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.
...

XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
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What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
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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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"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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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.
...

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearnèd in the world's false subtleties.
...

Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own:
I wavered through the streets, among
Objects:
Nothing mattered or had a name:
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Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
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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.
...

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.
...

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;
...

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;
...

What civilization you do draw, man!
Enlightening some too little candles,
Beneath centuries' deep darkness is seen
Which is engulfing your own existence;
...

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.
...

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
...

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.
...

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;
...

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,
...

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stoln on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on wtih full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
...

These are sonnets by Michael R. Burch. Many of these sonnets are 'heretical' sonnets in that they disobey the rules of orthodox sonnets and return to the original definition of 'sonnet' as a 'little song.' Included are Shakespearean sonnets, Petrarchan sonnets, Spenserian sonnets, blank verse sonnets, free verse sonnets and experimental sonnets.

Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch
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POEMS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE by Michael R. Burch

These are poems I have written about Shakespeare, poems I have written for Shakespeare, and poems I have written after Shakespeare.
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The first poetry contest I ever entered was the 2016 Utah State Poetry Society Spring Contest.
I think I only sent in two or three poems to the contest. One of them took second place in the introductory category. This gave me confidence and I have been submitting to the contest every year since.

2016
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In the Morning of the World

In the morning of the world I slept,
A deep fulfilling dreamless sleep
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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 16 November 2024)

Poems that have won prizes or recognition:
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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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