’s antique prayer, I did not love her at once. Though she would dare pain’s pale, clinging shadows, to approach me at once, the dark, haggard keeper of the lair, I did not love her at once. Though she would share the all of her being, to heal me at once, yet more than her touch I was unable bear. I did not love her at once. And yet she would care, and pour out her essence ... and yet�"there was more! I awoke from long darkness, and yet�"she was there. I loved her the longer; I loved her the more because I did not love her at once. Drunken Morning, or, Morning of Drunkenness by Arthur Rimbaud loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Oh, my Beautiful! Oh, my Good! Hideous fanfare wherein I won’t stumble! Oh, rack of splendid enchantments! Huzzah for the virginal! Huzzah for the immaculate work! For the marvelous body! It began amid children’s mirth; where too it must end. This poison? ’Twill remain in our veins till the fanfare subsides, when we return to our former discord. May we, so deserving of these agonies, may we now recreate ourselves after our body’s and soul’s superhuman promise�" that promise, that madness! Elegance, senescence, violence! They promised to bury knowledge in the shadows�"the tree of good and evil�" to deport despotic respectability so that we might effloresce pure-petaled love. It began with hellish disgust but ended �"because we weren’t able to grasp eternity immediately�" in a panicked riot of perfumes. Children’s laughter, slaves’ discretion, the austerity of virgins, loathsome temporal faces and objects�" all hallowed by the sacredness of this vigil! Although it began with loutish boorishness, behold! it ends among angels of ice and flame. My little drunken vigil, so holy, so blessed! My little lost eve of drunkenness! Praise for the mask you provided us! Method, we affirm you! Let us never forget that yesterday you glorified our emergence, then each of our subsequent ages. We have faith in your poison. We give you our lives completely, every day. Behold, the assassin's hour! Rêvé Pour l'hiver (“Winter Dream”) by Arthur Rimbaud loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Come winter, we’ll leave in a little pink carriage With blue cushions. We’ll be comfortable, snuggled in our nest of crazy kisses. You’ll close your eyes, preferring not to see, through the darkening glass, The evening’s shadows leering. Those snarling monstrosities, that pandemonium of black demons and black wolves. Then you’ll feel your cheek scratched... A little kiss, like a crazed spider, will tickle your neck... And you’ll say to me: "Get it!" as you tilt your head back, and we’ll take a long time to find the crafty creature, the way it gets around... Dawn by Arthur Rimbaud loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I embraced the august dawn. Nothing stirred the palaces. The water lay dead still. Battalions of shadows still shrouded the forest paths. I walked briskly, dreaming the gemlike stones watched as wings soared soundlessly. My first adventure, on a path now faintly aglow with glitterings, was a flower who whispered her name. I laughed at the silver waterfall teasing me nakedly through pines; then on her summit, I recognized the goddess. One by one, I lifted her veils, in that tree-lined lane, waving my arms across the plain, as I notified the c**k. Back to the city, she fled among the roofs and the steeples; scrambling like a beggar down the marble quays, I chased her. Above the road near a laurel thicket, I caught her in gathered veils and felt her immense body. Dawn and the child collapsed together at the edge of the wood. When I awoke, it was noon. Catullus LXV aka Carmina 65 loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Hortalus, I’m exhausted by relentless grief, and have thus abandoned the learned virgins; nor can my mind, so consumed by malaise, partake of the Muses' mete fruit; for lately the Lethaean flood laves my brother's death-pale foot with its dark waves, where, beyond mortal sight, ghostly Ilium disgorges souls beneath the Rhoetean shore. Never again will I hear you speak, O my brother, more loved than life, never see you again, unless I behold you hereafter. But surely I'll always love you, always sing griefstricken dirges for your demise, such as Procne sings under the dense branches’ shadows, lamenting the lot of slain Itys. Yet even amidst such unfathomable sorrows, O Hortalus, I nevertheless send you these, my recastings of Callimachus, lest you conclude your entrusted words slipped my mind, winging off on wayward winds, as a suitor’s forgotten apple hidden in the folds of her dress escapes a virgin's chaste lap; for when she starts at her mother's arrival, it pops out, then downward it rolls, headlong to the ground, as a guilty blush flushes her downcast face. Album by Michael R. Burch I caress them�"trapped in brittle cellophane�" and I see how young they were, and how unwise; and I remember their first flight�"an old prop plane, their blissful arc through alien blue skies ... And I touch them here through leaves which�"tattered, frayed�" are also wings, but wings that never flew: like Nabokov’s wings�"pinned, held. Here, time delayed, their features never merged, remaining two ... And Grief, which lurked unseen beyond the lens or in shadows where It crept on furtive claws as It scritched Its way into their hearts, depends on sorrows such as theirs, and works Its jaws ... and slavers for Its meat�"those young, unwise, who naively dare to dream, yet fail to see how, lumbering sunward, Hope, ungainly, flies, clutching to Her ruffled breast what must not be. Passport by Mahmoud Darwish loose translation by Michael R. Burch They left me unrecognizable in the shadows that bled all colors from this passport. To them, my wounds were novelties�" curious photos for tourists to collect. They failed to recognize me. No, don't leave the palm of my hand bereft of sun when all the trees recognize me and every song of the rain honors me. Don't set a wan moon over me! All the birds that flocked to my welcoming wave as far as the distant airport gates, all the wheatfields, all the prisons, all the albescent tombstones, all the barbwired boundaries, all the fluttering handkerchiefs, all the eyes�" they all accompanied me. But they were stricken from my passport shredding my identity! How was I stripped of my name and identity on soil I tended with my own hands? Today, Job's lamentations re-filled the heavens: Don't make an example of me again! Prophets�" Don't require the trees to name themselves! Don't ask the valleys who mothered them! My forehead glistens with lancing light. From my hand the riverwater springs. My identity can be found in my people's hearts, so invalidate this passport! “The Moon Festival” by Su Shi loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch “Where else is there moonlight?” Wine cup in hand, I ask the dark sky, Not knowing the hour of the night in those distant celestial palaces. I long to ride the wind home, Yet dread those high towers’ crystal and jade, Fear freezing to death amid all those icicles. Instead, I begin to dance with my moon-lit shadow. Better off, after all, to live close to earth. Rounding the red pavilion, Stooping to peer through transparent windows, The moon shines benevolently on the sleepless, Knowing no sadness, bearing no ill... But why so bright when we sleep apart? As men experience grief and joy, parting and union, So the moon brightens and dims, waxes and wanes. It has always been thus, since the beginning of time. My wish for you is a long, blessed life And to share this moon’s loveliness though leagues apart. Su Shi wrote this famous lyric for his brother Ziyou (1039-1112), when the poet was far from the imperial court. Wu Tsao aka Wu Zao (1789-1862) was a celebrated lesbian poet whose lyrics were sung throughout China. She was also known as Wu Pinxiang and Yucenzi. For the Courtesan Ch’ing Lin by Wu Tsao loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch On the girdle encircling your slender body jade and coral ornaments tinkle like chimes, like the tintinnabulations of some celestial being only recently descended from heaven’s palaces. You smiled at me when we met and I become tongue-tied, forgetting how to speak. For far too long now you have adorned yourself with flowers, leaning nonchalantly against veiling bamboos, your green sleeves failing to keep you warm in your mysterious valley. I can imagine you standing there: an unusual girl, alone with her cryptic thoughts. You exude light like a perfumed lamp in the lengthening shadows. We sip wine and play games, recite each other’s poems. You sing “South of the River” with its heartrending verses. Then we paint each other’s fingernails, toenails and beautiful eyebrows. I want to possess you entirely: your slender jade body and your elsewhere-engaged heart. Today it is spring and enmassed mists, vast, cover the Five Lakes. Oh my dearest darling, let me buy you a scarlet boat and pirate you away! Premonition by Michael R. Burch Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ... we stand in the doorway and watch as they go�" each stranger, each acquaintance, each casual lover. They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go, though we know their bright laughter’s the wine ... then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows endlessly on toward Zion ... and they kiss one another as though they were friends, and they promise to meet again “soon” ... but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end, and the mockingbird calls to the moon ... and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines, and the crickets chirp on out of tune ... and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight, seem spirits torn loose from their tombs. And we know their brief lives are just eddies in time, that their hearts are unreadable runes carved out to stand like strange totems in sand when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined ... You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss as though it were something you loved, and the tears fill your eyes, brimming with the soft light of the stars winking brightly above ... Then you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside; if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while." And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile. Published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico Garcia Lorca loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I want to sleep the dreamless sleep of apples far from the bustle of cemeteries. I want to sleep the dream-filled sleep of the child who longed to cut out his heart on the high seas. I don't want to hear how the corpse retains its blood, or how the putrefying mouth continues accumulating water. I don't want to be informed of the grasses’ torture sessions, nor of the moon with its serpent's snout scuttling until dawn. I want to sleep awhile, whether a second, a minute, or a century; and yet I want everyone to know that I’m still alive, that there’s a golden manger in my lips; that I’m the elfin companion of the West Wind; that I’m the immense shadow of my own tears. When Dawn arrives, cover me with a veil, because Dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me; then wet my shoes with a little hard water so her scorpion pincers slip off. Because I want to sleep the dreamless sleep of the apples, to learn the lament that cleanses me of this earth; because I want to live again as that dark child who longed to cut out his heart on the high seas. Insomnia by Marina Tsvetaeva loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch In my enormous city it is night as from my house I step beyond the light; some people think I'm daughter, mistress, wife ... but I am like the blackest thought of night. July's wind sweeps a way for me to stray toward soft music faintly blowing, somewhere. The wind may blow until bright dawn, new day, but will my heart in its rib-cage really care? Black poplars brushing windows filled with light ... strange leaves in hand ... faint music from distant towers ... retracing my steps, there's nobody lagging behind ... This shadow called me? There's nobody here to find. The lights are like golden beads on invisible threads ... the taste of dark night in my mouth is a bitter leaf ... O, free me from shackles of being myself by day! Friends, please understand: I'm only a dreamlike belief. It's Halloween! by Michael R. Burch If evening falls on graveyard walls far softer than a sigh; if shadows fly moon-sickled skies, while children toss their heads uneasy in their beds, beware the witch's eye! If goblins loom within the gloom till playful pups grow terse; if birds give up their verse to comfort chicks they nurse, while children dream weird dreams of ugly, wiggly things, beware the serpent's curse! If spirits scream in haunted dreams while ancient sibyls rise to plague nightmarish skies one night without disguise, as children toss about uneasy, full of doubt, beware the Devil's lies . . . it's Halloween! El Dorado by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16 It's a fine town, a fine town, though its alleys recede into shadow; it's a very fine town for those who are searching for an El Dorado. Because the lighting is poor and the streets are bare and the welfare line is long, there must be something of value somewhere to keep us hanging on to our El Dorado. Though the children are skinny, their parents are fat from years of gorging on bleached white bread, yet neither will leave because all believe in the vague things that are said of El Dorado. The young men with outlandish hairstyles who saunter in and out of the turnstiles with a song on their lips and an aimless shuffle, scuffing their shoes, avoiding the bustle, certainly feel no need to join the crowd of those who work to earn their bread; they must know that the rainbow's end conceals a pot of gold near El Dorado. And the painted “actress” who roams the streets, smiling at every man she meets, must smile because, after years of running, no man can match her in cruelty or cunning. She must see the satire of “defeats” and “triumphs” on the ambivalent streets of El Dorado. Yes, it's a fine town, a very fine town for those who can leave when they tire of chasing after rainbows and dreams and living on nothing but fire. But for those of us who cling to our dreams and cannot let them go, like the sad-eyed ladies who wander the streets and the junkies high on snow, the dream has become a reality �"the reality of hope that grew too strong not to linger on�" and so this is our home. We chew the apple, spit it out, then eat it "just once more." For this is the big, big apple, though it’s rotten to the core, and we are its worm in the night when we squirm in our El Dorado. The Composition of Shadows by Michael R. Burch “I made it out of a mouthful of air.”�"W. B. Yeats We breathe and so we write; the night hums softly its accompaniment. Pale phosphors burn; the page we turn leads onward, and we smile, content.
And what we mean we write to learn: the vowels of love, the consonants’ strange golden weight, each plosive’s shape�" curved like the heart. Here, resonant, ... sounds’ shadows mass beneath bright glass like singing voles curled in a maze of blank white space. We touch a face�" long-frozen words trapped in a glaze that insulates our hearts. Nowhere can love be found. Just shrieking air. The Composition of Shadows (II) by Michael R. Burch We breathe and so we write; the night hums softly its accompaniment. Pale phosphors burn; the page we turn leads onward, and we smile, content. And what we mean we write to learn: the vowels of love, the consonants’ strange golden weight, the blood’s debate within the heart. Here, resonant, sounds’ shadows mass against bright glass, within the white Labyrinthian maze. Through simple grace, I touch your face, ah words! And I would gaze the night’s dark length in waning strength to find the words to feel such light again. O, for a pen to spell love so ethereal. One of the Flown by Michael R. Burch Forgive me for not having known you were one of the flown�" flown from the distant haunts of someone else’s enlightenment, alighting here to a darkness all your own . . . I imagine you perched, pretty warbler, in your starched dress, before you grew bellicose . . . singing quaint love’s highest falsetto notes, brightening the pew of some dilapidated church . . . But that was before autumn’s messianic dark hymns . . . Deepening on the landscape�"winter’s inevitable shadows. Love came too late; hope flocked to bare meadows, preparing to leave. Then even the thought of life became grim, thinking of Him . . . To flee, finally,�"that was no whim, no adventure, but purpose. I see you now a-wing: pale-eyed, intent, serious: always, always at the horizon’s broadening rim . . . How long have you flown now, pretty voyager? I keep watch from afar: pale lover and voyeur. Photographs by Michael R. Burch Here are the effects of a life and they might tell us a tale (if only we had time to listen) of how each imperiled tear would glisten, remembered as brightness in her eyes, and how each dawn’s dramatic skies could never match such pale azure. Like dreams of her, these ghosts endure and they tell us a tale of impatient glory . . . till a line appears�"a trace of worry?�" or the wayward track of a wandering smile which even now can charm, beguile? We might find good cause to wonder as we see her pause (to frown?, to ponder?): what vexed her in her loveliness . . . what weight, what crushing heaviness turned her auburn hair a frazzled gray, and stole her youth before her day? We might ask ourselves: did Time devour the passion with the ravaged flower? But here and there a smile will bloom to light the leaden, shadowed gloom that always seems to linger near . . . And here we find a single tear: it shimmers like translucent dew and tells us Anguish touched her too, and did not spare her for her hair’s burnt copper, or her eyes’ soft hue. Mending Glass by Michael R. Burch In the cobwebbed house�" lost in shadows by the jagged mirror, in the intricate silver face cracked ten thousand times, silently he watches, and in the twisted light sometimes he catches there a familiar glimpse of revealing lace, white stockings and garters, a pale face pressed indiscreetly near with a predatory leer, the sheer flash of nylon, an embrace, or a sharp slap, . . . a sudden lurch of terror. He finds bright slivers �"the hard sharp brittle shards, the silver jags of memory starkly impressed there�" and mends his error. They Take Their Shape by Michael R. Burch “We will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning ...”�"George W. Bush We will not forget ... the moments of silence and the days of mourning, the bells that swung from leaden-shadowed vents to copper bursts above “hush!”-chastened children who saw the sun break free (abandonment to run and laugh forsaken for the moment), still flashing grins they could not quite repent ... Nor should they�"anguish triumphs just an instant; this every child accepts; the nymphet weaves; transformed, the grotesque adult-thing emerges: damp-winged, huge-eyed, to find the sun deceives ... But children know; they spin limpwinged in darkness cocooned in hope�"the shriveled chrysalis that paralyzes time. Suspended, dreaming, they do not fall, but grow toward what is, then grope about to find which transformation might best endure the light or dark. “Survive” becomes the whispered mantra of a pupa’s awakening ... till What takes shape and flies shrieks, parroting Our own shrill, restive cries. Her Slender Arm by Nakba, an alias of Michael R. Burch Her slender arm, her slender arm, I see it reaching out to me!�" wan, vulnerable, without a charm or amulet to guard it. "FLEE!" I scream at her in wild distress. She chides me with defiant eyes. Where shall I go? They scream, “Confess! Confess yourself, your children lice, your husband mantis, all your kind unfit to live!” See, or be blind. I cannot see beyond the gloom that shrouds her in their terrible dungeon. I only see the nightmare room, the implements of torture. Sudden shocks contort her slender frame! She screams, I scream, we scream in pain! I sense the shadow-men, insane, who gibber, drooling, "Why are you not just like US, the Chosen Few?" Suddenly she stares through me and suddenly I understand. I hear the awful litany of names I voted for. My hand lies firmly on the implement they plan to use, next, on her children who huddle in the corner. Bent, their bidden pawn, I heil "Amen!" to their least wish. I hone the blade “Made in America,” their slave. She has no words, but only tears. I turn and retch. I vomit bile. I hear the shadow men’s cruel jeers. I sense, I feel their knowing smile. I paid for this. I built this place. The little that she had, they took at my expense. Now they erase her family from life’s precious book. I cannot meet her eyes again. I stand one with the shadow men. The Fog and the Shadows adapted from a novel by Perhat Tursun loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch “I began to realize the fog was similar to the shadows.” I began to realize that, just as the exact shape of darkness is a shadow, even so the exact shape of fog is disappearance and the exact shape of a human being is also disappearance. At this moment it seemed my body was vanishing into the human form’s final state. After I arrived here, it was as if the danger of getting lost and the desire to lose myself were merging strangely inside me. While everything in that distant, gargantuan city where I spent my five college years felt strange to me; and even though the skyscrapers, highways, ditches and canals were built according to a single standard and shape, so that it wasn’t easy to differentiate them, still I never had the feeling of being lost. Everyone there felt like one person and they were all folded into each other. It was as if their faces, voices and figures had been gathered together like a shaman’s jumbled-up hair. Even the men and women seemed identical. You could only tell them apart by stripping off their clothes and examining them. The men’s faces were beardless like women’s and their skin was very delicate and unadorned. I was always surprised that they could tell each other apart. Later I realized it wasn’t just me: many others were also confused. For instance, when we went to watch the campus’s only TV in a corridor of a building where the seniors stayed when they came to improve their knowledge. Those elderly Uyghurs always argued about whether someone who had done something unusual in an earlier episode was the same person they were seeing now. They would argue from the beginning of the show to the end. Other people, who couldn’t stand such endless nonsense, would leave the TV to us and stalk off. Then, when the classes began, we couldn’t tell the teachers apart. Gradually we became able to tell the men from the women and eventually we able to recognize individuals. But other people remained identical for us. The most surprising thing for me was that the natives couldn’t differentiate us either. For instance, two police came looking for someone who had broken windows during a fight at a restaurant and had then run away. They ordered us line up, then asked the restaurant owner to identify the culprit. He couldn’t tell us apart even though he inspected us very carefully. He said we all looked so much alike that it was impossible to tell us apart. Sighing heavily, he left. Keywords/Tags: shadow, shadows, the dark, darkness, shades, ghosts, specters, spirits, hauntings © 2024 Michael R. Burch |
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Added on February 7, 2020 Last Updated on September 22, 2024 Tags: East, Devon, Beacon, England, Moors, Forgiveness, Maps, Miles, Lost, Directions, Compass Points, Moon, Geese, Lights, Headlights, Headlamps, Fugitive Author
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