Best Cortege Poems
While a man was golfing in Fife
a funeral cortege was arife,
his head bowed in prayer
at this somber affair
to pay last respects to his wife!
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Skipping stones across the still quite waters
While as enclosed within these submerged thoughts....
Pondering this blanket of fogful mist alongst the path, have I tread and beared
As in time as in life as of recent days
Allowing shadows their moments somehow, someway?!
Lost amid the backwards brush of a translations, understanding....
Interpretations tattood upon my heart like an inverted crossing
Blood drenched quills soaked in cardinal red
Etched upon the caverns walls of what should have been said
These words this verse a world and then!?
Skipping stones from my very own Souls bleeding wounds
In gushing currents caught to seep through this they rent
Poisoned dreams; saturated walls aneath ripplings effects....
Rising dunes across quicksand deserts born in the mires; deeper and deeper
Into sedations daze as the storm clouds quickly gather above
Translations from these interpretations of, so called love?!
But how could this be and why I ask myself again
As the undertow of riptides begin to draw them in; further, into their sin...
Blood atop the pages to be extracted this breath of life
Life, that I have longed to embrace; to present
Spilled until its love had morphed into something bent!?
Stepping back from the edge now, upon this mountains cliff
The valley below amid chasteless darkness beckoning unto my Spirit
Calling from beyond; enticing tongues soaked in the stillness of, cortege red....
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....“Skipping Stones” ~
Over the west Sun dies, oozing blood,
The hillside glows in a ruddy blaze,
Pink and crimson fade slowly around,
And a pallid shade taints the twilight haze.
By and by, darkness descends like foggy mist,
Wrapping the Earth in a blanket of gloom
And God turns on his ornate chandeliers
To illumine the world in effulgent gleam
Attended by a cortege of starry maids
The Full Moon arrives in her glowing raiment
Evading the amorous presence of clouds
She enthrones herself before the royal regiment
So glad she is in her princely state
And in her fair mien, she takes delight
Bards and lovers have often been mesmerized
By such charm surpassing all that is bright
Beaming, she gives the night its nocturnal glee
Beckoning us heavenward to gaze and praise.
With benign grace and regal grandeur she smiles
On kings and clowns and on all the human race
She changes her contours with every unleashing night
Constantly renewing and reveling as a glamorous queen
She leaves the world aglow beneath the blue sky
Lending the night its unrivaled celestial sheen
April.13. 2022
A Brian Strand Premiere Choice Poetry Contest
The earth seems flat and Godot decided to arrive on the scene
Like a boil stuck on a pancake dressed as a trans gender carnival queen
He carries a prophecy written on a tag hung from his shoulder
Suggests Sisyphus had it easy on slippery slopes with his boulder
A Mocking Bird rears its ugly head on ominous spread sheets of doom
One Hundred Years Of Solitude and Paradise Lost for a safe tomb
No divine comedy but rather Robinson Crusoe's forsaken enclave
Bell Jar meets Darkness at Noon in a world neither new nor brave
Is the cute fluffy bear safe or lost on tracks near Paddington Station
Has Peter Rabbit met Alice while loo roles are the prize for the nation
Will the Famous Five dwelling in a cave of adventure survive the storm
Can Pippi darn enough stockings when isolation becomes the latest norm
A decision for the Little Prince is to whether to leave the planet in time
Would Momo kiss Benno the street sweeper or is it declared a felony crime
Tom Sawyer has to heed aunt Polly's advice and avoid Huckleberry Finn
Who puts genie back into the bottle when Aladdin's lamp shines rather dim
Surely there are more important questions to pose during epic disaster
Why do the marginalized suffer more badly than those who master
Has Donald Trump enough money to put more bricks in the partition
Can we blame Russians or Muslims or some other satanic mission
God forbid if the Monarch of Britain was to bite the dust in the crisis
Would it be a vile conspiracy theory to accuse Jihad Al Qaeda or ISIS
But the worst had to be watching a funeral cortege on computer screens
Or that socialists villains take over the country which is not what it seems
10th April 2020
she had lost the plot long before in an insane labyrinth of her mind
trapped in the rat race of high speed and the volume on full blast
incarcerated shackled and straight jacketed thumb screws and all
contorting denial delusion and psychedelic support to no valid avail
and the wall of her self-imposed prison was barbed with wire of pain
the maze of synaptic connections discharged commands of unreason
torturous wheels of cognition failed to balance fierce contradictions
twisting and hurting she succumbed to a myriad of fake solutions
turning the tourniquet tight to receive the message of brown sugar
winding serpentine paths misconstrued from temptation and promise
and still the garden remained a wasteland of intemperate indignation
she had fallen off the wagon so many times that the engine had stalled
sinews lay bare under a sinuous array of purulent scars and punctures
a tattered puzzle of perplexed bewilderment awaiting the ultimate shot
the heroine submerged in near namesake poison in face of the needle
as the epitaph neared completion and the funeral cortege proceeded
she prayed and surrendered to a white knuckling ride of withdrawal
dragons danced with cold turkeys on her tomb stone but they refused
to relinquish hope for affronted vultures puked at sight of her ghost and
she recalls near death experiences and abstinence as a miraculous gift
25th June 2020
I sit among the stones under a lowering October sky, longing to see more than others have seen,
And tarry where the hurried have passed.
And sit, remembering streets of earth, and hooped
Black dresses trailing the dirt.
And watch agape as a brief cortege enters the gate, and I
Follow quietly until they pause where the small recesses wait.
And as the mourners weep, I reach to comfort and they are no more.
DESPERATION V\S PASSION
Desperation gives you coup de grace
Passion leads you to reincarnation
again and again.
Desperation goes in vain,
Passion makes you reign.
Desperation takes you nowhere,
Passion is boulevard with future
to lead you everywhere.
Desperation is Satan ,to kill.
Passion is Jehovah,
makes you to live.
Desperation makes you to cry in pain,to loose.
Passion makes you to smile in glory,to win.
Desperation is cortege to life,
Passion is bar mitzvah of bairn to live.
Desperation doesn't take care of its preacher.
Passion take care of its preacher,
of its own.
Desperation in-signify you with lackadisical,
Passion signify you with alacrity.
Desperation is path of cowards,
Passion is path of warriors.
Desperation take you to addiction,
Passion takes you to sanity
to reach the soul.
it lies there alone,
one flower, on a coffin
that the flag once adorned
carrying the soldier home,
brave hero, an only son.
White roses were strewn,
when the cortege was driven
through crowded lined streets,
a flowered road of goodbyes
written in the rose of hope
April 7 2013
The last of the cortege had shuffled quietly away
leaving him alone to face the first of countless days
bending, threw one more handful of soil into the pit
a final act of closure after that it would be it
at the kitchen table head on hands with empty stare
half eaten cheese sandwiches not going anywhere
a life so rich in memories once so clear now just a blur
phone rang as he gazed down and saw the number
it was her
submitted to –'Brevity – The Short Of It ' contest
sponsor – Casarah Nance
Viv Wigley 8th July 2015
Haiku Strings
autumnal cortege
files in scarlet and orange
under azure skies
yellow evening beams
pots of gold across the grass
daylight early fades
saffron harvest moon
bewitches the crisp night air
catching earthbound eyes
9/18/16
On a Snow Full Moon
I walk the Path of Odin
Like an initiate I wear only a white robe
On a Snow Full Moon
I walk the Path of Odin
I am sacrificed
I walk through the city streets
followed by two attendants
two older Greek women in black
In my hands
I carry two red roses
they are frozen from the cold
But they lay dormant
in my hands
One rose is life
One rose is wisdom
The roses are the symbol of new life to come
in the Spring
I walked pass many people in a square
they are concordant off behind police barricades
Its the death of small child
Men remove her silver black coffin from a car
I refuse to look directly
But my inner knowing
said a small girl has died
I thought to add the two roses
to the funeral cortege
But I hold on to them
The small girl who died
is my own death
The death of my inner self-ego
the sacrifice of walking Odin's path
When I reach the end of the path
I am confronted by women and men
in apartment block
I share what little food I had with them
from my journey
I could feel the presence of a presence in the room
but no one spoke of it
But then something began to move inside of my body
Inside my right hand smaller objects started to move around
Impressions of words and symbols and images
And the words: ODIN IS ODIN
I ask a man did he know about Odin's spirit being here
He said that he protects us and
he ran away to report the news to a friend that I felt Odin
Then I rubbed both of my hands together
and Odin's spirit moved around in both of my hands
I shouted out with joy
I shouted out in laughter
ODIN IS ODIN
G oing to the store the other day
O n a bright morning I listened as
D rums pounded a slow cadence by a military escort.
B efore I knew, I was watching the cortege,
L eaving behind a dumbfounded crowd.
E verything I had ever known of war was
S ummed up in this parade for
S omeone unknown to me.
T ears misted in the air as he passed,
H eavy footsteps of the soldier's parade...
E verything precise for this farewell.
U nder a bright sun and blue sky
S olemnly they took him to his final rest.
A merica, the country he lovingly died to protect.
Danse Macabre
Twin Old Glorys jitterbug above the hoods as silent heralds; the motorcade
congas three-abreast along the Stemmons Freeway sleek in shiny chrome.
Long honks and short beeps unite in harmonious homage
to the office that cradles a nation in her oval skirts.
Dallas, late November blue sky framing puffy clouds, is a cabaret
bobbing in frenetic throb to the glam life-beat of its honored cortege.
As they swing onto Main, the image bounces off the dark glasses of the austere
men that line the parade route like lampposts, and beams to an adoring world.
With a blast and a life-tearing flash, a keen emerges from the
back of the shiny limousine that jumps through the light
implanting itself into the intimate memories of a generation.
The suits whirl about in impotent rage as the surge of flesh
undulates forward in grief, back in terror and commences a final march
while a distant freight train avers its dolor with a mournful whisper.
As night falls on a blood-soaked plaza the wind whips up and
the leafy trees on the grassy knoll sway a spectral dance.
By Jay Herman
For Nette Onclaud's Let's Dance contest
I attended a funeral service today for someone's loved one.
The room was full of garments of black, consoling gestures, and fond memories.
Tears were shed, sobbing was heard...but grief cannot be abated with only a word.
Attentive ears, as the prayers were said,
Hearts deeply saddened by the loss, could only remain heavy in their anguish.
Memories of life given, now taken away...by the Master who leads us all on the way.
The slow ride to that final resting place,
Passing through red lights, as thoughtful men watch the cortege in respect.
The last lonely place of stone...where all lay their burdens before the Master's throne.
A few last words of comfort before we say goodbye,
Sobbing will stop soon, as the gloves and flowers are laid gently down.
The hand of the Lord is shown again...as the petals are swept by wisps of wind.
In life there is death, for this is the rule.
It comes for us all too soon, and we know not how, or where, or when.
But in death there is life, this is the truth...if only we believe in God's holy proof.
The child born in Bethlehem so long ago,
Raised in love, with youthful days filled with child's play and a heavenly mission.
His Son to die so all could awake...to rise with Him make no mistake.
The morning has passed, the mourning has broken,
Not through the words, gestures, flowers, memories, or even the prayers.
Remember it was broken long ago...when Christ died for us, and then arose.
Time's flowing tributary; the future changes the past.
Our burial cortege concludes its course at the graveyard.
Falling leaves collapse, crafting new fates; feel the weight of dust.
Some are wagered in a pitcher with burnt bones and ash charred
We tread the twisting trails, yet in the end, all come this way.
The funeral site was bleak and hushed with death and decay.
Where death reigns and no one recalls who under earth lay.
I find peace in the abyss, grasp sky, and haze through the grave.
The woods are gray guiding the cars and assuaging the crave
Nothing appears in the night when it is too brief to save.
With outworn obelisk, only the moss knows the rent draft
You have rote recall for this wreath, yet no time in this yard.
Trusting that I would rest here, bereft of any rich ray.
Leaving behind all my hard-gained assets by a name waive.
1st Place contest winner
Written: February 22, 2023
Writing Challenge - G Words - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Constance La France
This poem form is the Fragmented Rhyme invented and Conceived by Constance La France. It has 14 lines with indentation, and a rhyme scheme, as follows: ABABCCCDDDABCD