Best Dirge Poems
Play Not A Dirge When I Am Gone
Play not a dirge when I am gone;
light no candles, not even one.
A treasured poem would be enough
to mark my end when curtain’s drawn.
Hold no sad wakes to honor me
some happy poems, I’d rather be
recited on a night for friends
then spread my ashes o'er the sea.
And wonder not nor be afraid
if less of love you have conveyed;
you’re part of me and that’s enough,
while life’s not fair, I’m not dismayed.
If comes a time that you remember
that one fine day in November,
then send a kiss toward the sea
and just forget this fly in amber.*
When I Am Dead My Dearest
by Cristina Georgina Rossetti
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
*fly in amber - noun, reminder of the past
No More Masks Contest
Sponsor: Catie Lindsey
Something Wrong,
I Hold My Head,
Harambe Gone,
Gorilla Dead.
from: "Dear Men and Women", by John Hall Wheelock:
(in memory of Van Wyck Brooks)
"...I have learned it from them at last, who am now grown old
A happy man, that the nature of things is tragic
And meaningful beyond words, that to have lived
Even if once only, once and no more,
Will have been -- oh, how truly -- worth it."
We, the aged, often have borne
that ultimate separation --
death; or, worse for some,
banishment to dementia
or to a dreaded exile
at any generic "home"
where visitors rarely enter
and hurry to depart.
Left with our diminished
dim impressions, we all --
confused -- recall old errant
conversation, guided gossip
in half-remembered settings
to which we surviving few
paid scant attention. But now
those places, long abandoned,
all assume unmistakable
purpose: marking for us
the decreasing distance
from our individual fated
final final destinations.
You may as well put the shovel down
If you think this vivisepulture will be my end
I survived the suffocation of a small town
And I'll be damned if this is how I descend
Just another obsequious sycophant
And a supercilious, self-aggrandizing fraud
In this room there is but one elephant
And it will most certainly break down the façade
I will use the stone you try to bury me with
To build on top of your house a splendid monolith
Dead now, Jackie Walsh?
Smolderingly blonde like a strawberry,
protesting your stolen innocence; one snuffed candle.
So much promise you had, the favored cousin,
my own father loved you best.
All gone in an instant, one busy street, and one turn of the spoke
or hand at the wheel.
You could have been a draft pick or a scholar or a hired gun.
Go now to your brother Barry and father J.P., to cousin Jimmy Scanlon;
they sit waiting for you in easy chairs, sipping poteen.
Ghosts of Rawlings Avenue, let Aunt Madeline rest in peace.
I did not name my own son after you or your father consciously.
We drank the last can of Uncle Tommy’s Coors, all the way from Colorado.
It’s safe to share that secret now after 34 years.
Trading baseball cards by flashlight, remember, Jackie Walsh?
Staying up all night, waiting our parents and uncles out.
Their pot of Irish stew stirring and simmering,
their loud whispers sharp but glimmering.
Leaving them to point the finger at one another for all these years.
Passing the collection plate at Italian mass,
you knew the priest; we kept the silver dollars.
I have not really seen you since then (not even in my dreams),
except for a crazy subway ride
and a bank robbery, inside job, of course.
We all have a little larceny in our souls;
all to the sizzle and whiff of crackling eggs and Irish bacon.
I would ask where did you go, but I know it was that you stayed,
that little boy waiting for big brother's return.
Feeling jealousy and admiration for you at the same time,
then later, after, feeling lament for you and eventually contempt.
We could not fathom your loss because it was your own private property.
Stung to the soul you sorrowed and raged.
With tears on the keystrokes I offer this dirge too little, too late
for you now, to purge my own soul.
I missed you all these years, Jackie Walsh.
Sleep well now for this dream is over.
"I like it when it rains hard.
It sounds like white noise everywhere,
which is like silence but not empty."
-Mark Haddon
And so it pours again
Tonight. Not champagne—
Just a cup of hot coffee
To drown what we used to be.
To the melody of white I weep,
Lying here so close to sleep;
With wet wings that can't fly,
Soaked clothes that won’t dry;
Rain that won’t cease:
Pain that won’t ease.
(29/5/2013)
Whorls of smoke mock the void of the heavens; in a wiggling ascent
With lusting waists of a samba decent.
Turmoil combs the fragile mane of the soil
The scalp is torn and leathery fingers of dust rest against the helm.
The stench of burning tires staggers on its knocked feet.
Embers are peach, ashes are red; a jihad is ablaze.
While ceasefire less sure-fire, birthdays wis deathdays;
Missiles are fireflies, explosions are lullabies and cops are corpses.
Life lays under the belly of the drone
And Islam feels a bending moment about the fulcrum of redefinition.
Fathers rot in the mild stomach of war;
Mothers drought in barren maroon eyes;
The succulent chaste vines of daughters squashed for concubines;
Cheerful flames of innocence choke in lanterns of caliphates,
Quills swim in ink, wrists are steady and boys are authors of death.
A realm lit with dead air, no heirs
Human rights lay in mass graves
While death and her cousins dance in a masquerade.
Soils are rich with the blood they sip
Walls bleed on in reds of graffiti.
White phosphorus rains, post traumatic stress reigns the rainbows.
Wings are spread and the tail is cocky,
Tides are breathing and the black flag wafts on,
With flickers of pride darting off its white scribblings.
But the drone cuddles its belly, licks its fingers,
The drone burps as the flag wafts on.
Comes winter with its icy blast
Across the land thy death shadow cast
Life purged by thy soulless wind
With thy sting of death thou doest offend
Thy snowy shroud upon January’s cold ground lain
Bitter tears of crystal ice now rain
Naked branches broken and battered in sorrow doth wail
amid thy northern gales.
Woeful Winter Dirge!
May the southern breeze push back thy artic surge
O Scourge of the seasons release your icy grasp
May the sun shine at last!
Sad war torn country
rolling hills spattered with blood,
lush green grass, to mud,
brothers marching off to war,
sons running off to their fate.
Fair thee well she said,
and kissed him upon the lips,
return to me love,
“Fair thee well my sweet Michael,
Fair thee well, fair thee well now.”
High upon the banks,
is where she lost her lover,
a hero’s ending,
though no comfort does it bring,
years ago, she mourns him still.
Softly she sings there,
as she lays upon his grave,
softly she cries there,
“Fair the well my sweet Michael,
Fair thee well, fair thee well now.”
And I don’t understand
As I lay here in bed
The words in my head
The words of the dead
As I lay here in bed
And the marching band plays
To the rhythm I say
In the cold of the day
The rhythm I say
As the funeral band plays
I say good bye to the world
For I never understood
Was love really good
Did I live as I should
I never understood
The perceptions of this mind
What was lost ill never find
Was this life ever mine
Was fate ever kind
The perceptions of my mind
And they play on and on
Forever the song
In a key that is wrong
On a day that is long
As they play on and on
the clouds cover the sky
Hiding the lie
That we all must die
No matter how we try
In hiding the lie
The ghost tolls the bell
To the black gates of hell
I stumbled and fell
In the blackness called hell
To the toll of the bell
Reaching up a hand
To the living land
Choking on sand
As I grasp with my hand
The life of the land
Joining in the choir
The chorus is fire
Death! called the cryer
As the flames rose higher
To the tune of the choir
All pass through fire
The rooster dares to crow
as the reaper reaps and sows
tender souls of human life
upon this earth full of strife
Before the breaking of dawn
when void shadows lie to fawn
a righteous seed will stand a price
denying this cock from crowing thrice
The sick sickle that reaps this seed
shall live before our Sun to bleed
as spored seeds do solemnly fall
awaiting the suns righteous call
Though these words may hit and run
leaving a mangled poetry as fun
the Sun approaches vengeful and bright
bringing all our hidden works to open light
Adieu Dimgba Igwe our voiced seed
your bloods wailing call, angels shall heed
Autumnal Dirge
(One of many possible translations* of « Chanson d’automne » by Paul Verlaine)
for Sandra Feldman
Drawn out sobs
Violins
of autumn
Wound my heart
Through a languor
Monotonous
Hardly breathing
And turning wan, when
The knell tolls,
I recall
Days gone by
And I cry
And I have to leave
With the unwelcome wind
Which bears me away
Here now, there then
Much as a
(Wafting) Dead leaf.
• This is as close to a literal translation as I can get, for I do think the original visual structure ought not to be disturbed and as long as the poet’s « meaning » (Intentional fallacy/Affective fallacy notwithstanding), if any, be not overly distorted.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
They are all gone, long gone,
Crossed beyond the great
Rubicon
Yet echoes of their names comes
and goes like a beacon.
Imagination playing on my senses
I am ready to accept the unreal
Dumping the surreal events deeply
buried,
In memory crevices that don't
breakdown.
Echoes of a dirge refusing to fade
away;
Thrusts from the past to the present
as in a cascade
All playing on my imagination's
facade.
Voids so deep, time lingering
to have its fill.
Past and presenting a mix of
bittersweet thrill
Lamentations ever persistent none
to succour.
A daily scourging of the present living
none to favour
Transition of my friends the hereafter
on my mind.
A thin line between the great divide,
a Rubicon to find
Echoes in a Dirge.
(Written 16th January, 2016)
If I had never known you now
I wonder who I could have been.
A word my soul it haunts, it’s “How?”
How could it be you, you so green!
When you get to the other place,
Make sure one day you recall me.
God, do grant you His thankless grace,
For ghastly you left, you’ll still be.
My thought keeps a picture of you,
Which to no one can I describe,
God, don’t do me as You could do,
Wipe out every curse from my tribe.
The other place which you now face,
Keeps me brooding, “How could that realm be?”
Then, how luckless the human race,
And that no one’s free, even me.
The man
with the scythe
is having his way
with your day.
You think it's no 'biggie'?
It's like the coins
in your Piggy-
you counted eleven,
he calls it seven,
says he's the brethren
who delivers you
to heaven. His is
the power that
monitors your
hour.