Dirges Poems | Examples

Careless Moments

I should have grinned when morning came
Atop posts of gaping day, with lunatics
Humming dirges of a broken world.

I remained glued to my gloom.
Rising from the pit of hell, I held
Concupiscent cats hostage.

The course of their waning speed of flight
Harmed my precisions.
From a boanerges' point of view,

Fierce elocution dampened by grey voids of
Unassailable haunts cripple the badinage of
Myths celebrated at dawn's memorial.

I weep through the voice of an alcove's
Muted spirit, one grace, forlorn and dew-wet,
Re-christened at sable-draped ceremonies.

Haunted by such recurring whims of deliberate
Schisms by harridans, I crawl on both knees,
Filching webs atop crests of arachnids.

I should have waved siesta's flag at 3 P.M.
Lush vagaries of new-sprouted greens yield to the
Mockery of phlogiston,

Leaving behind banters from drunken laughters,
Crackles from prostituting fires, meek and ailing,
And hells of sweat from my aching head.

Life is like Reality TV


Hyperbole hubris

Venal penal

Avarice abyss

Bucolic tonic?

Ironic…sardonic

Or

Vitriolic bliss mate!

Mendacious salacious

Algorithm schism

Audacious outrageous

Vicarious or nefarious

Whatever geography

Clever hagiography

Moderate.. no berate

Generate..venerate hate

Casting various sordid spells

Schadenfreude morbid void

Everlasting..well..it sells well (swell)

But

Despotism urges Nepotism

Surges of Plutocracy

Merges with scourges of Kleptocracy

Purges meritocracy...dirges of Democracy

So

Resist narcissists trysts

Reminisces.. enlighten..persists

Sagacious benevolent gracious times

Redolent without malicious vicious

Murky mucky malevolent mists

It's Giving Trauma

Have died on too many times
I am used to my caskets 
I don't know better days 
I good with my curses
Never heard a bird sing for me 
My world is cold it's always dirges
I am asking  you for kindness 
My light dimmed long ago; its hopeless 
And since no good day comes Without it's darkness,
I am weary of any good  that  comes  unburdened 
I haven't known rest unless  I am lifeless
And immediately I resurrect I  pity christ from Nazareth
This  never ends it survives like genetics


Premium Member Finish My Poem - The Butterfly

As she drinks nectar from a flower, sweetness from heaven falls like dew  
anointed with a gentle rain amidst sun showers she appears as if on cue
 
Lifting her wings she lands on a Zinnia beneath a tinted sky of April blue 
flight of fancy fanning fast, fabulous marvel, she is beauty true on true

Tis the vernal hour when nature's luster peaks and winter dirges no more wend.
Airy notes from feathered breasts, dutiful drones, bejeweled butterflies ascend.

Upon the indigo daze of an afternoon, my angel in lepidopteran disguise 
danced along this florid patch with plush pirouettes, calling "Rose, arise!"

"Still here, a bloom to seek and hold." Groggy, dolt, my petals of discontent...
quiet cold stole my blush, then by cruel degrees, I learned snow's resentment. 

But in a sun-lit-breeze ballet, God as big as the butterfly, weighing like nothing 
revealed the signs of a world renewed, and ushered me thru the rite of spring.

Joy sans grief, a groom-less bride

Full moons fill you with joy, seldom the New,
And pleasure you conceive as good, not pain,
Let me like New Moon that stars can I view, 
As some poets devise ways pain to feign,
Which, helps them pen dirges and elegies, 
Funeral hymns and odes of laments long,
Let them. Days-nights on an eternal lease, 
One can’t be sans its endless twain on song. 

You know, this world is made of dancing duals,
We mortals go for one over the ‘ther,
We tend to choose one of them and fight duels,
The twain though in its dance go together.
   So, let us enjoy full moon till it lasts,
   Even new moon, you’ll see fair magic casts.
E’en God could not have cast coins single side, 
Yea, joy without grief, what a groom-less bride! 
_________________________ 
Sonnet (tongue-in-cheek) |02.06.06, revised December 2024| 

Poet’s note: A couple enjoys its togetherness under full moon, which the lady liked more. The husband also liked the new moon for a reason. He has his reasons to fall in love with both, or none. Finally, the lady sees the point and adds her own additional couplet at the end of their sonnet.

En Prise

hanging
i am the piece that’s lost
caught in the little flanks
for the rooks and vultures
                                to devour

at this hour
where sunlight and twilight
do more than merely rhyme

               hung by wire
               i pass the time
               soaking up sunfire

hanging
and i dangle
swaying to the winds that mangle

i
   am
           torn
                     and
                              tattered

won’t someone get me down from here?
splatter my brains
and scatter my remains?

(i’ve no need for myself)

                                                 save the dirges
           for someone who gave a rat’s ass
                                                        about living

every day was my funeral
                              this is my finale
                                             the end of me


Premium Member Undoing the Disarmament of Venus de Milo: Aphrodite Gets Her Biceps Back

Tombs begin to bloom like raw, bloodless wounds.
Tomes are written with truths of her dead moon’s
tones. A keening lunacy keeps the dirges alive, while
bones rise out of repose. A degloved hand on the dial
hones into a night rainbow's radio, she runs on solar,
hopes for the rhythm to wrench free from her toller—
copes with the captivity of being bodiless hands. Twilight
comes to chance escape—open palms toward birthright.
Coves burst into flame; a hungry fire wants holier water.
Coven circles, recovers the skinless limbs of their daughter.

Woven like song, sirens' balm to restore coats of missing arms,
women are spells read correctly, using words as our alarms,
woken to language, resurrecting ancient pairs of sacred charms.

withdrawn

sinking
deep into solitude

birds
singing dirges
in my head

and fly buzz and bee buzz
are not found
here in withdrawal land

its silence
is worse than
one found in death

its silence
tells it aloud
what fearing someone
can do to a child –

Letting Loose

Letting Loose

.for public domain

We each throw our part of friendship away,
avoiding the sorrows and future decay
we would face if we stayed together.

But does not misery love company?
Do not dirges shadow odes,
fair days chase foul weather?

Hope may go out with the bath water,
Faith and Charity's daughter
cherished no more than a feather,

yet the Spring Eternal shall flow,
let Grace wash us clean from below,
but it is we must let loose the tether.

Premium Member Elegy for Old Growth

Elegy – 7-17-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elegy for Old Growth

Through measures of metered melancholy
The tattered winds sing a rent elegy,
A pensive wail for pristine old growth,
A drifting chant in pure pitch of final farewell –
The mute tongue howls in eulogy
For virgins of a thousand turns around the sun
For helpless giants surrendered in atonal sacrifice.

Gentle titans with feathery boughs lifted their faces
To embrace misted melodies of summer and winter snows
Forest zephyrs sang lullabies for sparrows 
Nesting in their rustling wombs
Then shared the secret lyrics of their song
With robins sheltered in their lofty grace of red bark
In evensongs, matins and spring symphonies.

The myrrh of burial mixes with their lingering fragrance
In desolation and in their exposed flesh,
Nude hillsides of purple rage
Scream in final dirges of farewell
Modulated into anthems sung to saplings in circles of renewal
Little ones, like half steps, change elegies to odes
The threadbare zephyr now chants paeans to remember.

Filling The Balloon

Do you know
many things
understanding
not one

Portending 
your weakness
pretense
on the run

The trash bin
of knowledge
refills
left unchecked

Pontificate
dirges
spout off
— to infect

(The New Room: July, 2024)

Bury Me

Threnody dirges miseries
Severance of machinations
The gravedigger’s shovel buries
These coffin crypt lamentations
Lachrymose welts filling levees
Life’s vile xenotransplantations
Psychopomp as a wraith’s whisper
Dust swept away by a zephyr

Premium Member Light

Light 1-29-24  Syllables checked with www.howmanysyllables
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Light

Nightfall’s hand laid heavy on fleeing twilight
While the darkness, born early, swallowed the light.

Driving rain clouded the eyes of pale daylight,
Sheer curtains of rain blurred tears in the lamplight.

A world set spinning on bleak winter’s wrathful wings,
A battlefield of ruined souls shunned the light.

Howling waves, without sweet dawn’s consolation,
Drove raving storm surges, diluting the light.

Tangles of downpours assaulted waning day,
Jagged dirges shred blinded lyrics of light.

Torrent’s heavy footsteps drenched the dying dusk
When cracks appeared in sealed shelters, leaking light.

Atmospheric flotsam clogged free flowing dawn,
Driving dams of old debris to block new light.

In this rain painting, where darkness battled bliss,
There stepped a warrior, rain angel of light.

The storm wrath silenced. Darkness shamed.  Light in whorls
Opened wide a redeemed chrysalis of light.

Premium Member Orange Eyed Monster

I have never been afraid of spiders
But I never met one like that
It was hiding in back of our ciders
It came out and scared the cat.

Sure it is large, but that was not the worst part
She has orange eyes, and this is only a start.
She has fur on her legs that plays funeral dirges.
I ran from the cellar, scared out of all of my urges.

Premium Member The Last Organ Grinder

Big muscles of the organ grinder, his biceps burning.
Cranking springs, the tired, but cheerful, Italian chap.
Many chapters of his life on streets of cold cement.
His beard, silver tone; his worn hat filled with coins.

You’d expect for the old legs to be moving, it rests
as the tunes be calling, beckoning through windows.
Accordion sounds be arousing smiles and curiosity.
Melancholy dirges wet the shoulders of the bitties.

Again the pedals and thighs grind along, travelling
as the kids and townsfolk wave goodbye. On his
merry way, feet tapping, ladies dancing, men puffing
on their pipes and cigars. The music says so long.

And another group gathers in the waning sun, waiting
for their favorite song; and the grinder gladly plays,
telling a story, with his barrel rolling, his pins caressed.
Kaput - he moves into a museum, a blast from the past.

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