Elegy Poems
An Elegy On The Death Of A Mad Dog
by Oliver Goldsmith
Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.
In Islington there was a man
Of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran—
Whene'er he went to pray.
......
Duino Elegies: The First Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
......
September Song
by Geoffrey Hill
born 19.6.32 - deported 24.9.42
Undesirable you may have been, untouchable
you were not. Not forgotten
or passed over at the proper time.
As estimated, you died. Things marched,
sufficient, to that end.
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented
terror, so many routine cries.
......
Duino Elegies: The Tenth Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
That some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision
I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!
That of the clear-struck keys of the heart not one may fail
to sound because of a loose, doubtful or broken string!
That my streaming countenance may make me more resplendent
That my humble weeping change into blossoms.
Oh, how will you then, nights of suffering, be remembered
with love. Why did I not kneel more fervently, disconsolate
sisters, more bendingly kneel to receive you, more loosely
surrender myself to your loosened hair? We, squanderers of
......
Elegy For Jane Kenyon (2)
by Jean Valentine
Jane is big
with death, Don
sad and kind - Jane
though she's dying
is full of mind
We talk about the table
the little walnut one
how it's like
Emily Dickinson's
......
elegy to my neighborhood hero
by Sarah A
i woke up in a haze
a fog foreshadowing
a reunion
with the unexplainable
unescapable
unclear
nature of life
i sailed my bike in the storm
screamed in terror and delight
hoping to outrun my demons
......
Elegy to the Fallen
by Earl Esguerra
The baleful crows of nightingales
sound the lamentation of one’s final throes.
The skies cry for the thoughts and memories you’ve left behind,
the beautiful flowers shrivel up in response; petals once alluring now lifeless
Never would one think that in your passing
brings such a feeling of melancholy and longing.
The cries of toiling people comes with you in your rest,
Beneath the murky ground – amidst the vast and desolate plains
until the echoes of life leave their bodies.
Mama's Son
by Graham Ereks
'I'll be back soonest', he said to mama blithely,
Nescient of the state's cannibalistic hostility.
How can mama take this inhumanity likely?
Tear-drops every day, thanks to brutality.
Bloodthirsty men-in-black, liveried omnipresent
Ambassadors of anarchy, never at all decent.
Haranguers of licitness, promoters of inequity,
Vampires they are,for they are an insignia of nonentity.
......
A Drunkard's Tears
by Graham Ereks
Half-clad I pittled in the grown-old day,
Body boozed by a gazillion boozes.
I sauntered hither and thither zigzag
My destination I knew not, for my vision
Had been boozed and boozed.
I sauntered scalarly gibbering to my booze;
Oh what a feeling it was!
I came by a canis manacled and together we
Confabulated heart-to-heart.
......
The Fern
by Rosa Jamali
The Fern
A Poem by Rosa Jamali
Translated from original Persian to English by the Author
I was a seven-story being, covered in scarce species of a plant
And it was a funeral ceremony
and I was the only single mourner
First I grabbed a gemstone from this very soil,
And then sealed and knocked it over my forehead
I returned and had a glance at my homeland again and I wept.
......
