Short Epitaphs Poems

temples and tombstones

epitaphs and eulogies 

now and forever...

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Five
haiku
death poems-
epitaphs in
sound

Full recital @Requiem by composer Carl Kenkins...

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"Nunna Dual Tsuny"

wild roses now grow
as living epitaphs on
"the trail where they cried"

©deborah burch
1.29.2013...

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Are you ready for a few laughs
you can have in your bathes 
while reading their epitaphs.

Now I have to write I.

Jim Horn...

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His wry epitaphs
    gave us many laughs

  Now Milt has returned
    heaven's court, adjourned


   ~ R.I.P. Xmas, 2022 ~...

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Located where, is Heaven, on these maps?
Cleverly hidden in Epitaphs?
Perchance in Stars seen from afar-
Or buried with Captain Cook, perhaps?...

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Stoic and proud the eagle sat
On one of a thousand graves
Punctuation for the epitaphs
Of the proud, courageous and brave
Who died so our freedom was saved...

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Morning memoriams
Mid day malaise
High noon hypothesis
Sunshine solutions
Half moon hempherics
Evening epitaphs
Nightmare puratory
Dawn desires dead
M.        m,....

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bonemarrow monster
bloodwisp, haunts
the knife
carve flesh formations 
to faces.

bandage maker
stitch stabbed, wounds
the soil
build marble mutations
to epitaphs....

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Bones of the weak
Lie but not here

(The series of epitaphs appearing here
written to honor Professor
Prime minister Emeritus and others
whom  a fierce dog stole away
from Ugandans this June)...

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In here, you will find our OPD,
He didn't know the word 'doctrine'.





This is meant to be humorous. I'm not very good at epitaphs, but I gave it a try and here's what I got. Btw, OPD was one of of our cats, son to Petty....

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Evening shades are deepening
Peaceful hues and tones
In the darkness creeping
There’s a silence in the stones
Anonymous lies sleeping
Psalms praising the unknown
Heaven holds thee in its keeping
Sings the silence of the stones....

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We are — 

HYPOCRITES! 

Jesus 

turns the other cheek,

while we 

berate,

and slap 

the faces 

of our enemies — 

and carve

their epitaphs

in stone.


Note: In response to WWIII and Jesus trending worldwide on Twitter....

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There’s a certain type of age
that can’t get old

Death caught within the road signs
of its bartered weakness

Where voices cry a fevered wish
to all who listen

And legends write their epitaphs
—on hearts afire

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2019)...

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The delicate breath of hiraeth,
encroaches upon my quill, 
beyond the water’s edge,                                    
abruptly, she tries, to interrupt,
to point towards the church upon a hill,
dropping eaves onto epitaphs,
for whom the river,
holds still.

...

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Looking at what man hath wrought
Since learning how to walk and talk
I find it hard to sit in judgment
Having been distracted hunting reason for it all
Pyramids and coliseums 
Roman roads and China wall
Epitaphs and works of Art
Computers jets atomic bombs
Can someone hit restart?...

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Dandelion Wine


Sun swept potions brave the night chill-
Faintly foaming dry epitaphs, meant to
Disrupt the local elections…all the while-
Laughter spills from hidden crevices, where
False promises flow like water set free from dams,
Broken by the truth-
…. a dry finish.... a shooting star.



3:41 am
06/25/10...

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In the tidy marina, 
the tide is going out. 
My last image of her 
tugs at its mooring. 
 
I pause on a slope 
of the Alpujarras. 
The wide sky can't 
encompass my loss. 
 
A hooded crow calls 
two hours before fajr. 
The engraver has come, 
desperate for epitaphs. 


First published in NOON: Journal of the Short Poem...

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If we were fish, we could not swim,
Nor live our days at Cora’s whim.
We differ as the sea from land,
Which write men’s epitaphs on sand. 

Transfixed by time, we hardly mean
What the pale universe has seen
Embodied many times before:
Dim rays of starlight, nothing more. 

Find my poems and published poetry volumes at www.eton-langford.com...

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A bouquet in chocolate covered, rose made words....
Delivered the ballast their coronet and love's, communion
Anise her chatelaine esoteric, epitaphs ? Andromeda, gypsy moths
Metamorphe this curtain of night as she an effusion sub rosa: time's talisman
Archaic play'mates a covenant prolific cherubs,

                                                                                              ...."In Progress." *:*(*...

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If those buried beneath us
could rise today,
would they run to any patch of sunlight,
make snow angels, heap-up snowmen,
stick blackened bones into white bodies?
Would they fashion a bright face
from tooth stumps and icy eye-sockets?
Sadly I imagine that some,
(the frost-jelled and un-melting),
might return to crumbling factories
or defunct offices,
their briefcases or tool boxes
stuffed with snow
to labor over epitaphs....

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Like a blustering old man the 
storm spews snow epitaphs of disregard
for the minions of man.
A light froth falls from the north
dry and distant making
sideburns, muttonchops on the bark
of barren tree trunks.
The windward side of the trees
applying downward weight of snow
tilting with dismay.
Yet, the day calls to the young
and through slamming back doors they run
sleds, and saucers in their bundled arms
ah... for my ole flexible flyer!...

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For Sylvia Plath

So where do you float now;
Genius of misery
Keeper and kept
Of those mysterious bees?

You would frown at an epitaph,
I know.
But epitaphs are inevitable,
You know.

Anyone who's read your lines
Wonders how you did it;
How those lines, tiny chains,
Pullled steady, unified;
Dragged you down to face the dark
The deep crevices of the mind
- Or perhaps you dragged them?

I'm Anybody; you're another -
Two mysteries
Linked by tiny chains....

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If those buried beneath our boots
could rise today,
would they moan, turning shriven features
to the frozen earth,
or would they run to any patch of sunlight,
make snow angels, heap-up snowmen, 
sticking black bones into white bodies?
Would they fashion a bright face
from tooth stumps and sockets?

Sadly some,
the frost-formed and un-melting,
might hitch rides on the windows of cars,
return to defunct offices
(briefcases stuffed with snow),
to labor over epitaphs....

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There's a vision I keep having.
I am horizontal in the garden, 
eager blades of grass tickle my chin.
I stare, eyes closed, feeling
each pen stroke paint my skin.

Etching preemptive epitaphs
for family friends I just saw
yesterday. When I awake, moments
before the alarm clock,
I check myself for evidence.

I find it just behind my eyelids,
"Life is no way to treat an animal"
inscribed on thirty tombstones,
each one sun-wrecked, time-worn
and still warm to the touch....

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