I.
There was once a tiny, fading lily
Her beauty was diming, merely,
Aiya Aiya…  Lucia Lucia

Where wonders trapped her in deep sorrow
Where the root called her to continue to grow

Standing alone, an existence of solitude
While the white lily shall love in delight , 
Nor weeping alone or shining in an illuminous light . 

II.
Lily desires to live, in a place without pain
But the lily’s life is full of strife and strain

Hey, Rain, did the miracle come?
Look, oyster silver clouds replace dark blue skys

Aiya Aiya…  Lucia Lucia
As the rain started to fade into the solo song
As the Lily stood while its immunity could run
Who could take one name and lead an ever gain?

Hey, Rain, the miracle came.
Listen, silent whispers shared across the air
and the rain and peacefully landed on Lily.

III.
Out of the deep trauma that every day grew
Out of the rain, the Lily was relieved that someone else knew 

Who makes her wonder,
if the rain didn’t know of the Lily’s
wayward roots
What does the rain want to know,
although the Lily hold them as emotional loot

Aiya Aiya…  Lucia Lucia
Who is Lily as she solely sings alone in the rain?
And her heart is bleeding from the excruciating pain

when she talks to him,
her words run together.
her heart sings a love song,
eyes glowing with the truth.

The opposite of war isn't peace.
It's creation.
So take this time of isolation
To make something that inspires
A generation.
A poem. A movie. A song.
Something that reminds us
That even though we feel alone,
We belong.

The Century’s Wake
by Michael R. Burch

(lines written at the close of the 20th century and introduction of the 21st century)

Take me home. The party is over,
the century passed—no time for a lover.
And my heart grew heavy
as the fireworks hissed through the dark
over Central Park,
past high-towering spires to some backwoods levee,

hurtling banner-hung docks to the torchlit seas.
And my heart grew heavy;
I felt its disease—
its apathy,
wanting the bright, rhapsodic display
to last more than a single day.

If decay was its rite,
now it has learned to long
for something with more intensity,
more gaudy passion, more song—
like the huddled gay masses,
the wildly-cheering throng.

You ask me—
“How can this be?”
A little more flair,
or perhaps only a little more clarity.
I leave her tonight to the century’s wake;
she disappoints me.

Originally published by The Centrifugal Eye. Keywords/Tags: new, century, wake, new year, party, Central Park, fireworks, song, display

All the people and all the crazy sounds
Are telling to me to sit me down
But they don't know I'm living six feet under
The singer sings his final song
The story ends before too long
But the crowd don't know he'll never sing another

The sadly spoken walks the streets
Waiting for his fate to meet
He surely knows he soon will be forgotten
He looks for a space to fit right in
Not knowing where he should begin
He's looking for a small sense of belonging

To hear the young ones laugh and sing
It ought to make him feel something
But their song and laughter only sends him reeling
And all the smiling passersby suppose
He must be alright if his doors are closed
Don't you know death too is for the living?

A Howl,
Distant but fair.
A Howl,
Prickles fine hair.

It is ethereal
It is sweet
Repeated in time,
It follows the beat.

Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

Who teaches the wren
in its drab existence
to explode into song?

What parodies of irony
does the jay espouse
with its sharp-edged tongue?

What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams

of the dull gray slug
—spinning its chrysalis,
gluing rough seams—

abiding in darkness
its transformation,
till, waving damp wings,

it applauds its performance?
I am done with irony.
Life itself sings.

One suspects the typical American poetry professor and/or workshop instructor would advise birds to give up singing for mostly inaudible expressions of jaded irony. Keywords/Tags: performing, art, poetry, song, singing, music, irony, cynicism, parodies, dreams, imagination, chrysalis, butterfly, transformation, natural, performance

The People Loved What They Had Loved Before
by Michael R. Burch

We did not worship at the shrine of tears;
we knew not to believe, not to confess.
And so, ahemming victors, to false cheers,
we wrote off love, we gave a stern address
to things that we disapproved of, things of yore.
And the people loved what they had loved before.

We did not build stone monuments to stand
six hundred years and grow more strong and arch
like bridges from the people to the Land
beyond their reach. Instead, we played a march,
pale Neros, sparking flames from door to door.
And the people loved what they had loved before.

We could not pipe of cheer, or even woe.
We played a minor air of Ire (in E).
The sheep chose to ignore us, even though,
long destitute, we plied our songs for free.
We wrote, rewrote and warbled one same score.
And the people loved what they had loved before.

At last outlandish wailing, we confess,
ensued, because no listeners were left.
We built a shrine to tears: our goddess less
divine than man, and, like us, long bereft.
We stooped to love too late, too Learned to *****.
And the people loved what they had loved before.

Keywords/Tags: traditional, poetry, meter, rhyme, reason, music, song, form, love, loved, monuments, bridges, unpaid, free, verse, score, classic, classical, Romantic