"widowing" poems
St. Margaret's bells,
Quiring their innocent, old-world canticles,
Sing in the storied air,
All rosy-and-golden, as with memories
Of woods at evensong, and sands and seas
Disconsolate for that the night is nigh.
O, the low, lingering lights! The large last gleam
(Hark! how those brazen choristers cry and call!)
Touching these solemn ancientries, and there,
The silent River ranging tide-mark high
And the callow, grey-faced Hospital,
With the strange glimmer and glamour of a dream!
The Sabbath peace is in the slumbrous trees,
And from the wistful, the fast-widowing sky
(Hark! how those plangent comforters call and cry!)
Falls as in August plots late roseleaves fall.
The sober Sabbath stir--
Leisurely voices, desultory feet!--
Comes from the dry, dust-coloured street,
Where in their summer frocks the girls go by,
And sweethearts lean and loiter and confer,
Just as they did an hundred years ago,
Just as an hundred years to come they will:--
When you and I, Dear Love, lie lost and low,
And sweet-throats none our welkin shall fulfil,
Nor any sunset fade serene and slow;
But, being dead, we shall not grieve to die.
2.2k
What are you doing? I’ve been up all night listening to the earth moving,
I’ve toiled through the day without your light to illumine
And I wonder, what are you doing?
*You’ve not known even half this night,
It only feels so because it's burned on so long
And the days only feel darker because of my tempest turning strong
And you’re right-
Preparing day and night,
embalming my body with every chemical I can find
Carving and crafting a crypt for my mind.
Ending this torture, heavy,
A man in his mortuary
ready to waste this winding sheet
And feel the earth beneath my feet.*
Love, what do you mean?
You’re right in front of me, I could reach out and touch you
Or couldn’t I touch you, only a ghost of my dreams?
*No, dearest.
Between this cold and you, it was the cold that was nearest.
Your love could not yet try to interfere it,
I could hear it.
A whisper calling me forth,
It's time I bury whats broken, redeem my worth,
And build myself new.
But to do so, is to do so without you.*
So a ghost not yet, but a ghost to become.
Widowing beside your tomb
Wanting to exhume you
But the better part of me will let you rest
As long as the flowers held against your chest are perennials.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 1:23 AM UTC
It’s simple, speaking in terms of evolving
You have babies, infants, helpless little beings,
Just being and needing.
Children; there they are playing
Laughing around, giggling, crying,
Launching tempers towards wanted things,
Meaningless flings with people they won’t know soon,
And all their knowledge now
Turns into nostalgia tunes.
Adolescent phase; hormone filled
Feeling alienated no matter how hard you try,
Your awkward body won’t be for long,
Please, do not cry.
Adult hood; my how fast it flew,
You didn’t think you’d see marriage within those two
Lot’s of regrets, and down turns you might have missed,
Block it all out, attend that grocery list.
Not so new anymore, fragile
Acceptance gained
Widowing a loved one brought you great pain
Although you had your fun,
it’s time to recycle yourself, death’s best
It’s alright to forget, now go on and rest.
Jun 6, 2010
Jun 6, 2010 at 4:26 PM UTC
grateful to the grave
I plank right out
my bed a cross pounded
foundation of maul emotion
fast out kipping
not in keeping
a widowing and not a kingdom
milling out gawping
a fish mug
tourists chugging at the gallows
dread heaves ugging repulsions
my sleep is a gagging panic
livers of the hours
the minutes are a live toil
difficult digestions
the sour beat n' breath
a particle flecked arena
this slumber is harmful charge
(a battery matter)
capable of a faulty
reversal of surge
depleting sleep
not a springtime emergence
ejected from the unconscious
: a drained agent
reduced and submissive for duty
Sep 15, 2021
Sep 15, 2021 at 10:14 PM UTC
The piercing thrum
Of life begun
A song that doesn’t cease
Irregular strums
Of hearts undone
Heavy cries released
The battering drums
Of those unsung
Will never be appeased
I sang for some
Their bleak souls wrung
By what my voice would tease
A hopeful hum
Bright as the sun
A chant that promised peace
I cried for none
For I was one
Whose song was one that ceased
Now hums and strums
And thrums are done
All sound is now deceased
Mother to violence
Widowing silence
And no one left to speak
Oct 18, 2020
Oct 18, 2020 at 3:20 PM UTC
I looked in the mirror more than 10 times today
Fortunately i was still more or less the same.
I took a breath
"You are not ugly. You are not disfigured."
The voices have soon since been silenced by my persistence and repeated statement
"You look pretty just believe it."
Taking you back
Back to a time when time was not time
but merely seconds and hours
And lets not forget minutes
When the only reason i tracked it
Was so i could estimate how long it took
The blade to slide across my skin
The skin to open like flesh off of a peach
The blood to seep up to the surface and drip
The dripping to stop and that crimson substance to dry
Bringing you back to the present
When i track time so i know how long i can lie to myself for
Lie to myself before the real me shows up
Before the ugly rears its sightly face
In my head there's a masquerade ball
The masks are not fancy and embroidered
The masks are simply smiling faces
Laughing faces
Any and every face that to me
Is beautiful
However underneath them is the same
'Hunchback of Notre dame' situation facially and otherwise
Remember that time when you thought you were ugly
If ever you did
But someone made you beautiful
Forever that is
I still wait for that moment like a widowing wife waiting
Waiting to hear that her lover isn't gone forever.
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 1:57 PM UTC
Mother only had a father figure until '75
Only up to a few days before her first candle was he alive
A singular heart attack to cause multiple heartbreaks
Widowing a woman with four kids...they need to strive
Despite being born in '98, I only had a father since '12
Fourteen years of searching for a father figure; i'd delve
Chapters worth of excuses for disappearing, the nth book to shelve
Get in the bed like you get in the coffin
Supposed to have the last breath, but he's still coughing
Breath in, exhale. An accordion
Sign the accord, have the wealth be accorded too
But according to accusations, his health has been recorded too
Can't run, born acaudal. Bit tipsy off the caudle
Birthed with ton weights to the ankles
Non-progressive like he's earthed
Moral state, oral debate, heart rate
More slate, foresee hate, i'll wait
Dec 29, 2018
Dec 29, 2018 at 11:38 AM UTC
I could put my head in a noose
To set my thoughts loose
The one’s that must choose
To honor what mother hoped to produce
Or what freedom would lose
If I cut my tongue out with my fears
Between the time that naked bodies were born
And the sound of a terrifying horn
We learned of heroes to mourn
And enemies to scorn
Unknowing which badge to adorn
Would it be of laughter or of tears?
Men speak with assurance over destiny
Others mock those of certainty
While he buried his Father on Wednesday
Telling his best friend on Friday
Wondering why we walk so proudly
When we always lose no matter our years
The schemes of men immune to widowing their brides
Walking ashore as we lay, subject to the tides
That do not know the history of our lies
Or the spoken truth that only divides
While those who are weak must choose sides
And decide which voice it is that a saved man hears
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 9:02 PM UTC