Best Melancholy Poems

Melancholy me, since Kelly's gone away
Far beyond the sea, and gone from everyday
Stage by stage I've wept, but finally, I see
What I must now accept; a melancholy me

It follows and it looms, a threat to my clear sky
Though never quite consumes, insists that I comply...

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The sky is a Luciferian estuary 
rolling and roaring in crimson flames, 
a twisted design of detonated debris,
like splitting sighs
from internal implosions,
raining fragments of the past:
matchbox memories
piercing through suffocating silence
as time tortures the mind
with flashbacks of floating fragility…

O invisible moonlight,
pour me a purple potion
to erase...

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"Sometimes, we are stabbed by life's death knife: 
and we fall into grief, detached, and introverted,
but, with courage, we spread our wings and soar!"

                     ...

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Oh, sweet darling, wherever did you go?
When summer vanishes, my days grow long.
And now as I catch glimpses of first snow
I think of you - my melancholy song.

And in this song is always the refrain -
Oh, sweet darling, wherever did you go?
My tears begin to...

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Inspired by oil painting, Melancholy by Edvard Munch in 1891. Viewing the painting will help make sense of the poem.

The sediment courses with questionable energy, murky and conspiratorial 
Goading me, asking if I'm made of stone
The sea eyes me suspiciously, already knowing how this ends
But...

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In dizzy terrors, the ominous, relentless pull
of the numb night; sneers, shortcuts
clumsily trod; meandering the easy paths
where sins and lies are perfected and
nourished into pseudo truths that are
delightfully embraced. A credible potpourri
of slippery stones in a quagmire of guilt.
A quicksand of snickering gravity where
nothing escapes...

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I walk along the narrow precipice, so close to the edge 
trying to remember the ones I love and keep them near, 
grasping to hold on to them before I fall from the ledge. 
Their strength gives me comfort. I will not yield to fear....

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Night succumbs like a powerless pawn

Melancholy grins the brink of dawn

Hollow skull enshrouds a vacant tomb

A Possum’s fate amid vulture’s plume

The sirens scream as if they’re aghast

And the garbage steel goes rumbling past

Power line wire grips a well-worn shoe

Pot holes tease the dark avenue

Flowers lay...

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Wooden paths I seek forlorn,
I miss the smell where I was born.
The coolest air of blossoms bloom 
no longer wait for me to loom.
No canopy to be my roof ~
now ashes scattered under hoof.
I had to leave I couldn't stay,
they took upon themselves that day:
destroying...

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When summer falls away,

I find myself beneath a bending willow tree.

Inside myself, I'm weeping along with it

as its supple limbs tremble in September's wind.



A harvest moon appears as if to mock the sun,

a sun which not so long ago had shone profoundly.

The willow's branches sweep...

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The spices release their scent to ease my heart,
numb ~ yet tracing glasses brimming with tears,
aching for a touch of chamomile wisps,
beneath a sky that reeks of regrets
and words unspoken ~ too afraid to rephrase,
   like smoke incensed with sulfur,
   like...

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A melancholy of poets
A suffering of poets
A torment of poets
A provoking thought of poets

An expression of poets
An inspiration of poets

A rhyme of poets
A verse of poets
A stanza of poets

An anthology of poets
A poem of poets

We are all poets
however some of us
go to the trouble
of writing...

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Oh! How I despise dawn’s blushing optimism
and dried hydrangea blooms sepia skinned and papery thin.
Humdrum hands beat doldrums drum.

Why won’t the summer solstice light this darkness?
A gnawing hollow where my heart should be.
Where cinder clouds float in negative space
memories collect like nesting sparrows beneath eaves.

I...

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blue is the heather in the air
its perfume a melody transported
to the edge of melancholy
when dark is the night
and you are but a memory
that lingers on my lips



AP: 3rd place 2022

Submitted on December 11, 2022 for contest A BRIAN STRAND PREMIERE CHOICE NO.54 sponsored by...

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pine cones drop like tears
from a weeping willow's bough
autumn's gentle grief

burnt orange cake spread
on the bottom of our shoes
amber hues take hold

gales of wind gust strong
over beds of crimson rust
uncovering seeds...

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