These are English translations of Urdu poems by Jaun Elia, who has been called the "poet of pain." Syed Sibt-e-Asghar Naqvi (1931-2002), more commonly known as Jaun Elia, was a Pakistani Urdu poet, philosopher, biographer, and scholar. A child prodigy, he began writing poetry at age eight but didn't published his first poetry collection, Shayad, until age sixty.

I am strange—so strange
that I self-destructed and don't regret it.
―Jaun Elia, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The wound is deep—companions, friends—embrace me!

In restless sleep,
I walked as Lilith,
wrath-bound.
With Lucifer beside me,
his shadow aflame.

The earth groaned heavy
with the weight of lies,
And power’s rot festered
in gilded halls.

The great house rose,
pale as a corpse.
Its walls steeped in
the blood of betrayal.
A serpent sat enthroned,
his crown of corruption,
A monument to tyranny’s
decay.

The gates screamed as
we tore them apart,
Iron yielding to
vengeance incarnate.
Within,
fear clung to hollow corridors,
And the golden serpent rose,

In my dreams, I see them all,
the ones who let you slip away.

The neighbour who laced the earth with death,
letting you lap up that toxic mess,
your little body wracked with pain,
stumbling, lost, into the street,
only feet from your own front door,
Perhaps they didn’t want to pay for a professional.

The driver who did not apply the brakes,
who felt the bump and carried on,
leaving you alone, afraid,
dying on the roadside,
Only feet from the safety of your home.
Perhaps they wanted to get home to the football.

Did you forget about me?
Because the phone never rings,
No words, no care, no space for me,
Just because I cut my strings.

Did you forget about me?
Love? Oh, that’s just a line,
Because if you’re poor, or different.
Then you’re ignored and left behind.

Did you forget about me
‘Cause in your eyes, I’m a mess?
A misfit in your perfect show,
Yes, I’m a failure, I confess.

Did you forget about me?
When you cut me, no second chance.
Is it because I dared to criticise,
And wouldn’t take part in your dance?

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 my modern English translations of ancient Greek poems and epigrams by Sophocles, including antinatalist poems and epigrams.

It’s a hundred times better not be born;
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night!
Sophocles (circa 497-406 BC), Oedipus at Colonus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not to have been born is best,
and blessed
beyond the ability of words to express.
—Sophocles, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

These are my modern English translations of poems by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.