ChestNuts roesting on an open fire
Roesting over the flames of yuor forgoten love
Ash
Burnt too a Crisp (This is what they call Chips in Englis )

Mother's' love showed me the Love I needed from yuo
England they call them Crisps
Eating Chest Nuts is scrumptous
Training my ***** in the Art Of War

Away, not home,
this continental heat.

The air pretends
this North Atlantic rock
is worldly

The smiles of the natives
lean manic
as we clutch at multipack lager
and disposable charcoal,
grasp at the living myth
of a cloudless sky
and give ourselves to these gods

Our worship sees us sacrifice
meat and skin,
both burnt to early hours regret
and delicate, bathroom sorrows

A sporadic bacchanal
whose scarcity ensures
that be it working week,
weekend or holiday,
feverish
we’ll pay the tithe

Sunstroke and/or hangover
prove penance for our lapse
from the frigid, three bar
Protestant norm,

but these exotic gods will beguile again
even as the blistered skin still peels

Time travel, baby,
Set me free,
Time travel got a hook in me,
Time travel, baby,
Set me free,
Time travel got a hook in me,

In disguise as a young man in the city,
But the bright young life
No longer belongs to me,
I ain’t no London dude,
I'm just a carbon copy,
Doing some travelling,

Time travel, baby
Set me free,
Time travel got a hook in me,
Time travel, baby,
Set me free,
Time travel got a hook in me,

Seeing places that I knew in ’77,
When I was young
And in love with London town,
Please don’t ask me
Where those fleeting years have flown to,
They’ve just gone travelling,

Time travel, baby,
Set me free,
Time travel got a hook in me,
Time travel, baby,
Set me free,
Time travel got a hook in me,

In disguise as a young man in the city,
But the bright young life
No longer belongs to me,
I’m a visitor
From a distant generation
Doing some travelling,

Time travel, baby,
Set me free,
Time travel got a hook in me,
Time travel, baby,
Set me free,
Time travel got a hook in me.

I waved Brighton away as adventure called,
My heart filled with childish enthusiasm.
The whole world spread before my eyes as the
Wind did gently rustle my sails. Away!

Three months I sailed without excitement,
Making my heart lose faith in the open sea.
In anger God let my vessel venture
Into a storm to swallow worlds and eat me whole.

I prayed and begged with clasped cold hands. "Oh, God!
I am quite dead. Save this wretched servant!"
He ****** thunder from the grey skies and laughed
As I floated. A corpse drifting aimless.

As my filled lungs spewed out the sea, the sky cleared.
I saw a shore. England! My heart flew high

I got bitten by a spider,
but this is England.

A certain arachnid
politeness is expected,
holding back on venom,
for example,
or moving at a predictable, parochial pace
and arranging eyes, legs and hairs
to not offend.

Hanging out in bedside sleeves
so an early morning stumble
is accompanied by slow burning
pin ******
leaving mild swelling and discomfort
is just not cricket.

Don’t get me started on
those chirruping buffoons.

There's still
a part of me in London-
I left it in my dingy block
on Deptford High Street.
Another part of me still
remains in St James Park,
somewhere in the flowers
and another somewhere in
the markets of Camden Town.
I don't think it'll ever leave.

I know Simon’s a court poet. To dedicate
Odes to monarchs’s survival. Raymond as
A philosopher valued life’s democratic state,
I honour monarchy as any man, at last,

In whose heart the Empire’s spirit beating,
Long live the Commonwealth for time all!
By Nika for all time became blessed Britain,
The country army scare foes all!

And the Queen is the brand for all the world,
All ministers’ll retire but not the Queen!
I have not seen a monarch nobler from of  old,
Who honours just so traditions’, honour’s being.

Thank you for giving inspiration to the poet
For his poems, by your own greatness.
Thus, rule for the population’s good great,
Setting an example for other rulers.
{2019}

КОРОЛЕВЕ ЕЛИЗАВЕТЕ II

Я знаю, что сейчас поэт придворный Саймон,
И оды посвящать монархам – прошлый век!
И как демократизм ценил философ Раймон,
Монархию я чту, как каждый человек,

В чьём сердце бьётся дух Империи Великой –
Содружества Союз да здравствует в веках!
Британия всегда благословенна Никой,
И армия страны врагам вселяет страх!

И Королева есть как Бренд международный:
Министры все уйдут, но Королева есть!
Не видел в жизни я монарха благородней!
Кто точно также чтит традиции и честь!

Спасибо Вам за то, что дали вдохновенье
Поэту на стихи величием своим!
Так правьте же ещё во благо населенья,
Давая так пример правителям другим!
{11.11.2019}

Translator - I. Toporov

Morgause’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

Before he was my brother,
he was my lover,
though certainly not the best.

I found no joy
in that addled boy,
nor he at my breast.

Why him? Why him?
The years grow dim.
Now it’s harder and harder to say ...

Perhaps girls and boys
are the god’s toys
when the skies are gray.

Published by Celtic Twilight

Keywords/Tags: King Arthur, Arthurian, Morgause, Merlin, round table, knights, England, stone, Excalibur, chivalry, Camelot, Uther Pendragon, Colgrim, Saxon

Uther’s Last Battle
by Michael R. Burch

When Uther, the High King,
unable to walk, borne upon a litter
went to fight Colgrim, the Saxon King,
his legs were weak, and his visage bitter.
“Where is Merlyn, the sage?
For today I truly feel my age.”

All day long the battle raged
and the dragon banner was sorely pressed,
but the courage of Uther never waned
till the sun hung low upon the west.
“Oh, where is Merlyn to speak my doom,
for truly I feel the chill of the tomb.”

Then, with the battle almost lost
and the king besieged on every side,
a prince appeared, clad all in white,
and threw himself against the tide.
“Oh, where is Merlyn, who stole my son?
For, truly, now my life is done.”

Then Merlyn came unto the king
as the Saxons fled before a sword
that flashed like lightning in the hand
of a prince that day become a lord.
“Oh, Merlyn, speak not, for I see
my son has truly come to me.

And today I need no prophecy
to see how bright his days will be.”
So Uther, then, the valiant king
met his son, and kissed him twice—
the one, the first, the one, the last—
and smiled, and then his time was past.

Keywords/Tags: King Arthur, Arthurian, Merlin, round table, knights, England, Uther Pendragon

Merlyn, on His Birth
by Michael R. Burch

I was born in Gwynedd,
or not born, as men may claim,
and the Zephyr of Caer Myrrdin
gave me my name.

My father was Madog Morfeyn
but our eyes were never the same,
nor our skin, nor our hair;
for his were dark, dark
—as our people’s are—
and mine were fairer than fair.

The night of my birth, the Zephyr
carved of white stone a rune;
and the ringed stars of Ursa Major
outshone the cool pale moon;
and my grandfather, Morydd, the seer
saw wheeling, a-gyre in the sky,
a falcon with terrible yellow-gold eyes
when falcons never fly.

Legend has it that Zephyr was an ancestor of Merlin. In this poem, I suggest that Merlin may have been an albino, which might have led to seemingly outlandish claims that he had no father, due to radical physical differences between father and son. This would have also added to his appearance as a mystical figure. The reference to Ursa Major, the bear, ties the birth of Merlin to the future birth of Arthur, whose Welsh name (“Artos” or “Artur”) means “bear.” Morydd is a another possible ancestor of Merlin’s.
Keywords/Tags: King Arthur, Arthurian, Merlin, round table, knights, England, chivalry, Camelot