The Road You Take
Happiness is not out here
grabbing us today,
saying stuff like,
“Today is going to be your day.”
Everything that’s happening now,
you might have to fight.
A lot more worries
while trying to sleep good at night.
Always take precautions—
no more personal defeat.
It’s a tough world to live
and work in these streets.
This end-of-life theory
is not for the weak,
so stop making bad choices
as we speak.
Consequences are going to respond
to everything you do.
There’s no multiple-choice answer—
you can’t pick or choose.
You have to be careful
about what road to take,
because at the end of the night,
it just might be too late.
By:MelvinJohnson2025
DARK DOWRY
Disappear
The imperfections of mortality
Your soft sensuality
neglected, resurrected
Who was there
To help you arrange
Your dark dowry
Sleeping on the mantle's wing
Awaiting your return
The debutante ball
So dark
Day will never enter
Dreams will never leave
So kind of you to bring me into this life,
You're a strong mother and a loving wife.
I asked for nothing in return, yet everything I got,
I'm nothing without the gifts you gave,
That others would have simply forgot.
A dog is a man's best friend, but that's simply not true,
'Cause my best friend is a mother in the shape of you.
You raised me well, and I inherited the good,
You're the one who always understood.
For I wouldn't be breathing and living my time,
Without your bravery, I'm lucky to call you a mother of mine.
For I see fields of blossoms, marching in pink,
All my chapters are together through the joy you link.
You're the rock that keeps me strong,
Your existence I will forever long.
You're a soothing song that I so dearly play,
I will remember your kindness every second of every day.
You're a painting that bursts into a million different meanings,
You look after me and give me all the good feelings.
The day I lose you in the mist of God,
My grief won't be sadness, but the longing will be strong.
I'll celebrate the moments that you will miss,
As I know you'll be watching, giving me one final kiss.
Mommy, I’m Home
Rictameter
Dear mom
I remember
When I was still a lad
Always want to stay by your side
If I cry I run to you, tears you wipe
But I left you when I grew up
I’m back, own tears I wipe
Stand by your side
Can’t see.
Re-post
AMONG THE LEAVES
Among the leaves
There, someone wept
Though no tears shed
Such pain was felt
It burst the clouds
It stained the sky
And all breath held
To hear that cry
With every note
The ether bled
A rosined bow
To string, once wed
Old wounds long known
Their blood had dried
Now resurrect
And scream
"Alive"
A lover left
A heart once kept
Some trees stand tall
While others die
Those naive
In love believe
Will want and wither
Among the leaves
WE'LL BE AGAIN
I lie awake
You walk alone
I hear your steps
Though you have gone
A last, Amen
Where all things end
A prayer, the night
Let dark descend
"We'll be again"
"We'll be again"
My book, "Recycled Paper: A Safe Place To Hide" is available for sale on Amazon! Thank you all for your encouragement and support!
Goodbye my favorite forever
Eternal fragments lost in abstract soup de jour
Our handshakes full of tremors
When the memories rain it's sore
My heart in freefall, falling up and out, forever's too soon
The paragraph on the backs of pictures stabs the point home
Skeletal strangers with nothing left to prove
The distance signals in real time leaving the breadcrumbs of
jarred hearts, painted candied hearts and Pacman ghosts in slow pursuit
The light of pumpkin eyes, rhymical in pursuit of boyish daydreams
Girlish looks of starving hearts depreciated, are less than pennies now
Parting words circled in funny papers still shaking with regret
When you see me in the folded memories
Just know you're not alone
Your light smiling on in the hollows of my eyes
Smiling in hindsight begging you to come home
Begging me to be brave
Goodbye my favorite forever
You're my long way out
In fading and in passing
Set me a long way down
in
falling
leaves
summer
memories
Time is precious, so squander not your hours
Time is breath, once gone, can’t get back
So, rise in vigor and do your duty at hand.
Invest in actions when you have time in hand.
Waste not in idleness your precious hours.
Speed towards your goal, never look back.
Trials may come, obstacles may rise, yet never go back.
Opportunities may not always come in hand.
Time swiftly moves from seconds to minutes and to hours
Time fractioned into hours, back from eons, will slip out of hand.
CROW
Upon the wire
Barbed and black
A crow stood watch
With feathered tact
A sideways look
An eye of glass
Mud, red, blood
Flesh flailed back
The few that stood
Did notice not
The crow gave wink
A friendly nod
They carried wood
With hooks tied fast
They dragged the dead
From jaws made slack
The clubs swung low
They arced, the night
Was filled with bone
In naked sight
The crow cawed once
He nodded twice
He'd have their souls
When he took flight
Still others came
The weary arms
Those that shame
Could do no harm
Again they dragged
Again they swung
Still the crow
From midnight hung
He cared not
The where or why
What human sin
He watched close by
He had no need
For cloth or thread
But flesh and bone
Blood stained red
To tally souls
To eat and fly
Black as coal
The midnight sky
A photo that was taken in Treblinka I saw as a chid and never forgot.
How can i mourn something i’ve never known
Still I pretend to swim
in the endless sea
nigh of any true misery
only the discomfort of martyrdom
inflicted upon those who will learn
to forget my name
shroud my shattered remains in gossamer
let time feast on my flesh
strip from me all of value
yield to nothing but my eyes
an unmade carcass of becoming
shall drift loosely carried by the windless tide
watching—waiting for the day to bleed into the night
Grief does not belong here
It has no home
Tears shall not be shed where I lay
Irises will not rest by my tomb
Palms will not dig to unearth me
For a stranger cannot be mourned
If they were never known
sweat-soaked
I exhausted countlessly
falling down the nights
throwing myself against
the hollow you left
maybe hurting badly enough
could make you mine again
but now the tide has drawn back
exposing my Sharpie on the sand
you were never something so frightening
as the love of my life
only an amalgamation
of my deepest fears
wearing the face of someone I loved
my foolhardy
but in this one instance
psychic psychosis
twitched my neck
you would be gone
by summer’s end
therefore I swore
enemies with the world
blind to how I was giving you
reason to do the same
I know it selfish now, the way I held on
though that truth sits poorly on my tongue
for I truly believed that every shadow I cast
was shelter for you
I was a child to his suckle
a pallid magro body
unable to bear its own reflection
until he made you his
Shared atmosphere vapor trails in blank stares across a room so crowdedly desolate.
Always there, always filthy. Slideshows flicker like the magnavox eyes shuffle lid to lid, moment to moment as time fleets like dust shimmering in my heart. Always filthy.
Brought out of the infectiously swollen cardiac arrest, through the waters, so thick drowning with due care. Peeled back potential baking like hot glue amongst the weight of glory that was never there.
Love against the glass ceiling swimming above while the sharks swim below. Sinking into the black and blue that ensues carbonated lungs scream alone in the waves below a somber rock a bye into the phonetics, into the pride less afternoons wasted in silence.
Alone in the drink as all the hands let go awaiting always filthy waiting to sink out of mind and out of sight.
Daytime ghosts
Windows bring light that exhales a dead-end world
Softest intentions drown to sleep at the bottom of shallow wells
Neon memories bubble to life the static scores that bodies hide
Mouthed confessions of loveless intimacy that knows no swirls of radiance
Soft embrace of the life above from the cold souls that swim below
Hugless lovers reclining in the bleak blue edges of summer lights hung on horizons
That never knew the scores composed from names that never met
Fainted in pleasures unknown to sender as the tape decks click B-sides search for depth
Tears for two at an empty diner booth that is abandoned along travels to far off destinations
Reservations for taped confessions of vows never thought, as the food comes shared aloud
Relief by numbers in collections of good vibes, better company and lives well lived
High tides come and go as wells stagnate the fishtank below
Loss Categories
Read wonderful loss poetry on the following sub-topics:
baby, brother, brother in law, cat, child, dog, father, friend, horse, mother, pet, stepfather
and more.
Definition | What is Loss in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.
Related Poetry Forms
debt, disaster, accident, fall, damage, failure, cost, defeat, trouble, injury, catastrophe, casualty, destruction, undoing, harm, misadventure, dispossession, mishap, deficiency, want, need, death, shrinkage, ruin, privation