Long Sculptor Poems

Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within,...

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MICHELANGELO: Modern English Translations

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is considered by many experts to be the greatest artist and sculptor of all time. These are modern English translations of his poems and epigrams by Michael R. Burch.



SONNET:...

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I'd risen from my bed quite early, in the pale silent sunshine,
And I thought to have a day out, and not waste summer's prime.

The world still was sleeping, but the bluebirds sang a tune,
And blooms...

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Afternoon musing, not quite content,
Wondering where the time all went -
The time not really given, only lent.

The first day of fourth grade,
In the next desk a new girl stayed,
With honey colored hair all in a...

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please tell me ...

what happened?
what dire damage have i wrought?
what did i do to ruin it, that friendship, rare?
you once knew me better than most ...

my darkness didn't frighten you, didn't rattle,
you sighted those demons...

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Sunday morning early, five a.m to be
precise, my mind awakes, then gently succours
the body to arise from one’s mundane sleep. I
then transfer to Britain via 1ZB, listening
to the English football commentary, it’s worth
the lack of...

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Leonardo more than a Renaissance man
artist? yes but - 
sculptor? yes but - 
musician? yes but - 
anatomist? yes but - 
cartographer? yes but - 
scientist? yes but - 
engineer? yes but - 
inventor? yes...

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"New Gods" 

in those days
at the end of humanity
the few witnesses
remaining

observed new gods
angels, being born 
the singularity 
walked like Templars

through them
reigning over 
the few witnesses
remaining

Heaven watched on,
the detached separatists 
observed the birth pains 
of new...

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Crazy Horse Monument

Up there! On the Black Hills Mountain, 1
A work in progress sculptured in granite,
Of a stern faced warrior, strong and determined, 2
Unadorned in a war bonnet, with his hair flowing in the wind,
And...

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A young girl’s voice / lost in the data / cries out
"Why are we here?"

Pixie Pixela... her words soft and low murmurs...
"This world is yours... dear... a garden for stories to grow."
But her digital eyes...

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Love is a catastrophe, a bittersweet madness, a wild affliction that invades your soul,
Disturbs your peace, devastates your routine, transforming you into a shadow of what you once were,
Each moment under its spell an odyssey...

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Might God Exist if Truth’s a Friend?

Is the faith God exists a faint hint that One might,
does belief (that One doesn’t) suggest God’s not real, (1)
aren’t both vain (those who hate, those who worship a...

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Canadian Ocean Gate


O beauteous land of mirth and Glee! 
O land of falls and seas and lakes!
Which shadows row in horrid nights
Which sorrow in Thee circulate
O start of mystic Nile gate
In which Thy goddess contemplates

Which...

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"betwixt the pulse of our heartbeat
simply present, head-heart linking
dwelling in time stretched blissful peace
awareness became unblinking" ~Unseeking Seeker

I feel the surging bloom of bewitching butterflies,
fluttering in sync to cosmic sage and
saffron sparks~
sailing amidst waves of...

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Marching Rocks



  Like Toffee people chasing the westerly breeze
And, presumably ordered, abruptly, to freeze-
Tableaux is evocative of an ancient command
That left a sprawl of stones scattered on the land.

  On swift flight in...

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I preach to others to write and sing,
to soothe the pain that rises like fog over a mountain,
I lend them my ears,
baptizing my tattered sheet of paper in their crystal tears,
their poetry and music whisper...

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Mount Rushmore; Carved In Stone

From deep within the earth’s crust,
An orogeny pushes
The batholith upwards
To become ‘The Shrine of Democracy,’
Of weathered presidential faces
Chiseled in rock in South Dakota;
Representing 150 years of history
(From birth of a nation
To...

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On a silent night, under a leaden sky and hidden stars,
democracy, like a bird with broken wings, has long since faded, lost in echoes,
and the New World Order, like an unseen dragon, spreads its merciless...

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In the sanctuary of the night, when silence becomes the celestial mentor,
A man can truly be himself only in the arms of solitude;
If he does not love solitude, he will not know freedom,
For only in...

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Maybe among so many barricades that protect my heart,
I was born to be read once and then locked away for eternity.
To be just a fleeting glance, a passing shadow, never the one that turns heads.
To...

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Late in life I struggle against my insignificance
When I should enjoy the freedom from performance before an audience.
Applause is happiness but if they withhold applause, embarrassment.
When Da Liu put me to work crunching hexagrams and...

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In the twilight of thought, where shadows weave endless night stories,
We wander through the labyrinths of time, seeking meaning in the stardust of our existence,
Haunted by the whispers of mortality, a specter born from human...

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Polly Astley loved to have visitors, for she loved piquant, plum people;
Like counting stars when we were young, in milky moonlight, peaceful.

Her days were spent teaching children, with faces perky as sunflowers,
When redbirds danced in...

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The mirtangist may never willingly hear
may not want to hear
the multaiyam announcing his cue
nor the melodist aware of the flautist's right
to the change in the raga
the plucking of the yal strings
to the goatskin drummed bleats
and...

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MICHELANGELO TRANSLATIONS

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet. He and his fellow Florentine, Leonardo da Vinci, were rivals for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man. Michelangelo is...

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