hymn

These are prayer poems by Michael R. Burch, along with a few hymns and hymn-like prayer poems. There are also poems on the subject of God and religion—the Christian religion in particular. In my youth I wrote some devotional poems but my later poems tend to be heretical, after in-depth study of the Bible revealed things unworthy of decent human beings, much less a perfect deity. 

I Pray Tonight
by Michael R. Burch

I pray tonight
the starry light
might
surround you.

I pray
each day
that, come what may,
no dark thing confound you.

Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch

after Richard Thomas Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”

These are War poems and Anti-War poems, including a hymn for fallen soldiers and poems I wrote about 911 and its aftermath. 

Hiroshima Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

Hiroshima shadows ... mother and child ...
Oh, when will our hearts ever be beguiled
to end mindless war ... to seek peace,
                                     reconciled
to our common mortality?

***

These are early poems of mine, written as a boy starting around age eleven into my teens as a high school student and my first two years of collete. A few may have been written a bit later; I'm not always sure of composition dates due to inconsistent record keeping in my youth. 

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch, who was always a little giggly girl at heart