A Goodbye Poem | Russ Cope
How many ways
are there to say
Goodbye?
Often, a period
is the best.
Poetry Website
Fire Birds | JD DeHart
Together, they assault
the air
then fall into ashen bits
only to find themselves
blinking to life again,
soaring with heat.
If the heart wants to
live, it lives on; if it lies
peaceful in slumber,
it rests in the pebbles.
Unnoticed, Comes Inside | Neil Creighton
When grim old Mr. Sorrow
unsuspectingly comes to town,
his suitcase filled with pain and grief,
wearing his mournful, heavy frown,
rapping with his leaden stick
on the front door to come in,
then spilling all through house
his pain, sorrow and suffering,
there is no holding him back.
It is futile to bid him leave.
He must come in and the heart
must sorrow, lament or grieve.
Notice though how in thoughtless haste
he leaves the front door open wide
and Hope, Compassion and Empathy
silently and unnoticed come inside,
and sit in patience waiting
for old Sorrow to tire or depart,
so that they can begin to strengthen
the heavily laden, grieving heart,
and when Sorrow will not leave
they still remain quietly in the room,
growing the tender heart in the midst
of suffering’s pain and gloom
and though hearts can surely break
or darkly distort in bitterness,
from pain and loss the heart can develop
its sweet, empathic tenderness
and the heart that is too protected,
wrapped in too cloistered a cocoon,
is a heart denied the opportunity
for beautiful things to blossom and bloom.
Enough to Chew | Sawyer Carpenter
What they give
is more than enough
to chew.
I have to spit some
out.
For fear of drowning.
That’s the way it works
sometimes.
There’s famine
then too much feast.
The Drive Home from the Hospice | Jonathan Beale
As if returning from Kings Cross or Grand Central Station
The surrealist event that had witnesses the comings and goings
Of the likes of you and the other people there.
not me not us – or so we thought.
We drove back in the car somehow occupied with elephants
and capsules of words, we had failed to think of,
or just had not said. The night, just an old billiard table
full of holes where the hopes had escaped.
The drive home from the hospice. With some personal effects
That had taken on a new dimension since the ‘ending’
Thoughts, exclamations, laughter
And all manner of paroxysm, strangely absent.
The terminus: was a double ending (we’d never return)
The paths would cross we’d go on and on for forever…?
for the likes of you and the life we had leave unlived.
Not me not us – or so we thought.
String Bean | JD DeHart
He is polite society
bow tie and mask,
champagne glass and
tails, stretching on and
on into the evening.
It is a wonder, at his
furthest extremity, he does
not snap in two,
committing unforgiveable
faux pas.
Wearing My Poem on My Back | Tricia Knoll
The logical place, across the broad expanse
of shoulder blades holding it in parens
the heart being too exposed for this story
of how we met in chairs lined up in a row.
I saw you before you noticed me.
Those years unrolled in between
not a burden, a star-banner shawl
bordered in selvages and hope.
More at http://triciaknoll.com.