"valedictory" poems
Ignorances innate wove curtain of veils
Cut usunder heretofore obscuring
Bodhicittas valedictory wintry gloom torn
Of enlightenments will factioning the
Silenced mammonish city kingdom truced
As the wings of Azrael clinch
Earthly thistles; monolithic raiments
Deposed Hull, Hell and Halifax parcae
The willowing of light unfettering Fenrirs
Durance, howling aconite psalms suspiring
Suffrage relict paving with mewed stars
Redemptions tithed talents bequeathed
Of Heavens sinister prayer burning
Acinta dusts thine ashes threading
The wilful sword of Gods destruction.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 8:44 AM UTC
Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.
Where do the black trees go that drink here?
Their shadows must cover Canada.
A little light is filtering from the water flowers.
Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:
They are round and flat and full of dark advice.
Cold worlds shake from the oar.
The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.
A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;
Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.
4.1k
the priest, whose tomato face looked like it might explode under collar tension,
gave the valedictory at the friday night execution
the yellow-toothed, combover'd serial killer buckled in electric chair
kept staring at the door, expecting an ally to crawl in late but not too late
the mother of one of the victims rattled on about
how she didn't care that the killer had an allergy to the anesthetic used
in lethal injection he's going to die either way what's it matter?
buzz of fly crack of rolled program against empty folding chair
(yes, there were programs, and whoever laid them out knew their typography)
buzz of fly raised upward, toward the black, magma-cooled ceiling
audience chin up, pupils circled fly as the priest droned on
about everlasting life like a Paul Simon song from his youth
like a catcher's mitt from his youth like a youth from his youth
the boyfriend of one of the mothers of one of the victims
said he was hungry pancakes sound good, don't they?
I love it when syrup gets on the bacon, you know? love that.
a pudgy guard with bleary eyes and 12 a.m. shadow
rolled his index finger lowered his brow, telling the
priest to wrap it up so the priest wrapped it up
by reading the names of the victims
Tara Barnes, 17, Rachel Lythe, 10, Julie McPherson, 13,
Serenity Strongman, 15, and Mary Beth Williamson, 13
the priest said something about judgement as
the boyfriend of the mother of one of the victims
took another swat at the fly missed
any last words? the priest asked
where's James? the killer asked, he was supposed to be here
did you guys give him the right time?
the guard nodded to a lab coat by a black box
then a hiss then a hum then an inhale
the first jolt of alternating current for
instantaneous brain death
hard to tell if they succeeded in that
for the second jolt came only a moment
later this shock's aim to fatally damage
the internal organs, overstimulate the heart
and the killer's face looked like a horse's leg
then an exhale then a hum then a hiss
and the killer's face looked like the crinkled
skinmemory of a cicada
it was late most of the best restaurants already closed
but we could go to that diner off 63rd, the boyfriend
of the mother
of one of the victims, said
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 1:07 PM UTC
I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being pass’d away.—Vain sympathies!
For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish;—be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith’s transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.
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*Some of my best friends are
The tiny grey cells in my head
For, without these tireless givers
I should sorely want*.....
For I've had.....
The power to recognise the nurturer
Who saved me countless times
Who sewed my confidence at valedictory
Gratitude to Mother...granting me first wings.
The help of a few friends with proffered lifts
Not many, but enough to light the way
Takes but one spark to lead the lost
Cannot discount the value of true goodwill.
The sweet taste of that first, deep love
Who showed the path to discovered delights
Easy mem'ries...looking back, but ****** ahead
Sighs painted on the ceiling in dreamy webs.
The awkward trip down that rabbit hole
Blue lady hanging pretty in the corner
Flies trapped flimsy, on some terylene
Many padlocks loom....to get gasping to you!
The chance to slough off onerous habits
Dive wholehearted into the universe's sea
Gaps to kickstart joy and spearhead cheer
Mentors pass the torch and believe in me!
Yes, some of my best friends are NOT seen
Most reliably spun inside this osseous shell
They answer things and help me find my truth
Thank heavens....selfless amity equals mercy.
S T, 29 June
Jun 29, 2013
Jun 29, 2013 at 10:15 AM UTC
My liberty lies in my history
My slippery ascent to be known
My silvery, glittery, valedictory victory
My injury all my own
My inwardly jittery liturgy
Mixed up with witchery and trickery
My history is not HIS, my history is my own.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 9:42 AM UTC
The demon fly hath landed now intent upon it's task
**** Demon in its valedictory explorations grasp.
Embedded deep in kidneys, to cause me some concern.
A painful path to endgame and a Hellish lesson learned.
I pause a moment, think it out, it's one way or the other
I lost a mate the other day and last month, lost another.
Seems it is the season for the cataclysmic time
I'd rather it be elsewhere but I fear this one... is mine.
I've run a rough and winding track these rugged years of yore
Pulled the Dragons tail in jest and sought, yet, for more.
Rafted mighty rivers and flew the heavens high
And lifted my perception winging vaulting, clear blue sky.
I've known the velvet touch of love, the softness of her lips
The crash of waves on sandy shore caressing fingertips.
The swelling joy of childbirth, the pledge of mothers milk
And rock like bonds of marriage binding all within its ilk.
With thoughts a million miles away I've trudged this country lane
Pondered why, with voids approach, it engenders me no pain?
Wondering why it matters that the children shed a tear
When saddened, glancing passing eyes, are never really near.
Regret I'll never get to see my grove of rhodos bloom
Or sip the soothing whisky as I tap my toe in tune.
Or launch into the crazy surf and splash out to the rock
Nor lie in sun on baking sand admiring talent flock.
Meat pies with sauce at football with a cold beer in the hand
And the repartee with kindred minds in poetry unplanned,
That flash of inspirations' alliteration sprung
Brings the joy to mind of comradeship in Shakespeare's realm, unsung.
.....And then there's all that's left undone, the words, now, left unsaid
The notes of tragic violin hang in the air...unbled
And you there with the swimming eyes, what do I say to you?
It's all been grand, I kiss your hand....Adieu , my friend.... Adieu!
M.
Foxglove, Taranaki
New Zealand
20 October 2020
Oct 20, 2020
Oct 20, 2020 at 12:21 AM UTC
Trundling through the Room of Word,
The crude remarks and the young absurd,
They come an go, no valedictory speech,
Just to and fro, a vestige for each.
So I sit and I stare, with a nihilist prayer,
And I ***** my heart to the sticking place,
Left alone in the quietude, left alone in a private mood,
No crude remarks for a tired face.
So I sit and I stare, yes, I sit and I stare,
screen boring me holes for eyes,
I wait and I dare, my words in the air,
The atmosphere sets and dries -
The atmosphere sets and it dies.
I'll wait there, 'do something, accompany me'
I'll wait there, like waiting for a train.
But once I've waited, no latened, loving response belated,
I tire of this melancholy station,
I'm alone in the Room 'o' Words, my company split to fifths and thirds,
It's time for another, emotional vacation.
Jul 10, 2012
Jul 10, 2012 at 3:58 PM UTC
In pigeon light
this damp day
settles itself
into lamp-room grey.
The trees intone
farewell farewell:
An autumnal valedictory
to reluctant leaves.
Yet a few remain
bold coloured
*Porphry Pink
Fox Red
Fowler
Sudbury Yellow*
hanging by a thread
they turn in the stillest air.
Then fall
Then fall
Nov 22, 2012
Nov 22, 2012 at 2:07 AM UTC
Its name has a warm ring
yet is the coldest place on earth,
so cold, moisture freezes inside the nose.
A mere sneeze can project a spray of silvery crystals
scattering like stardust.
No tintinnabulation sweetens the ears.
Sound falls dead like a grounded lark.
Conversation has an icy chill.
Life here exists with no excuses.
Slippery slopes bear no blame for
never reaching your destination.
Brutally bound to the flake white canvas,
existence is forceably cohesive.
And if you ever chance your arm to quit,
a valedictory shake of the hand
will leave you in the grip of winter.
(There will be no husky rescue)
copyright © Caroline Grace 2011
.
Sep 21, 2011
Sep 21, 2011 at 8:57 AM UTC
Hoping to get to the volcano over there,
The volcano of truth!
The Mariners at work
And merry unceased,
I also fell in love in the middle of Titanic.
The crew seem not to worry,
But our creel fell!
We still aim at the verdant volcano,
A strange movement of sharks,
The vultures be the losers?
Then a sudden movement of wind,
The Mariners and master unrest,
Tabled emptied of hands,
Only left with cup of beers,
Time for valedictory speech!
The tempest against our nation,
Fighting our culture,
The volcano in our fantasy,
The truth that is afraid to show forth,
So we died In failure!
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 9:18 AM UTC
A torrid rumbling in my head
Chants for the making of a poem,
But no words in my head respond
To the hungry, chanting plea.
A brass rim hugs an acre of
A zinc ocean, no fish no birds,
Save an empty body, no soul no words,
Fluttering on a broken sea.
And lifting from time to time,
From wave to wave, a valedictory
Pallid hand in lieu of a grimace.
©LazharBouazzi (August 11, 2017)
Sep 11, 2017
Sep 11, 2017 at 5:46 PM UTC
I shouldn't have thought of it
Shouldn't have picked up my phone
Nor have told you I'm alone
But I did.
I shouldn't have said hello
Shouldn't have let you know
Shouldn't have said it
But I did.
I should not have told you
How I long to hear your voice--
And heard it above the noise
How my being so craves hue.
But I did, yes, I did
Because I miss you
But what you did-- that's what you did--
Didn't say you miss me too
As wreath of daisies wilt and dry
So do my heart shrivel and die
Drunken with rue-- spirit downcast
Tainted by blues painted by past.
I shouldn't have said it again--
Your cold reply a stab to I--
Rot this soul that's already sunken
But I risked-- a languid sigh.
I shouldn't have done it
Shouldn't have bid
My last 'I miss you'
But I did.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 7:59 AM UTC
He was That Guy in high school.
You know who I mean, That Guy
who scored the winning touchdown,
who won a National Merit Scholarship,
who got accepted at Yale and Princetown,
who made everything look so easy,
Who was voted best looking,
most likely to succeed, most athletic,
who got blow jobs from grateful cheerleaders
and even ****** Mademoiselle Marsh
the **** French teacher as a senior
the day he gave the valedictory speech.
Everybody knows some Guy like That.
He is the Golden Guy who will never rust.
Only This Guy made an honest error.
The country at war, he felt his duty
and joined the Marine Corps in 1967.
He left a leg at Hue during Tet
and won a bunch of medals, but
a very Different Guy came home.
Yale and Princetown were ghosts.
He rented a room and tended bar
and he could hop those drinks
faster than anyone else,
but mostly he sat in his room,
saw and spoke to no one,
spinning reruns in his head
and drank and drank and drank
until someone discovered him dead.
Twenty-four and game over.
Sure, you knew That Guy.
Sep 3, 2015
Sep 3, 2015 at 9:18 PM UTC
Ad infinitum
embroiled in another
waking moment with
a bated breath nothing like
this day inclined only to obfuscate
its meaningless joy of seeing yourself
in a pond swimmingly doubling the inertia
of the koi the day constricting within the verdigris
ready to seal shut in hermetic this vermillion eye
to wake up into a long-held confrontation
of what this system closes in a document
why bother this validation when valedictory
Ad nauseam
why bother this confrontation
when disappearance this space much like a long-held performance
if concert is hermetic in front of a nonchalant audience
laudable with no sound, an untranslatable music
unhinged from the inherent risk of felling
an inert day struggling like koi trapped
in a pond seeking what it is to transcend
or the multiplied joy of seeing yourself meaningless
ready for an eye to be caught in a monotonously
claustrophobic loins of a tremulous middleground
with no possible agreement other than:
this potentially demands an end
when beginning you are lionized
to a fault, repeated, trite: what for?
Jun 3, 2016
Jun 3, 2016 at 1:06 AM UTC
Air left to
rust when we speak
it now is the time
to postpone
gladly over a shining,
retaliatory absence
in search of a space
to shape a volatile figure
that was
a bridge
how, humming our steps
a valedictory
making staccato.
hurry before it catches
us mid-flow, profuse
with sustained harbors
but they cannot
see us here when they slit
us from our canvas, how?
all that radiates
expels us out of this
when no more; absorbed their
breaths boldly stuck inside
a body: a cage: a meeting: an encounter
a path dollies in perfect capture
frame by frame almost an ellipsis
the world tonight blackened
a gutter squalled by an unseen figure
darting across, eviscerating
the bargain: that in-between produced vastness.
Jun 1, 2016
Jun 1, 2016 at 4:12 AM UTC
The mirror talks to me,
it is
a prerecorded
valedictory
from me to me
head to head
reminders of the
lies being fed.
Well Hell,
I knew it, but
Alice got through it
so
why
can't I?
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 1:21 PM UTC
I see you in between the fragments of city lights. Neatly concealed in every nook and cranny, merging in various spectrums.
Eliciting a glimpse of epiphany, a struck of a nearly forgotten memory, playing in a solid second before completely vanished, perished among the fast cars and glimmering skyscrapers. The brief longing of our rendezvous furiously contradicting with our diminishing presence in each other’s lives, which frankly, is inevitable.
The notion of me having you in some part of my life was as tempting as having you in every part, yet every laugh reminds me to take what i get.
Again, i see your shadow slipping in the dimmed lights. Hesitantly announcing its appearance, of what i once treasured so dearly, disappear in a blink of an eye, clearly in the urge of fleeing away, in a dire need of vanishing, yet adamantly reminding me of the gentle slope of your nose beneath the soft glow of street lamps, emerging a twinkle on your orbs.
Nonetheless, i watch your silhouette skirting around the buildings, gradually decreasing as i walk further and further, every step reminds me to bid my farewell in a valedictory laugh which I’ve never been prepared.
Jul 15, 2020
Jul 15, 2020 at 12:29 PM UTC
Perhaps,
you will not understand
what it's like to give
a valedictory speech,
or what it's like to get
a college degree,
but I will never be,
whatever I might be
if you weren't there for me.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 10:33 AM UTC
this nation, fabricated upon their broken spines,
yet still, they gait on fragmented glass.
besought for their valedictory draught,
before the lynch with a knee,
"THUGS"
you, merely afraid,
"looting starts, shooting starts"
to resist the monster of your own making
Jun 3, 2020
Jun 3, 2020 at 12:27 AM UTC
This is a poem I wrote for Fr. Raph’s 90th birthday this spring. Last night - 29 October 2020 - he died truly in the fullness of years, in the prayerful company of his brothers at the Abbey, and so I re-send this as my poor valedictory for him on his happiest birthday of all:
Father Raphael Barousse, OSB
Abbey St. Joseph, Covington, Louisiana
Monk, Missionary, Muleskinner, Writer, Teacher,
Scholar, Raconteur, Uncle Bubby,
Friend
To God, Who Gives Joy to Our Youth
For Reverend Raphael Barousse, OSB
Father Raph - Uncle Bubby - on His Birthday
Introibo ad altare Dei
Ad Deum qui laetificat juvenitutem meam
You look into the mirror and ask yourself
“Who is that old man staring back at me?”
Your friends tell you you’re lookin’ good - for your age
And your uncooperative body in protest creaks
But you and all of them are wrong because
You still approach the Altar as a child
As you once were, and are, and will be forever
For God will have it so, will have you so -
Enchanted by His magic - a little boy
A little boy in Sunday shoes and shirt
Who hears his Mama whispering to him, “Don’t squirm!”
As the Mass hums through a summer morning
Until that moment when you encounter Him:
The universe spirals through its sunlit dance
Creation spins around, in, and down
Eternity circles the paten and cup
Miraculum
Eternity circles the paten and cup
Around and out and up, Creation spins
Through its sunlit dance the universe spirals
And only little children understand that
And only little children are invited
And so God gives joy to your forever-youth
And your forever-youth gives joy to God
Oct 30, 2020
Oct 30, 2020 at 2:45 PM UTC
To the Accompaniment of “Land of Hope and Glory” on a CD Player Piped to Speakers on the Artificially Turfed Football Field
“Here, sir, the people govern”
-attributed to Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and others
Beards flowing over beer-swollen bellies
Tattoos, tee-shirts reading “I’m With Stupid”
Knee-pants, hairy legs, knives worn openly -
And some of the men are dressed that way too
Bubba caps worn defiantly during the pledge
Cell ‘phones at full wail during the opening prayer
Too few genetic codes and too few teeth
Rattling loudly during the valedictory
And air-horn cousins out on probation
To lend some elegance to graduation
Jun 2, 2018
Jun 2, 2018 at 12:35 PM UTC
If suddenly it could have all happened differently
would you still want things to change?
Is it better the demons you know or
the promises of terrors to come?
Never satisfied and he died unsatisfied,
'unsatisfactory' was his
valedictory.
The telephone rang twice but it was a wrong number.
if I had not answered it the chances are
it would still have been a wrong number.
Feb 3, 2018
Feb 3, 2018 at 4:05 PM UTC
I reflect on what you look like now!
You were beauteous when I saw you last.
What precious gifts did time endow?
All those years of tranquil absence
As you slumbered away the time somehow.
I wonder if your eyes remain bright,
They always looked at me kindly.
I think that, if you're at home tonight,
I could give you a call ~ perhaps...
Or should I just simply write?
I expect that you smile as you always could;
Intriguing, enchanting, and toasty warm.
But you smiled for me today ~ I knew you would
(In any case I've misplaced your number).
I must be more careful ~ I know I should.
Do you think of me, perchance?
When days are long and nights are cold
Bestow on me a passing glance?
Think of times, now far away ~ distant?
A sombre time, a valedictory happenchance.
I should visit but what's to gain?
~ To see, now, how you are?
I could easily even cause you pain.
I would come soon, now! today!
But outside it looks like rain.
ASJ
Apr 6, 2020
Apr 6, 2020 at 2:59 PM UTC
(John Keats wrote much of the first line; I took care of the rest)
Where are the squirrels of spring? Ay, where are they?
Flattened by a log truck, just yesterday
When old enough to leave the family nest
They ran into the road, there flattened, pressed
Though cautioned by their wise sciuridaean sire
They panicked before an approaching tire
They had little time for a valedictory squeal
Before they died, so young, beneath the wheel –
So even if the old folks seem such a bother
You really ought to listen to your father
Mar 27, 2018
Mar 27, 2018 at 8:02 AM UTC