Martin Burke was a widely-published Irish poet/playwright who lived in Belgium. He passed away in 2017 (June 4, 1951 - April 26, 2017)
His book, The Easter Ballad, was published by Words on the street Press, Galway.
• From I Ching in Cervena Barva Press, he writes:
'Biography is always of two kinds. There is the external biography of places lived in, books published and plays preformed. This is legitimated and this is included - but it is not the full story. True biography occurs in the mind that confronts certain issues and then gives them form in books and poems. So it is that when I say I live in Flanders I am not just referring to the northern Flemish speaking area of Belgium. When I say Flanders I am touching an imaginative source that covers place and history, archetype and existential fact that roots into all the work I do.'
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December 2013 update: "The Dream House" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the Origami Poems Project.
► Martin's microchaps & selected poems are available below.
Origami Microchap |
Selected Poem(s) |
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Click title to download PDF microchap.
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Opening Lines The yew tree
The pool The burnt stones The evening gathering about the shire The light forking into lesser light The door opening into history The name opening into other names The memory The prophesy Measure the space Six paces from the gate to the first head stone Measure your mind It is wandering over the fields like a drover in search of cattle Measure the ground six feet deep and deeper Measure the fall of a stone you do not hear the thud of Measure the water measuring you when you reach into its depth •
Martin Burke © 2013
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Click title to download PDF microchap.
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The Dream House - Opening Lines The light exonerates
What the dark claims - Enter and be still The corbelled roof Holds you to a centre That is off-centre A point you cannot pass beyond A point between experience And expectation You are here And not elsewhere Where passage begins Where times restores The wounds and scars Of time ·
To lie in stone for half a million years
is one desire
To be its carver is another –
But what’s known beyond the clang
of the hammer
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Martin Burke © 2013
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