Every day, as we drive past the quiet streets,
I scan the pavements, the hollow kerbs,
hoping to glimpse a flicker of fur,
a little shadow waiting by the roadside.
My head knows I won’t find you there,
but my heart still holds on to hope.

Every evening, stepping from the bus,
I turn my gaze to the ginnel’s glow,
orange streetlights casting ghosts on the stones,
hoping to see a little shadow bounding from the dark.
My head knows I won’t find you there,
but my heart still holds on to hope.

Before I cross the empty road,

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 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.

This is an elegy that I dedicated to my mother, Christine Ena Burch, after her death from Covid pneumonia. 

These are my modern English translations of the great Scottish poet William Dunbar.

Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"Nightfall" is a poem I wrote for my fellow poet and friend Kevin Nicholas Roberts, shortly after his death. 

Nightfall
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin Nicholas Roberts

These are poems about Dylan Thomas, as well as poems "for" and "after" Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas was one of my favorite poets from my early teens and has remained so over the years. I have written three poems ‘for’ him and one poem ‘after’ him …

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

These are early poems of mine, written as a boy starting around age eleven into my teens as a high school student and my first two years of collete. A few may have been written a bit later; I'm not always sure of composition dates due to inconsistent record keeping in my youth. 

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

she wanders
her soft arms stretched, as
the widower lets forth hi
s final death
rattle,
the son takes his las
t tumble
i watch, from away,
as she goes on.
habitute , as it is

i had dreamt of her soft embrace
once
when i was man
walking thru life
somnambulic paces
not knowing
as i know now
but
feeli
ng
more than i, again
will ever

our quarrel neve
r endst n still
as i do yearn,
stronger now,
i am but a will o’ the wisp
against my own wishes
and hers