Best Coping Poems
there’s a silence somewhere that listens and hears
that feels all our pain through the gift of our tears
that helps us to see in that dark which we hide
by shining a light - lit by love - deep inside.
wishes keep us dreaming
dreaming keeps us hoping
hoping keeps us living..
living keeps us dreaming
and so it goes...
Good Sense Of Humour Blunts The Sharp Blades Of Reality Poetry
Contest //Sponsored by: Natasha L. Scragg
Contest Judged: 8/30/2025 4:27:00 AM
( 2nd Place )
Written: August 5, 2025
When life threw me a curveball,
I stumbled—then chuckled mid-fall.
Lumped knees, not pride, I wore like bent,
because sneering is something I've seen.
In chemo rooms and vestibules,
I frenzied dry jokes on aseptic walls.
Doctors simpered, nurses would beam—
a punch-line where the fear had been.
When agony thumped hard and sleep grew thin,
I let the silly light writhe in.
A meme, a whirl , a silly song—
made aching days feel less so long.
No, humour incurable or patch,
But it's the ally, not made to part.
It doesn't silence, hurt or truth,
but let me smirk with my aching tooth.
So here's my laugh, though life gushes beneath,
it's how I rise, not how I lament!
A little tomboy, covered in dirt.
Mud on her face and all over her shirt.
Taught by her dad ,how to build with wood.
Walked around in her jeans, a sweater and a hood.
Grew up to be smarter than they ever thought.
A classy women, handmade clothes,never bought.
After college her life really started to expand.
A job on computers is where she did land.
Later she fell in love, married in a year.
They bought a beautiful house,is what I did hear.
Standing near the window, often she would draw.
Her sketches are in the Art Building Of Shaw.
Intelligent,smart and pretty at best.
Now let me tell you the rest.
Like as many she struggled in her life.
Happy in marriage, an amazing wife.
Struggling with stress from a long time ago.
Depression and on meds, it started slow.
Taking a leave from her job for awhile.
Tears took over, it was hard for her to smile.
This could happen to anyone she was told.
Her husband standing close,his hand she did hold.
Talking with a doctor, getting lots of sleep.
Sharing feelings she held deep.
It wasn’t long and she started to feel good again.
Putting her thoughts down in a journal with a pen.
Later she created a book on how she got better.
I am an author and was honoured to have met her.
After sharing her story with me.
I want to tell you this,” I’ve learned what true inspiration can be”.
Such an amazing lady.
if you could last a day inside the body of
the lovesick-shell of a human
i turn into when i'm in love
i would applaud you
allow me to show you a preview first:
as one might think
loving someone and being in love are
two vastly different experiences
whereas
no matter how hard i try to avoid it
and no matter what outer influence tries to intervene
once my heart decides it loves a person
much to my demise and almost involuntarily
i will love you until my chest plate cracks
and shatters
and my heart is
hopelessly, yet hopefully
crawling towards you
if you were born into the hurricane
you learn to chase them
you learn to put yourself inside the eye,
because you’re strong enough to withstand it and you know it
you’re confused between boredom and peace so you opt for danger instead
because you don’t know how to love outside of the whirlwind
because what else do you know?
stuck in a loop of coming up with scenarios of what the future might hold.
coming up with an imaginary child that you love with your beating heart
thinking about how absolutely gut wrenching it would feel to watch her
feel and think and hurt
the way you are right now
baby doesn’t deserve that
you don’t deserve that
so why would you have baby in a situation with somebody that makes you feel like
you're standing in the eye of a hurricane?
because there was once sunlight
and there was once peace
and there will be again soon.
right?
When war, politics, prejudice and bigotry are encouraging me to hate
I take a moment to look around…then a love list I create:
I love my wife and my family…how family never ends…
I love that I’m surrounded by a multitude of friends.
I love animals and sunsets…how a sunrise paints the sky…
I love flowers, raindrops, dolphins…I love ladybugs and butterflies.
I love birds and trees and rainbows…
how a dewdrop glistens in the sun.
I love chocolate…I love ice cream…I love watching a river run.
I love the laughter of a baby…
I love kissing under the stars and moon.
I love that we have utensils…I love the knife, the fork…the spoon.
I love the wind…the way she whistles through the trees.
I love how leaves change color in Autumn…I love a summer breeze.
I love snakes and insects like the ants and honeybees.
I love that everybody in the world does not look or act like me.
I find when I take the time to look around and a love list I create…
the more I concentrate on love…the less time I have to hate.
I leave you with that final thought…
you’ll find from this poem I have departed…
but as far as making today’s love list…
well…
I’m just getting started.
Allergy Poem
Pollen, dog hair, mold and dust.
Make my sinus raise a fuss.
Headaches, itchy eyes, histamine.
Many a season I have seen.
Cough drops, tissues, little red pills;
Drug store prescriptions, druggist fills.
Hot tea, lemon juice, local honey;
I have spent a lot of money.
Allergies can drive you wild.
I've had them since I was a child.
Someday I'll walk through Heavens door.
Then I won't have allergies anymore.
Coping With Hard Economic Times
By Elton Camp
Each new generation was richer than the one before
But it looks like that will never be the case anymore
It seems young families might as well expect to see
What economists now describe as the “new reality”
Their parents came to have a house and a nice car
It will be hard for most young folks to go that far
The jobs that are available have become very few
And of a type that only minimal wages are due
Benefits largely have become a thing of the past
As have pensions that an entire lifetime will last
Many jobs that were available to Americans before
Have now be “outsourced” to some foreign shore
Most manufacturing plants have now been closed
So China can dominate the market, unopposed
Even if people, more are quite willing to pay
Little is found that has been “Made in the USA”
She cried her heart out in the shower this morning
Desperate, anguishing tears
Uncontrollable, convulsing sobs
Anxiety within was strangling her
Clenching and crippling
Incarcerating her into a frozen-like state
All the while
No one heard her cries
No one shared her suffering
No one knew how defeated she felt
How crumpled her courage was
How convoluted her coping skills had become
How much it was consuming her
Porcelain contours cradled her body as she wailed
Powerlessly...
Fearfully...
and...
Alone
July 25, 2021
I fancy that I am competent
To write on the theme of fear—
Only because I have spent much of my life in fear
And thus seem to know the emotion inside out!
Now, coping with fear
Is something like coping with the unknown.
For irrational fears, like phobias and phrenias,
The solution is probably to self-learn—
To remain positive,
Not only in thinking
But, more importantly, in feeling:
Most failures in this venture, in the past, are the result
Of some mismatch between the two.
Rational fears arise mostly
From having to face unequal battles in life:
Battling, for instance, with a wrathful, vengeful God,
Who is out to punish any poor erring soul.
But we know that to err is human.
A wrathful God trying to get even with a frail human —
That is something unimaginable.
The bottom line: God is
And will be what we take Him to be—
Because we are all after all participant observers.
And subtle are the ways of God,
Which cannot be easily understood
In terms of simple Newtonian equations.
This awareness should save us
From cognitive dissonance, if any.
Religion may put fear in me—of God,
Lest I should go reckless.
So I must guard myself against recklessness.
God, however, helps
The brave rather than the timid.
God is a Paradox, not Irony.
Then, why fear God?
Now, let’s not fear
Other unequal battles in life, either;
Be it with the spouse
Or the boss or ill-health.
The situation is like that of the (proverbial) mouse:
As a muse fearing the cat,
As a cat fearing the dog,
As a dog fearing the tiger and so on:
David vs. Goliath, Rama vs. Ravana, Child Krishna vs. Kalinga,
Nabi vs. False Belief, St. George vs. the Dragon,
Déjà vu!
Then, why fear unequal battles?
Poet Bharati equates fear with death,
And Yeats would call it death in life.
Let’s not be crippled—
By the so called Conscience,
Or Freudian Superego,
Or Eric Berne’s Censuring Parent.
Why fear fear?
***
Dew
Early morning
Grace like rain
Renewed day by day
Tranquility
COPING WITH POO!
Two young boys left in charge of a baby,
A recipe for disaster that’s no maybe,
Take baby to the local fair,
Without a care, they did dare,
Head for the whip, put baby on one of their laps,
She has missed one of her afternoon naps,
Is out of her comfort zone, she has a big poo,
It’s really stinky, now what do they do?
The stinky nappy angers more than a few
The atmosphere had a certain poo hue!
The whip, twists and whirls and twirls, baby’s nappy
Begins to come loose and baby is not happy,
She’s feeling sick, she vomits, and the nappy snaps,
Poo and vomit fly everywhere, poor chaps!
They run, the situation has now become crappie,
Most of the people are agitated and unhappy!
On the way out buy mom a sweater,
Thought she might favor them better!
Put baby to bed, she sleeps poo and all,
Still wrapped in mom’s new shawl!
On her return Mom saw her little angel asleep,
But also could see the poo that had begun to creep
All the way up to baby’s neck and deep,
Into her bed where it had begun to seep!
Mom got very cross at first,
But thinks of the nappy that burst,
She begins to giggle
And baby woke up, and began to wiggle,
Spreading the poo
Which had become like brown glue,
Into the sheets, the wall and her hair
So now poo was everywhere!
It became a hysterical situation,
Mostly from moms absolute frustration,
Go outside and play she said to the boys, shoo, shoo,
I have a great deal of cleaning to do!
The sun is up, another morning’s come--
The coffee’s brewed, the eggs and bacon fried,
The sky is bright, the birds are frolicsome—
On such a day, what sorrow could betide?
And yet this cheery masquerade today
Is, by my very reticence, belied,
As if I’m in some strange, absurdist play:
It all has seemed so pointless since you died.
And now I only want to grieve and hide,
Yet still, I know to do so’s a mistake—
I swore to you to go on, to abide,
And that’s a solemn promise I can’t break.
And so, my love, this further vow I’ll make:
That I’ll go on with living -- for your sake.
December 31, 2019
These scars run deep.
Underneath beseeching.
Motivated by lies.
Veiled inside eyes.
Holding gazes in so long.
Wrapped up in the songs.
Cycling lover's seasons.
Living singing treasons.
Given a million reasons.
Fighting betrayed meaning.
Breathing down goodbyes.
Trying and finalized.
Breaking apart openings.
Silenced beyond coping.
Ruining times of life.
In memory stealing strife.
a songbird beloved who moves with intention
will find themselves in times of trouble
mother mary on their bustier—
a sight for those with the privilege to see.
stands on a paddleboard oaring towards me.
embodies a world full of pain in their bones
and their muscles and mind—
the will of some force that’s beyond understanding
waiting for a note to attune to and decides
while they wait they will sing anyway;
it helps them to be.
i hope you never stop singing, my sweet bumblebee.
i enter the conversation with gentle movements
loving sweet nothings sweet somethings substantial
i love them i love them so radiant gentle
no one could deserve them as they sing determinedly.
we sit on the dock by the lake and share stories and
secrets and heartwants and troubles
and worries and stressors and loves
from the six years or three years or
too many seconds since we last communed with the
spirits of nature or aliens telling us
to save the planet and stop making bombs can’t we
all love each other we hold hands and
cry when we need to and lie on the ground and do
stretches and quietly sing and make tea.
we have faith the ginger and turmeric lemon and leaves will help
soothe the hum in the background of long covid—the chronic
experience—life in and out of high levels of pain
we’ve adjusted to, sleeping and stretching
a cascade of moves through the hours to assuage the
pain we express and choose not to repress
we decenter we manage we bargain with, converse with—
that we embody.
we choose to live life melodiously.