Reading and writing poems about the death of a loved one are a beautiful way to deal with the emotions and trauma associated with mortality. These beautiful and inspirations poems about death help us see how others are enduring the loss of a parent, other family members, a friend, or loved one. Everyone’s experiences are different, and we cannot compare feelings, but coping with grief and death is something all must go through, and we can learn from the sadness and reactions of others expressed in poetry.
Love
"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. The word is love.”
~ Sophocles, Greek Poet
Oh, Love. Where travels thou diminishing shade?
This is not the path I hastily bade
nor the future...
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Categories:
death, depression, emotions, life,
Form: Sonnet
Opt For PassingI chose to think death
Something that lies silently
And takes me gently....
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Categories:
death, destiny, fate, life,
Form: Haiku
Hospice PlightSad plight in hospice
Fed smorgasmord of drugs
Left the great beyond....
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Categories:
death, life, sad, scary,
Form: Haiku
Where Rivers FlowSee upper reaches
The rivers look more the same
Through course flows to sea....
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Categories:
death, retirement, river, sea,
Form: Haiku
Vancouverite Metropolitan Hellscape, part 1 of 5(prelude)
the buzzing of the evening insects
presage evil !
here are black wolves ! here are ghosts and fiends
and here are blackest of demons...
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Categories:
death, abuse, addiction, america, angst,
Form: Free verse
Haiku Translations by Michael R BurchAm I really this old,
so many ghosts
beckoning?
—Michael R. Burch
Sleepyheads!
I recite my haiku
to the inattentive lilies.
—Michael R. Burch
Stillness:
the sound of petals
drifting down softly together...
—Miura Chora, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The sky tries to assume
your eyes’...
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Categories:
death, god, grave, life,
Form: Haiku
Birthday Poem to MyselfBirthday Poem to Myself
by Michael R. Burch
LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence,
Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous,
but come! Come live among us;
come dwell again,
happy child among men—
men rejoicing to have known you
in the familiar manger’s cool
sweet light scent...
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Categories:
birthday, dark, death, life,
Form: Rhyme
SINKINGThese are poems about sinking, poems about drowning, poems about loss, and poems about new discoveries we sometimes make while feeling lost...
Sinking
by Michael R. Burch
for Virginia Woolf
Weigh me down with stones…
fill all the pockets of...
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Categories:
death, fate, fire, grave,
Form: Rhyme
Shepherd's WatchA voice for the voiceless
whose cry still unheard
Alone in the womb
but blessed by the Word
Defending the helpless
as murderers loom
Divinity watching
— a reckoning soon
(The New Room: April, 2024)
...
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Categories:
abortion, birth, death, murder,
Form: Rhyme
Just One More TurnTo break a man's life down
into digits, to numbers,
might seem strange to you;
distant, or heartless, or just odd.
But that was just our way;
we'd both been dubbed 'robot'
at one time or another.
So that's what I'll do.
Forty...
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Categories:
death, death of a
Form: Free verse
SequoiaBorn to a land unspoiled and free
The mighty sequoia was on the ascendancy
Ancient elders stood erect and proud
Free from threats to pierce a cloud
Out of nowhere came a destructive presence
Little creatures with a cold, dark...
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Categories:
change, death, farewell, heartbreak,
Form: Rhyme
final accountbefore life begins
we accrue fictional sins
so guilt always wins
lest any deem themselves free
to alter reality
dollars and distance
do not measure existence
despite persistence
constant debt all but assured
within this credit card world
is living better
starting off as a debtor
shame's...
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Categories:
culture, death, judgement, life,
Form: Tanka
We Go OnHow sweet the sorrow
How deep the void
We go on with one less tale of footprints in the sand beside us.
With wishful eye is cast memory’s glance to those prints found falling forever behind,...
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Categories:
death, introspection, life, loss,
Form: Dramatic Monologue
Somwhere Between Now and Then
Somewhere between now and then, your face turned into photographs, making sure to look at them everyday so I do not forget what you look like.
Somewhere between now and then, your voice turned into...
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Categories:
cry, death, for him,
Form: Free verse
A Wider Beam
Night after night, images flicker on the tube
Horrific images of ‘the enemy’ dying
Dying ‘Agent-Orange’ deaths
...
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Categories:
death, history, horror, technology,
Form: Rhyme
Specific Types of Death Poems
Read wonderful death poetry on the following sub-topics:
anniversary, brother, cat, child, dog, elegy, eulogy, father, friend, funeral, goodbye, grandfather, grandmonther, grief, in loving memory, loss, lover, memorial, missing you, mother, moving on, pet, rip, sad, sister, suicide, sympathy,
and more.
Definition | What is Death in Poetry?
Poems Related to Death
afterlife, bereavement, darkness, death of a friend, decease, demise, departure, dying, eternal rest, extinction, fatality, grave, grim reaper, heaven, loss, lost love, mortality, paradise, parting, passing, passing over, repose, sleep, the end, tomb