Memorial poems preserve the memory of a person, a group, or an event that deserves remembrance. They may express grief, offer gratitude, recall a particular life, or give words to a loss shared by a community.
Read the examples below for different approaches to honoring the past. Notice whether the poem names individual details or reflects more broadly. If choosing verse for a memorial, consider the occasion and audience as well as the beliefs and experiences the work presents.
Business: best attend with care.
Promptness: why elude?
Positive? Consider flair.
Right and wrong, I brood.
Patience! Thus with trials endured:
Battles bravely fought:
Company vicious, mired and moored!
Flee, O evil thought!
Integrity, sacrosanct.
Injure not the next.
Virtuously houses haunt!
Honesty, my text!
Acquaintances, be thou few.
Be just what you are.
Manners, friendship! O church pew!
Veracity, star!
Parents, counsel respected!
Money, sacrificed!
Intoxicants, protected!
Improvement, well priced!
Wrong: un-ventured threshold!
Passions, with care full watched!
Salutation kindly, gold!
Discouragement: botched!
Zealous labor, for the right!
Otherwise bad night!
Revolution in full flight?
Sound within me, fight...
( for Robin Williams )
~ while your soul screamed "help!"
the world heard only laughter ...
we loved you ... to death ~
~ POETRY AGAINST POVERTY ~
( photographic art borrowed copyright-free by the author from public domain files at FreePik / Picasa )
Great Uncle was a musician
He chased his dream on a mission
He never penned a song
Folks knew him well down in Nashville
Though music paid no big gas bill
He had true ambition
His songs found a sweet rendition
He played with open admission
His true love was lifelong
John picked his guitar with goodwill
With joy, the music he instilled
Sharing tunes, his mission
To make music his tradition
Spontaneous compositions
If I could string along
I'd play it with my own free will
John Craig showed such a master skill
He strummed strings all day long!
John Craig rode as a musician
With grit and a deep ambition
Just pickin' it along
John would pluck out his chords at will
With six-strings he'd ride and travel
Playing good tunes, headstrong!
He was a slick string technician
A musical aesthetician!
He played for trav'lers all night long
I'm not sure he knew a playbill
His playin' was a sweet earful
John Craig's songs still roll along!
[Even if in my mind!]
Great Uncle was a musician
He chased his dream on a mission
He never penned a song
Folks knew him well down in Nashville
Though music paid no big gas bill
He had true ambition
His songs found a sweet rendition
He played with open admission
His true love was lifelong
John picked his guitar with goodwill
With joy, the music he instilled
Sharing tunes, his mission
To make music his tradition
Spontaneous compositions
If I could string along
I'd play it with my own free will
John Craig showed such a master skill
He strummed strings all day long!
John Craig rode as a musician
With grit and a deep ambition
Just pickin' it along
John would pluck out his chords at will
With six-strings he'd ride and travel
Playing good tunes, headstrong!
He was a slick string technician
A musical aesthetician!
He played for trav'lers all night long
I'm not sure he knew a playbill
His playin' was a sweet earful
John Craig's songs still roll along!
[Even if in my mind!*
Seal of a fallen rose sinks
Sinks and disappears without a dose
Dose of herbs and plants that grow on the ground
Ground that breeds and breaks without a sound
Sound of a soul harrowing in pain
Pain of filched memories of the haunted
Haunted by a ripper in the eyes of its watchers...
(Tailgating poetry)
Dad made the low table.
one of the things his hands
have given the house.
Now it holds her photograph,
the small lamp,
and cyclamens lifting
their pink faces
through lace-filtered light.
Each morning, he says Good morning,
then switches on the lamp.
He takes the walker
into the garden each day,
selecting what is flowering
among her favourites
and brings them back
in his careful hands
to place beside her frame.
The curtains soften
the afternoon to green.
On the table he made,
fresh stems lean close
to her face in the photograph.
At night, he says Goodnight.
He brushes her face
before turning off the lamp.
Beyond the lace,
one late flower
holds its colour
in the fading sun.
She was more than a footnote
In someone else's fame
Yet many people when she died,
treated her just that way and let her fade
Not much is known about her final day
But I'm writing this just to say her name
To say "Pamela, you're not forgotten, you're in my mind all the time"
At the very least I can honor her with this rhyme
By: J.N.R Dutton
The sun shyly peeked over the hill
as the cold air made whispers audible
and dissipation began to rise from the dunes.
The morning breeze stirred flurries of sand from dunes
where shadows stubbornly clung to the face of the hill.
A susurrus from the copse barely audible.
Upon the bench in the lee of fickle dunes
the old brass plaque gleamed in rays cresting the hill:
an inscription of grief no longer audible.
Ridged hill of letters, promises audible among dunes.
Sarah I never knew how much of an angel you was. until you grew your wings and flew too that beautiful bright star above our heads and if that start would give me one wish. I would wish for you to come back and fix our broken hearts..?? but as I sit here underneath the night sky and bright moon.. remembering all of the ambivalent times we shared. I swear it makes my heart bleed tears...... if I laugh or cry as a grandad I hope she hears.. that I'm still not happy about the time she died my hair or all the times her friends made me babysit for a year lol *** so thank you everyone for the mad or amazing times we all got too shair xx
I love you big sister
You knew me when the world was small,
Before I knew what love meant at all;
Through schoolyard laughter, years gone by,
You were the constant beneath my sky.
They paired our names in childish jest,
Unknowing fate had played its best.
And somewhere 'neath those youthful days,
Your name grew dear in quiet ways.
Then came October, soft and still,
When you confessed your heart's own will.
Four years we wandered, hand in hand,
Through distant roads and dreams unplanned.
But life, alas, grew stern with time,
And stole the sweetness from its prime.
I lost my way, I lost my light,
And held your memory through every night.
Now you call me friend—what bitter art,
To give a common name to a sacred heart.
How can I greet you as though we never knew,
When half my yesterdays belonged to you?
You say no second chance shall be,
Yet hope still keeps its vigil in me.
A wistful heart, though bruised by years,
Still finds your name among its tears.
Perhaps, when seasons turn and skies grow pale,
You'll find our old affection in the tale.
And if you return when all seems through,
I'll know, at once, the boy I knew.
craze pops like a popcorn
roasting after every season of a newborn
awaiting what it looks, feels like trying new
zapping the line or cue in askew
ends short within a year or two after brew
fad drops like a snow when you're off guard
anything new, pleasing, soft, gentle or hard
different generations had them all --
some forgotten or dated to discard
fashion in modes move silent or loud over time
accessories, clothes, gadgets, machines, activities that consume your time
shoes worn, strings, sessions, social life people embrace
holidays celebrated, hypes, hope and holograms that may float or vanish without a trace
invitations, parties, gatherings of the unified
on gates, nooks and sites that require ticket, passkey, passcode that divide
new and old craze, fads and fashion
combined in an open, classified space in tide
I met you in a solemn moment in my life
but you removed all my darkness with a single smile
from that first second of us locking eyes
I felt this burning love that I could never disguise
I waited by the bar that night expecting the same
now that I think about it I couldn’t tell you the names
of who I was with or the drinks in my hand
I remember hoping I was someone you’d understand
I tried to hide the rush of heat that moved through me
when you turned your head and suddenly I was all you could see
it’s like you saw my walls up and braved the climb
then you fell into my arms, and now you’re mine
nowadays when I wake I feel lighter step by step
having spent all those hours so close to your chest
with you, the mundane is never the same
you make me feel like I win every game
I long to be yours in every life time
things can get better, I take you as my sign
The Engraved Silence
I was born in the obscure,
where light had not yet been imagined.
The wind spoke in spirals,
and my gestures searched for answers
in the shimmer of water,
in the curve of stone.
I saw forms dancing on the walls—
not as prey,
but as fleeing thoughts.
Each spark in the sky was a question
suspended,
woven silently by my gaze.
I did not paint to remember—
I painted to understand.
Each stroke a whispered thought,
each pigment a fragile hypothesis.
The world is harsh, yes.
But beauty slips through it,
like a vein of gold
in fractured rock.
And I, a pre-human thinker,
engrave not what I see,
but what I dream
others might one day understand.
For to transmit
is to give wings to fire
we never fully possess.
Joel Charvillat.
Guardians of the Shrouded Palace pt1
Royal secrets loom throughout the palace when whispers echo the shadows of the past.
Where once illusions were constructed on the altar, veiled truth, their rituals and elegies in lament stain the Kapala (skull cup) and Kangling (thighbone trumpet).
Those who once invoked the silent deity summon the solar Goddess to return.
Demanding that supernatural entities serve as forbidden guardians.
‘Up The Mountains’
‘Down The Shore’
Street Vernacular
Philly Pure
Cheesesteak Heaven
‘Wit Or Witout’
South Street Pretzels
Twist And Shout
Frankie And Bobby
Fabian’s Luck
Chubby singing
The Hucklebuck
Jerry Blavat
Dick Clark’s Dawn
Comcast Center
City Throngs
Dovel’s Stomping
Hall And Oats
Bell Of Freedom
— Philly Note
(Freedom’s Birthplace: June, 2026)
Memorial Categories
Definition | What is Memorial 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.