"commemorating" poems
Peace be upon you
Peace be upon you.
The moment you were born
were summoned to Earth
far from heaven.
Far no more, no more
heaven is now an open door
close to the believers' souls!
Peace be upon you
Peace be upon you.
The moment did you dip
your toe in this mortal soil.
Mortal no more, no more
it becomes sublimely
the most beautiful of all!
Peace be upon you
Peace be upon you.
The moment you breathed life
your perfume stirred the water
the meaning of life is obscured
no more, no more
it’s all clear like the full moon!
Peace be upon you
Peace be upon you.
East to the west
you are the best.
The leading light
shines at the fore.
'Rahmatul lil Alamin'
Mercy to the world.
for the mankind
for the evening star
and the morning rose
you brought peace to all!
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 3:18 PM UTC
As I took a picture of you,
You said you would rather take pictures of statues and great monuments, Commemorating hero's and events, made with precious stones with ornate details,
Far more beautiful and worth while than photo's of you.
But as you stood there looking forward,
Green eyes lit and smile spread wide,
You were far more gorgeous and spectacular than any piece of art that I've ever seen.
While you would rather stare off blissfully at the sights,
I was perfectly content with mine.
Jun 19, 2016
Jun 19, 2016 at 12:51 AM UTC
A sign we are, without meaning
Without pain we are and have nearly
Lost our language in foreign lands,
For when the heavens quarrel
Over humans and moons proceed
In force, the sea
Speaks out and rivers must find
Their way. But there is One,
Without doubt, who
Can change this any day. He needs
No law. The rustle of leaf and then the sway of oaks
Besides glaciers. Not everything
Is in the power of the gods. Mortals would sooner
Reach toward the abyss. With them
The echo turns. Though the time
Be long, truth
Will come to pass.
But what we love? We see sunshine
On the floor and motes of dust
And the shadows of our native woods and smoke
Blooms from rooftops, at peace beside
Turrets' ancient crowns; for the signs
Of day are good if a god has scarred
The soul in response.
Snow like lilies of the valley,
Signifying a site
Of nobility, half gleams
With the green of the Alpine meadow
Where, talking of a wayside cross
Commemorating the dead,
A traveler climbs in a rage,
Sharing distant premonitions with
The other, but what is this?
By the figtree
My Achilles died
And Ajax lies
By the grottoes of the sea,
By streams, with Scamandros as neighbor.
In the persisting tradition of Salamis,
Great Ajax died
Of the roar in his temples
And on foreign soil, unlike
Patroclos, dead in king's armor. And many
Others also died. On Kithairon
Lay Eleutherai, city of Mnemosyne. And when
God cast off his cloak, the darkness came to cut
Her lock of hair. For the gods grow
Indignant if a man
Not gather himself to save
His soul, yet he has no choice; like-
Wise, mourning is in error.
Friedrich Holderlin
translated by Richard Sieburth
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 3:56 PM UTC
building purist æsthetic
proselytizing solar-powered heliolatry
commemorating historic concert
sensing dark forces
fokken lekker antwoord
pumping sensory overload
featuring high-tech dee-jay
admiring gelato micro-truck
laxing laying lazing
"doing something nasty"
continuing quality content
entering another cathedral
journeying without borders
"exactly one year
since visiting vatican"
appreciating full-time gigasphere
awaiting pyongyang performance
depicting unlikely crowdsurfer
foreseeing exponential improvements
furthering esoteric agenda
sensing profound incompatibility
data-mining people's infidelities
anticipating futuristic caffeine
perfecting invisible propaganda
researching mind-control techniques
polishing psycho-social weaponry
sensing social embargo
flourishing frantic fanfare
admiring longitudinal monument
parodying marketing slogans
cycling through österreich
eyeing dystopian disneyland
streaming crosswords extended-play
herding glass kittens
deleting idiosyncratic fragment
loremipsum-ing laconic loudmouth
receiving ultramodern telegram
eigo-ga wakarimasu ka?
guzzling duck-fat fries
encouraging panic selling
(juxtaposing past incarnations)
getting black-and-white privilege
renewing boutique account
relishing cinema poutine
re-entering hibernation mode
opening old windows
continuing zoo motif
absquatulating excessive excesses
nullifying originality claims
proliferating protean persona
disappearing sidewalk alphabet
shrugging opprobrious moments
enjoying vertical alignment
re-entering cyberpunk paradise
approaching island sun
soaring beyond monoliths
trivializing extraneous argy-bargy
decreasing character limits
dumping generic accounts
uglifying commit message
escaping into idiosyncracy
moonshining great lake
exuding idiosyncratic propaganda
living nineties' dreams
making occidental cuisine
envisioning idiocratic president
expropriating your time
ascending homely helix
singing fat lady
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 12:12 PM UTC
May Day
Fertility way
Beltane honours life
A peak of Spring
Earth energies are most effective
Let it begin
All busting with potent fertility
The wheel of the year,
potential becomes conception
Nature is fair
Fire festival glare
Ireland celebrations
Feast of Beltane
Latter times,
Mary's day,
it was called in the rhymes,
they say
Bonfires marking,
the coming of Summer
Granting luck to people's livestock,
without mock
The first day in May Irish holiday
Beltane rituals,
counting young men and women,
picking blossoms in the woods,
lighting fires as the evening stood
Matches for marriages all good,
right there and then,
or Summer Autumn would be when
Medieval modern Europe holiday
Return of Spring observance
Probably originating anyway,
in ancient agricultural roots
Rituals and perseverance,
The Greeks and Romans,
held such festivals
People and their cattle,
would walk around bonfires,
and between rattle
Sometimes leaping over,
embers and flames
All households,
fires doused and re-lit
from the Beltane bonfire
Accompanied by a feast,
with some food and drink,
offered at least
May Day also called Worker's Day,
or International Worker's Day
Commemorating the historic,
struggles and gains made,
by workers,
and the labour movement,
reins without jerkers
In the United States and Canada lakes,
a similar observance known,
as Labor Day partakes on the first,
Monday of September not May
Beltane also sometimes,
goes by the Name May Day
This holiday strongly,
associated with Pagans,
they say,
for fertility come what May
The origins are in ancient play,
across the world this May Day
© 2022 Carol Natasha Diviney
May 1, 2022
May 1, 2022 at 5:45 AM UTC
Alright,
I'm standing
in a rain soaked field
looking due North at the
stacked glorious nothing.
And the vapid brands that
stamped and covered these walls
are an echo of their vibrant
former hues.
The people drive round
and down trying to get
to their brown house maybe.
The parking lots are planar
grey graves, commemorating
the former lives of the
ghosts of shopping malls past
dying ghosts of shopping malls past.
Right on, I'm
walking through the Holocaust
memorial with my coat buttoned
to my throat. The dying lights of
the Sharper Image really makes
a mockery of what they left.
There is the shell of a Banana Republic.
There's Old Navy, Gamestop, Footlocker
Shoes. This is the food court where I hit
on that girl who ended up being as
forgettable as a food court meal.
Okay,
now I'm
looking out just one mile south at the
excavators pushing the dirt and the rock
Digging into land bought by the City,
to build up a new store or twenty
This new real estate is assured to
bring "vibrancy" to our local economy.
Those old stores aren't the right location
so let's just leave, they never existed and
a single family of mallards swim is
circles in Yorkshire Lake. Calmly watching
as the engines get closer, not really expecting
their time is over to bring in the future of
the ghosts of shopping malls past.
Another ghost of shopping malls past.
Oct 16, 2012
Oct 16, 2012 at 10:38 PM UTC
Call me naive.
Blinded by a honeymoon phase
and sickly sweet jest
Because I want to keep
this blindfold
pulled down over my eyes.
I don't want to know
what time it is—
day or night, stars and light —
but this comfort
wraps my body and glues me to my bed.
He likes me
He likes me, not
the me I always try and hide behind
but the me that's real.
And he's honey sweet
and golden feat,
how I managed to find him
I'll never know.
He tells me once
twice and again, actually,
that they couldn't have made
a better half for him in a lab
if they had tried.
I'd lift my blindfold to see
you and your gorgeous honey blue eyes
shining through the dark like a moon,
and what we bake together
might just be the most delicious cake maybe ever.
If my words were sugar
I could have told him then
and there, his lips on mine
tasted sweet.
Like everything he says to me.
But I'm bad at baking cakes with no sugar
and all the store had was keyboards and pens
so I wrote him this instead;
To my perfect other half,
Each joke you make resounds
laugh for laugh, I sculpt you a present
epitaph commemorating you... for you
with words, to say
I think...
I might love you?
May 15, 2019
May 15, 2019 at 2:58 PM UTC
We sung the anthem of each year
wishing our friends a happy day
commemorating their existence
but deep inside,
we know that this
won't fix the broken
or bring back life to their breaths
because I am now rejecting
every expansion of my chest
and deafening my ears
to not remind me that
I am yet stuck here another day
swooshing like wine in a glass
tossed around
in these vicious cycles.
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 12:42 PM UTC
Historical-ly,
Black Colleges
Have been chronically
underfunded,
unacknowledged,
Hell -
Unappreciated.
Black culture curates
Common culture.
Black coins buy
Booming business -
Black universities
Breed
Brilliance, Undeniably.
Understand
Black children
Contain unrelenting
Capacity,
Cause upheaval -
Controlled, creative
Chaos;
Coerce
Change.
History
Continues.
Heads held high -
Commemorating heroes.
Celebrating
Hope-
Bravery-
Coexistence-
Unity-
Hope-
Bravery-
Coexistence-
Unity-
Healing-Balanced-Charismatic-Unequivocal-ly
Colorful
Blackness.
Dec 23, 2022
Dec 23, 2022 at 9:01 AM UTC
dissecting the self for strangers;
an ugly kind of exhibition.
"too personal! too much!"
my inner self screams.
and yet it is something I need to do,
to purge these demons by commemorating them as art,
to make sure I remember to forget.
Oct 11, 2021
Oct 11, 2021 at 10:42 AM UTC
“I’m still in awe of words” (in life, as in poetry, timing is everything)
objects, humans, surprise and interrupt our
daily modalities, knocking us, yo! to the ground,
we, pounding it, for the word void appears,
the frustration of incapacity incarcerating,
accompanied by the loudest silenced scream,
of no poetry available, try again later!
in life, as in poetry, timing is everything
we walkabout, thinking of the scheduled eventualities, or
the dates calendar-circled, though some questioned marked,
in pencil inserted, will I be a mother, find me a husband,
a human grander grandee, fit to be with me a noble progenitor
of more than our generation, watching the sidewalk cracks for an
inkling of when, on or about such and such an alteration,
a seam undone,
a stumbling, seeing a realization as we fall, hands extending,
a notice of arrival,
all needing reconnoitering, commemorating, a poem prepared,
but none to no avail
in life, as in poetry, timing is everything
so we are in awe of words, so necessary, everybody knows,
the awe in awesome, a description for the pixels encapsulates
in I-phone photos,
the where and the why of when, I was grinning like a stupid fool,
the inability to deliver precisely when required the covering of
an appropriate description, your words, use your words, will
fail you spectacularly and so we remain awed, realizing
in life, as in poetry, timing is everything
but awesomely awesome word worlds, near and dear, held forever
in scrapbooks, the literary overlay of the treasures of everyday life,
are the still life of our longevity contextual, the celebratory,
the unexpected losses, largest to smallest, in size order,
kept fresh when you flip through those poems in dusty binders,
in oversized sewing boxes, yellowing in concert with our eyes,
graying with follicles of past pluperfect,
recalling not just the when’s, but the more important, now, the
wherefore and whereupon, the words marking the conjunctions,
recoding the recorded synapses firing sequentially, brain to fingers, the ah so of the poetry of lifetimes
“I’m still in awe of words” (in life, as in poetry, timing is everything)
<>
Saturday
September
21st
2019
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 1:31 PM UTC
Sprinting through the meadow--
Sun warmly brushing skin.
Tickled by the wild grass
As afternoon games begin:
Exploring creeks and forests
And all that lives within.
Scrapes and bruises commemorating
The quest for long lost kin.
Tiptoe through the garden;
Whisper through the tress.
In illuminated darkness,
Be hushed by rustling leaves.
Flowering rows exposed
So as to be kissed by passing bees;
Dancing down the aisles,
Damp earth cooling your bare feet
Sitting on the window sill,
Watching the passing day.
Attention turned towards the hearth
Once night takes the view away.
Surrounded by the things you know,
Comfortable in the array.
Simple now, was simple then
And simple may they stay.
Oct 1, 2015
Oct 1, 2015 at 12:47 AM UTC
On our flag
Three colors show
With thirteen stripes
And 50 stars as white as snow
Each color is special
And each makes a stand
For our country it waves
In our brave soldiers hands
White is for the purity
Of each loving soldiers loyalty
And Red is for the blood they see
And the blood that they have shed for me
Blue is for the aching hearts
Of the soldiers who lives soon fell apart
Our flag is a symbol
For a soldiers life
A life so very precious
And as beautiful as a stary night
So look at our flag
And remember the story
And please hold them high
In a commemorating glory
Dec 11, 2016
Dec 11, 2016 at 7:04 PM UTC
ambience and warmth
elemental, mysterious, aglow
the scent of beeswax or fragrance
mesmerizing drips and puddles
a flame’s pin point
a keyhole in the darkness
opening to another plane
where memories breathe
and flicker within the light
like an old time frame by frame movie show
playing back the details in your mind’s eye
anniversaries commemorating lost loved ones
undiminished pain sheds yesterdays tears
in the stillness of your heart
churches light candles
symbolizing God’s presence
people light candles
in memory of loss
expressing the present tense
of their love
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 5:02 PM UTC
And the butcher's daughter came down from the Elysium fields straight to the holy spirits of my pagan dream with the morning breath of aloe. And the soft music became rivers of pure green. The red serpent spoke to Apollo and her mind of muse. Volcanoes and storms erupted in jubilation commemorating her visit. Red turned sun, voices turned sirens. Forever the face of the earth thanked a thousand ways the mystical birth of the blood.The butcher's daughter snatched my words and letters and made of sacred stone my memory who still calls her.
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 7:31 PM UTC
I don't know whether this is a dream or a fantasy...
But how could it possibly be...
That on this night you here with me...
You can be anywhere in the world that your heart so desire...
But after days of working on my mind In my heart you choose to retire...
You can rest there as long as you remain there...
I will always love you as long as you show me you care...
They say home is where your heart is...
So when you return home I promise to always be there...
But you must understand that a one sided promise just ant fair...
So you got to promise the same...
Also you got to take my name..
From here on out nothing will be the same...
See this all started with a wave...
But it would of all went away...
If you didn't have the strength to stay...
So now we stuck in this little world of ours...
We left everyone on the outside...
And decided to build a home...
We standing at the alter...
My mentality has been altered...
I take your hand from your father...
To begin a new life...
From this point on may we become one...
Till the end of time may we remain one...
We just got to stay strong...
I know we going to have our ups and downs...
But when them bad times come along...
We just got to remember them good times...
Like the nights we spent on the phone...
Late Night Conversations...
Mentally Ventilating...
Memories Commemorating...
Intellectually Reintegrating...
How we belong together...
In our alphabet's lets make "I" and "U" the only letters...
"I Love You" always remember them 8 letters...
When I say, "I Do"...
I mean "I Do"...
I just hope that you mean it too...
If you ready for it just take my hand...
We'll take this world together...
I give you my good...
I give you my bad....
I give you my heart...
I give you my mind...
I give you my soul...
If you going to take me girl you got to take me whole...
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 6:15 PM UTC
Falling
That's what we are doing
Slowly spinning out of control
The masks drop
Like bodies hanging from a noose
The turbulence
Of a hundred lives
Coming to an end
Throwing our hearts astray
Along with the wreckage
Strewn across this valley of despair
Wings
Ripped from our backs
As we lose altitude
Along with feeling,
Numb to our loses
Ears popping
Like celebratory bottles of champagne
Commemorating our near future deaths
The fuselage
Comes in like a missile
Prepared for utter destruction
Touchdown
The landing gear didn't deploy
You were unprepared
As were those watching
In pure terror
At the scene of our death.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 2:18 PM UTC
Ah, Yes We Are Commemorating, Our Fellow Fallen Students
We Are Remembering Those Who Fought
For Better Education, Those Who Fought
For Our Identities.
We Are Mourning.
South Africa We're Crying
For Those Students.
_
When The Language Afrikaans Along With English
Was Made Compulsory As a Medium Instruction In Black schools
in 1974.
16 June 1976, Our hero's Marched Peacefully
Demonstrating Government's Unfairness.
_
I Always Read My Book, I Come Towards Names,
Young People Who Were Brutally Killed For Fighting
For What They Wanted:
Their Identity
Fair Education
People Like Hector
Hector Pieterson.
_
We're Memorizing
All Our Fallen Fellow Students
Our True Hero's.
16 June Is, Not To Strip Naked And Get Drunk
Smoke **** And Burn Your Lugs
16 June To Remember
Those Students Who Died For Better Education.
Jun 15, 2018
Jun 15, 2018 at 8:13 AM UTC
There are mourners beside an unmarked grave
witness how quietly they all there do behave.
All shedding silent tears for one they’ve lost
perhaps some loved one in this way to accost.
It seems uncertain if anyone about really knows
who is buried there beneath the grass that grows
at this distant lonely place away from all the rest
perhaps it was the deceased person’s last bequest.
There isn’t any indication to say when, where or how the person died
just these mourners that have come here it seems from far and wide
to pay their solemn respects to one for which only they all know
perhaps it’s the least thing to the departed one they now do owe.
The buried person must have left a strong impression in everyone’s mind
and when alive would have been an influence of some remarkable kind.
There’s no real telling just what the circumstances might then have been
but judging from the expression on all their faces one of deep loss is seen.
The flowers brought by all the mourners gathered there
have been so placed on the ground at their feet where
they have formed a cross inside a circle of distinction
commemorating the passing of one with a benediction.
________________________________________
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 11:01 AM UTC
i wish i could put my fist
through this wretched city,
march straight down Monroe
to the capitol building—
that flaccid, ******* hideous tower
looming like the tomb of god
over Tallahassee.
this bastion of neoliberalism
sits in the heart of a red state.
escalating rent and gentrification
go hand-in-hand on occupied Muskogee lands.
statues commemorating genocidal colonizers
defended by neo-Confederate bootlickers
keep watch over Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.
everywhere you look in this college town
you’ll find indigeneity reduced to a mascot.
so let’s introduce a little anarchy.
we’ll clash with riot cops
armed with tire-irons and Molotovs.
occupy the academy, transform the cafeteria
into a people’s kitchen. teach freely
on Landis Green. come, dance
with abandon and reclaim these tired streets
from those beset on our alienation.
Jun 6, 2019
Jun 6, 2019 at 6:59 AM UTC
Christmas
is the christian holiday commemorating the birth of jesus christ in bethlehem
is a digital camera
is coming
is a digital camera
is a digital camera
is for giving
is a digital camera
is a digital camera
is a digital camera
is a time of love
is a digital camera
is a digital camera
is a digital camera
is a digital camera
is sharing
is a digital camera
is more than candle
is a digital camera
is a digital camera
is a digital camera
is broken
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 7:13 AM UTC
for Steph and Mel
my white tea candle burns quietly at home
upon my TV tray
within an etched glass lantern
multi-faceted Moravian stars
catching an angle’s warm, yellow glow
a pinpoint of reflection of sorrows past
a window remembering a younger brother
passing before me
her mantle is ablaze in its annual tally
commemorating her first child
born too perfect for this world
on yesteryear’s Christmas day
reciprocity’s tradition
candles lit as offering for one another
a moment to bask in comfort’s connection
linking distant kindred spirits’ hearts
a sharing of sadness between friends
not alone in their grief and memories
honoring loss and life
and love
Jan 3, 2012
Jan 3, 2012 at 1:26 PM UTC
On the crest of the wave I decided to sit down at my 14 year old escritoire
On the advent of spring I decided to
Fill up the moats in my backyard
The quill in between my fingers commemorating the fall of the mighty empires when I was actually rubbernecking the flowers I filled up the ditches with.
Two universes in my mind helpings shape intricate designs and the inkwell acts as a magnet attracting my soul to get lost within these paradoxes
If I walk towards the palaces the kings will ask me to extemporise tricks of which are on my finger tips
If I walk towards the patio I will fall into the area next to it and be buried beneath the flowers
Met with an accident 20 years ago when I was thinking of neologisms
when I was thinking of atypical aphorisms
when I was lost in between the metaphors.
Sep 11, 2015
Sep 11, 2015 at 11:59 AM UTC