Ballade of the Bicameral Camel
by Michael R. Burch
There once was a camel who loved to hump.
Please get your lewd minds out of their slump!
He loved to give rides on his large, lordly lump!
ALL, PN, WC
Monarch
by Michael R. Burch
I had a little caterpillar,
it wove a cocoon for its villa.
When I blinked an eye
what did I espy?
It flew off, a regal butterfly!
PH, PM, SS, WC
My Doctir’s Excus
by Michael R. Burch, age 8
I can eggsplain why Im sick.
Sick as a brick
and my stule is thick.
I came to school
and I caught it from Rick.
Now I’m sick as a brick
and my stule is thick.
I cant do my homework
becus Im sick.
I cant take tests
becus Im a mess.
Blame Rick, the prick!
—signed, my doctir Ann Onimus
PS, Thurd grade is hard enuff on kids nervs and bad graids make my simptoms worse! Liten up, doctir’s orders!
Asleep at the Wheel
by Michael R. Burch
Florida will not be woke.
DeSantis made it clear.
The world may well go up in smoke,
but Ron will snore, no fear.
For Florida will not be woke.
Conservatives will snooze
with blinders shutting out all light
and any factual news.
NBL, PM, WC
Of Tetley's and V-2's
(or, “Why Not to Bomb the Brits”)
by Michael R. Burch
The English are very hospitable,
but tea-less, alas, they grow pitiable ...
or pitiless, rather,
and quite in a lather!
O bother, they're more than formidable.
NBL, PN
Moonflower
by Michael R. Burch
after Robert Hayden
Marveling,
we at last beheld the achieved flower—
both awed and repelled by its alienness,
its moonlit petals,
its cloying fragrance,
its transcendence,
its shimmering and wavering intimations of mortality ...
PH, PM, SS, WC
Preposterous Eros (II)
by Michael R. Burch
Preposterous Eros,
mischievous elf!
Please aim your missiles
at yourself!
Feel the tingle,
then (take it from me),
you’ll fall in love
with the next hussy you see!
She’ll spend your money,
she’ll take your car,
soon you’ll end up alone
in a sad little bar.
Preposterous Eros,
mischievous elf!
Please aim your missiles
at yourself!
PH, PN, WC
Road to Recovery
by Michael R. Burch
It’s time to get up and at ’em
and out of this rut that I’m sat in,
and shat in.
ALL, HELLO, NBL, PH, PM, PN, SS
Into the gloom
by Michael R. Burch
Into the gloom, beyond the point of caring,
past fascist rows that stare and blanch and cross
and watch us always, by the sunset’s flaring,
we watch our footprints vanish. Sponge-like moss
absorbs our heavy bootheels, till the whisper
of passing from the earth, our soft refrain,
sounds like the hoot owl’s eerie lonely vesper
from distances like hers: Remain. Remain.
We cannot stay, for all our fond returning,
although the earth sighs too: Remain. Remain.
This bridge aflame with sunset coldly burning?—
another cross, another cold domain.
I cannot think of why we came; now, leaving,
we do not go as quickly as we should.
The sun wants nothing of our pallid grieving.
The darkness we encounter, just a wood,
is neither good nor bad. Nor hell nor heaven
is found here in this small plot’s barren ground.
The owls that “weep” are not our solemn brethren,
not do they weep; their cry is just the sound
of something mournful to our ears, that dying
seems metaphor for death. Perhaps a mouse
would understand their ghastly ghostly crying
and think to flee, or hope they chase a grouse,
a-tremble with the sudden realization
that life is full of talons and small cries.
Out of her corpse there spills a squalid nation
of worms and lice: which proves that nothing dies
that does not spring to life as something lesser.
O, leave her to herself! Let others guess here
what death can “mean.” I do not hope to know!
I only hope to leave, while we can go ...
NOTE: “Another cross” as in a double cross.
PH, PM, WC
Ares
by Hesiod
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Ares, exceeding all men in manliness, bronze-harnessed charioteer, golden-helmed gladiator, strong-armed spear-hurler, dauntless shield-bearer, courageous of heart, father of warlike Victory, able ally of Themis and Divine Law, dauntless defender of Olympus, savior of men’s cities, scourge of the rebellious, sceptered king of the righteous, whirling your fiery sphere among the planets in their sevenfold courses through heavens wherein your blazing steeds bear you above the third firmament; hear me, O mighty helper of men, gracious giver of unflagging youth! Beam down a kindly ray from above to brighten my life; give me the strength of Ares, that I may banish bitter cowardice from my heart and defeat my soul’s deceitful impulses; help me restrain those dark furies urging me to seek the paths of strident strife. But rather, O Blessed One, lend me your boldness to abide within the benevolent laws of peace, avoiding conflict, hatred and the destructive demons of death. Amen.
L'Eternité (“ Eternity”)
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Where does Eternity dwell?
In the sea,
run beyond the setting sun.
Implacable Sentinel,
murmuring the soul’s confessions
of night’s barrenness
and days ablaze.
Inhuman votary!
Free of human impulses
and penitence,
you flee accordingly.
Since the beginning of time
you have stood alone,
amid shimmering embers,
exuding voicelessly:
“There is no hope,
no logical orientation,
no future revelation of patient science,
only the inhuman torture.”
Where does Eternity dwell?
In the sea,
run beyond the setting sun.
Ophélie (“Ophelia”), an Excerpt
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
On pitiless black waves unsinking stars abide
... while pale Ophelia, a lethargic lily, drifts by ...
Here, tangled in her veils, she floats on the tide ...
Far-off, in the woods, we hear the strident bugle’s cry.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
This albescent phantom, has rocked here, to and fro.
For a thousand years, or more, in her gentle folly,
Ophelia has rocked here when the night breezes blow.
For a thousand years, or more, sad Ophelia,
Has passed, an albescent phantom, down this long black river.
For a thousand years, or more, in her sweet madness
Ophelia has made this river shiver.
Le Bateau ivre (“The Drunken Boat”), an Excerpt
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The impassive river carried me downstream
as howling warriors slashed the bargemen's throats,
then nailed them, naked, to their former posts,
while I observed all idly, in a dream.
What did I care about the slaughtered crew,
the Flemish barley or the English freight?
The river had taught me how to navigate,
but otherwise? It seemed so much “ado.”
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!
Les Illuminations II: Enfance (“Childhood”)
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
II.
The little girl lies dead, behind the rosebushes. – The young mother, deceased, descends the steps. – The cousin’s carriage squeaks through sand. – The little brother (he’s in India!) lies facing the sunset in a meadow of carnations. – The old ones are buried upright in ramparts overgrown with wallflowers.
Swarms of golden leaves surround the General’s house. They’re in the south. – Follow the red road to arrive at the empty inn. The chateau’s for sale; its shutters flap. – The priest’s taken the key to the church. – The keepers’ cottages are tenantless, the fences so high only rustling treetops are visible. Oh well, there’s nothing much to be seen, besides.
The meadows rise to hamlets without roosters, without anvils. The sluice gate is raised, the waters rise. O the wilderness’s crosses and windmills, its islands and millstones!
Magic flowers buzzed. Embankments cradled him. Creatures of fabulous elegance encircled him. Clouds accumulating over open seas unleashed an eternity of warm tears.
IV.
I am the saint praying on the portico, watching docile beasts graze down to Palestine’s sea.
I am the scholar in the dark armchair as whipping branches and rain hurl themselves at the library’s shutters.
I am the pedestrian on the path through stunted woods; the tinkle of clicking locks anticipates my steps. For a long time I pause to ponder the sunset’s melancholy golden demise.
I am the child abandoned on the jetty jutting out toward the high seas, the small valet whose forehead brushes the sky as he navigates an alley.
The trails are rough, their mounds haired with broom. The air is so still, so silent! How distant, the birds and the rills! The end of the world must lie ahead.
Illuminations VIII: Départ (“Departure”)
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I’ve seen enough: the same vision encountered under all skies.
I’ve had enough: the rumors of cities, by night and by day, the same light, always.
I’ve known enough: life’s tedious decrees, its rumors and visions!
It’s time for departure into new affections, new noises!
Sensation
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
On blue summer evenings, I’ll stroll the paths,
Pricked by the wheat, tickled by the grass;
Dreamily, I’ll feel the freshness at my feet,
Breathe the wind, then sigh, complete.
I will not speak, nor think, nor muse at all,
Yet boundless love will surge within my soul.
And I will wander far away, like a gypsy,
As happy with Nature as any woman’s company.
Antico (“Ancient” or “Antique”)
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Graceful son of Pan! Around your brow, crowned with flowers and berries, your eyes, lustrous spheres, revolve. Your cheeks, stained with wine sediments, seem hollow. Your white fangs gleam. Your lyre-like chest! Chords pour from your blonde arms! Strong heartbeats resound in the abdomen where the double sex sleeps! You stalk the night, gently moving first this thigh, then the other, then the left leg.
Song of the Highest Tower
by Arthur Rimbaud
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Let it come, let it come,
The day when all hearts love as one.
I’ve endured so long
That I’d even forgotten
The pain and the terror.
I’ve visited heaven,
And yet a morbid thirst
Still darkens my veins.
Let it come, let it come,
The day when all hearts love as one.
Thus the neglected meadow
Given over to oblivion
Flowered, overgrown
With weeds and incense
As hordes of filthy flies
Buzzed nearby.
Let it come, let it come,
The day when all hearts love as one.
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 cock.
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.
Ghostbusters!
by Michael R. Burch
Is Ogden Nash gnashing his teeth?
Is his ghost rolling ’round in wild grief
that the Post would make crimes
of his “imperfect” rhymes?
Call Ripley’s—it beggars belief!
The Washington Post in its unfathomable wisdom would ban Ogden Nash’s imperfect rhymes from its limerick contests!
Grave Offense I
by Michael R. Burch
Is Ogden Nash gnashing his teeth,
upside-down in his grave, full of grief
that his wit and his art
share this name I impart
to my “limericks?” Am I a thief?
Grave Offense II
by Michael R. Burch
Is Ogden Nash gnashing his teeth,
upside-down in his grave, full of grief
that the term “limerick”
has been plagiarized? Quick—
dial 9-1-1; call the police!
Trade Wars
by Michael R. Burch
Have no patience with pacifists
erecting their palatial liberties
out of the bone heaps of patriots,
calling their mothers “whores,”
their fathers “mongers.”
War is a trade
and here lie the many taxed
beyond endurance, who endured
only long enough to pay
the commutations of our freedom.
Heed their voices:
evil is not a vice
but a commerce,
an industry
daily employing the mechanisms of destruction.
And if we do not understand
the economies of hate,
the bull market in salvage,
or the inflation of the price
of the redemption of freedom,
it is enough to know that blood has its price:
most expensive when watered.
Retro
by Michael R. Burch
Now, once again,
love’s a redundant pleasure,
as we laugh
at my childish fumblings
through the acres of your dress,
past your wily-wired brassiere,
through your panties’ pink billows
of thrill-piqued frills ...
Till I lay once again—panting redfaced
at your gayest lack of resistance,
and, later, at your milktongued
mewlings in the dark ...
When you were virginal,
sweet as eucalyptus,
we did not understand
the miracle of repentance,
and I took for granted
your obsessive distance ...
But now I am happily unbuttoning
that chaste dress,
unhitching that firm-latched bra,
tugging at those parachute-like panties—
the ones you would have gladly forgotten
had I not bought them in this year’s size.
Originally published by Erosha
Brother Iran
by Michael R. Burch
Brother Iran, I feel your pain.
I feel it as when the Turk fled Spain.
As the Jew fled, too, that constricting span,
I feel your pain, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I know you are noble!
I too fear Hiroshima and Chernobyl.
But though my heart shudders, I have a plan,
and I know you are noble, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I salute your Poets!
your Mathematicians!, all your great Wits!
O, come join the earth’s great Caravan.
We’ll include your Poets, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I love your Verse!
Come take my hand now, let’s rehearse
the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
For I love your Verse, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, civilization’s Flower!
How high flew your towers in man’s early hours!
Let us build them yet higher, for that’s my plan,
civilization’s first flower, Brother Iran.
Published by MahMag (translated into Farsi by Mahnaz Badihian), Other Voices International, Thanal Online (India), Deviant Art, Portal Vapasin (Farsi)
Caveat
by Michael R. Burch
If only we were not so eloquent,
we might sing, and only sing, not to impress,
but only to enjoy, to be enjoyed.
We might inundate the earth with thankfulness
for light, although it dies, and make a song
of night descending on the earth like bliss,
with other lights beyond—not to be known—
but only to be welcomed and enjoyed,
before all worlds and stars are overthrown...
as a lover’s hands embrace a sleeping face
and find it beautiful for emptiness
of all but joy. There is no thought to love
but love itself. How senseless to redress,
in darkness, such becoming nakedness...
Originally published by Clementine Unbound
Time Out
by Michael R. Burch
Time is running out,
no doubt.
Time is running out.
I don’t know what the LORD’s about,
since Time is running out, the Lout!,
and leaving me with gas and gout.
I don’t know what the LORD’s about;
still, it does no good to grouse or pout,
since Time is merely running out,
like deer before a native scout.
’Twill do no good to shout or flout:
Time’s running out,
I have no doubt,
though who knows what the LORD’s about?
No need for faith or even doubt,
since Time is merely running out,
like water from a rusty spout
or mucous from a leaky snout.
Yes, Time is merely running out,
and yet I feel inclined to pout
and truth be told, sometimes to doubt
just what the hell the LORD’s about.
Strange Corps(e)
by Michael R. Burch
We are all dying, haunted by life—
dying, but the living will not let us go.
We are perishing zombies, haunted by the moonglow.
With what animation we, shuffling, return
nightly, to worry Love’s worm-eaten corpse,
till, living or dead, she is wholly ours.
We are the dying, enamored of “life”—
the palest of auras, the eeriest call.
We stagger to attention ... stumble ... fall.
We have only one thought—Love’s peculiar notion,
that our duty’s to “live,” even if “living” means
night’s horrific wild hungers, its stranger dreams.
We now “live” on the flesh of eroded dreams
and no longer recoil at the victims’ screams.
Trump’s Trumpet: Trumped Up or Trumped?
by Michael R. Burch
Our president’s sex life—atrocious!
His “pieces of ass”? Braggadocios!
His tool though? Immense!
Or perhaps just pretense,
since Stormy declared “hocus-pocus!”