Best Elegiac Lyric Poems

Verse 1

His coat is torn his 
shoes are thin
The cold cuts deep beneath his 
skin
Little boy coughs small 
hands that shake
Winter's breath is much to hard 
To hard to take. 

Verse 2

Sidewalk echoes silent 
prayers
People pass but no one 
cares
Cardboard kingdom borrowed 
time
Every step is...

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  "Loved you then.  Love you still. 
Always have, and always will."

                 _ from a song by Nana Mouskouri
__________________

I spoke to mother last night in a dream,
it...

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I. Sighting

I saw you  
through refracted light-  
a prism of chance  
splitting ordinary into spectrum.  
Wind-tangled hair  
terra cotta and rosemary beneath your nails  
the scent of soil and citrus on your skin.  
You carried mysteries-living things ...

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DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, WILLIAM CASON GODWIN / 1931 - 1998

My voice is weak, my hand falters
As I attempt to speak of my Father.
Each night sleep takes me, then truth awakes me –
My Dad is gone, now dead.
My heart hears this from my head.
Wrapped in...

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In the world  of all comforts,
In the world of absolute care and affection,
In the world of motherhood.
Ten months I was basking, in my mother's womb.
Happiness running down my spine – I thanked God,
His blessing in disguise, rather he in disguise – My mother,
Who is...

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At twenty weeks      they saw the light—  
two daughters  Esme Teresa and Elle Norma    
            wombed in delight—  
before the room  
...

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On a sultry, sizzling July day
I swear it happened just this way
In a tidal pool, a lifeless seahorse lay

He’d not galloped to meet his fate
But was caught in a wave’s cruel wake
High tide retreated, closed the gate

Oh, to have seen him in his prime
Not corralled...

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Dedicated to Kyle, My Darling Son
A kaleidoscope’s blossoms are not as awesome
as my child at every turn; watching his silences – 
I burn, watching his movements – I yearn.  
I learn love's wonderment watching him discern.  
Toddler-boy loves me content with innocence and...

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I lost you out there.
You never came on home.
I called for you and I called to you,
but you never came on home.

I lost you out there,
in the bushes and the brush.
I called for you and I yelled for you,
but you never did come home.

Don't say...

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As yellow leaves wither in the autumn breeze,
only apathetic thoughts remain 
in this nonchalant existence of 
my diseased body and over the hill mind!

It reminds me a time of agility, 
A time of struggle and celebrations,   
An age when dreams of a better...

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They have command on me
my posture has been so
since birth and even now
a grown up, no change
The back has followed
the legs are going there
why can’t a guinea fowl
produce  penguins, swans?
Why is choice in nature
so elusive, so limited?
Why can’t I become really
what I admire in...

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Hullo, folks!
Do you hear me?
You didn’t hear me when I was dying.
At least hear me now, when I’m dead and buried.
I am, as you know, Jinesh, 
Buried  here—in this churchyard at Poonthura,
Buried on Sunday—
Like Solomon Grundy!

I did hear you when you were crying—
During the...

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These little children seen around
Have something in them mysterious
That thing adult cannot understand
‘Cause they are too child-like to impress

These little children play and conflict
They cry, get angry and mourn in unison
Yet a thousand times they love and play
Even when conflict has been too much

These little...

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You would never know me,
But a theme you were of my dream,
Filled by love to the brim,
Unfulfilled that withered like cream.

You would never know me,
Nor my rose petals in your book
I chanced to have a look,
Loveless that dried up, a lost brook.

You would never know...

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Translation of Les Moulins de mon Cœur-THE WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND by T. Wignesan

(For the orignal text in French by Eddy MARNAY : see here below. The English version by Marilyn and Alan BERGMAN differs considerably from the French original, but arguably it could lay...

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