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Best Bereavement Poems | Poetry

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Bereavement by Riley, Sandra
BEREAVEMENT by Strand, Brian
Bereavement by Chamatete , Kunda
Bereavement by Mosia, Matshidiso
An observation, a warning, and a reconciled bereavement by Cooper, Jessica
BEREAVEMENT by Larson, Paula
Bereavement Support by Ramage, Lee
Bereavement by Gelb, Michael
Bereavement by Johnson, Joyce
BEREAVEMENT by Larson, Paula

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The Best Bereavement Poems

Details | Bereavement Poem |

ADIEU UNTIL I SEE YOU IN HEAVEN - EMOTIVE WRITE

I know your spirit is finally free 
when I scattered your ashes yesterday 
Cancer has taken you away from me 
solitude is now the price I must pay 

When I scattered your ashes yesterday 
I said adieu to the love of my life 
Solitude is now the price I must pay 
I’m now a widow, no longer a wife 

I said adieu to the love of my life 
I look to heaven and I question why 
I’m left a widow, no longer a wife 
as seagulls circle in bright azure sky 

I look to heaven and I question why 
cancer has taken you away from me 
As seagulls circle in bright azure sky 
I know your spirit is finally free 


New Poems Only Contest
Sponsored by Emile Pinet

16 lines, 10 syllables per line

FICTION POEM WRITTEN FOR CONTEST

4/12/18

Details | Bereavement Poem |

Never Out of Season - A Short Story

I was wiping the dust off an old snow globe in the upstairs attic, when a mop of honey-blonde hair suddenly appeared through the wooden flooring.
"I thought I'd find you here," said the voice, warm and feminine. It was a lovely contrast to the thoughts that bloomed inside my head. The little red Santa smiling gaily, his gloved hand forever frozen in a wave. Truth be told it was over a hundred degrees outside, and up here in this cobweb-ridden place (by God) was practically unbearable.
But as I lightly shook the fragile keepsake I found myself dashing through the snow like I once did so many years ago. I heard the sound of high pitched laughter from afar, out in the sultry day (most likely the neighbor kids playing tag through a sprinkler-soaked lawn). But there, at that precise moment, I was taking the road before me, and singing a chorus or two.
"You miss him don't ya?" the voice broke me out of my thoughts, and for a moment I just stared at her as if she had a left over piece of spinach in her teeth. I nodded quietly in the silence and rubbed the smooth curvature of the glass with my thumb. It somehow felt cold, as if winter wonderland was still trapped inside.
I knew I hadn't stayed too long, though I knew my wife would be patient throughout this ordeal, however long it took. She didn't need to recite any famous sayings to pick me up, just her being there was enough. It was the unspoken truth between us, and it was always enough.
"Cody and Angie will be downstairs when you're ready to head out."
"I'm ready now. I was just doing a little cleaning up." It wasn't quite a lie. It was one of those statements we use to say one thing and mean the other. The attic was "okay", but I knew of more dire things in need of some organization.
Beth went down the ladder first, naturally. Then it was me, a bit awkwardly, still holding the snow globe. We both came into the living room, where our children sat waiting. Cody was playing some handheld video-game in his Hawaiian swimming trunks. Angie was quietly giggling at something her friend said, via text. Her blue bathing suit was barely more than a strap, and I knew I was this close from losing it. But this was a happy day, so I let it slide, just this once.
"Are you still not ready?" asked Angie.
I looked down at my blue work jeans and buttoned-up t-shirt. My wife gave her a fierce look, as if willing her to take back what she said. It didn't really matter though ... my emotions were spent.
"I was gonna change when we got there," I said, a bit defeated.
"Whatever." She rolled her eyes and plopped her phone right there on the couch. I just stood there like a lifeless statue, while my family got everything ready to head to the local pool. My wife was as patient as a snail, but the kids bustled about as if they've been down here a lifetime. Cody was mad when Beth took the game-boy from his hand, just before some big important checkpoint. Angie was calling Beth completely unfair for not letting her invite Tom over to come swim as well. My wife told her, "This is a family event, no exceptions, and for Pete's sake, listen to me for just this once!"
I just stood there, in quiet grief. Their voices were mere sounds, plastic and surreal, and I went along with it as if everything was alright. But it wasn't alright. The world was falling apart all around me, miraculously still turning, and I just stood there! Finally I reached for the doorknob, when I realized I still had the snow globe in my hand.
I looked at it longingly, with affection, and it came to me. A slightly crazy idea. Not the kind where it's life or death, but the fact that it was a spur of the moment decision, it felt totally crazy. I placed the snow globe on the mantel above the fireplace, where the glass caught the sun just right and the jolly Santa shone a brilliant red.
Allow me this simple pleasure, I asked God in silence. Let the neighbors gawk and smirk all they want. Let the kids think their father's going senile, thinking it's December and not August. I didn't care. I just watched the little flakes twinkle through out the water-filled dome.
I displayed it proudly, knowing that good will, kindness and love were never out of season. So I picked myself up out of my gloomy state, got inside the car, and slid into the driver's seat. "Alright, let's go!" I said cheerfully, and everyone looked surprised.
"Dad, is everything … okay?" asked Cody, from behind. But no answer was necessary. I just smiled, and looked across at Beth without a care in the world.
And since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

First Published in Dual Coast Magazine Issue #3

NOTE: I've written a few short stories, but this one is special to me. It was well received by my family, and I was so excited to discover it was accepted by a magazine. It was my first non-poem to be published.

Details | Bereavement Poem |

Parasite

==================================
The widow, dressed in glossy black,	
glides from the shadows at the back.	
A veil lies slack across her face	
to mask the grief her features lack.	

Possessed of an insectile grace,	
she sidles to the open case	
and like the reptile smile she bares,	
this too, serves to defile the place.	

Since jealousy insures she cares
less for his death than for her shares,
obsession next finds her engrossed
in leaving with the gold he wears.

A parasite, she'll man her post
and feed from this depleted host 
'til she believes she's bled the most
she can from his departed ghost.
==========================

Details | Bereavement Poem |

A Game Of Thorns - Collaboration with Maurice Yvonne



i heard a...what do they say...a spine chilling scream
...is that the saying?

a spine chilling scream
followed by

'he's dead, my G_d he's dead'

the phrase echoed 
inside the whole of me
like tennis balls bouncing between two parallel walls

i ran up 
aware i would be at the edge
where the road ends and the gates of heaven stand

saw a young man 
looked through the aperture of his existence 
looked and singed his eyelashes
looked and could not see beyond now

you know those beautiful fluffy white clouds
the kind that feel like large teddy bears that want to hug you
she had landed her very own- she cherished him
knew who he was
felt lucky they shared a mutual love 

i can't imagine the despair 
flowed through her when she saw him like that

his doughy complexion screamed volumes
breaking the thunderous silence
he was a pale grey, blank, empty
a sight impossible to process 

at odds with how one survives
the experience of this tragedy
she was lost in a dreamless mare

[most of the time 
life 
its outcome depends on the flip of a coin
if you don't know that you don't understand 
life
his coin landed on its side 
...all the kings men and all the kings horses...]

her 'beautiful huge fluffy white cloud'
had succumbed to the storm

heart in throat 
hesitantly 
she touched him
he was a frigid cold
for a moment she saw her own smokey breath

moving as if she was walking 
through the thick grains of unbearable pain
thoughts racing 
she attempted to make sense of the senseless

despair had grabbed her by the throat
shook her around like so much thread and fabric

she thought he might of seen life as futile 
society as a guise, as a failed paradigm 
thought he had reached the last motel on the road to nowhere
and just...checked out

depression 
the illness 
it's unlike any other pain
when it peaks
few if any survive it

the afflicted instinctively self medicate 
but street drugs are mean 

she could easily empathize 
she too was him

honestly she was tired of living in her sadness 
a life marinated in tears basted in blood

the experience of having seen her partner
lose his life to drugs and alcohol 
affected her profoundly 

experiencing his death
was like getting hit over the head with a sledgehammer 
she'd never wash it off
it clung to her like a pariah 

you can't wake up from reality 
and you can't sleep through it
the tragedy had possessed her sensibilities 
it was a malignant truth she could not ratify 
singular in its nature
unfathomable

she'd been blindfolded and spun 

a ballerina on a high wire across the span of time
spiralling down an infinite vortex

one plus one is seven
the ceiling isn't a celestial painting
how many fingers
a forty ounce of vodka
opioids a hundred times stronger than heroin
men in uniforms

and

and

...lost...

what happened?

less than two hours ago 
he could think- speak
he had his very own persona

now 

lying there

as

nothing

it could have been her
it could have be anyone 
but it wasn't 
it was- Him

what did occur to her

was 

the loss.

Details | Bereavement Poem |

My Sister Says

Listen to poem:

My sister says
               my father was a good man --
but, how should I, 
                        who never "knew" him
    (except as a far-from-good man)
          buy her stories?
                        Am I, the last child
   of that union, 
              too, too judgmental?
     Too far removed in time from 
                              what she knew 
    and now recalls?
My memory is of a different man, 
              who died when I was twenty-two:
       one rarely present, never talking, 
often jailed,
                      unsupportive -- 
  someone I really never knew.
He was no bearer of familial tales, 
              no imparter of the history
                       now I only wish I'd heard...
Obviously, I differ from my sister 
          about what constitutes a good man.
He never seemed to feel that he
      needed to provide basics --
                  food, shelter, clothing, health care --
  to his offspring -- and he almost never did......
         I do remember how he staggered 
            on the street,
                             fell off of curbs, 
sought shelter 
                       and often could be found
asleep -- or at least 
                  stretched out unconscious --
                                          in some vacant lot; 
how he foraged 
                  frenziedly
                                   about for beer, 
or only Gallo muscatel 
                          (thirty-five cents for the flask).
Should I not ask 
                what makes my sister think
                         I could remember him as does she?
In such a different light?
                                   As victim,
                                               and maligned
              by inlaws or by circumstance?
All I know is what I do remember,
               what I survived
                           when she and others,
 grown, were gone.
 
I do not think 
                that I can accept
                                 or change
(nor in absentia, forgive) --
                        and, no, I do not yet
                                                        believe
            what my sister says.

Details | Bereavement Poem |

Memories and Mourning


Trickle tender tears - those that take their time
born to bathe and baptize bereavement;
dew drops draped on fragile petals of forlorn feelings ~

aged and alone
senescent sentiments from sorrowful soul does slowly seep
to revive in rising rivulets of rhythmic release
emptying from eclipsed eyes
in reverberant regrets and reveries ~
retrospective reviews with resilient realism

offered to an overdue oldster oppressed by outliving others
reflections retrieved and remembrance retained
are gifts given from the gravestone-garden of growing grief
watered with wept woebegone wine
and cherished with chaste caressing care 
memories and mourning ~
hallowed in a harrowed heart



Susan Ashley
March 24, 2018

------------------------------


~ Second Place ~
Contest: Alliteration Poem
Sponsor: Silent One

Details | Bereavement Poem |

A Dylan Thomas State of Mind

A Dylan Thomas State of Mind

It’s precisely 2:45am...the time when
~ if I’ve fallen asleep ~
I always awake to find
Myself drenched in sweat.

I lie here beside my beloved
~ as I have so steadfastly since
16 November 2016 ~
Thinking about...wondering...pondering
The end of my existence.

I am not talking about
Taking my own life.
          NO!
I’ve seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelt
          too much...
I’ve survived too much, felt too much...
I value Howard’s sweet...sweet...
Nurturing soul’s devotion 
To keeping me alive these past 40 years
To raise my hand against myself...now.

I AM talking about these things:
     Where do we go when we die?
     Do I have a soul?
     Will I be conscious — at the moment it happens —
     That I am drawing my very last breath?

Sometimes, when I awake in the early morn,
Howard is motionless beside me
And I stare at his beautiful face.
Dare I reach out and touch it with one finger?
What if it’s stone cold?
His flesh heavy...dead?

Death.
The End of Living.
The End...The End...The End...

Last January I begged for surcease...
For an end to the pain...
An end to the physical torture...
An end to the psychic suffering...
The constant thoughts of:
        “Is there a Hell?”
        “Will I go there if I take my own life?”
        “What does ‘eternity’ mean?”

Now this morning of 19 October 2017
I am thinking...feeling...praying:

         Please...Please...Please...

         God/Goddess/All That Is/The Universe/The Spirit
         Make my neglected hated scorned body
         Healthy and whole.
         So I may live
              today...
                  tomorrow... 
                      next month...
              next year...

Do not let me go gentle into that good night.
I am alive now...
And I rage...
                   I RAGE NOW!
                                       ....against the dying of the light.
       

Barbara Dickenson 
19 October 2017

Details | Bereavement Poem |

Dark And Tragic, When Fate Sets Its Black Hand To Decide

Dark And Tragic, When Fate Sets Its Black Hand To Decide


Icy cold had invaded, her heart became a hard frozen tomb
Never again would she allow love to penetrate its new armored shells
That night she had seen one of death's many tragic and ugly faces
Its ancient mask, the one that crushes love's fever and kindness in a mere blink
Now she flows through a vacated life, on wings of sorrow's eternal flight
Awaiting a doom that her crushed soul welcomes in its dark and sunken state.

His death had been tragic, yet made for some of the most interesting news
All the clever twists and turns of an old Hollywood mystery movie script
So ghastly, his head found in the graveyard, atop her lover's white tombstone
His bullet riddled body found miles away in a cheap and tawdry motel room
Perhaps now he knows, how it feels to find Fate's eternal and deadly hand
In his well deserved doom, devil that had sent her into her dark and sunken state.

Robert J. Lindley, 6-30-2018
Prose, ( Tragedy In One Of Life's Screams)
Not For SilentOne's contest

Note : I rarely ever do Prose. Started with the plan to write for SilentOne's new contest but my muse took me ever onward and this became too long to enter.. Giving thanks for the inspiration but it does not meet the eight verse contest requirement.
So I post it now as it is and wonder why my muse so stubbornly refused to stop writing... She vexes me to no end sometimes.....

Details | Bereavement Poem |

The Last Gold Leaf

The last gold leaf hangs on the bough;
summer is just a memory now.
You, too, have gone, my golden friend;
our summer days came to an end.

We said goodbye; our chapter closed.
How I will miss you no one knows.
On eagle wings you split the skies;
your spirit soared. You had to fly.

My earthbound soul will bear its grief
severed from you on mortal reef;
but returning from yonder shore,
your love in waves will wash me o'er.

You've gone before, my trusted love;
I wait behind, your mourning dove;
yet, from across the great divide
your voice to me in dreams confides.

No, I think not that dreams they are;
but communion of the near with far.
On such sweet songs I stake my claim
to know and love you once again.

Copyright, 1987, Faye Gibson

Details | Bereavement Poem |

The Teacher of Islam

Islam is non merciful
Islam is about repressive means
Islam has no heart
Over and over this chant shall start

For when we close our eyes
For when we judge our fellow man
Chants may bring us comfort
However false is the ringing of the rant

Men of terror may fly their black flags
Claiming a merciful god orders them to kill
al-Shabab reads no holy books, be sure of this
At reckoning they will be omitted from Allah’s bliss

So let us now pay tribute and honor
Let us hold a tissue for a tear so well deserved
The blood of Islamic hearts shall surely open your eyes
As I myself bow, in despair at a humble mans demise

That day, both miraculous and tragic
Salah Farah, a kind man, now a hero
His Muslim brothers became the strong and the brave
For they followed the true teachings of Islam

Salah Farah has passed on from Gods bountiful earth
A Muslim of brave heart and generous soul
He stood up for the love of his teachings
No man he claimed, should defile his fellow man

As terrorists point their rifles
At Christians shivering in fear
Salah Farah and his Muslim brothers
Stood firm with all of humanity dear

Salah Farah proclaimed “we are all brothers”	
Let us do no harm
Let Muslims protect Christians
Let Christians protect Muslims

For we are one, no matter religion
No matter destiny, we must all hold true
To the values of compassion and love
As every Muslim that day, stood ready die

I proclaim, Salah Farah flew the flag of hope
His brothers choose love over death
The all Merciful’s eyes too had tears
His flock of disciples saw his message clear

Teaching
Mercy
Love
Compassion

Details | Bereavement Poem |

Tanka 2 about The Cherry Blossom and Life

on melting snow

first cherry blossom

withers too soon

mum ties pink ribbons

to the white casket




Or

on melting snow


first cherry blossom


withers too soon


mum  unties ribbons


from empty cot-bed





Inspired by Chris`tanka contest,not for the contest

Best Bereavement Poems | Poetry

New Bereavement Poems

The Best Bereavement Poems

She Wept In Languished Moan

ADIEU UNTIL I SEE YOU IN HEAVEN - EMOTIVE WRITE

It was Beautiful Yesterday

Laid to Rest

My Heart Beats For You

Caressed By Vines

Summer Rain

Still A Soldier

Soul mates solace

Je suis Charlie

The Last Call

That Was a Human

Do you remember me

The Crosses of Night

A Child's Prayer

Never Out of Season - A Short Story

Parasite

A Game Of Thorns - Collaboration with Maurice Yvonne

My Sister Says

Memories and Mourning

A Dylan Thomas State of Mind

Dark And Tragic, When Fate Sets Its Black Hand To Decide

The Last Gold Leaf

The Teacher of Islam

Tanka 2 about The Cherry Blossom and Life