Poems about Shadows and Darkness
These are poems about shadows, poems about darkness, poems about shades in the form of ghosts and spirits...
Shadows
by Michael R. Burch
Alone again as evening falls,
I join gaunt shadows and we crawl
up and down my room's dark walls.
Up and down and up and down,
against starlight—strange, mirthless clowns—
we merge, emerge, submerge...then drown.
We drown in shadows starker still,
shadows of the somber hills,
shadows of sad selves we spill,
tumbling, to the ground below.
There, caked in grimy, clinging snow,
we flutter feebly, moaning low
for days dreamed once an age ago
when we weren't shadows, but were men...
when we were men, or almost so.
What is life?
The flash of a firefly.
The breath of the winter buffalo.
The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset.
—Blackfoot saying, translation by Michael R. Burch
Leaves
like crows’ shadows
flirt with a lonely moon.
—Fukuda Chiyo-ni, translation by Michael R. Burch
War
stood at the end of the hall
in the long shadows
—Watanabe Hakusen, translation by Michael R. Burch
Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
translation by Michael R. Burch
Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased;
even when you lie underground, it encompasses you.
So, those of you who anticipate the shadows:
how long will the darkness remember you?
Hiroshima Shadows
by Michael R. Burch
The intense heat and light of the Hiroshima atomic bomb left ghostly shadows of human beings imprinted in concrete.
Hiroshima shadows ... mother and child...
Oh, when will our hearts ever be beguiled
to end mindless war ... to seek peace, reconciled
to our common mortality?
Where We Dwell
by Michael R. Burch
Night within me.
Never morning.
Stars uncounted.
Shadows forming.
Wind arising
where we dwell
reaches Heaven,
reeks of Hell.
Bound
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14
Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground,
I have lost what I once found
in your arms.
Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes,
I have remade all my chains
and am bound.
When last my love left me
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
The sun was a smoldering ember
when last my love left me;
the sunset cast curious shadows
over green arcs of the sea;
she spoke sad words, departing,
and teardrops drenched the trees.
Keywords: shadows, darkness, dark, night, sunset, winter, moon, stars, evening, starlight, despair, war
Copyright © Michael Burch | Year Posted 2024
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