O mistress, your gentle eyes were a warm angel’s song.
Your glazed almond skin was soft like a ******'s touch.
Bound me in chains of desire and sin in your love dungeon.
Your euphonic voice calls out to me like a raven’s tweet.

I licked my lips and pleasured my *******.
My face flushed like a thorny rose.
I reached out to caress her tendril twine of hair.
She whispered sweet nothings that filled the air.

O mistress! Our love is wrong.
In the heat of this forbidden love
we embrace the eternal night,
sharing a kiss in the moonless delight.

My body’s a canvas, craving her touch
I yearn for her sweet *******.
Pain and pleasure whips me to shape.
My love for her will always creep.

O mistress, come close to me.
Print your skin on my pale flesh.
Prepare me for my best nightmare.
Where you invite worship for this time.

You stab me with love like a swordswoman
and make art out of my darkness.
No demon or god can tear us asunder.
There is still beauty in this immoral hunger.

O mistress, I submit every ounce of my soul to you.
For you have your way with me for eternity.
The bellowing echoes of ****** rumors
will never take my love for you away.

Is there love in a coffeehouse?
Like those silly Hallmark movies?
Coffee is love
But hides in mystery
In laptops and cell phones
In wandering eyes
And ****** musings
In the buzzing sounds of a lovely brew
To be consumed by you

What's the use of my hand,
if your skin is not under its touch?
What good is my skin,
if yours is not under its heat?

What's the use of my lips,
if yours are not locked with it?
What's the use of my eyes,
if yours are not looking at them?

What's the use of my body heat,
if it's not overlapping with yours?
What good is my body,
if yours is not over it every hour?

What's the use of your body,
if mine is not on top of it?
If it's not me you're sharing the heat with?
If I am not carressing it?
If I am not the one beside it?
What good is it,
if you never really knew what good is?

Her body’s indications are indicating what she's anticipating.
Something exhilarating and stimulating
\ventilating.

With a body wrapped in a crimson dress, she bears a violent temper.
Shining daylight, raging bewitching, captivating cunning.
You arrive with starry eyes and cheeks flushed like a ******.

In her curly hair, autumn curtains hang—roaming rays hot.
She glows in the night like a pictorial wall with hieroglyphics concealing madness.
You step elegantly, but you're a dangerously stealthy predator.

Grassy hills in floating flames burn beneath a voluminous haze.
Her look describes fabulous waterfalls, endlessly flowing and shining in the coming dawn. You associate with robbers and kings, but they do not understand, and no one will save you.

Lovely eyes sprinkle enchanting rays, her lips intertwined like a rose petal.
Her heart enticingly calls with her fruit to be drunk.
You hide in the nightlife, dress up, and do your love magic.

Neck fashioned in autumnal garments, wearing scarlet ruby earrings.
Her pink skin smells of perfume, inviting like a grape on a vine.
You invite visitors with your charm to carelessness, forever forced.

Her lips are flowing bewitching rivers—intersecting strokes of crimson. They bring a dream to taste her deep soils and her artfully carved forms.
You are determined to captivate without marrying— you stay lost in rebellion.

These are my modern English translations of ancient Greek poems by the immortal Sappho of ******…

With my two small arms, how can I
think to encircle the sky?
—Sappho, fragment 35, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mother, how can I weave,
so overwhelmed by love?
—Sappho, fragment 90, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

What cannot be swept ——— aside
must be wept.
—Sappho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What cannot be said
must be wept.
—Sappho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has long since set;
the Pleiades are gone;
now half the night is spent,
yet here I lie—alone.
—Sappho, fragment 52, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Midnight.
The hours drone on
as I moan here, alone.
—Sappho, fragment 52, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You are,
of all the unapproachable stars,
the fairest.
—Sappho, fragment 155, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Someone, somewhere
will remember us,
I swear!
—Sappho, fragment 147, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Gold does not rust,
yet my son becomes dust?
—Sappho, fragment 137, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No droning bee,
nor even the bearer of honey
for me!
—Sappho, fragment 113, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have a delightful daughter
fairer than the fairest flowers, Cleis,
whom I cherish more than all Lydia and lovely ******.
—Sappho, fragment 132, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have a lovely daughter
with a face like the fairest flowers,
my beloved Cleis ...
—Sappho, fragment 132, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Attis, you forsake me
and flit off to Andromeda ...
—Sappho, fragment 131, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He is dying, Cytherea, the delicate Adonis.
What shall we lovers do?
Rip off your clothes, bare your ******* and abuse them!
—Sappho, fragment 140, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Awed by the moon’s splendor,
stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.
—Sappho, fragment 34, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Those I most charm
do me the most harm.
—Sappho, fragment 12, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Just now I was called,
enthralled,
by golden-sandalled
dawn...
—Sappho, fragment 15, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Once again I dive into this fathomless ocean,
intoxicated by lust.
—Sappho, after Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Did this epigram perhaps inspire the legend that Sappho leapt into the sea to her doom, over her despair for her love for the ferryman Phaon?

Sappho, fragment 138, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.

2.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' indulgence.

3.
Look me in the face,
——— smile ———
reveal your eyes' grace!

4.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes’ indulgence.

Preposterous Eros
by Michael R. Burch

“Preposterous Eros” – Patricia Falanga

Preposterous Eros shot me in
the buttocks, with a Devilish grin,
spent all my money in a rush
then left my heart effete pink mush.

Keywords/Tags: Sappho, translations, ******, lesbian, love, Eros, ******, Greek, Greece

Loving you is like being kissed by the stars
A whole galaxy of experiences,
Caught in between that space,
—legs that are wrapped around a face
Our hair—a complete mess, and I must confess
that the taste of you is a taste of cosmic prowess
And I’m always stuck on loving you for hours

As is our nature, we who dwell on this earth
I’ve now learnt that your natural waterfall flows
After I’ve treated your wet flower source with a timely worth

A slow tease creeps up and down your skin
Your arched knees are a resting ground before another
journey of my tongue. As the sweetest taste is a taste of fun

By the skin of teeth, are the few bite marks
I’ve left here and there. Your digging fingers in my hair,
Is all the pain you and I have to share.

It all seems fair.
You’re lost for words, choked up by fiery passion;
my gentle hand around your throat
And this rule of thumb; is the one you love to bite on
An aggressive action, but never to be passive

It’s 945, and quarter close to ten
Usually the time we should be resting in bed
But instead, I’m resting my tongue in you

                         It tastes like a perfect end