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...

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Something Wrong,
I Hold My Head,
Harambe Gone,
Gorilla Dead....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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"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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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
  ...

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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...

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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....

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Final Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

Sleep peacefully—for now your suffering’s over.

Sleep peacefully—immune to all distress,
like pebbles unaware of raging waves.

Sleep peacefully—like fields of fragrant clover
unmoved by any motion of the wind.

Sleep peacefully—like clouds untouched by earthquakes.

Sleep peacefully—like stars that never blink
and...

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"I follow the Moskva
and down to Gorky Park-
listening to the winds of change" - Scorpions

All the heads of state and their spouses (or significant others) have arrived and been seated for this, my last show at Gorky Park, here in the heart of Moscow. For...

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