Sappho's Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy Michael Burch

Hushed yet melodic, the hills and the valleys
sleep unaware of the nightingale's call
as the dew-laden lilies lie
listening,
glistening...
this is their night, the first night of fall.

Son, tonight, a woman awaits you;
she is more vibrant, more lovely than spring.
She'll meet you in moonlight,
soft and warm,
all alone...
then you'll know why the nightingale sings.

Just yesterday the stars were afire;
then how desire flashed through my veins!
But now I am older;
night has come,
I'm alone...
for you I will sing as the nightingale sings.

Keywords/Tags: Sappho, lullaby, mother, mother and child, song, sing, singing, melancholic, hush, hushed, melodic, nightingale, lilies, night, fall, autumn, son, mother, lover, spring, moonlight, stars, flash, desire, pulse, veins, older, mature love, nurturing, calm, comforting

Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy Michael Burch

Cherubic laugh; sly, impish grin;
Angelic face; wild chimp within.

It does not matter; sleep awhile
As soft mirth tickles forth a smile.

Gray moths will hum a lullaby
Of feathery wings, then you and I

Will wake together, by and by.

                         *

Life’s not long; those days are best
Spent snuggled to a loving breast.

The earth will wait; a sun-filled sky
Will bronze lean muscle, by and by.

Soon you will sing, and I will sigh,
But sleep here, now, for you and I

Know nothing but this lullaby.

Keywords/Tags: lullaby, child, cherubic, angelic, imp, chimp, mirth, sleep, snuggle, snuggled

US Verse, after Auden
by Michael R. Burch

“Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.”

Verse has small value in our Unisphere,
nor is it fit for windy revelation.
It cannot legislate less taxing fears;
it cannot make us, several, a nation.
Enumerator of our sins and dreams,
it pens its cryptic numbers, and it sings,
a little quaintly, of the ways of love.
(It seems of little use for lesser things.)

Published by The Raintown Review, The Barefoot Muse and Poetry Life & Times

The Unisphere mentioned is a spherical stainless steel representation of the earth constructed for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It was commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the space age and dedicated to "Man's Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe." The lines quoted in the epigraph are from W. H. Auden’s love poem “Lullaby.” Keywords/Tags: Auden, unisphere, lullaby, verse, revelation, cryptic, legislate, enumerator, sins, dreams, value, love, sings, quaint, quaintly, lesser, greater

I close my eyes hoping for a lullaby.
You can imagine my disappointment when one doesn't come
No matter how hard I try.

i’ve become star-flooded.
my mouth’s overrun with sunk stars,
stars studding my cupid’s bow hollows,
dripping onto my hands and the high pile carpet.
their waxy-hot gloss is scalding and sharp,
white rust still engulfing my tongue in unpolished
supernovas and sparks
sparking metal-doused cinder and oxygen darkness.
i’ve become star-glutted,
my star-clotted lungs are heavy,
stars twine through my breathing like the sweat of a
cigarette-blotted miasma,
eroding the chasms, the veins of my shivering fingertips stretching
tips reaching for stars, for star-bellied galaxies,  
fingertips stretching towards cavities, onyx skies flashing,
for stars with their clashing and golden-scorched glow,
for a star-buried secret
i lost long ago.

i still hear
your 70’s folk lullabies  
every time i go to sleep
even though
i’m 154.6 miles away.