Poetry ...love it or hate it?

Oh that is just so awful!!!!!

That is so ...but thank you for sharing it lydia

This was written by a mother but in my opinion it covers how a person feels if they have lost any person they love and teaches us all a valuable lesson

Just how a mother feels
---------------------

You ask me how I'm feeling,

But do you really want to know?

The moment I try telling you,

You say you have to go

-

How can I tell you,

What it's been like for me

I am haunted, I am broken

By things that you don't see

-

You ask me how I'm holding up,

But do you really care?

The moment I start to speak my heart,

You start squirming in your chair.

-

Because I am so lonely, you see,

Friends no longer come around,

I'll take the words I want to say

And quietly choke them down.

---

Everyone avoids me now,

I guess they don't know what to say

They told me I'll be there for you,

Then turned and walked away.

----

Call me if you need me,

That's what everybody said,

But how can I call and scream down the phone,

My God, my child is dead?

----

No one will let me say the words

I need to say

Why does a Mothers grief

Scare everyone away?

---

I am tired of pretending

My heart hammers in my chest,

I say things to make you comfortable,

But my soul finds no rest.

---

How can I tell you things

That are too sad to be told,

Of the helplessness of holding a child,

Who in your arms grows cold?

---

Maybe you can tell me,

How should one behave,

Who's had to follow their child’s casket,

Watched it perched above a grave?

----

You cannot imagine what it was like

For me that day

To place a final kiss upon that box,

And have to turn and walk away.

---

If you really love me,

And I believe you do,

If you really want to help me,

Here is what I need from you.

---

Sit down beside me,

Reach out and take my hand,

Say " My Friend, I've come to listen,

I want to understand."

--

Just hold my hand and listen

That's all you need to do,

And if by chance I shed a tear,

It's alright if you do to.

--

I swear that I'll remember till the day

I'm very old,

The Friend who sat and held my hand

And let me bare my soul.

---



Copyright of Kelly Cummings 12/8/03

Like it, Mamie, even if not poetry!

I did wonder Mamie

Like the poem gramps ...so many oak forests lost for ships.

Sorry wrong thread - almost poetry!

Just read the bit about how the teaching of the subjunctive will become compulsory in the primary school. Someone has commented underneath
"Would that the subjunctive were taught more frequently".

I love writing poetry.
I don't have a favourite Poet, although I prefer some to others

This is a poem I wrote recently. I hope it doesn't bore you!

FROM ACORN to MIGHTY OAK
From an acorn to mighty oak is a whole journey in life.
With measure to treasure, or regret o’er strife!
A seedling is raising its young leafs to the sun,
This surely is the way all life is begun?

A baby is born, as a seedling in style.
It grows, and in time a sapling has come.
Harsh winters, dry spells, stormy winds it prevails.
As saplings, they bend in life’s storms and fierce gales!
The weaker ones by natural process are thinned

From sapling to tree, another step begins.
Our child has now gained knowledge, and skills,
As young trees, they come with cover to share
Able to help others, their troubles to bear.

In years to come large trees we now see,
Loosing new acorns for prosperity.
As age gently beckons, our oak is full grown,
Harbouring insects and birds, all make it their home,

Our young are full grown now, with lives of their own,
And “acorns” to succour, their future unknown.
Sturdy ships were made of oak in the past,
A very hard wood, ships built to last!

These we relied on when threatened by war,
They were wind driven by sail or rowed with the oar.
When nations clashed, they sailed with pride,
And fought great sea battles, side by side.

With colours flying high, they did not hide!
Many men wounded, many men died.
Our ancient oak trees should have our respect,
But, as in life, there is sometimes thoughtless neglect!

This is the story of our life as an OAK,
Some folk there are who will think this a joke!
But our life could be compared to the oak.
We are part of nature, as you will agree,
Read this with new knowledge,

The message you’ll see!

Gramps ©1/5/2012

Elegran that's such a beautiful poem that I know well. We included it in the lovely funeral service we had for my dear nephew who took his own life earlier this year. I referred to it only in passing on here, as I couldn't bear to enter into a conversation online at the time (would still find it difficult) - we were all so devastated - still are. He was a lovely man, and he knew he was loved by his family and friends.

His funeral was the most pleasant, funny and friendly affair - lots of happy anecdotes and a true celebration that we had all known him. Such wonderful tributes made to his kindness, happy-go-lucky lifestyle, willingness to help anyone, including people he didn't know personally. People came away saying 'that's what I would want for me!' It was such a comfort to us all to feel we had given him this lovely send-off. We miss him dreadfully.

Elegran ...a poem that always brings tears to my ears!

I included this poem in the order of service at the recent funeral of my dear husband. I thought you would like to read it.

He is gone

You can shed tears that he is gone
Or you can smile because he has lived

You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left

Your heart can be empty because you can't see him
Or you can be full of the love that you shared

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday

You can remember him and only that he is gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

written 1981
David Harkins 1959 - Silloth, Cumbria, UK

He was very young then, wasn't he?! (Larkin)

Quarter of a century! Peanuts!!!

Once I wouldn't have understood the Larkin poem; sadly, now I do. The haiku is, as you say, perfect. Why can't I write one like that?

Wendy Cope's "Haiku"

A perfect white wine
is sharp, sweet and cold as this:
birdsong in winter.

Perfect!

Other favourite poets : Philip Larkin, and John Betjeman.

This, by Larkin, is something I can identify with...

I have started to say
"A quarter of a century"
Or "thirty years back"
About my own life.

It makes me breathless
It's like falling and recovering
In huge gesturing loops
Through an empty sky.

All that's left to happen
Is some deaths (my own included).
Their order, and their manner,
Remain to be learnt.

I have just come back to this thread after a break. On Nov 11 Absentgrana posted a poem beginning 'I thought I saw you in a moment out of time'. I nearly wept when I read it. The poem could have been written in memory of my sweet sister who died 20 years ago. Absent, can you give a title and author for the poem?

sprite

Does anyone else like the work of Wendy Cope? I read her poem "Flowers" at my husband's funeral.It seemed to describe him so well.
Some men never think of it.You did. You'd come along and say you'd nearly brought me flowers
But something had gone wrong.
The shop was closed. Or you had doubts. The sort that minds like ours
Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers.
It made me smile and hug you then.Now I can only smile.
But look, the flowers you nearly brought
Have lasted all this while.
I just felt like sharing it with someone.

Daisy I love it, very appropriate for us here, don't have it deleted,it's lovely.

Phoenix, that poem is so moving. It made me tearful even though I haven't recently been bereaved.

Jess, yes I did write the poem but I feel guilty now because I sent it on impulse and realised later that this forum is not the place for it. This forum is for poems that you have all found and remembered and loved. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it. Could it be deleted please?

Back a while I posted on Gransnet a poem that we included in the order of service for my darling boy, who died aged 19. A Gransnetter pm'd me to say that she found the poem particularly poignant and comforting, as she had lost a grandson. Here it is, I believe that it was part of the late Queen Mothers funeral service, with a change of gender, obviously.

You can shed tears that he is gone
Or you can smile because he has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that he'll come back
or you can open your eyes and see all he's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see him
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember him and only that he's gone
or you can cherish his memory and let it live on
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
or you can do what he'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

hi there.Did you write this? very Gransnet

Becoming Sixty

Next year I am going to be sixty
So I thought I should put in some practice.
Today I wore a linen dress and a hat with a brim
And walked rather slowly with my feet turned out
And made my arms swing from side to side
Graciously.

From today I shall use a footstool
And never sit sideways in my chair
With my legs over the arm.
I shall drink my Earl Grey tea
From a cup with a saucer.
I shall go into the garden
With a trug and secateurs
And stop biting off the sweet peas
With my teeth because I won’t
Forget the scissors any more.

Oh! Is that the time?
I must dash and catch the post
Or I’ll be too late for a place in the
Beginners’ Tap Class.

I've found the rest of it. It goes by various titles - The tired woman's epitaph - The housewife's idea of heaven - An Epitaph.

Here lies an old woman who always was tired,
For she lived in a house where help wasn’t hired.
Her last words on earth were: “Good-by, friends, I’m going
To where there’s no scrubbing and baking and sewing.
And everything there will be just to my wishes,
For where they don’t eat, there’s no washing of dishes.
They say that loud anthems will ever be ringing.
But as I’ve no voice, I’ll get rid of the singing.
Weep not for me now, and weep for me never.
For I’m going to do nothing forever and ever.”

From the Home Science Magazine. May, 1903.

The skivvy's epitaph (I don't know its real title but this will do)

Don't weep for me now,
Don't weep for me never.
I'm going to do nothing
For ever and ever.

I liked Robert Louis Stevenson's train poem as a child. If you read it out loud you can hear the rhythm of the wheels on the tracks, and the last line is cleverly made of words that force you to say them more slowly, as though the train were slowing down.

From a Railway Carriage

FASTER than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!