Best Goodby Poems
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The jaw drops
as the lids of mine eyes
and mine dome
The whole procession
did hear these knees clap
with the stone
as the Elder read
"This is
her new home"
My hands spade the shovel - spay the rooted grave.
Earth is impassive. Why won’t life relent?
The silver blades south for the black plastic bag
swallowed by west winds, wrapped in a blanket
that is olive green. Under the sun’s harrowing husk
I peel away the last bit of crust yet unpeeled.
Pink scab, raw, refusing to heal. Dusk is dawn, hushed -
the garden takes back what the plate glass revealed.
There is no breeze now as I sit down to write
in my black plastic chair once taken from me
by a black plastic bag. No peaceful leaves blow
as I swallow remains of what remains of night
while the lumbering bough climbs down from a tree
and sees through the window a fragmented shadow.
Summer is going
In time leaves will be falling
rakes will be coming
She walked in sunlight upon the air.
new buds became blossoms in her path.
Her kindness she scattered everywhere,
on her constant pain, she spent her wrath.
My dear friend, Suzanne, last Sunday left
to join other angels, share her glee.
Ambassador, perhaps, to the cleft
that divides skies from mountains and sea.
Sisters, we thought, in a distant life.
Our lives today were mirrors of each.
Yet her's included terrible strife
of pain, it seemed that nothing could breach.
Goodbye, my dear friend, no longer cost,
you can fly, you are forever free!
Earth doesn't yet know what it has lost:
one in a million you proved to be!
March 25, 2023
for "Word Challenge--O Words" contest
by Constance La France
howmanysyllables.com=9
GOODBYE MORNING PERSON
Sit up
Stretch
Yawn
Head quite empty
Woozy
No remembered dreams
Before anything else COFFEE!
It’s the cats and me
Squeaky teeth
Sponge bath or shower
Shave
Nothing profound
Just life
Just plain naked
On the avenue (back of my mind) wheels haven’t started
their daily spin
The weather channel (with its mindless music)
A neighborhood feel – what goes on next door in the
WORLD!
Yes! now it begins
It’s a neighborhood thing
Cannot be helped – it starts
An up-and-down-the-block thing
Mentally I’m out the door
There are streets avenues stores a mall
Something is alive out there
The conviction strangely eases
With the first taste I start to function
And function is what it’s all about
ask any newscaster
Realizing this “function” it eases
There is some ridiculous wholeness some sanity
The night? the dream? unreal!
By noon all is GO!
Another drag-ass day
I am this other person this programmed stiff
The morning person is distant
I do not even want to recall that jelly
Some formula has taken hold
has been in the veins all along
Yes! the VEINS!
There are numbers flowing
Problems with no answers
Problems kicked aside
The “ME” has taken over
Unashamed
Fully astrut
Going down the same uniform avenues
Feeling the same guilt same lust
Same unstoppable drive
Goodbye morning person
The story has been often told
Wake up one day
And now you're old
you wonder how the years flew by
Sad enough to make one cry
Now the months just fly along
Life's no longer some sweet song
The years ahead
You start to dread
How many left
Before you're dead
I am cutting ties
that I knotted to a faraway soil.
Exiled no longer at the tiller
of a long beached fishing boat
that bobs only on the legends
of ancient waves.
Those fluent in soul-breathing,
the Celtic poets,
those wind-chiming lyricists,
are pulling me
to the bottom of Lake Erie
where drowned sea-captains still quote
what the Irish once wrote.
And here’s me, even today
caught by the mouth
from their linguistic fishhooks
yet cutting myself away.
I am a handmade citizen of a land
that is my own meat and gristle,
a subsoil am I
and my father and mother
the grubbing worm and the turtle dove.
Still Irish, but rootless
with no anchor in Galway Bay.
I have cut the trap lines
become a jobbing teller
of tall tales,
not a keeper of any traditions
planted by hands not of my own.
And if once in a while
I lapse into the sod and bog-speak
of my unlearned brethren
it is no literary affectation
of a better education,
for I remain this common creature
determined to be tied to a smaller rock
of my own choosing.
It was during the Korean War
Mother came and said
Avoiding my gaze
We don’t have enough rice left
Even for people
Even for people?
Meaning?
Not for my best friend?
That night I couldn’t sleep
With all kinds of thought
Knowing what Mother meant
Next day, old man came
With wrinkles all over his face
Put a muzzle around Kwedong
My best friend
And took her away
Feeling numb
I watched her
Walking away
As she turned the corner
She looked at me
With her usual smiling face
She seemed to say
I understand
Goodbye!!!
My Blood is hot like the summer sun
sitting on this cliff edge this is where
it began with bottle of pills and an knife
As the water flow past below my feet
I cried in defeat "Why is this happening to me"
and as I said goodbye a voice came calling
to me say "My dear do not worry for life is tough
but you can win so please drop the knife"
As I sit her now looking at the sea wondering
what could of been if I do not hear my
love calling for me to stay for today its
nine years of those memories of my past that can
no longer hurt me
its time for fall
catch the ball off the wall
get hook
to the new school books
here's why
to say
SUMMER GOODBY
how are you
miss you too
we see eye to eye
so
hello and good by
your vote
gave hope
my eyes are wet
have to comfesse
the world is set
after the debate
it the lord above
HELLO LOVE
GOODBY HATEl
Today I lost a friend of mine.
Her life was long and sweet.
She never said that she was sick ;
was happy every time we'd meet.
If she knew all her friends were sad ;
she'd be so very doggone mad,
she'd never speak to us again.
.
Cold metal trains pressing refrains on hard steel tracks,
Racing ever, changing never the lyrics of clickety clack.
Loved ones scurrying, hurrying, never worrying,
They may never be riding back,
In the cold metal trains pressing refrains on hard steel tracks,
Racing ever, changing never the lyrics of clickety clack.
what do you do when you know time is running out? how do you prepare to say goodby when
you know it's gonna be the last time? you hold on to and cherrish every single minute, every
single breath. does it somehow make it easier when you know and are exspecting it before
hand instead of all of a sudden? i don't think so, at least it was'nt for me. you are able to say
to them what you think you want to say and express your regrets for things you'd wished
you not said. but there's always that something you wish you could say one more time; i love
you. and to say the very last goodby still rips your heart out. knowing they are not in pain
anymore is a comfort to your soul. knowing the one you love is in a much better place of
peace. it is the only comfort i am able to feel at this time. and with time some of the sadnes
will subside, but as long as there is a breath in my lungs, my heart will cry a tear for you. i
will miss you til we meet again. in loving memory of james m. bruce and joe b. mercer.
written for those that cancer has touched and left a
scar.