Tag Archives: Grief

yet it hurts

clown clouds
all kites unfurled
jubilance & church bells
but then she hied for good that day
or ill

fain i’d be okay
could i smile the pain away
left by my bride fae

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2026

hell (guitar solo)

dullened
his basswood skull
struck a discordant tone
for every wrong in memory
& less

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2026

ask nothing

infinity
a crumb, our collective mind
from the day we are born
we’re enmired in longing
& we reach all our lives as if
our slow death has barely begun

infinity
we’re avoiding in the rain again
as it washes away the tears
past stars inert down the lane
dare we to wear our insides out
like we were ever here

who are we to hope for love
as we lift our heads above
the skies could fall any moment
how on earth are we alive

infinity
too many arks on mountains
for any of them to be the one
our jesus is nothing
our buddhas are nothing
so too our drowned expectations

infinity
it’s another god for the blind
yet we feel that white room calling
boundless, all walls fallen away
we’re dispossessed in night’s array
how heavenly the stars

who are we to hope for love
as we lift our heads above
each moment an accusation
how are we still alive

what if infinity left us blind
to vanish beneath the sands of time
& yet we hope
yet we love
we live

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

all that remains

we are born
empty phials for memories
accumulated & preserved
for all time
drop by drop
warm & cold, sweet & bitter
laughter in sorrow & love
fumblers of rhyme

leaving’s never easy
but look, there, the stars
hopeful like our dreams

shade by shade
a unicorn’s funerary wreath
a pallbearer’s rainbow raiment
all is sublime
& then we die
caulked in eternity boxes
blest in rot for posterity
our burial heim

leaving’s never easy
but look, there, the stars
hopeful like our dreams

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

weltschmerz

your voice echoes back from yesteryear
as i perch on the edge of hope & fear
once more there’s this pang of you not here
the sun leers through cloud’s shame above
upon grounded white crow & black dove
whose answer for the wrong question needs love

tar soap scent atween the birches
your shadow no longer afore me
just othering eyes from briar to fens

your hand reaches through the fullness of time
untold happenstance of future clime
dusts sensate shoulder with earthly rhyme
it signals to turn that withered page
to uncloy myself from ferocity’s cage
release sweet sadness & fathomless rage

tar soap scent atween the birches
your shadow no longer afore me
just othering eyes from briar to fens

now & again when i turn to look back
i still see you not here & your hand’s slack
still you’re part of me on this doomen track
in these memories of you i abide
what remains of you the urn at my side
with no hope of turning time’s avian tide

tar soap scent atween the birches
your shadow no longer afore me
just othering eyes from briar to fens

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024