Tag Archives: Loss

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

TATI’s AND TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // The Dead by John Le Gay Brereton

Hail and farewell to those who fought and died,
Not laughingly adventurous, nor pale
With idiot hatred, nor to fill the tale
Of racial selfishness and patriot pride,
But merely that their own souls rose and cried
Alarum when they heard the sudden wail
Of stricken freedom and along the gale
Saw her eternal banner quivering wide.

Farewell, high-hearted friends, for God is dead
If such as you can die and fare not well
If when you fall your gallant spirit fail.
You are with us still, and can we be adread
Though hell gape, bloody-fanged and horrible?
Glory and hope of us who love you, Hail!

by JOHN LE GAY BRERETON (1871-1933)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s AND TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Since Then by Madison Julius Cawein

I found myself among the trees
What time the reapers ceased to reap;
And in the sunflower-blooms the bees
Huddled brown heads and went to sleep,
Rocked by the balsam-breathing breeze.
I saw the red fox leave his lair,
A shaggy shadow, on the knoll;
And tunneling his thoroughfare
Beneath the soil, I watched the mole
Stealth’s own self could not take more care.
I heard the death-moth tick and stir,
Slow-honeycombing through the bark;
I heard the cricket’s drowsy chirr,
And one lone beetle burr the dark
The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.
And then the moon rose: and one white
Low bough of blossoms grown almost
Where, ere you died, ’twas our delight
To meet, dear heart! I thought your ghost…
The wood is haunted since that night.

by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN (1865-1914)
Public Domain Poetry

mark 8:36

every last piece of evidence
dissolved as i lay there in silence
the gold rush of my youth had gone
with nothing to show for in my pan
they steeled their bonds with stagecoach power
left me to rot in riverbed dreams
built their nations on monied towers
groundhog foundations all the way downstream

who cares that i’d had better angels
who cares that they were both now gone
who cares that i’d compromised my self
who cares that i’d vainly strove to fit in

& just like that, i saw men raptured
fond memories, their bullions in tow
they were headed for headier climes
as i died face down, the dead of noon
was fortune a living catastrophe
i was simply forced to decay through
a treasure refined for all but me
rippling away, spangles downstream

who cares that i’d needed dnipro
who cares that i’d gambled george town
who cares that the world could only take
who cares that i could now only break

every last bit of evidence
just like that, had raptured away
the gold rush of my youth was gone
my bones left behind to clot in dreams
the world had taken all it wanted
the little that i’d held in my hands
the fulgurate clumps long picked clean
by bream, the rest long washed downstream

who cares that i’d puddled down under
who cares that i’d puddled in ukraine
who cares that i’d struggled for it all
who cares that i’d done finally fall

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

the great silence

i cleave to myself, o’erwhelmed
on a stuttered trail of dreams
holding this space ‘tween the firs
’til in snowfall i dissolve
fallen to the flurry of time

often have i bethought myself
of the needle wreath she placed there
(’twas as fine a crown as any)
she told me she loved me for the last time
& i’ve waited since for renewal
for the gladdening of another spring

the older i get, the younger i feel
& predictably, the less i know
tho’ i am sad, i’m very much alive
hoar frost my heart & beard
& strangely featherlight this weight of years

no longer will i trace my beginnings
nor do i care to know my end
hereon this wintry canvas
i’ll remember her to aught that hear
& bethink the ones left behind
then in silence wish that all be well

i am ready to move on
this my bearing, for better or ill
‘neath the greylag’s flurry for more time
within the great white yawn ‘tween wooded tines
a world sadly devoid of her charms

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024