Best Suffering Poems
Do not build a ladder
when I fall into the abyss
I did not call for climbing
The thorn in me
is not a riddle to be solved,
nor a window begging repair
I am thunder — not your project;
I am rain that needs witness,
not your umbrella
When I say I’m drowning,
do not throw me ropes of reason
Let me sink into your silence
weightless unrescued
yet unalone
Be the shore that does not move
as my waves thrash
and settle
My pain is not a puzzle.
Don’t match it to your pieces.
It is a wild bird
let it wheel
let it scream
let it land
without your cage
on wild earth and
broken branches.
You see my storm
and lash advice like scaffolding,
but I need someone
to taste the chaotic torrent
to say yes — it bites,
yes — it burns,
not someone who murmurs
“you should have stayed inside”
To love me is to shhh,
to hold space as sacred
to hear with your cells
not just your ears
What courage it takes
to offer no answer
to let me erupt
without stapling my wings
Let me weep
without shame.
Let me unravel
without thread.
Let me fall
and do not sweep
the pieces away.
These fragments
are not failure;
They are a kind of scripture
not trash,
but story,
etched into the fabric of my being.
Only when your stillness
echoes louder than your words
can I hear myself return
Only then
can I stitch up with cat gut
and name it healing.
And when I rise,
not fixed
but found,
I will turn toward you
not to repay
but to remain
to share this journey
And then I will listen deeply.
My head feels like it's being squeezed in a vise. Eardrums must have blown out from the explosion since I hear absolutely nothing, not even my own breath. Slowly rising to my feet I survey the damage. Left arm gone from the elbow down. Flesh hangs from my right forearm exposing bone and sinew. I don't even want to know what my face looks like but my cheeks are burning white hot.
Suddenly, I am keenly aware of the immediate surroundings. The twenty story office building I call my second home is utterly destroyed. Smoke and haze are everywhere. An acrid odor fills my nostrils with each breath. Scanning the vicinity I see body parts strewn about. The urge to vomit overwhelms me. Afterward, I begin to shake and sob uncontrollably. My God, why?
Home is five blocks away. My wife, my daughter are they alive? No idea how many bombs were dropped. Must get home. Each step brings excruciating pain, but the adrenalin pulsing through my veins impels me forward. Finally reaching my neighborhood, it quickly becomes evident that it too was targeted. Rubble and debris surrounds me. In the distance, what was my house, leveled to the ground. The cries, the screams of others sifting through the debris make me question my sanity did my hearing return or are the screams in my head?
Reality sets in coldly as I discover the bodies of my family, partially buried under the rubble. I have no more tears in this moment. Instead, my mind drifts back to former days happy times. Myself, Najwa and baby, lying in our back yard on a comfy blanket, staring up at the stars, watching the fireflies softly flicker in a dreamy, summer night sky. We had peace then. Now there is nothing but bitterness and hatred in my heart. I gaze at the sky, now black as sin. All the stars are there. But the fireflies they're gone. I can't help but wonder, what will become of me?
Flicker flicker fly
Stars above to light the sky
Angels weep goodbye
Believing that marriage was ordained of God;
that, like a seed, it needed constant nurturing,
she sowed her deep devotion with a hope
that stretched beyond an ordinary scope.
That hope scanned schisms that had left her desolate-
until it reached the heavens with her prayers.
Time and time again, her spouse complained or failed to do small things
essential to cementing the marriage bond.
With unusual restraint, she held her tongue, forgave. . . and listened.
If matrimony were the fire in a hearth, she supplied the kindling and the logs;
then lauded him for twigs that on occasion he tossed in.
Some nights she’d lay a weary head upon the chest
of the one she called her husband (when he was fast asleep and didn’t know).
In those moments, she felt the beat of that heart he never showed to her.
With humbleness she supplicated God
that she might find connection with her mate.
She wondered and she wondered why. . .if thoughts, invisible,
which were transmitted to the Lord, were able to be recieved by Him,
why could not her words, directly spoken to the one on earth she loved, be heard?
Daily on her knees, she telegraphed celestially with a faith most extraordinary. . .
and wisdom came. Her love would not be broken, and she grew.
The seed she’d planted took root too and grew until there came a time. . .
she laid a graying head upon the chest
of one that was her husband (not just in word only);
a someone who now watched HER as she drifted off to sleep.
With his heartbeat strong in her ear,
she heard him whisper softly, “I love you” as he kissed her cheek goodnight.
For Audrey Carey's "To Err Is Human to Forgive Divine"
O dear Lord, let my thoughts fly upwards,
For we have sinned abominably against you,
And never bothered to think of You.
We raised false idols of our own making:
The gods of power, money, and lust.
Our corruption goes so deep,
That we realize too late
How very much unhappy we are.
Thus, our old temples crumble
Like the golden one of Jerusalem.
Yet there is always hope for the future.
The trees of Lebanon will grow strong again.
The evil serpent will be bound in irons
And thrown to the depths of Hades.
But we cannot achieve this without your help.
Forgive our heinous misdemeanours, Lord
And allow us to enter your new abode
The heavenly New Jerusalem.
And please forgive our many sins
As we forgive those that sin against us.
Amen.
I suffer for you.
I suffer for me.
I suffer for the way
life used to be.
I suffer for women with babies
who'll feel the pain
of not being able
to feed them again.
I suffer for young lovers
who'll never know why
their dreams and schemes
had to die.
For the animals
and fish of the sea
who were depending on you and me
I suffer.
And the rich will suffer too
like me and you
but all their money
won’t pay their just dues.
Heat will get hotter.
Rivers will flood
and wind will destroy flowers
in their bud.
And those who survive
will suffer the most
remembering loved ones
who were burned like toast.
By: Carole O'Terry Duet
Copyright: 12/5/2018
“All Rights Reserved”
14 hours in a New York minute,
I ought to stop,
But I can't quit it...
No answer to my call...
Is it the end
Of it all?
The pain, it does spread,
Making the future
Something to dread...
Somehow, some way,
I got to get out of here,
Cause I'm swimming
In a sea of fear...
So I say goodbye to you
My sweet...
As I acknowledge
My defeat...
Something is flying about....
'In the darkness may glimpses of light be shone upon me,
giving me the strength i need to walk thru the shadows of whispering trees and untamed wild beasts to mend what secretly is.....a silent but ever aching heart
The Trail Of Tears.
.
The snow fell when the long knifes came
Savages who robbed the sacred homelands
And buffalo slaughtered bloody plains
Men woman and children the old and lame
Frog marched against their will
Never to see they’re homeland again
They’re hearts so full of pain
.
And the big chief in Washington
In his big tall ivory tower
Declared the native American
Should live how he pleased
Even though it took the native Americans
Dignity away and fall to the ground
Like chopped down falling trees
.
Thousands upon thousands
Wounded souls resigned to they’re defeat
Walked the long trail of tears
With their little belongings and sore feet
Many sick and old
Succumbed to hunger illness and the cold
Countless frozen bodies lay like ice blocks
Littering the snow
The big chief in Washington
Won the days and the demon sold his soul
.
From the prosperous green Caroline's
To Oklahoma and apathy
By a mad cruel man’s greed
And decree
.
Forced to become farmers
When just a dust bowl is all they found
And nothing would grow from the ground
A once proud mighty nation
Did an ancestral dance
Hopeful it would return them
To they’re scared homelands
As hunters and the buffalo
Would again return given half a chance
.
They’re dreams were fruitless
And lost forever in the river of dreams
The depths of they’re sorrow so deep
That haunted they’re waking hours
And the one’s they’d sleep
.
They sent the young ones to schools in New York
To be educated in the white man’s ways
While those left behind
In the reserve concentration camps
Wandered like ghosts in limbo
And rotted in their graves
.
The wheel of history rotates
But the same things always come around
The person with the biggest stick
Lays the law down
.
The black man kidnapped from his home
And shipped to be sold as slaves
When will all this end
And when will man love everyone
No matter who they be
But the truth is many don’t care
And all they are concerned about
Is themselves power and greed
.
Thousands upon millions of stories
Never to be told
Lost forever
Since days of old
Man cannot even
Direct his own footstep
So the good book says
There is no real justice and we are living in
The last days.
.
Peter Dome©2021.
Dear Southern Gals
Savannah - oh honey
You beautiful Belle
Your locks long and loose
And silver as well
Muted mementos
Of suffering of pain
Of tears you have wept
Long rivers of rain
Georgia - oh honey
You dear southern Belle
Your story is cruel
And shameful as well
Your tresses have witnessed
In somber green gray
The heartbreak the pain
The ship of that day
Oh Savannah oh Georgia
You dear Southern Belles
We hear you forever
Plead guilty as well
Now savour your beauty
The new dawn can’t wait
Start combing your hair
It’s time for a braid
Nicole de Jager April 2018
Sometimes, a slow fire burns inside of me,
And eats away at all the good I’ve done.
The Spark Divine’s across the Nether Sea*,
And of the blunt and broken, I am one.
I would my heart could smite smoke like a sword,
And burn a fiery streak across the bay.
I’ve gathered all my Love into the Word,
And said one tenth of what I have to say…
I calm my teeth, now, for they’d clench and grind,
While I tend still, unworthy fires here.
I cannot know the Nature of that Mind
That sows its seeds among the soils of fear…
But, now, Your coming spreads snow on the fire,
And cools my brow with flakes, freezes my ire.
* the Sea of Samsara, the Sea of Suffering. Also, the emotional plane.
“A Cross To Bear”
Like salt in wounds, the pain ignites
Infected to the nerve,
Intrusive sunlight, blinding eyes
A hell I don’t deserve.
Useless band-aids morph as pills
False hope to cure real pain
Yet thoughts can be close to immune
To changing patterns, flying sane.
Invisible, this illness grows
The mental torture reigns
The harder that I fight this beast
The tighter squeeze the chains.
These ailments burrow deep within
Depression and much more
No choice of mine, they’re part of me
A lifetime mental war.
However, though, I suffer much
I know life isn’t fair
For each and every one of us
We have a cross to bear.
Written on December 1, 2021
“A Cross To Bear”
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Searching vainly, the dark enthralled with death,
Moral fervor and forthrightness deep breath.
In utter silence, stealth into its depths
Drawing breath, soon all His knowledge in breadth.
Amidst the Garden of Gethsemane,
Distraught His strength falter growing angst pain;
Looking up to the heavens in discourse
On bend knees in unspoken end recourse.
Jesus stretched out on the cross gazed at their grief.
Scarlet sorrow; all they could see, His brief
Passion of life and crimson tainted cross.
Whilst soldiers toss dice, but blind by their loss.
Why? Please, let his suffering come to an end.
They loved Him yesterday, cannot comprehend.
4/9/2020
Sonnet's Salutation Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: William Kekaula
If I were your love, who deeply cared for you,
I would wipe the tears of anguish from your eyes,
And I would plant poignant kisses on your cheeks,
Telling you, you are my beloved I recognize!
Gone through sufferings for many long dreary years,
From abject loneliness, severe heartache and pain,
I am the only one who can truly fathom your plight,
I am the one who would make you exultant again !
You deserved to be treated with kindness and respect,
Someone cruel unjustly denied you your right,
I would be your true friend, your devoted company,
Your confidant, no more alone you need to fight.
If I were your love, we would find pure happiness
In each other's passionate arms, we trust each other,
All the cruelties in the world - will be defeated
To true fervent romantic love, that's no wonder!
May 1, 2023
"If I Were Your Love" Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Mystic Rose Rose
FIRST PLACE
If I could take away the pain
and make a story change track,
If it could stem the flow of tide
to chase the darkness back
---
To see the devastating agony
that tears apart your soul,
here, I'll keen beside your body
wishing It could make you whole
Nobody deserves these losses
that heaped upon your door,
I know if I looked sometimes,
I'd discover you curling the floor
My dearest sweetest friend
I can feel your pain from here,
know if I had white wings
you'd always have me near
My heart is filling with tears
the ones you've shed today,
I'll hold them close forever
until my last dying day
Your love, it held them dear
it shone with exhaustion's eyes,
you've done an impossible feat
its written there in the sky
Their love will keep you strong
when the pain, eats at your core,
and just when you think it's better
grief will overcome you once more
And when the darkest days
start to hit you with a thud,
don't worry my dear friend
I'll be there, we're best buds
So now, silence will be in our ways
until life's hands draw you back in,
Yes, I'll sit with you and suffer
even when the ices turns thin.
---
And if the Gods made me chose
I'd say, Grief is the hardest pain,
other than a comforting shoulder
nothing will ever seem the same.
My best friend lost her husband last Christmas, the day before yesterday she lost her mum,
This is just my way of letting her know she will never be alone. The suffering is nearly unbearable.
For Carolyn from Jayne love you infinitly.
Now that you’re with me, be my guest—
Like me a life-long traveller,
Enjoy night-long welcome and rest,
Tomorrow, let’s leave together.
You may go to your way, I mine
To be a bird rare that may call
And never heard by hearts that pine,
Oh to fall lifeless by next fall.
Unleash your worst of sting, feel free,
I’d bear all, night-long you unfold,
No pain conquers me so easy,
Traveller I’m of a tough mould.
So, O pain, grief, and suffering,
Be my guest and a night long king,
Ready to leave by the morning,
You scarce for long to me can cling.
Let by dawn all aches feel amiss,
By nature joy am I and bliss.
_________________________________________
Musings | 01.08.15 |
Poet’s Note: Every soul by nature is sat-chit-ananda—joy and bliss, and pain has no permanent place. Soul is a constant traveller.