I watched a leaf release its breath,
A golden sigh upon the air.
It tumbled softly into death,
A quiet dance without despair.
The wind, a gentle funeral song,
Caressed it with a lover’s grace.
It drifted, weightless, swept along,
No bitterness upon its face.
I thought of all I’ve had to leave,
The hands, the homes, the hollow years.
I thought of how we choose to grieve,
Of all we bury in our tears.
I saw myself in autumn’s fall,
A fragile thing, a fleeting name.
Each chapter closed, each silent call,
A softer ending than I claim.
I let the stillness speak to me,
I let the branches bend and sigh.
I let the leaf teach how to be—
To let things go without goodbye.
The leaves fall not from spite or fear,
But from a life that must renew.
Their fading paints the earth sincere,
A quiet blaze in every hue.
I whispered thanks to every breeze,
To every stem that dared release.
I whispered as the shadows seized,
And felt within a tender peace.
The leaf, the loss, the letting go—
All part of something vast and kind.
A truth the autumn leaves still know:
We lose, we fall, we rise, we find.
You were a labyrinth into which I ventured with desire,
the threads of your words weaving me tightly,
a mortal caught in an endless tragedy, a myth.
Each kiss was an elegy of falling stars,
each touch, a funeral song of the deep night.
You wore your sadness like a crown of shadows,
and I—your destined fool—bowed under its cursed brilliance.
Tell me, beloved:
if love is a crucible of destiny,
was my heart the precious ore you refined,
or the forgotten dross cast into the winds of oblivion?
And even now, I wear your absence like a mantle of burning fire—
a seal of ruin woven into my soul, which I cannot unravel.
A murder of crows screech my funeral song,
disturbing the eerie silence that surrounds.
Heartless hands have left scars etched into my crumbling bark,
as bleeding sap drips upon ivory sands,
which fail to comfort the aches of my collapsed torso.
I once ascended under sapphire skies,
as golden rays adorned my emerald lush leaves,
but now I've descended into dismal decay,
realising humanity has no use for me -
offering me as a sacrifice to toxic tides.
I can still remember the sound of crashing to the ground,
as men with axes laughed at the glory of my demise,
allowing me to slowly sink toward the abyss of nothingness,
now I'm helpless as ripples of regret carry me into the sea.
Alone and abandoned, above me is only dreary darkness.
I'm barely breathing, listening to careless whispering waves,
smashing against my soaked motionless trunk,
drowning me deeper in self deprecation.
Frigid branches begin to crumble and snap,
as I slumber cradling echoes of worthlessness
Here it is again, the nightfall,
To stay for its allotted years
The entrails heeded the call
Attuned to their primal fears
In the alleys, in the pavements
A dark lie is a shining honesty
Old axioms the devil laments
Tears to prepare his destiny.
Where to after the nightfall,
This darkness has a contract?
The bells of hell now loudly toll
The funeral song of your fact
Monstrosity to take back the spoils
A face reddens not in shame
Rape in new ways the gut that boils
Coming back in rebranded fame
Offering hope by perfumed name
Sins disowned, loots to reclaim.
Here it is again, the nightfall,
The hearts that refused must endure
To wait till the morning call,
It will be long, tiring, but it is sure.
Bestrevolver, May 18,2022
Standing in a field filled with stones,
I heard the sound of a funeral song.
Hiding behind an old oak tree,
I peered through a Widow's web, just so I could see.
As they dropped her young groom in the dirt,
I thought I saw a tear, I know I saw a smirk.
She held a rose in her hand from the Devil's garden.
As she placed it on the ground, I begged her pardon.
I followed her bread crumbs down a deadly trail.
How long will you mourn before you lift that veil?
You can stop the facade and all that crying.
I'm all in, to be with you I'm just dying.
8/13/19
When fancy does he come within one's life,
A candle gently placed goes out so quick.
Of course this is his job, yet one so rife,
And pain he caused to some in just a flick.
A march where veils can barely hide their tears
That rains could not compare their dreary wails;
No song can show the loss that sums all fears,
No hollow branch to hold the noose that fails.
Beneath the branch where he would make his stand,
To rub the names of those who have long passed,
Who paid their debts in kind beneath the land—
To sow it with their flesh whose life have passed:
The rain is sly to time their deaths in gloom,
His song's machined—and he will be their groom.
Soldier boy, oh soldier boy
Why don't you hide up those tears?
Hold in your mind those nail- biting fears
March till you drop, sing the marching song
Even though, for home you heart it does long
Don't cry no don't cry
Always care to try
Hold up your head
For death cannot tread
Oh soldier boy, oh soldier boy
Why don't you hide up those tears
For this night your safe, soften those fears
Lay down so quiet and hum your wholesome song
Hum how much for home your heart does long
Don't cry no don't cry
Always care to try
Hold up your head
For death cannot tread
Now soldier boy, now soldier boy
Could this be the morn when death does appear?
And I know it will be hard to hide up that fear
Don't let him in, it's just the funeral song
Pretty soon now for home, your heart will not long
You will not cry, oh do not cry
For you always cared to try
Soldier boy hold up that head
For now you layed on eternities bed
The sea roars as it breathes
in and out, to rise, in the tides,
along the shores of all the seas
as one, moving where the moon guides.
Waters lapping the isles tiny beach,
gently touching her from beneath,
seeking the mountain out of reach,
among rocks like jagged teeth.
On the water little rafts float,
above the sacred, ancient beds.
Down, down they go with plunging stroke,
past the coral of blues and reds.
On the floor a searchers leg is hung.
Working they fail to set him free.
That night, a funeral song is sung
for the one who now breathes with the sea.
her lips quiver
without making a sound...
funeral song
© kashinath karmakar 2012
====================
Placement:1st ;(March 2012)
Contest:Strictly a Stickler for Strictness (haiku)
Sponsor:Charles Henderson
IT CAME PEEPING HOT
PRELUDED WILDLY BY MAD WINDS FROM THE NORTH
WHICH BEAT AROUND THE EARTH,
SINGING THEIR FUNERAL SONG, BRINGING DEATH.
AND CATTLE STIR 'WAKE
FOR PASTURE FADES AWAY, KILLED BY THE QUAKE;
HEAR! WEEPING CHILDREN-
EMPTY BOWLS IN HAND AND ENERGIES DRAINED.
THE WINDS COME AGAIN,
CLOUDS OF DUST SIGHING AWAKE! OH CAIN!
"WHERE ARE GONE THE RAINS?"
I DIMLY HEARD IN BED, FEVERED HOT,IN PAIN.
A black cloud bleating
Over a trembling tree top
Calls swallows to play.
2
Wet thunder drums light
On the sizzled skin of air
My lungs beat like wings
3
This is September
Neptune's children play with glee
On earth's anxiety
4
Africa's revenge
Is full of hot air driving
The sea to black rage
5
The winds come dancing
The funeral song of trees
Silenced in the clouds
6
The storm turns its eye
Into the sun's white vortex
And shed some black tears
7
A lone swallow flies
Skipping spindles of loud rain
Etched upon my eyes.
On top of the mountain lived a king
He banned the village from song
They wondered why their king was sad
The people would cry to no avail
They hoped and prayed it wouldn't last long
And soon they'd sing his funeral song
The king was only an empty shell
For singing was all they ever had
Tho they knew their king was wrong
He never let his people sing
To get the rhyme read it first line then last and so on
They were invincible
whenever they’re onstage:
piano on the lead
with violin
as his accompaniment.
They toured the cities,
the parks as well;
soft harmonies they played
that all, including men
went envying them—
violin had felt betrayal
from her own bow.
It snapped her strings;
made it sever—
leaving piano out of tune.
Despite his downfall,
piano persisted performing
on stage, but alone—
playing his wife’s
funeral song.
child fed on the sap of rotting wounds
body, bones clad in thin black skin
opaque eyes,pearly beads on
dead nearve-string.
mind maddened by hunger
bursts pearly fish-eyeballs
into floods of stale tears,
as worm-infersted faty thighs
squeek funeral song.
lulaby for another sick featus.
In the darkest hour, when I was but a fleeting glance,
possession then dissolved in sacks of swag,
the corrugated shed of livid circumstance
sought to burn through time’s immemorial drag.
I looked at you across the blurring sawdust sweep,
sweetly smiling for your new attentive throng,
your attentions were no more for me so should I weep
internally and sing a funeral song?
I might as well, I thought, be locked inside a box
and cast into a well like some last wish,
to sink unseen, weighed down with rusty chains and locks,
to sleep a dreamless sleep with mud and fish.
Is there anybody out there looking as you are tonight?
or would that false impression not suffice?
for all that I can do is blink you from my longing sight,
confetti shreds and grains of coloured rice.
Is there anybody out there headed for the waiting door?
some replica of all your looks and deeds?
to adjoin my vacant side upon this crowded barroom floor,
some tourniquet to stem a heart that bleeds.
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