Grief Poems
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.
......
For Grief
by John O'Donohue
When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you becomes fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.
......
Autobiography
by Nâzım Hikmet
I was born in 1902
I never once went back to my birthplace
I don't like to turn back
at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo
at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University
at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest
and I've been a poet since I was fourteen
some people know all about plants some about fish
I know separation
some people know the names of the stars by heart
......
The Flower
by George Herbert
How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are thy returns! ev'n as the flowers in spring;
To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasures bring.
Grief melts away
Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.
Who would have thought my shrivl'd heart
Could have recover'd greenness? It was gone
......
Ode On The Pleasure Arising From Vicissitude
by Thomas Gray
Now the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek, and whisper soft
She woos the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground;
And lightly o'er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.
New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
......
unrequited love
by jody kathleen
Unrequited Love
Prophetic-some may say
Like mother like daughter
They both stray
From the earth to present homes
Where are you now?
Some may know
The seagulls call aong the
Lost coast while I long
To be guided home
......
But For Me… It Was Magic
by Vania Lara
Everybody scuttled around in panic,
All alarm clocks go off as if possessed by some sort of magic.
I wake up to the noise and the brawl
For me, it was just another crazy day in the wormhole.
A family trip to a tourist site,
Ethereal feelings of pleasure, bring it might.
But for me, it would be just another crazy night.
A museum to revive the glory of the past.
I see walls decked with emotions that ever last.
Yet for me, they were just an unruly mix of colours splashed.
......
I Shall Live Sad Without You
by Sharon Morgan
Tomorrow I will wake with the sun’s rising
While I harness the dawn of a day, new
With a wistful heart that will not dare to browse
The distant memories, vivid and lucid in their wake
And I shall live sad without you
Painted smiles with cracks
Affected by the coldness ascribed to my pain of heart
Which beats reluctantly but relentless
Lest it ceases to bear the burden
......
Mourner
by D.E. Shannon
Statues weep sky
Moss crowned
Rough gloved
Watch her
Knees dampened
Head bowed to weathered rock
Water whispering against neck
Veined hands crave mud
......
You should pray
by Aparupa Sinha
The hope you keep taking from them
Makes a woman a murderer.
And when they set this country
On fire and you look
At their faces devoid of fear
You should pray. But be known
No God you created to step
On the necks of your slaves
Will come to save His creator
When your genitals are contorted
......
