Michael R. Burch's poems have been published by hundreds of literary journals,
taught in high schools and colleges, translated into 14 languages, incorporated
into three plays and two operas, and set to music, from swamp blues to opera,
by 27 composers.
Love Is
Not Love
for Beth
Love
is not love that never looked
within
itself and questioned all,
curled
up like a zygote in a ball,
throbbed,
sobbed and shook.
(Or
went on a binge at a nearby mall,
then
would not cook.)
Love
is not love that never winced,
then
smiled, convinced
that
soar’s the prerequisite of fall.
When
all
its
wounds and scars have been saline-rinsed,
where
does Love find the wherewithal
to
try again,
endeavor,
when
all
that it knows
is:
O, because!
Just
Smile
We’d
like to think some angel smiling down
will
watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard,
ripped
off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps,
his
doddering progress through the scarlet house
to
tell his mommy “boo-boo!” only two.
We’d
like to think his reconstructed face
will
be as good as new, will often smile,
that
baseball’s just as fun with just one arm,
that
God is always Just, that girls will smile,
not
frown down at his thousand livid scars,
that
Life is always Just, that Love is Just.
We
just don’t want to hear that he will shave
at
six, to raze the leg hairs from his cheeks,
that
lips aren’t easily fashioned, that his smile’s
lopsided,
oafish, snaggle-toothed, that each
new
operation costs a billion tears,
when
tears are out of fashion.
O, beseech
some
poet with more skill with words than tears
to
find some happy ending, to believe
that
God is Just, that Love is Just, that these
are
Parables we live, Life’s Mysteries …
Or
look inside his courage, as he ties
his
shoelaces one-handed, as he throws
no-hitters
on the first-place team, and goes
on
dates, looks in the mirror undeceived
and
smiling says, “It’s me I see. Just me.”
He
smiles, if life is Just, or lacking cures,
Your
pity is the worst cut he endures.
But
hack him down and still he’ll always rise,
lifting
his smile to the sun or the star-filled skies.
Come!
Will
you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in
the season of lightning, the season of thunder,
when
I have lain so long in the indifferent earth
that
I have no girth?
When
my womb has conformed to the chastity
your
anemic Messiah envisioned for me,
will
you finally be pleased that my sex was thus rendered
unpalatable,
disengendered?
And
when those strange loathsome organs that troubled you so
have
been eaten by worms, will the heavens still glow
with
the approval of God that I ended a maid—
thanks
to a spade?
And
will you come to visit my grave, I wonder,
in
the season of lightning, the season of thunder?
“Come!”
won fifth place in the big Writer’s
Digest 2012 Rhyming Poetry Contest, out of over 9,500 overall contest
entries.
"The
Wife's Lament"—also known as "The Wife's Complaint"—is an
Anglo-Saxon/Old English poem from the Exeter Book, the oldest extant
English poetry anthology. The Angles and Saxons were Germanic tribes and the
poem is generally considered to be an elegy in the tradition of the German frauenlied
("woman's song"). Its main theme is the mourning of a lost or
unrequited love, or perhaps a more general complaint about women being
dominated by chauvinistic men and thus being forced to live subservient
existences. (The poem may be considered an early feminist text: perhaps a very
early precursor of The Handmaid's Tale.) The Exeter Book has been
dated to 960-990 AD, so the poem was written no later than the tenth century,
perhaps earlier. It may be the oldest extant English poem by a female poet
although its authorship remains unknown.
The Wife's Lament
Anglo-Saxon
poem circa 960-990 AD or earlier
loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
I
draw these dark words from deep wells of wild grief,
dredged
up from my heart, regretful & sad.
I
recount wrenching seizures I've suffered since birth,
both
ancient and recent, that drove me mad.
I
have reaped, from my exile-paths, only pain
here
on earth.
First,
my Lord forsook his kinfolk —left,
crossed
the seas' shining expanse, deserted our tribe.
Since
then, I've known only loneliness:
wrenching
dawn-griefs, despair in wild tides ...
Where,
oh where can he be?
Then
I, too, left—a lonely, lordless refugee,
full
of unaccountable desires!
But
the man's kinsmen schemed to estrange us,
divide
us, keep us apart.
Divorced
from hope, unable to embrace him,
how
my helpless heart
broke!
...
Then
my Lord spoke:
"Take
up residence here."
I
had few acquaintances in this alien land, none close.
I
was penniless, friendless;
Christ,
I felt lost!
Eventually
I
believed I'd met a well-matched man—one meant for me,
but
unfortunately
he
was
ill-starred, unkind,
with
a devious mind,
full
of malicious intentions,
plotting
some crime!
Before
God we
vowed
never to part, not till kingdom come, never!
But
now that's all changed, forever—
our
marriage is done, severed.
Thus
now I must hear,
far and near,
early
and late,
contempt
for my mate.
Then
naysayers bade me, "Go, seek repentance in the sacred grove,
beneath
the great oak trees, in some root-entangled grotto, alone."
Now
in this ancient earth-hall I huddle, hurt and oppressed—
the
dales are dark, the hills wild & immense,
and
this cruel-briared enclosure—a hellish abode!
How
the injustice assails me—my Lord's absence!
Elsewhere
on earth lovers share the same bed
while
I pass through life, half dead,
in
this dark abscess where I wilt with the heat, unable to rest
or
forget the tribulations of my life's hard lot.
A
young woman must always be
stern,
hard-of-heart, unmoved, full of belief,
enduring
breast-cares, suppressing her own feelings.
She
must always appear cheerful,
even
in a tumult of grief.
Now,
like a criminal exiled to a distant land,
groaning
beneath insurmountable cliffs,
my
weary-minded lover, drenched by wild storms
and
caught in the clutches of anguish, moans and mourns,
reminded
constantly of our former happiness.
Woe be it to them who abide in longing!
"The
Husband's Message" is an Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poem from the Exeter
Book, the oldest extant English poetry anthology, circa 960-990 AD. The
poem may or may not be a reply to "The Wife's Lament" from the same
collection. "The Husband's Message" is generally considered to be an
Anglo-Saxon riddle, but its primary focus is persuading a wife or fianc├й to
join her husband or betrothed and fulfill her promises to him.
The Husband's Message
anonymous
Old English poem, circa 960-990 AD
loose
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
See,
I unseal myself for your eyes only!
I
sprang from a seed to a sapling,
waxed
great in a wood,
was given
knowledge,
was
ordered across saltstreams in ships
where
I stiffened my spine, standing tall,
till,
entering the halls of heroes,
I honored my manly
Lord.
Now
I stand here on this ship’s deck,
an
emissary ordered to inform you
of
the love my Lord feels for you.
I
have no fear forecasting his heart steadfast,
his
honor bright, his word true.
He
who bade me come carved this letter
and
entreats you to recall, clad in your finery,
what
you promised each other many years before,
mindful
of his treasure-laden promises.
He
reminds you how, in those distant days,
witty
words were pledged by you both
in
the mead-halls and homesteads:
how
he would be Lord of the lands
you
would inhabit together
while
forging a lasting love.
Alas,
a vendetta drove him far from his feuding tribe,
but
now he instructs me to gladly give you notice
that
when you hear the returning cuckoo's cry
cascading
down warming coastal cliffs,
come
over the sea! Let no man hinder your course!
He
earnestly urges you: Out! To sea!
Away
to the sea, when the circling gulls
hover
over the ship that conveys you to him!
Board
the ship that you meet there:
sail
away seaward to seek your husband,
over
the seagulls' range,
over the paths
of foam.
For
over the water, he awaits you.
He
cannot conceive, he told me,
how
any keener joy could comfort his heart,
nor
any greater happiness gladden his soul,
than
that a generous God should grant you both
to
exchange rings, then give gifts to trusty liege-men,
golden
armbands inlaid with gems to faithful followers.
The
lands are his, his estates among strangers,
his
new abode fair and his followers true,
all
hardy heroes, since hence he was driven,
shoved
off in his ship from these shore in distress,
steered
straightway over the saltstreams, sped over the ocean,
a
wave-tossed wanderer winging away.
But
now the man has overcome his woes,
outpitted
his perils, lives in plenty, lacks no luxury,
has
a hoard and horses and friends in the mead-halls.
All
the wealth of the earth's great earls
now
belongs to my Lord ...
He only
lacks you.
He
would have everything within an earl's having,
if
only my Lady will come home to him now,
if
only she will do as she swore and honor her vow.
