Believe it or not
The Parson is right
We shall return with zeroes
Many zeroes.  Let’s be Heroes
For and to the world. Let’s not be selfish
Because we shall return with zilch
With nada, mit nichts, perhaps with empty zeroes
Which mean nothing. Let’s pause
To think. Let’s be wise and humble
Love is essential. When the trees tremble
And fall; when the ground shakes and burns

These are translations of ancient Greek epigrams by Michael R. Burch. The ancient Greek poets translated include female poets like Anyte, Erinna, Nossis and Sappho, as well as famous male poets like Aeschylus, Anacreon, Antipater of Sidon, Callimachus, Glaucus, Homer, Ibykos, Leonidas of Tarentum, Plato, Simonides, Sophocles



How valiant he lies tonight: great is his Monument! 
Yet Ares cares not, neither does War relent.
by Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here he lies in state tonight: great is his Monument! 

These are antinatalist poems and translations by Michael R. Burch.  The antinatalist translations include poems and prose by Al-Ma'arri, Aristotle, Buddha, Homer, Omar Khayyam, Sappho, Seneca, the bible's King Solomon, and Sophocles.

Antinatalism is the belief that human beings should not procreate. Do we have the "right" to bring other human beings into a world that was always "red in tooth and claw" and is now increasingly deadly due to global warming, nuclear weapons, drone warfare and maniacal leaders like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Putin, Jong-un, Netanyahu and Trump?

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


War is Obsolete
by Michael R. Burch

The Best Poems of Michael R. Burch, Part II
The Most Popular Poems of Michael R. Burch, Part II

She bathes in silver
by Michael R. Burch

She bathes in silver,
~~~~~afloat~~~~~
on her reflections...

Kin
by Michael R. Burch

O pale, austere moon,
haughty beauty ...

what do we know of love,
or duty?

Styx
by Michael R. Burch, age 16

Black waters,
deep and dark and still . . .
all men have passed this way,
or will.

 

Childless
by Michael R. Burch

These are longer poems and longish poems by Michael R. Burch.

These Hallowed Halls
by Michael R. Burch

a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age...

I.

A final stereo fades into silence
and now there is seldom a murmur
to trouble the slumber
of these ancient halls. 

I stand by a window where others have watched
the passage of time—alone,
not untouched.

These are poems about sunset, poems about the song going down and things irretrivably lost, poems about regret. 
 

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.

Published as “Why Did I Go?” in my high school journal the Lantern in 1976. I have made slight changes here and there, but the poem is essentially the same as what I wrote in my early teens.

These are translations of ancient Greek epitaphs inscribed on steles (tombstones and other monuments) by the ancient Greeks in remembrance of their dead. I use the term "after" for my translations because they are loose translations and/or interpretations rather than word-for-word translations.

These are poems about sinking, poems about drowning, poems about loss, and poems about new discoveries we sometimes make while feeling lost...



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

Weigh me down with stones…
fill all the pockets of my gown…
I’m going down,
mad as the world
that can’t recover,
to where even mermaids drown.