Best Sympathies Poems
like visitors from outer space
they came with tears, and lined the sidewalk
long in face, and arms embracing
some (I have no inkling) who
they were or why they felt compelled to come
dozens came with casseroles
a few with flowers, wads of tissues
tender words of helpless mutterings
many acts of generous offerings
don't get me wrong, I watched the suffering
expressed in words or acts of kindness
I watched it all, and felt the love
did not dismiss the warm compassion
returned it all, with pure compliance
a thankful heart, a swollen throat
I hugged these strangers at the door
to comfort them, who shed their tears
upon my shoulder, offered them
a place to share their sympathies
a place to spend their mercy, pure
but, this was my child who loved and lost
impossible........I can't express it
protected from the very start, by
loving hands, her dad's and mine,
we watched her grow, and let her go
she grew from the vine ....into a rose
but life composed a tragedy, with goals
beyond our reach...beyond belief
beyond our wildest dreams
and left her with a loss beyond control
like visitors from outer space, we watch
as others come, and others go
they blow into their tissue wads
and empty the boxes one by one
and cry with us, and then they all go home...
do we cry........? Oh no, not yet...
instead we smile a grateful smile
and thank them kindly for the while
and for the ways they share their love
but we can't cry into our own clenched wad
of tissue from the tissue box
she needs us to be strong, somehow
and so that is the way it is, we vow...to hold back all the tears for now
for, this was my child who loved and lost
impossible........I can't express it
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4/12/13
Like an ebony rose in a province
of ivory and golden flowers,
you poisoned each peaceful petal
with your senseless scent of death.
You were never just another floret.
Was I a fool to sow your seed in
hope your roots would grow strong,
portraying saffron scarlet hues with
an emerald stalk flourishing with
verdant leaves in serene sapphire skies.
When winds blew too boorishly,
I held your supple sepal with bamboo hands,
so your sunshine spirit would not perish
to toxic storms from organic forces.
I was willingly the earth to your foundations,
but your breaths became too bitter,
stinging in selfish stubborn sympathies,
as wild weeds strangled your stalk.
We could have nourished nectar with
hungry insects in need of nurture,
but your grudge left behind
broken bridges with a trail of
crumbling caterpillars seeking wings.
Cuts from your thorns remain,
ingrained as internal inflictions,
but still I plant bulbs to bloom.
To create an oasis of graceful charm,
where blossoms of compassion
softly soothe petals of pardon
in a garden of a wounded soul.
Forgiveness is a heavenly light.
A radiant beacon illuminating
through a canopy of trees,
eradicating shadows of hatred you
left behind like excessive weeds.
A melody of redemption whispers in
harmonious refrains breaking chains
of regret with burdensome pains.
To let go is like maturing buds
releasing the grip of timeless hate,
as my meadows are a symbol of a
divine mantra only welcoming peace.
Solitary sun in sapphire skies,
beams its rays upon Earth's radiance.
A tepid breeze flows between
daffodils and bluebells, gently rocking.
Spring is in the air,
yet streets remain silent.
Masked men in green suits,
bearing arms, patrol -
perturbed by unsought peace.
Anticipating unauthorised motions,
they wander past eerie emptiness -
sleeping theatres, picture less cinemas,
sober bars, childless schools and unfit gyms.
Silence is disrupted by military vehicles
occasionally startling their comrades.
Echoes of continuous coughs,
hidden behind closed curtains,
prevent even the obstinate ones,
admiring scents from rousing roses -
whose petals are not idle in isolation.
Industry of death is thriving -
undertakers undertaking, grave diggers digging.
Crematoriums fighting coffin carpenters -
whose sympathies are disguised by greed.
As humanity evolves into ashes.
In the midst of clean air,
mother nature smiles,
bathing in tranquil purity of serenity
the only fire burning is the sun.
Silent One
Simple Musing
22 March 2020
Of all old friends, those we have of old are best;
These the souls we travel with by preference,
Theirs the spirits to whom we grant all deference.
Their hopes are ours, ours their own;
All victories shared, from like ambitions grown.
Their years match step with ours,
Show like passage of the hours,
Silent steps of Time with which our lives are sown.
They are moved as we are moved;
Troubled and pleased by like turns of Fate,
We pass through one another's gates
Into rooms where loyalty is proved
By ties of woven sympathies,
By bonds no outsider sees.
By bonds no outsider sees
We tie ourselves to those who share
The pithy heart of all unspoken cares,
The shadows that would dim our days
If no one shared our private ways,
If none there were to let us know
The fitness of the face we dare not show;
The old friend nods and quietly stays
Close by our side when mere acquaintance leaves,
Unashamed to share our darkest inner night;
Awaits with us the slow return of light.
The old friend trusts and faithfully believes
The tales we tell ourselves of joy or sorrow,
Looks to yesterday and forward to tomorrow.
Looking back to yesterday. forward to tomorrow,
We walk with them through the wilderness of living
Thankful for their presence and forgiving,
As do we, the flaws that mark our human bounds
Ignoring discordant notes that sound
From time to time in all the narrative
We build to define our days and give
Form and substance to the constant rounds
Of night to day and day to night,
Our mutual progress towards Eternity,
The approaching dark we do not wish to see
Unless in company with the comforting light
Of well-earned close companionship,
Of sympathetic souls who join us on the trip.
Seeking truths wherein the brave heart delves,
We guide each other through dwindling days
To face the world, to learn its ways,
Its cruelties and its beauties shared
Both the better for each time we dared
To question this, our common Lot:
To Be, awhile, and then to Not.
So we share all we have got
To fill our time, to weave our lives.
Without old friends, the path is drear and long,
Where goes but one to compose the song
To tell of what we were, and how we strived
To rescue Sense from Folly, all the rest;
Of all friends, those we have of old are best.
You never forget your first love. by poet
How can I ever forget my lovely first love.
Spring vivifies blossoms with dancing hues
As we were picking jonquils wild,
From curving lanes up high.
The balmy breeze blew softly o'er the greenish hills
And there we met where yellow jonquils grew.
I stared at her, strangers coming out of the blue.
Hearing sparrows singing over the rills,
Shyly I stared up to the sky,
Her smile so sweet, so mild,
She was a majestic picture of vibrant views.
That she'll be mine I prayed to the above.
Would our sympathies fit like any tender glove?
Lambent yet warm I was sure what to choose.
My heart was beating like a child.
I urged myself to try.
I took her hand and meandered towards the mills.
I proposed, joyfully she said yes too.
26 December 2020
Placed 1
A Little Memory - My Invented Form - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Constance La France
The Tramp Persona
Who was this boy, a pauper born?
Existing in despair and continual forlorn
Scandalized, accused of communist sympathies
Encompassing both adulation, and social controversies
Charlie Chaplin how can I take you seriously?
Chucklesome slapstick injecting tragedy
Awkward, little mime tugging at the heartstrings
A cathodic empathy he brings
of all those around him, a famous clown
A wiggled walk, a cane, a grin, a frown
The Great Dictator, as plain as black and white
In the struggles against misfortune, the tramp persona typified
A virtuoso kid he found at a hall by chance
A four-year-old child, he saw him dance
A gift he gave to us, a sharing alliance
The Tramp who mastered the power of silence
I was hardly aware of a crisis because we lived in a continual crisis; and, being a boy, I dismissed our troubles with gracious forgetfulness. —Charlie Chaplin, on his childhood
Marylin Monroe “She was a tramp.”
Without her contracts at 20th Century Fox and Columbia (which had both been dropped) who were hungry for denial and headlines. Instead, Marilyn said this:
“I was broke and needed the money.
Why deny it? Tom Kelly’s racy nudes of me
You can get one [a calendar] anyplace.
Besides, I’m not ashamed of it, I’ve done nothing wrong
I was a week behind on the rent and it’s here where I belong
I’d never have done it if I’d known things would happen so fast in Hollywood for me.”
Her candor and honesty charmed everybody
You have this sense of having met a wounded little canary not a peacock. Only when you pick it up in your hand to comfort it … beneath the wounds, vulnerability, and innocence, you find raw strength, and a big heart—I Am Anaya
Lady And The Tramp
A warm and loving story
For dog lovers, in the sense of humor
A carefully nurtured cocker spaniel, Lady
Born in New York City a Baby boomer
Natural beauty overwhelming, a pedigree no vamp
And a rakish, debonair, freedom-loving wanderer
of a dog who wares no man's collar, Tramp
In Memoriam Quietly Always Close
Are they whispers, then, settling
So gently upon that slightest breeze wending
Over the granite crosses and statues of cradling angels,
Which stand in their long cemetary rows?
Stating each name of the one passed on with
There-on etched, too, the noting of time alive
And telling of the beloved, who hum there their slow laments;
Who send up colorful balloons to celebrate their love and
Take far their silent greetings in the sky.
Are they lullaby heartsongs, which
Rise on sprigs of heaven-bound light,
So tunefully sweet for love’s addressed, aided
By a league of angellic composers
In their lyrical rounds from above our earthly sphere?
Are these the places of our hushed sympathies?
The places we lay over our dear ones
All the broken pieces of the grieving heart’s still longing
To stay in some way forever near, and, so, we linger thoughtfully
Criss-crossing the undulating final verdigris
Landscape, which embraces the last remains ~
Resting on in heaven’s wait for that further journey going on.
Are these faint mists surrounding
So many hours of our own remaining days —
Which are spent summoning back the stories, the touches,
The eyes that happily cast their glance into our own —
Not truly our tears
Being turned to magnifying memories,
Prayerfully appearing with each
Dusk’s close of day and placid rise of the radiant moon?
Do see that the soundless falling is our aching?
Is a furor — burst of pure, white snow:
A flash of a blizzard, looking nearly weightless,
Landing in silence, but
Incongruously, falling heavily down, into those forming crystalline layers
To dress a seeming lace-like çover over all the stone markers
With a luminous beauty, revealing a metaphor, ineffable
~ Blessed markers of life itself set here before us
Within reach of meeting the Divine.
—————————————————————————————-
(c) sally young eslinger 6/5/2023
(Written for Jennifer Wilson & Maggie Hopkins in loving
Memory of James Hopkins, spouse, father, & friend) Also written with the inspiring power of images of the 9,000 marking gravestone crosses in Normandy, France, and sights of Arlington Cemetary, Washington, D.C.
Written to unaccompanied cello Suite 1 in G major, perfomer Yo Yo Ma
Thanks be to God…
Catching Moon Sighs
From time to time
as clouds pass
— those plumpted puffs —
touring by
…Out
from behind them
a
Night’s lit
Blink!
will occur
for:
T’is our
Moon sighing
at Time’s insistent nudges
to fleet on by
And at which overseeing Venus
winks her sympathies…
(c) s.y. eslinger6/2024
I have no stars left to count, no scarlet lilies left to pick and in my aching sympathies I find apathetic desires. Mother nature brought her introvenient shame withering all willows weeping. Abandoned leaves dive…
- - - -delicate crimson.
Date written: May 3, 2019
Every small sore is numbing pain
As if morning can't see the rain
Every small touch on your light skin
Makes the world like it stops to spin
Teardrops can't mend your heart's sorrow
As if night has no tomorrow
The days are counted like a few
May God still give you lots of new
For my mother who currently and coincidentally suffers from breast cancer and undergoes chemotherapy. I may not be that financially stable to help because of my condition and we had some differences before, but may this poem find you a morning sunshine and a holding rail. Thanks to my sister In law Christy and my brother Marvin and all who extend their sympathies
December 1, 2023
No dear, not for your sympathies to earn,
Nor yet that your attention can I draw,
Just as helpless infants are apt to do,
True, facing you helpless I’ve often felt.
Tears cause in me no butterflies of love,
Nor trigger love-bonds flowing well within,
Should ye so wish, check chemicules therein,
Check enzymes and lipids if so to prove,
Or if electrolytes are duly dealt,
Tears of emotion show more protein too,
Making them viscose more, on skin to claw,
No, tears are not shed by me— one lovelorn.
Nor yet my dear, crocodile tears are shed,
Oh, just so that my dry eyes moist are made.
________________________________________
Chemicules: short for chemical molecules
A man cries the night before, and his wife wants to know why. After ruling out all her false conjectures as to why he cried, he gives the true reason: He suffered from glaucoma, and his eyes tended to weaken more due to dryness. And he tries crying sometimes to moisturize his eyes.
This sonnet might appear rhyme-less on a casual look. But it has a mirror-like symmetry— the first six lines rhyme with the next six, followed by a Volta in the form of a couplet.
_________________________________________________________
Sonnets (Humour) | 20.03.2017 |
living down the block, I think of my Sheri
her beauty, her cares, her lovely hair
and when she thinks of me
we share our time sipping wines
and her laughter shatters the air
my voice and humor has the things
that always takes her there
I listen very carefully when she say's
that I'm her man
I try to lend her sympathies
when she's being sad
I offer her but simple things
she strangely pays me back
each day I do without her
is a day when I do lack
She kisses me when I come and leave
A sign for me that I can believe
She puts her arms around my neck
and leave impressions on my chest
There is no one I can compare to her
very few women's ways with her occurs
she never looks for little gifts
Like other women that have their list
All she craves is time and wine
and a little taste of valentine
My feeling that I'm hers and she's mine
could only be cursed by the end of time
There has been news about piracy in the high seas...
And here is news about a nefarious activity you don't see...
People go missing in action off the waters of Philippines...
And then the cat and mouse game of high stakes begins...
While some families agonise over their missing loved ones....
Going by the news, the border security patrol force was duly informed...
But this I wonder, looks like the sovereign security patrols fail once again...
With a dusk to dawn curfew in force, was there a lapse in security yet again...
Was it a case of lax security or was it a case of one attempt too many...
Border Patrol boasted it has thwarted double digits of attempts that were so many...
Is this latest affront to sovereign securty a reminder we cannot escape kidnap attempts...
When we have for our neighbours bandits who sees us not as human beings...
Catch some Malaysians, then began a hide and seek game in the jungles of Philippines..
Next is a couple of months of various seek n find missions involving the governments....
And negotiations in earnest then begins , builds up to a critical delicate point ...
For money in a few tens of millions, freedom and lives can be traded to a point...
Should negotiations fell through or deadlines are missed, death to the victims ...
Often it's slow death by beheading under the guise of fanatical religious belief...
Hoping for religious sympathies to condone a blatant cruel act against humanity..
When in essence it was all a well disguised despicable act of kidnapping...
Treating fellow humans as human cattle to be traded and prices haggled...
While playing God and pretending to be God's warriors when talks are bungled...
Claiming every unfortunate victim's life in the name of the Islam religion...
Thinking in their warped religious fervour they are on the pathway up to Heavens...
These terrorists, they can be no other, terrorise the international community...
With such blatant organised crimes of inhumanity with such impunity...
Maybe vigilante squads in the Philippines is the final solution....
Thousands of drug peddlars and merchants are dead by executions...
Looks like therein lies a possible solution, storm the dense jungles...
Cash rewards for vigilante squads killing terrorists in the jungles....?
Try to do good
Smile. Be nice
When asked for a favor
Don't have to think twice
I 'm charitable, generous
Believe that kindness is key
Trust good karma is cyclical
It'll come back to me
But disillusion and pain
Is all I get in return
Lies and backstabbing
Somehow tables get turned
I'm portrayed as a villain
That I am to blame
For all your misfortune
It's part of your game
You play on my sympathies
Take advantage of me
Then twist and manipulate
Rewrite history
You are the reason I can't trust a soul
Why I hide in the darkness
I'm always alone
I'm tired with hurting
Done being played
Lost faith in everyone
Always feeling betrayed
But you are the farmer
You watered this seed
No good deed goes unpunished
You did this to me
The blazing heat e x h a u s t e d
me mid-autumn...
I never knew love's kindle could
extinguish into ash from a sagacious death.
You entered my f r a g m e n t e d veins,
searching for a ruby bloodline to remorse.
Forsaken without nourishment-
indifferent with lassitude.
I fear the inertia of my soul has been unseen
and craves devotion with sensitivity unsleeping.
I have no stars left to count, no scarlet lilies left to pick and in my aching sympathies I find apathetic desires. Mother Nature brought her introvenient shame withering all willows weeping. Abandoned leaves dive…
...delicate crimson.
Original contest, Memories of May Poetry Contest
Contest judged, May 8, 2019
Date written: May 3, 2018
For the contest, Writing Challenge 4, May 2019, No Placement Poetry Contest
Sponsor, Dear Heart