Long Mourning(a) Poems
Long Mourning(a) Poems. Below are the most popular long Mourning(a) by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Mourning(a) poems by poem length and keyword.
Last things you whispered, a promise under stars,
“You're the only one I’ll love, no one else from afar.”
Silly me, I believed, wrapped in dreams made of gold,
Yet soon you found another, leaving my heart cold.
Was she there to fill the void, to quiet your lonely nights?
Or was it just the shadows, seeking warmth in borrowed lights?
You said I deserved better, as if love was a race,
But I never wanted better, just wanted you to embrace.
Years have turned like pages, yet my heart remains in chains,
I’ve wandered through the silence, danced with lingering pains.
No new love has filled the spaces, no friend can mend the rift,
For I’ve held my heart in mourning, a treasure no one can gift.
To distract would be so easy, to laugh, to flirt, to tease,
But I sat in grief’s reflection, longing for sweet release.
I cried you out of shadows, your memory washed in tears,
A bittersweet remembrance that haunts me through the years.
So here I stand, still healing, in a world that moves so fast,
With echoes of your promises, a haunting from the past.
Though others may be waiting, I’ll keep my heart in slumber,
For I seek not just a lover—I seek a heart that’s wonder.
So goodbye to fleeting moments, to whispers in the night,
I’ll cherish what we once had, though you’ve faded from my sight.
In the garden of my sorrow, I'll plant seeds of my own,
And learn to love in colors again, beyond the ache I've known.
Inspired by love's last words written back in December 2023
Do you want a tear?
Do you want one of mine? I've plenty to share:
for tears pool around my heart, and linger there.
Do you wish someone would shed a tear for you
because in reality, they never do?
Do you save a tear?
Do you save a tiny tear for you alone,
all your grief stored in that drop you call your own?
Do you think your heart can carry such a weight,
or break into fragments, bemoaning life's fate?
Do you fear a tear?
Do you fear you'll drown in a torrent of pain
as the tears spill from your eyes like drops of rain?
Do you believe spilling tears makes you look weak,
undermining the reputation you seek?
Do you hoard a tear?
Do you hoard a secret tear, one you won't share,
a tiny little drop you've hidden somewhere?
Do you silently shed that one single tear,
mourning a lonely life traumatized by fear?
People tell you to let go
As if every loss is something that just happened
Something physical that once existed
But some of mine never did
I don’t just grieve the ones I lost
I grieve the people they never had the chance to become
I wonder what my sister would laugh like now
And if her hair would still be pink
If we’d call each other when life got hard
If we’d have grown into better friends
I wonder how age would have changed my mom
Whether she’d have wrinkles around her eyes from smiling
Whether she’d have grown her hair long
If she’d still be playing the same song on repeat all day long while finding something to keep busy
If she’d be spoiling my children with love and things I said they didn’t need
There are conversations we’ll never have
And pictures I will never take
Those are the hardest things to just let go
Because they never got the chance to happen
“What if” is a strange place to live
Nothing grows
But nothing dies
Time doesn’t pass there
The possibilities stay frozen at the exact moment they became impossible
They were never real enough to live
Only real enough to grieve
It’s like they’re waiting for a future that I know will never happen
Sometimes a smell creates false hope
Sometimes it’s an old song
A birthday or a holiday that used to be full
A child saying something they would have loved
An ordinary moment reminding you someone just isn’t there
And suddenly you feel it
You’re mourning a life that only ever existed in imagination
In the land of “what ifs”
People think grief is missing what you had
But sometimes it’s missing what you never got
The sister who would’ve become your best friend and secret keeper
The mother your children would’ve called for when they scraped their knees
The version of yourself formed by the presence of loved ones
I think that’s why “what ifs” hurt so much
You’re left with questions
And because no answer ever comes…
The questions never stop asking you
Dear Poetry, how are you?
It has been a while since we dissolved in the dark and talked.
You are the one who kept me awake at midnight,
huddled under the heavy bedcovers in my youth,
with a tiny flashlight for illumination,
just so I could map out every hidden thought.
Years passed, and that dim plastic flashlight
grew into a steady, internal beacon.
The heavy bedcovers became the walls of a harsher adult world,
but our relentless mapping never stopped.
Do you recall when the chaotic winters of life
finally tried to bring me to my knees?
I cried, crushed by the weight of my longing for a misleading love affair—
someone who tossed my devotion away like yesterday's garbage,
splintering the deepest vault of my being.
But together, we transformed that raw, bleeding emotion
into a masterpiece of forever ink on immortal pages.
That exact heartbreak became a prize-winning confession—
Turns out, the world will pay to see you spill your guts in print.
I guess what I am trying to say is: you are everything to me.
You have been my truest companion
through the longest stretches of isolation and ash.
Because of you, I learned to let go of the anger,
the frustrations, the letdowns, and the fallouts—
the heavy burden of mourning a discarded love.
Because of you, I am someone who stands strong.
I bled the hard truths and chose to be a survivor.
Dear Poetry, don't you ever forget that I am here for you,
just like you have always been here for me.
So, I hope you finally understand
just how magnificently important you are to me.
We won't let go of each other—not while the ink still runs.
These aren't empty sentences filled with nouns
& verbs but is a testimony of spirit
The witness sits inside peering from behind
spirited eyes of vengeance
Mad at a world that's full of cattle being steered
to the slaughter without resistance it sighs
Peerless it sits observing battles being waged against
children of the most high
Even if it could cry it wouldn't waste its tears as it
probably wouldn't stop weeping
With dry spirit eyes it looked up to see if God was
watching but all it could see were clouds forming
When the rain fell it served as a sign that indeed he was
watching & mourning a world still sleeping
With cloudy night vision it waited for the dust to settle
& fog to lift in the morning
As people we pour out feelings until there's nothing
left in our cups
In the pouring rain it's hard to escape the pain as all
are touched the same
We have our ups & downs but we are indwelled by a
fighting spirit that doesn't give up
We are enough & it watches over us guiding us with
divine touch
When the storm settles we'll see that we don't need
much besides compassion & understanding
We may be in dark days but our passion still shines
light on the fact that we are still standing
By Phan Tan Hai
Fifty years—sitting and remembering
a youth shattered by turmoil;
dreams still stunned with disbelief—
marching in the streets, burning cars, protesting.
Seeing my father hanging from a bridge,
seeing myself with a torn hat, begging;
seeing my mother weeping through a century,
seeing the sky emptied of a thousand birds.
Fifty years—never truly sleeping,
staring at history, eyes wide;
Nha Trang, Pleiku, Ðà N?ng—
night after night my hair turned white in the mirror.
Sunlight still falls on the old schoolyard,
dust dimming the faces of friends;
why should beauty grieve in storm season—
midnight, counting drops of rain.
Fifty years—dream or reality,
reading books by a flickering lamp;
touching life and feeling it break,
shaping a statue that never becomes whole.
Reading books, dreaming of peace for the world,
calling for gentle winds and kind clouds;
the monochord from school days—
blood still oozing from my fingertips.
Fifty years—friends from the Philosophy Group
carrying a mother’s lullaby into life;
writing verses of horses crying in the night,
mourning a history deaf, mute, and blind.
The midnight horn of the seventh lunar month,
pouring wine to send off wandering souls;
waiting for dawn in repentance,
vowing my life to be a tower of incense.
Fifty years—looking back,
sutras copied, tears blurring the page;
a thousand lifetimes drifting, still grateful to the Buddha,
sending all sorrow away with the falling rain.
History passes—its tragic river,
the conch shell’s call, the wandering troupe;
I kneel before the Buddhas of three times,
vowing my life to shine like a mirror.
--- This poem is dedicated to the writer Le Lac Giao and the members of the Philosophy Study Group at the Saigon Faculty of Letters, commemorating the 50th anniversary of their first meeting (1970–2020). Most of the group members have since devoted themselves to the study of the Dharma under the guidance of the Tibetan Temple in Binh Duong, Vietnam. This piece also serves as the Afterword for Le Lac Giao’s short story collection, "The Sad Smile of Summer".
What can my lips say when thought falls silent?
Strings of disconnected thoughts run over my forehead,
Night gathers within me, it's later than I believe,
And each idea, a frailty, they are all strange and unexpected.
I confess, with the tremble of a leaf, my share of guilt,
Above me, the sky wears mourning, a saddened testimony,
When the path of life was opened to me, light from light,
From the cup of time I drank, the nectar, without tasting it all.
A voice shyly detaches itself from the fabric of the word,
To murmur poetry to me, an art both near and distant,
On the path of my fate, a procession of unfulfilled promises ensues,
Absent both the sharpness of pain and the soothing touch of joy, missed.
The night is a thread of magic until the premises of dawn make their way,
Time flows from dawn to dawn, it trickles subtly with a cruel smile,
All that we gather in time, in the order of life, slips away without care,
Departing without an owner, the treasures wander into the unknown.
In the ephemeral passage of existence, the voice of the echo dares not to rise,
It does not query why your heart throbs or why time mutters in vain.
Oh time, you hurry with the steps of the wind, counting the seconds of my life,
Leaving me with furrowed memories and years that carry autumn toward its setting.
In anticipation of an unfulfilled sleep, the altar of a new day opens,
A day that awakens with timid rays and kisses the pretending eyelids of night.
There still hang leaves of joy on branches, even on this mortal ground,
Let us raise from the walls born of pain, a monument to a love that never perishes.
One day beyond mourning, a new sun to shine
a promise remade, not a cloud in the sky
One day beyond mourning, your spirit still warm
your flesh now at rest, on the hill past the barn
One day beyond mourning, the bed sheets unfold
your shadow uncovered, and now mine to hold
One day beyond mourning, the sun in my eyes
new words in my heart—a mockingbird cries
One day beyond mourning, my soul free to roam
your paintings surround me, among them I’m home
One day beyond mourning, I walk to the field
our blanket still hanging, the oak that concealed
One day beyond mourning, I reset my sights
the day I’ll rejoin you, that heavenly flight
One day beyond mourning, all will broken free
my name on the wind—as you call out to me
(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)
The way, in which I lived, so shall I die?
The sea salt washes up against rocks
and bleach the stones white
Like a genuine pearly stone. That when I knew
Someone was mourning a death.
The party was going strong
The doorbell rang. In that moment
Everything changes.
Speak low, lean low
Turn down the tempo
A sudden death; another wealthy mortal man
Took his last breathe.
Did he pass the test?
Bending over and sniffing the coke
By the mountain load;
Cocaine scattered all over the desk. Money burnt
How you lived, so shall you die?
Why cry. That was your life.
He became the cocaine and
His mind became retarded
The salty breeze massages my scalp
As they soul jump into to the sea
longing to be cleanses
Speaking low, leaning low their noses
Are on fire: another lost soul
Bolivian marching powder
Drip, drip drops of blood
Vanish out to sea.
a different kind of philosophy
The Devil philosophy
One day beyond mourning, a new sun to shine
a promise remade — not a cloud in the sky
One day beyond mourning, your spirit still warm
your flesh now at rest — on the hill past the barn
One day beyond mourning, the bed sheets unfold
your shadow uncovered — a gift mine to hold
One day beyond mourning, the sun in my eyes
new words in my heart — a mockingbird cries
One day beyond mourning, my soul free to roam
your paintings surround me — among them I’m home
One day beyond mourning, I walk to the field
our blanket still hanging — the oak that concealed
One day beyond mourning, I reset my sights
the day I’ll rejoin you — that heavenly flight
One day beyond mourning, all grief broken free
my name on the wind — as you call out to me
(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)