CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS
Catullus CI aka Carmina 101: “His Brother’s Burial”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
Through many lands and over many seas
I have journeyed, brother, to these wretched rites,
to this final acclamation of the dead ...
and to speak — however ineffectually — to your voiceless ashes
......
Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright and theater director. He was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and his body was never found. These are Michael R. Burch's modern English translations of the Spanish poems of Federico Garcia Lorca.
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.
......
These are modern English translations of the "Xenia" epigrams written in collaboration by the German poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, plus an elegy Goethe wrote for Schiller...
ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.
......
These are original haiku by Michael R. Burch, along with a few wake/tanka and haiku-like poems.
Untitled Haiku
Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch
one pillow ...
......
CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS
Catullus CI aka Carmina 101: “His Brother’s Burial”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
1.
Through many lands and over many seas
I have journeyed, brother, to these wretched rites,
to this final acclamation of the dead ...
and to speak — however ineffectually — to your voiceless ashes
......
These are original haiku by Michael R. Burch, along with a few wake/tanka and haiku-like poems.
Untitled Haiku
Dark-bosomed clouds
pregnant with heavy thunder ...
the water breaks
―Michael R. Burch
one pillow ...
......
These are modern English translations of the "Xenia" epigrams written in collaboration by the German poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, plus an elegy Goethe wrote for Schiller...
ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.
......
Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright and theater director. He was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and his body was never found. These are Michael R. Burch's modern English translations of the Spanish poems of Federico Garcia Lorca.
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.
......