Lullabies
These are lullabies I have written over the years, as poems. Some of my poems have been set to music and thus have become actual songs and lullabies.
For a Ukrainian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch
Where does the butterfly go ...
when lightning rails ...
when thunder howls ...
when hailstones scream ...
when winter scowls ...
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
where does the butterfly go?
Song Poems
These are poems of mine that have been turned into songs by composers, plus a few that I would like to become songs.
Indestructible
by Michael R. Burch
for Johnny Cash
What is a mountain, but stone?
Or a spire, but a trinket of steel?
Johnny Cash is gone,
black from his hair to his bootheels.
As We Travel There Alone
The friends we had, the friends we left
Along the siren streets
A signal past, a thousand thefts
In red light, white light beats
Oh, where can I rest in this hidden town
As wind comes whistling through
In light and dark, as it rains down,
A dancer flails there too
Somewhere she dwells, the chastised nun,
A remnant work of whim
Perhaps it’s one or maybe none
She waits and waits for him
The courtyard halls where beauty haunts
In bellows of burial bells
At night it sleeps its lot of want
