Sonnet Poems

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
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XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
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XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
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And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.
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"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once
As easily as through a Naples bonnet-
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
...

Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?
They took my lover's tallness off to war,
Left me lamenting. Now I cannot guess
What I can use an empty heart-cup for.
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Last night I went to bed at eleven
And dreamed I went to Poetry Heaven.
Keeper of the Gate was not Saint Peter
But Robert Frost - - hey, what could be sweeter?
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My heart carries out order is under
My brain, a stout controller, powerful
Had planned a complex project earlier
Sending order to do as potential;
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The sun's turning pale is a threat, in fact
That directly affects solar system
The climate has already been much changed
With known-unknown, acute poisonous fume;
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What civilization you do draw, man!
Enlightening some too little candles,
Beneath centuries' deep darkness is seen
Which is engulfing your own existence;
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You are the daughter of the sea, oregano's first cousin.
Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.
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I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
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Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy;
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
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My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
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I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be l
...

Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
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If your eyes were not the color of the moon,
of a day full [here, interrupted by the baby waking -- continued about 26
hours later ]
of a day full of clay, and work, and fire,
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America's Sonnet


Prologue 'Breathing: American Sonnets'
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ITALIAN POETRY TRANSLATIONS

These are my modern English translations of the Roman, Latin and Italian poets Anonymous, Marcus Aurelius, Catullus, Guido Cavalcanti, Cicero, Dante Alighieri, Veronica Franco, Guido Guinizelli, Hadrian, Primo Levi, Martial, Michelangelo, Seneca, Seneca the Younger and Leonardo da Vinci. I also have translations of Latin poems by the English poets Aldhelm, Thomas Campion and Saint Godric of Finchale.
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She feels like a sonnet,
The Neruda kind,
Intimate as a rose and wheat,
Her hips are sweet
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This list will be updated from time to time. The most recent items will be at the bottom of the list. (Last update 1 May 2023)

Poems that have won prizes or recognition:
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These are my modern English translations of poems by Dante Alighieri.

Little sparks may ignite great Infernos.
―Dante, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
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The Triune(Chained Threesome Sonnet)

Chained Sonnet--a quatorzain, using any sonnet form
Each line begins with the end word of the previous line
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EXEMPLARY
ACROSTIC for MAUDE C after WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SONNET XVIII
Shall I compare her? In what galaxy,
And when or where?  No mirror could reflect
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Love Is Happiness(Bowlesian Sonnet)

Bowlesian Sonnet or Australian Sonnet is attributed to English poet,
William Lisle Bowles (1762 -1850) whose book of 14 sonnets published
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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.
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A Humble Request(15x14 Sonnet)

Because this sonnet has 15 syllables per line and 14 lines
in total it is called 15x14 sonnet.
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