"dirge" poems
have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?*
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 1:03 PM UTC
wind forgets her moan
morn's dirge hushed still and silent
star heralds brilliance
Dec 12, 2015
Dec 12, 2015 at 12:10 PM UTC
Memories crying, screaming to be heard.
Try as I might to bury these amidst busy days,
still they rise from the backyard of my mind haunting my dreams,
making youth a nightmarish memory.
Empty rooms cry out in agonizing silence.
White ghosts float on lifeless bodies with the same question; why?
Anxious moments still taunt just beyond of safety.
The sickness that gave birth to this still clouds the mind.
So long ago, a lifetime to make peace, still lucid moments of torment
making March an anniversary dirge.
It makes no sense to cry for those gone, for mortals spent in tragedy,
yet every year I try to understand once again, why?
Aug 22, 2012
Aug 22, 2012 at 12:22 PM UTC
Oh! Rama!
Oh! Rama,”reme ithi rama”
(Makes us happy so Rama!)
Here, mourn and sigh Ahalyas
In every atom of rocky hearts
Of India; as Sahasralingas spy.
Ambush, spring on praying preys.
Rushi Gauthams suspicious curse
In repentance they bless retribution.
Oh! Rama, with your soft feet touch,
Liberate the poor pious chaste Ahalyas,
Sathi, Savitri, Seetha and Panchali,O!
Sultana Raziya, Jhansi Rani ,Indira Gandhi,
Think of their vicissitudes, the path they tread!
Patriarchy exerts pressure on Matriarchy, O!Mum!
Bharat matha is molested by Kuberas and Mamons.
And her daughters are robbed and ***** ruthlessly, alas!
Oh! Rama,”Dharma Samsthanardhaya “come with dirge
Of the degenerated culture of Vultures, save thy women folk.
Make people to think right, to follow right path, to tell true words.
To live in Eeman (Dharma) not to inflict pain to other co-habitants.
Without negative there is no use of positive, so is woman and man.
They are like protons and electrons to the flux of family life peaceful.
Oh! Rama , teach, Dharmorakshati Rakshita:,”repentance gives retribution
That will bring peace, progress, stability, justice and unity; not Pax Romana
Dec 28, 2012
Dec 28, 2012 at 10:48 AM UTC
*Babe I hate to even think soon I'll be long gone
that destiny's a painter and the art is bold drawn
it hurts we have to part now that we're all grown
it's a sting we waited for this moment only for I to leave town
hurts that I can't change it, cuts I needs a bandage
***** harder than ******* cause I know that you won't manage
our happy song's now a dirge, unreal like a mirage
who'll get me to my feet when am parting with my clutch
me frowned at the news but none could listen to my views
guess I'll always end up trapped in a wrong place
always emerge a victor in a wrong race
I tried to appeal but karma won the case
what else will be scenic like dawn clutching to your dress
I hate to lose that smile cause it's a milli not a mile
and*
**I'm aware....
when life takes me away...
Tears may come your way...
Babe hope you know I pray...
That you don't cry for me...
Please don't cry for me...**
*I pray you find warmth in some other way
Can't promise we'll still feel us from a million miles away
but I think I'll think about you every other day
never doubting your love, that I totally swear
I'll be present in every moment albeit I won't be there
when your skies are clear and when the skies are grey
I'll be the silhouette somewhere twixt your heart and soul melting
the snow of your confusion and fears to keep your existence at bay
Please don't cry, please try...
try to think about us without a tear
try to plough your way through the fear
don't be lost in the Sea of loneliness
Hope are the sails, life's a boat to steer
Am not saying you should bottle up the melancholy
it's alright to breakdown at such doldrums, it's okay
I just wish sadness was food that you'd ship for me
or an ***** I'd mute the speakers, or stop to play
I wish life was a symphony, so that we choose harmony
I hate that the sad song of our looming reality is in production
and that it will soon be ready for karma to play, with such affection
I loathe that you're bound to listen when we're missing
I hate that I carry this worry to the hay role right from kissing
and this affection's starting to feel more of a curse than a blessing*
**Cause I'm aware...
when life takes me away...
Tears may come your way...
Babe hope you know I pray...
That you don't cry for me...
Please don't cry for me...**
Aug 20, 2016
Aug 20, 2016 at 8:46 AM UTC
Oh! Rama!
Oh! Rama,”reme ithi rama”
(Makes us happy so Rama!)
Here, mourn and sigh Ahalyas
In every atom of rocky hearts
Of India; as Sahasralingas spy.
Ambush, spring on praying preys.
Rushi Gauthams suspicious curse
In repentance they bless retribution.
Oh! Rama, with your soft feet touch,
Liberate the poor pious chaste Ahalyas,
Sathi, Savitri, Seetha and Panchali,O!
Sultana Raziya, Jhansi Rani ,Indira Gandhi,
Think of their vicissitudes, the path they trod!
Patriarchy exerts pressure on Matriarchy, O!Mum!
Bharat matha is molested by Kuberas and Mammons.
And her daughters are robbed and ***** ruthlessly, alas!
Oh! Rama,”Dharma Samsthapanardhaya “come with dirge
Of the degenerated culture of Vultures, save thy women folk.
Make people to think right, to follow right path, to tell true words.
To live in Eeman (Dharma) not to inflict pain to other co-habitants.
Without negative there is no use of positive, so is woman and man.
They are like protons and electrons to the flux of family life peaceful.
Oh! Rama , teach, Dharmorakshati Rakshita:,”repentance gives retribution
That will bring peace, progress, stability, justice and unity; not “Pax Romana”..
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 6:03 AM UTC
Dark clouds loomed over the horizon
They broke loose in unprecedented force
Nature’s wrath, sudden violence acquired
It rained down as if unleashing all her fury
It was a downpour without one equal
The heavens let down dark misery for days on end,
Water bodies swelled and hollows filled,
Land mass slipped and trees fell,
Rivers were in spate and dams were full
Waves surfed and waters roared,
Like mountains they rose over the land,
Men in throngs were evicted from their homes,
Hundreds died and livestock perished
Such violence, never ever imagined
Helter-skelter, people fled for life.
Lands inundated and folks marooned,
Homes washed away with all belongings
Power failed and life has come to a halt
Rescue operations go on in full swing
Still many, stranded and crying for help
“Water, water everywhere, nor even a drop to drink”
As Nature thus plays her perfidious trick,
We shall stay united and pool all our might,
To regain for our land what we have lost
When the Deluge chants the dirge of dying souls!
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 9:27 AM UTC
Streets of the city has recently bathed, with a sudden hour
long mid-Summer's rain.
Romeo trudged down the empty street, towards his lonely
pad located on a terrace.
He had nothing to call his very own, excepting his dear old
Saxophone!
The crowd in the hotel applauded as he played, since he played
with empathy like every other day.
He had met his Juliet briefly once, those were the moments of
a happy trance!
The saxophone has countless musical notes embedded inside, -
For our Romeo to play them out night after night.
Yet so many Romeos like him shall slowly fade away;
And the saxophone shall play their dirge at the end of
the day!
-By Raj Nandy, New Delhi
Sep 16, 2017
Sep 16, 2017 at 11:23 AM UTC
You speak of forbidden love
And relish in its passion,
Like a fat sow rolling in ****
You cannot smell the stench,
Of your joined betrayal,
You couple with immorality.
Go home to your true partner,
Cast away your paramour,
There can be no happy ending here,
There is no love where there is no innocence,
I know as I once danced late into the hot nights to this very same song.
I could show you a skeleton path littered with the corpses of past lovers,
Empty shells of who they once were, skin shredded by snakes, leaving the stench of our distaste behind,
A litany of curious choices,
A dirge of the fallen's passion,
But you will not listen,
For your ears are deafened by the drums of need,
The screaming voice of your own conscience,
And the death rattle of your lost integrity.
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 2:58 PM UTC
Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o’er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole
The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,
To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And (when gay tombs are robb’d) sustain no harm;
But keep the wolf far thence, that ’s foe to men,
For with his nails he’ll dig them up again.
5.1k
Think not of it, sweet one, so;---
Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
Any---anywhere.
Do not lool so sad, sweet one,---
Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop then,---it is gone---
O 'twas born to die!
Still so pale? then, dearest, weep;
Weep, I'll count the tears,
And each one shall be a bliss
For thee in after years.
Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies
Are tenderer still.
Yet---as all things mourn awhile
At fleeting blisses,
E'en let us too! but be our dirge
A dirge of kisses.
4.7k
ensorcelled - the day burns and burns
the dusk is filled with ashen husks
and white flies swirling in the wind
different kind of bittersweet day
like a girl who ditched you at a good movie
a sunset lighting the boughs up at 2PM
like a good day despite the world on fire
pretty and futile; like throwing selfies on an insta
Aug 25, 2018
Aug 25, 2018 at 3:34 AM UTC
Blazing brightly in the night miles below on
Crete. Icarus plummeted. And puzzled.
The Phoenix shattered ablaze and battred
The phoenix Glances to the night sky.
As a bird of prey whizzes by.
Struck to ground.
Thundering sound.
Phoenix pauses beats his wings.
Flaming feathers burn and drift.
Rises slowly from the ashes.
Icarus crumbles in broken waxen wings.
Youthful tragedy. Never to rise.
No reclamation.
Silent hubris.
The dirge preceeds.
Then quietly
Receeds.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 9:15 PM UTC
Four days of hunger
Four days so sweet
My stomach is angry
It's so mad at me
And the pain is lovely
It's sweet agony
And then I ate
I filled my tummy up
I binged until it hurt
More food; not enough
I don't want to weigh myself
I broke my own trust
I broke to binge
And I couldn't throw it up
It felt so good
But the guilt is too much
I feel so fat
But when I eat I feel love.
I'm breaking to binge
Eat anything in sight
Ninety-six hours
Ruined in one night
This lack of self-control
Is ruining my life.
Hunger hurts
But I want it so bad
Hunger hurts
But I miss what I had
I miss the hunger pains
Cause binging makes me sad
So I'm working to purge
I'm working on control
This dapper little dirge
Is a reflection of my soul
No one ******* cares
So no one needs to know.
No one ever stops me
So I'm not going to eat
Because the me in the mirror
Isn't the me I want to see.
If there was someone there
Maybe I'd be free.
Back to the cutting board
My goal was one-thirty
Back to the cutting board
Now one-twenty
Self-control
I like the sound of eighty.
I broke to binge
The ugliest sin
I broke for food
And now I brood
But I'm better again
I must be thin
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 12:16 AM UTC
Sitting in a restaurant
Over a cup of coffee
And silently having our dinner
With hardly anything exciting
Either to brag or blather
My eyes got hooked
On the occupants of the table, next
Two kids, seated on small chairs
A boy and a girl, obviously a pair of twins
Adorably cute, their father, so young
Who having placed the order
Were in wait for their turn
Carrying a tray, as the waiter arrived
With something of the plainest kind,
Small cartons of French fries,
Bottles of sauce and plain ice cream
The little faces gleamed in excitement
Their beaded eyes riveted,
And their heads bobbed in happy approval
As their Dad opened the carton
And placed before them
French fries sprinkled with some sauce
The children, sprang to their feet
With an upsurge of delight,
Jumping up and down,
Clapping their hands and shouting!
At a small distance, sat we
‘Solemnly’ consuming our meal
With nothing to titillate our palette
Or excite our toned nerves
I thought;
How, in course of time,
Everything becomes a routine ritual
And what stark difference
Between our subdued composure
And the overwhelming excitement of kids!
They haven’t learned yet
That such open expression of emotions,
Is not in keeping with accepted norms
To what peaks of joy, they get catapulted
With mere trifles and silly baubles
While we remain ever at the bottom
Unable to be lifted up
Is this what we call aging?
Or is it
The death of spring
The summer’s dirge
Autumn’s mellowing
Or the chill wave of winter’s blast??
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 6:39 AM UTC
Have you ever done nothing wrong
Yet to be punished so severely?
Body of a monster, face of a woman,
It isn't flesh that you wear
But scales, green ones
Hissing is your music
And the sound of an unsheathed sword your funeral dirge
Have you ever
Been Medusa?
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 11:15 AM UTC
Sometimes it is, poor Sylvia,
that we cannot find the answers. They're
not to be found clinking about in the stars,
blowing about in the August wind,
or blooming among the tea flowers, no matter
how scented. No charlatan soothsayer discerns.
No pull of the cards deciphers. If answers come
at all they'll be found deep within yourself, only.
Don't we all prove that countless, wretched
times? But know this, dear Sylvia, even though it's too
late for your sanity and your life, your daddy didn't
die because of you, for you, by you. Death simply
drew the line and pulled him across.
What were you to do when life puzzled you
to the limit, when all poems disappointed,
when the ink failed to flow smoothly,
the pen tore at the paper and the paper
turned to ash before a line could be written down?
What to do when your child's smile failed to ignite
motherhood, when Daddy's image floated in and out, when
emotional pain dragged you terrified under its
black cerement, that cold, wet, smothering grave cloth?
Fear, oh my God, fear, and the doubt that you had,
the whirling about of a shattered mind, bouncing
from this trap to the other - your muted, stifled inner
screams unheard, or worse, unexpressed. Yes,
you found a solution, poor Sylvia, but suicide
doesn't always equate with an answer. You found a
sad poem, a dirge to be exact, something that moves
us, but there is no rhyme to it and the ending is an
enigma, a great puzzle yet to be invoked, understood.
----
Dec 8, 2011
Dec 8, 2011 at 4:51 PM UTC
~for better days for the poet betterdays~
mournful tunes play silently, but still too often,
eyes wet but in corners kept, recurring then the
memories, keepsakes, letters, books, small trinkets,
not dusty, but dusky, resting on in-between ledge of a
mountain-sized twilight of well lit shadowy haziness,
edgy dark brilliance, a comprehensible contrast non-comprehendible
tunes that bless with equal measures of grief,
comforting, by memorable card flashes of good relief,
a dividing line, hazy and frequented crossed, a sort of path,
with no destination signaled, as if the path itself was an end,
to a meaning, a solution, with no clarity divined, a division
of sight and insight, providing an ill fitting reconciliation
mourning is electric, morning is electric,
letters, words bottled up in evaporating perfume bottles,
seeking the comfort of dissipation unto a larger atmosphere,
the scent in everything tangible, stronger still yet, in intangibles
that can erode but never ever fail to return instantly when voked,
by vision, odor, a particular child’s smile, line in a poem volunteered
recovered, uncovered, a post first writ to be written, discovered,
when time and place coincidentally breathe together, at last,
beckoning you to places where memory serves only as a pleasuring,
upright mind marker, decorated in chains perpetual reforging,
absent pain, gleaming dreamings full-replacing longings for pasts,
new verses composed, passing, a grand addition to a child’s legacy
May 18, 2019
May 18, 2019 at 8:50 AM UTC
Urns and odours bring away!
Vapours, sighs, darken the day!
Our dole more deadly looks than dying;
Balms and gums and heavy cheers,
Sacred vials fill’d with tears,
And clamours through the wild air flying!
Come, all sad and solemn shows,
That are quick-eyed Pleasure’s foes!
We convènt naught else but woes.
3.3k
My eyes were hooked on to the West
Feasting on the riot of colors the sun had cast
I stood dazed at an experience blest
That any poet would treasure with zest
By chance I glanced at the river below
It moved like an overloaded carriage slow
With floating weeds and ***** *******
Reminding one of an ugly heap of trash
I saw partially submerged bottles bobbing on the surface
Gradually filling with ***** water perforce
And slowly sinking down to rest in peace
With their sunken brethren at the river base
Spill of oil glistened iridescent
On the face of the river florescent
Its water was far from clean
But had turned murky green
On the still surface was a layer of ****
Like rancid butter annoying anyone’s calm
Reeking smell of rotten fish and mulch
Entered my nostrils with an obnoxious stench
I closed my eyes and turned my head
And looked away from the river bed
I thought of man’s callous audacity
In assaulting Nature’s pristine vitality
I heard the river’s rising lament
And me it did acutely torment
Any sensitive soul would be left grieving
Seeing the river in such agony heaving
In the far horizon, the sky had grown into flames
I wondered if Nature was mad at man’s tall claims
Suddenly I saw with the eyes of a seer
That Dooms day is drawing near!
Oct 30, 2016
Oct 30, 2016 at 8:58 AM UTC
Why were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo's calling,
Or when grapes are green in the cluster,
Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
For their far off flying
From summer dying.
Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples' dropping,
When the grasshopper comes to trouble,
And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble,
And all winds go sighing
For sweet things dying.
3.2k
The silence always seems so loud
yet never says a word
Your voice I hear is a beautiful sound
yet a screaming, horrible dirge
The things I see are hard to describe
yet easy enough to tell
That all I want is to feel alive
in this world meant for hell.
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 10:41 PM UTC
Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river.
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung!—
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—
A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.
“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her—that she died!
How shall the ritual, then, be read?—the requiem how be sung
By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?”
Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!
The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride—
For her, the fair and debonnaire, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes—
The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon her eyes.
“Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a paean of old days!
Let no bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the ****** Earth.
To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—
From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven.”
3.1k