Grief Poems
'Tis Good—The Looking Back On Grief
by Emily Dickinson
660
'Tis good—the looking back on Grief—
To re-endure a Day—
We thought the Mighty Funeral—
Of All Conceived Joy—
To recollect how Busy Grass
Did meddle—one by one—
Till all the Grief with Summer—waved
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Xx
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
Between our faces, to cast light on each ?--
I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach
My hand to hold my spirit so far off
From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof
In words, of love hid in me out of reach.
Nay, let the silence of my womanhood
Commend my woman-love to thy belief,--
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Funeral
by Nora Doogan
The day of your funeral,
a strangeness clung to us all,
like woodsmoke in our hair
or a whiff of other people’s fabric conditioner.
That evening, putting clean clothes in a drawer,
I saw a loose cotton thread
and I did not recognise it for the everyday thing it was
but recoiled, horrified.
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Greedy Richard
by Jane Taylor
"I think I want some pies this morning,"
Said Dick, stretching himself and yawning;
So down he threw his slate and books,
And saunter'd to the pastry-cook's.
And there he cast his greedy eyes
Round on the jellies and the pies,
So to select, with anxious care,
The very nicest that was there.
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Happy Birthday Homie!
by Awwab ParachaYo happy birthday dude! I have no idea how old you are. In fact, I never knew how old you were. All I knew was that you were big and cool. Like tall and muscly and mature and everything that I wanted to be. The privileges, the status, the good looks, and the fireworks that you got to play with and I didn’t cuz I was too damn young. All of that was all that I saw because that is all there was and now that is all that’s left. I don’t remember much of it honestly but why did you leave so soon man? We should have made memories that I could actually remember instead of painting a stupid foggy morning in my 8-year-old head. U still had to teach me how to spin a basketball on my fingers and let me ride my bike on the ramp you have leading up to your home, your soul, your being and your existence. I’m starting to forget your face. I think you had a goatee or something weird like that. Whatever it was I thought it was cool at the time. Times change and people change. Times don’t change and people stay the same. Well, the times have changed but you are the same. Buried by the main road near the lame tree leaving us with just your first and last name. I didn’t even attend ur goddam funeral cuz time kept me busy. It kept me going, it kept me striving. Or was it just slowly killing me? Reminding me that one day you will teach me how to spin a basketball on my fingers. I hate basketball now by the way. Not everybody is as good at it as you. Do they celebrate birthdays in heaven? I don’t know. I haven’t really understood anything I read in the Quran. It sounds so wrong coming outta false mouths looking for false benefits and salvation while putting up with the damnation of the racist world we live in, live on, and die under. It’s filled with shooters and hooters who act like they have never seen a pretty girl before while they steal her soul and bury her by the road. The same people who keep splitting nations to create absolutions, indignations. They wanna define each man and woman by the machine of their soul. Well, ur machine is already rusting somewhere under the ground. The ground that you were supposed to play monkey in the middle with me on with the new frisbee that I bought cuz the toy shop stopped selling soccer balls. Due to the fact that the country we lived in got involved in brawls with politics, religion, rape, and molestation. They don’t care about no soccer balls. People make things so complicated. It’s kinda stupid to talk with you if you're not gonna say anything back. Sorry, I just wanna hear your voice cuz I don’t know what it sounds like anymore. I see ur face in pictures and try to imagine the creation of the vibrations of your vocal cords like I do with my favourite songs. There’s this new singer named Shawn. I never tell my friends that I listen to his music cuz I know they would just lose it. I mean I only listened to like one or two of his songs. Well, maybe 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 but it’s not too late to turn back to some good old Kendrick Lamar. Sorry, I know you don’t know any of these people. You don’t know these stories. I hate how you gave me this story. The details are burned into my skull like the devil’s choir of death. I remember after you left. My mom went to your house. She didn’t even cry, she just talked to your mom about how you were taken too soon and all of that cliche BS that I have seen her do at every funeral. But this time, she was broken and losing function. The air around her became the suction of her tears and the white hair on her head started to fall melting into the Niagra Falls cuz that’s where we were when we got the news of your awakening. It came in like a wet blanket of tears waterboarding my nose my mouth and at that moment I didn’t have a single doubt about my mortality and my life and my growing body. I knew that one day I would also be buried by the same lame tree near the same main road leaving behind a rotting pile of grief that would only be visible in the eyes of my mother and the silence of my brother and the Malboro cigarette packets of my father. If you can die then I can die too I’m sure. You even left your baby boy alone in this world, he was only four. Did you know we moved to Canada? Man nobody here has a goatee. In fact, people who have goatees are either living in a crappy basement or in a jail cell. Just kidding, some are listening to the sounds of Heaven’s bells.
Continue readingMy Murder Confession
by Melvyn Kairupan
In a haze, I stumble,
tripping over my own feet,
dragging my breath through a hill drowned in fog.
Cold. Fucking cold.
Solitude chewing through my skin,
biting into my bones.
And then—
you.
......
Heart drenched in insanity
by Fathima Valliyangal
You know what, Sherlock?
Love? That’s pathetic
His arms were drenched in her cologne,
the other day,
the smile so nefarious,
conniving yet innocent.
I gave him my heart, you know?
I gave him elusive veins and Sherlock,
what do I get? I am deceived,
as though my eyes are blinded
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Unforgiving past
by Fathima Valliyangal
Night, a solaceful, distant memory
When you left my already-rifted heart
It repeats, this haunting memory,
I try, alright?
I try to forget, I try to move on.
But this memory, it just has to,
repeat itself, over time again,
and I am, but a slave of the past.
The last time you said ‘Goodbye’,
......
For Achilles
by ash m
Prideful Achilles. Now sorrowful Achilles. Achilles
whose handsome countenance now defiled
with dust he caught and poured over his face. Mighty Achilles
laying in dust, tearing at his hair -
mightily in his might.
Achilles, worth an entire army,
grieving in his proud heart, now having the need of another
to hold his hand lest he cut his throat with iron - Achilles who
now cried, so terribly aloud, she, from the depths of the sea,
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A Dreadful Embrace.
by Hari Krishnan B V
Arousing horridly hatred breeds aching sorrowful grief,
Words massacred every breath down the diaphragm.
Eyes plunge stinging tears down the bloodshot sclera,
Frigid fills with your muffled cries of mellifluous voice.
Limbs turning numb sans hurling hazardous venom,
Crawling to her like a microbe searching its genome.
Our deafening cries engulfed the infirmary chamber,
Overwhelming with misery, weeping angels flew apart.
She gushed blood for in love, hidden spirits envied us,
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