Long Cemetery Poems
Long Cemetery Poems. Below are the most popular long Cemetery by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Cemetery poems by poem length and keyword.
Amanda Thing
1829 - 1918
BF and me
We rode into this muddy enclave,
This Quaker paradise high on an ever-descending hill
In March of ‘87
With Sunshine, our roan mare,
And a wagon full of old belongings and new hopes.
I recall the mustard fields blooming that spring
Like a million fires in the firmament,
And these fiery fields were intensely difficult to plow.
And the land had to be carved up like slaughtered meat
To pave the way for the railroad
And the first automobiles from Detroit.
First time I saw one,
I almost fainted.
BF and me
We spent many an afternoon in our feathered buggy instead
With Sunshine, our roan mare,
Riding the newly paved roads,
From Rideout’s Driveway to County Road.
And we saw,
From the top of Friends Street
The distant Catalina Island,
Shrouded in the hazy Pacific,
Like a sleeping giant under a brown blanket,
And we gasped at the mystical beauty of it
From our hilltop perch.
When BF died of a stroke in ’07,
I buried him in Clark Cemetery
And I thought I would never survive the grief.
But God sustained me as always
And I lived eleven more years by myself,
Among the roses and tulips
Of my Whittier Avenue cottage.
At 89 I died an old and tired lady,
More than ready to meet my sweet Savior.
My funeral was grand indeed!
They put baby roses on my casket,
And said the Lord’s Prayer.
Then they put me next to BF.
Oh fallen empire, what secrets do you possess?
Kings and queens have led you into the inferno, yet scorched were you not.
What happened to the grandeur earth and heaven no longer caress?
Your remains are moaning, for their former beauty time has all but forgot.
Now only legends are telling your story.
Your dead are buried and your courtyards have become a cemetery plot.
Oh fallen empire, you are stripped of glory.
Stripped of your grandeur, your majesty long taken.
The spirits of ancient times are still fighting amidst thee.
Perhaps you will rise again.
Only time can tell.
But for now, you lay desolate under heaven.
Time ages your empty shell.
For now lay silent, and rest well.
I can remember passing through
this town as a child,
stopping for a pie
on our way north.
Now it’s bypassed – barely more
than a clot lodged
in the spidery veins of a map.
Most of the houses are empty,
the bakery is gone.
I've come here again and stop
to walk beneath
a verandah’s pinholed shade,
past the general store,
the post office
and a butcher shop -
all shut.
Behind windows,
generations of dead blowflies
have left a black crust
piled against the glass.
Some hang from webs
like frozen pendulums
hollowed out by spiders
and passing time.
Across the street an asphalt
school yard is dissolving into grass.
I think about the children
who once skipped
and ran headlong
into their lives from here,
where now a clapped out truck
sits propped up on bricks.
Dumped and stripped of worth
an open bonnet seems to gape
its final breath.
Further up the street,
the scars left
by two world wars
are etched in a modest memorial
to the town's fallen youth.
I run my fingers slowly
down the list of names
and whisper each
into the ethereal silence
in which they rest.
This age has made them unreal.
Elevated on the nations alters
they seem unaccustomed
to the height.
Their age has them stalking
the nearby hills, irreverent,
all too young, blasting rabbits
and empty beer bottles
lined up like soldiers
with their fathers guns.
At the end of the street,
a gutted church squats like
a full stop to the town.
Nothing is beyond except
a gravel road to somewhere else
and a small cemetery
of lichened headstones.
The last person buried here, I read,
was Helen O’Brien who died
in august sixty five
and beside her, a year before,
her daughter, aged just four.
I make my way back
and reach out
to the ghosts that inhabit
this place but can't connect.
A feral cat slinks off
into the shadows of the pub.
Few cars stop here anymore.
Thirty minutes drive away
a multi laned highway
barrels traffic to the coast.
There, towering apartments
glaze the sky where rooms,
like empty shells,
murmur the lonely sound
of breaking waves.
Sometimes there are evenings
when a sadness rides a breeze
from inland to the coast
and goes unnoticed,
except perhaps for a child
who grows silent
and stares at something
wandering the distances
way beyond the reach
of grown up sight.
I have a deep true love and bond with winters cold,
born among snowflakes filigree;
though, I adore all seasons that unfold,
it is me- who holds my life's master key.
I just love spring and all her pretty colours bright,
and like autumn for leaves set free;
oh, so many kinds of love that delight,
born among snowflakes filigree.
Oh, this journey is short and I dream of it each night,
it is me- who holds my life's master key;
though not easy . . . for living is an endless fight,
just keeping love found is my plea.
I loved my wonderous parents a millionfold,
born among snowflakes filigree;
though, they rest in a cemetery old,
and it is me- who holds my life's master key.
God has blessed me with love pure gold,
and grandma's love I will ever hold;
treasured my sister and childhood pony,
my brother's bravery and grandpa's tea.
I felt passion, desire, yearning and romance,
true love was my reality;
so, on marriage we took a chance,
and holding our baby was just a glance.
Born among snowflakes filigree,
now, love waves from Heavens threshold;
and it is me- who holds my life's master key.
I also have an unconditional love for friends and pets,
the key . . . is love with kindness like a jewel;
it is devotion, endearment that has no regrets,
love is never resentful, arrogant or cruel.
Born among snowflakes filigree,
with God's love shining in all my sunrises and sunsets,
and it is me- who holds my life's key;
so, take a chance as this life has no "love" guarantee.
___________________
August 21, 2022
Poetry/Ballad/Born Among Snowflakes Filigree
Copyright Protected, ID 08-1482-523-21
All Rights Reserved, 2022, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, The Meaning of Love
sponsor, Anoucheka Gangabissoon, Judged 08/27/2022
Third Place
alone in the quietude of nature
that fills me with serenity
though crows in trees are a disturbance
their grating noise an irritation
I follow a path to where skylarks sing
their melodic song soothing
but my heart is full of chaos
and anxiety
I have always found my soul in nature
but how can I when my body is broken ?
I love the rain falling in the forest
the drizzle upon the trees
the kisses on my lips and face cleansing
but a deluge brings me a deep fear
I adore those days of warm drip dropping summer rain
and soothing gentle raindrops of Spring
but wild storms of autumn leave me hiding
the thunder and lightning fills me with dread
oh, how can I not welcome those first days of gentle snow ?
the cold of winter takes hold of my life
it seeps into my bones
that crack and groan in pain
oh, but the beautiful of snow falling is breathtaking
so lovely and fragile
but the bitterness brings me to my knees
I shelter inside by the fireplace
though the crackle of the wood is a calmness I like
how can beautiful winter bring such pain to my broken body?
in winter I reflect on death
they seem connected to me somehow
my family dead and cold as winter
in spring I reflect on death
each raindrop a dagger to my heart
for I must visit the cemetery
I must be near their bones
take a pause from life in the hush of graves
where I stand in the stillness of birds singing
beneath a weeping tree
I often wonder how is it that I find the love in death ?
I took a stroll through Boot Hill Cemetery the other day,
To take a look at where outlaws and other rabble lay.
Some graves were marked by stones, others by weathered board;
Many covered with cairns of rock, residents known only by the Lord!
As I moseyed through the weeds and brambles from tomb to tomb,
I read interestin' epitaphs on how those fellers met their doom!
"Here lies the mortal shell of bank robber Tim McGraw;
Bad luck for Tim - the bank teller was quicker on the draw!"
"Beneath this turf resides big-time gambler Jedidiah Greeves;
He played Texas hold-em with too many aces up his sleeves!"
"Here dwells 'Hank' Hankston who 'borrowed' the judge's steed;
He was hanged from a lone oak tree for this nefarious deed!"
"Here inhabits Cletus O'Toole who had a run-in with the law;
The high sheriff won the battle on the dusty streets of Wichita!"
"Molding in this lonely grave is Joe Bronson, notorious cattle thief;
Wranglers dealt with Joe in a hail of lead with whom they had a beef!"
"Cody Blanks went on a drunken toot causing mayhem and injury;
The judge sentenced him to be hanged as suggested by the jury!"
These fellers were planted with their boots on accordin' to local lore;
That's why it will be known as Boot Hill Cemetery now and forever more!
"Etched in stone- names of honored souls-
remembering their roles and goals."
_by Poet
Oh, cemetery- at your rusted gate,
I stand before it for a while and wait
to gather thoughts of those I know are here-
both family and friends, to me, so dear
beneath the velvet blanket of spring grass,
embraced forever from their earthly pass;
with monuments above etched with a name
and span of life on Earth, we can acclaim.
The cemetery grants me space to think
of my connections- how they interlink
with kin and classmates resting here right now-
and hope they feel I'm missing them somehow.
I walk in slowly, shut the gate behind-
to visit those where I feel love enshrined.
Where I do not exist there is emptiness,
a world with no little girl gathering blooms;
no child born a poet full of awareness,
no dark poems about cemetery tombs.
Not a word written of life and all my glooms,
oh, terrible to think of no consciousness;
and no young woman who painted and hummed tunes.
Oh, what of my mom and dad and my grandma;
no forest walks holding hands with my grandpa !
My true essence floats in an infinite space,
long lush hair floating like a torn tangled dream;
I would have no soft skin, rosy cheeks, pale face,
no husband who had eyes like emerald green.
no verdant views, vaulted trees, vivid sky, place,
floating in a void of clouds I think ... I scream.
On the tomb no baby name engraved in stone;
for my baby boy was never born I moan !
Hummingbirds hover in my hollow chasm,
even a speck in void I can find beauty
oh, a world with no me is hard to fathom,
no complicated, poet often moody.
No writing with imagery and phantasm,
oh my gosh I would never be on soupy.
I ponder existence with no poetry;
no fantasy story, no sweet poesy !
On the bank of the Mississippi River
under a cottonwood tree,
watching the river's water flow;
a young man holds a thin hickory
fishing pole in hand,
to be alone with his thoughts,
seeping deep into the delicate,
soothing, murmur of the river.
He came from a poor indigent family.
Life was a bit obtuse for him.
School was boring
and pointless in his mind.
He seemed to most enjoy getting into trouble.
The folks around felt he was always
making egregious blunders.
One astronomical twilight night
he dared his friend
to walk through the consecrate
dilapidated graveyard at midnight.
A stir in the air,
there was movement there.
A void within the eerie luminous cemetery.
There in the open graves,
laid the sacred dead in their beds.
Heartrending moans of the wilderness
somewhere far-off in the wind.
The hours disordered breathing
circulated a redder glow;
hell rising upon the headstones.
A sinking dull feeling fell upon both boys;
down to their knees they stumbled and fell.
Awaking from their delirium
sought to mediate disputes
of what happened the night before.
8/18/2019
In the dark
By candle
At my kitchen table
I begin to sign the monthly checks.
Soon the sun will rise
A flood lifting an orchard light
Of cherries and white clouds
Dappled blossoms
From the bottom of my feet
To just below my eyes
I peak above the neighbor’s horizon
The farm fields of knee-high spring wheat
Is combed by a young wind
Shredding the tips
Of the green swells
To silver-backed dollar bills
Undulating across the velvet hills
The wind reaches our old house
Jiggles the door
Loosens its hinges
Memories
Come in
Inquires of me
Directions to the big city
A pair of auburn fawns nuzzle at the bird feeder
Spinning it like a compass
An accomplice
I point to
A farmer moves to his mustard yellow field
With a trailing tractor tornado
Carves the dry Earth with fury
Seeks his fortune like a corporation
Out the backdoor
Black and spinning
Pages flapping from my bookshelf
Our house is left of children
Breathing
Creaking
Like the single White Pine
Next door
In the Sunfield Cemetery
Roaring
To the unsettled horses
As it tears
From the planet
To the smoldering wick
Of the setting sun.