Loss Poems | Poemist

Popular Loss Poems

If

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream- -and not make dreams your master;

......

Two Sunsets

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In the fair morning of his life,
When his pure heart lay in his breast,
Panting, with all that wild unrest
To plunge into the great world's strife

That fills young hearts with mad desire,
He saw a sunset. Red and gold
The burning billows surged and rolled,
And upward tossed their caps of fire.

......

In The Droving Days

by Banjo Paterson

"Only a pound," said the auctioneer,
"Only a pound; and I'm standing here
Selling this animal, gain or loss --
Only a pound for the drover's horse?
One of the sort that was ne'er afraid,
One of the boys of the Old Brigade;
Thoroughly honest and game, I'll swear,
Only a little the worse for wear;
Plenty as bad to be seen in town,
Give me a bid and I'll knock him down;

......

To An Orphan Child

by Thomas Hardy

A Whimsey

AH, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's;
Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature's trick of birth
Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
Save with alloy.

......

Anatomy of a Pyre

by Lokenath Roy

tugging down hair strands,
right where the foot of the flame breaks even—

outreaching from a coarsen rug; in little time
cheeks crater out. engulfing the blessed cry of departure.

have you watched the fire spread on a pyre? the last time the muscles
twitch.
human skin of pastel gorges beneath the river, yellow.
the danube devotes praises to the blue skies of distant dawn.

......

Recent Loss Poems

Anatomy of a Pyre

by Lokenath Roy

Lunatics

by Lokenath Roy

albeit- you have deceived me
while- the candles at the end of the hall burn on black fumes; rising
notwithstanding- the graveyard which no one shall weep for
howbeit- a leg steps forward; an empire turns the screw
inside- a mind brimming with colours
closets- filled with crockeries wrapped in black glitter
jacket collars- washed off blood stains; it begins.
timed- the bedside receiver rings
gongs- like a distant radio rambling in an empty house
signed- with the guarantee of lying lips

......

Father

by John Hughes

All my life I wanted a dad, a cool dad
Someone who would fight for me like I would fight for him
But I don’t think I ever found that
I found someone broken yet living just teetering off into outer space
Still believing in the lord
But the lord not showing any mercy on his soul

Ashes

by John Hughes

I’m thinking about burning down this house with you and I still in it to see if our ashes will love each other, because baby, we never did.

Another Doctor, Another Revolving Door

by Darris van-Hoxen

What’s the point
if I told you a you
was elsewhere—
not quite you,
not quite I,
just remnants
of someone else.

And with another brain—
not my own—

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