Great Grief
William's son, named Hamnet,
died in 1596,
aged just eleven and a half
when Will was thirty two.
Will's great grief
made greater grief
to compensate for loss.
It mixed a wild concoction,
made grieving man go mad.
Hamlet given no relief
relieved sad Shakespeare's grief.
poem by Douglas Scotney

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Related quotes
Loss is sustained
Every loss gives me a grief.
What remains then gives me relief.
Relief thus encompasses the grief.
Every loss is well sustained.
09.07.2006
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

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Sport Relief
Do something for a child,
Even if you don't feel so wild.
The money that comes,
Can be very big sums.
It goes all to charity,
to help us have parity.
It is all sport relief,
To make lesser grief.
Sport may seem like grief,
But this helps to bring relief.
To those who have grief,
Who should not be a thief.
To earn their living,
So help them get a better living.
They'd do anything for a living,
So please give them a shilling.
poem by Kaleb Brown

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Hope in Heaven's Day
Grief be mine, I ask you so,
If not for you, I wouldn't know,
How life once was and then be still,
How so precious, that death do steal.
Because that grief, won't go away,
Learn to let it have its way.
The link to love, a precious one,
Is met with grief and still not done.
The days do come, and nights do go,
Grief will stay as time is so.
And so a loved one passes on,
And grief comes in and carries on.
Does grief get better, I will ask,
It's hard to say, while at its task.
There is grief to help us cope,
There is God to give us hope.
Grief will surely go away,
On that glorious heaven's day.
But while its here, there's just one thing,
Pray our Lord, for peace he'll bring.
poem by Arlene Dery

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Villanelle on a Proverb
The heart once broken is a heart no more.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
The proverb says that time confers relief,
heals a crimson gash or knits whole a bone
and years unlock a knuckled fist of grief
that clenches emptiness in disbelief
to keep one's wits from being overthrown,
while time, the proverb says, confers relief
from cleaving wounds, paradoxical thief,
that also tears apart fused hearts grown
beyond the lock of knuckled-fisted grief
half-hearts collapsed empty in unbelief
at finalities beneath lids of stone,
while time, proverbially, confers relief
by bleaching wounds to scars—its chief
repair—but cannot heal a heart left alone
although the years unlock the fist of grief,
proclaiming the proverbial motif
that all wounds heal, time cannot atone
for vacancy. The proverb lies. Relief
unlocks a fist, but not the archived grief.
poem by William F Dougherty

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Gilderoy
THE smith who made the manacles,
With bar and bolt, and link and ring,
Sang out above his hearty blows
'I can't have grief for everything.'
As Roger by the rope-walk went
The bramble-bird cheeped up to sing;
He cut the wanted coil, and said
'I can't have grief for everything.'
The lad who came to Ladder Lane,
And saw his hemp-cravat a-string,
'Jack's doom 's Jill's dule,' he said, 'but then,
I can't have grief for everything.'
And I who carried bag and wig,
Looked up and saw him turn and swing;
The dog he gave fixed eyes on me
Can I have grief for everything?
poem by Padraic Colum

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What old sadness can I let go of by sharing it today
How can we measure the grief we feel and and how we could put up with it. Doesn't the grief of death weight a ton or more. Doesn't it strenth out to a month a year or still longer. Is the grief of failture lighter then then the grief of empyness. Wheather we try to ingore or make light of it our grief like a ton of feathers or a ton of rocks is all the same to us. This much is sure if we lock our grief it will weight more on us. Andlengthen out if we open our hearts with weeping and words others will help carry it away. written and Posted 1/1/10
poem by Susie Sunshine

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I Know This Poor Bloke
I know this poor bloke in the mood for suicide
And he has felt heavy hearted since the day his wife died
Some five years ago his ache of loss from him not gone
And till the day of his death his grief with him will live on.
I do meet him often though not every day
And for words to him I always feel stuck to say
He always talks of his dead wife and the grief that he feel
And for him I feel sorry since his sorrow is real.
On his sense of loss with him I sympathize
And each time I see him he has tears in his eyes
My condolences to him I already did pay
But the grief that he feels it is with him to stay.
The price of true love it can come at a great cost
And he is left to mourn for what he has lost
One in his late sixties his hair silvery gray
And the clock on his life it is ticking away.
A man due to grief in the mood for suicide
Though he is one now I would rather avoid
Since each time I meet him he talks of his dead wife
And I am one who needs laughter in my life.
poem by Francis Duggan

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Between Grief And Nothing
Between grief and nothing some will take grief,
but those who take nothing will surely regret
that they can’t be robbed in good time, that’s a thief,
of memories grief cannot make them forget.
In Jean-Paul Godard’s “Breathless” Patricia Clarke, whose short hair is like that of Marion Amsellem whom someone once accused of being a lesbian although, as someone said at her funeral today, “She hasn’t got a gay bone in her body, ” asks Jean-Paul Belmondo, who is lying in her hotel bedroom smoking a cigarette, of course, and trying to screw her for the third time in his life: “Do you know William Faulkner? ” “No, ” he replies. “Have you slept with him? ” “No, ” she replies, and adds, “He is a writer, and I want to read you something from “The Wild Palms.” And she reads aloud: “Between grief and nothing I will take grief.”
5/20/08
poem by Gershon Hepner

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Emotional Scavenger
And now in the cold light of day,
Grief casts her shadows long,
and grey
Draining warmth & blinding me
To the glorious hope
Of day;
Grief would steal my soul and hide it
In blackness,
Whispering reminders
Of pain,
And loss,
And death…
Mocking hope's insistence,
Spurning love's comfort;
Grief watches,
Expectant, she waits…
Grief, scavenger of emotions,
Is ever hopeful.
poem by Jinge Norvall

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Mixed Doubles
Two who once shared a harmony,
Now together
Sharing grief!
It's the mix of trouble.
Because of the economy.
Who thought a bottom would fall out,
From under two with a future.
Who thought things from them would be removed
After having fantasies approved.
With a signing on a dotted line!
Good credit with timely payments
IF payments made were done on time.
Mixed doubles befuddled in economic trouble.
On a field playing with others.
Sharing grief with hopes of getting financial relief.
Two who once shared a harmony,
Now together
Sharing grief!
It's the mix of trouble.
Because of the economy.
Mixed doubles befuddled in economic trouble.
On a field playing with others.
Sharing grief with hopes of getting financial relief.
Who thought a bottom would fall out,
From under two with a future.
Who thought things from them would be removed
After having fantasies approved.
Mixed doubles befuddled in economic trouble.
With a signing on a dotted line!
Good credit with timely payments
IF payments made were done on time.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

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Unknown Grief
Unknown Grief
Mark Kelly Wassenaar (AKA Wazzy)
You never expect to know the word grief
Until it comes to you
It comes in, like a thief
Then you take a critical review
Who really knows what grief is
It could be you, or me, or your teddy bear
If only we could see his
Come with me, I’ll give you a dare
All I ask is that you’ll see
What grief does to you and me
Maybe at the end we’ll all agree
That it need not be all for thee
Have you seen death of one or more
Have they been of love or worse
Does it cause a whole body war
Does it put you in a hearse
If all these apply to you
Maybe you know what grief may be
All this time you withdrew
It makes you feel like abductees
If you like, you may join my cause
Get together with your bands
To end all grief within our paws
To clear our enemy from our hands
poem by Mark Wazzy

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Grief Is Never Having To Say I Grieve
Your grief has been too heavy
I don’t know how much grief buries you down
Please let me weep with you
Please let me weep with you
Like the others, I adore you for keeping up with life
I could imagine how you cry in your thoughts
How like blade, grief cuts your heart, your throat,
the top of your skull - slowly
Like wars in history, there are no exits
and there are no choices
If you were there, you had to face those rattling guns
Plead, please plead
Remember “Our Lady of Sorrows'
Mary carried part of the grief Jesus has
been carrying to save us, during the crucifixion
Mary had no one with her
She was helpless, yet in those moments
God’s strength kept her unmovable and brave
How long does grief stay?
People are not things
How long does grief stay?
If you lost something, you can always build it again
How long does grief stay?
If you lost someone, and someone, and someone
again, in any way – they are part of you
For as long as you live, grief changes into
remembering happy days with each other
Grief becomes faithfulness
Grief changes unto faith
Those drops of blood, while Jesus prayed in the garden
Is grief
Grief is never having to say “I grieve, ”
but “I love, ”
This is how long grief stays.
poem by Rosalinda Flores Martinez

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A grief ago
'There is no grief
which time does not lessen
or soften' -
so said Cicero, a man so often right;
a Stoic, those for whom
all life presents a lesson
to be learned from,
and then, to move on from..
But I wonder about all this:
is grief ever lessened or softened?
Is it not, perhaps, overlaid
in our so various ways?
For some, grief framed and falsified
to ease that grief;
For some, like hyacinths and crocus bulbs,
left in a dark cupboard in the autumn of our grief
to respond to time, and
become at last
themselves?
gently, gently, the covers pulled
over the loving bed,
the true, the pure, the lovely painful grief,
the memory deep cherished,
gently, gently, folded
into the cupboards of the heart
there to be known, without the door disturbed
until the time - 'a grief ago' as Dylan wrote -
the cupboard opened only for love's sake
without grief...:
those carefully folded memories
brought out and loved
and lived a while...
not grief, not grief...but
the pure memory of grief
and behold,
life.
poem by Michael Shepherd

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Threats To Keep A People In Grief
How can we seek solutions...
When our denials love to bask,
In a pleasing done by deceit.
How can we non-fictionalize our lives,
When fiction is all we seek.
How can we ever expect to accept the truth,
When none of it is believed.
And how is a greatness once perceived,
So willing to feed decadence...
And allow conflict and division succeed.
All of these may be questions!
But the opportunity to answer them,
Become threats to keep a people in grief.
Threats to keep a people in grief.
'Why no one answers them? '
They're threats to keep a people in grief!
'Why? '
They're threats to keep a people in grief!
Threats to keep a people in grief.
'Why no one answers them? '
They're threats to keep a people in grief!
'Why? '
Threats to keep a people in grief.
'Why no one answers them? '
They're threats to keep a people in grief!
'Why? '
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

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Dark Trinity
Said I to Pain: "You would not dare
Do ill to me."
Said Pain: "Poor fool! Why should I care
Whom you may be?
To clown and king alike I bring
My meed of bane;
Why should you shirk my chastening?"
Said Pain.
Said I to Grief: "No tears have I,
Go on your way."
Said Grief: "Why should I pass you by,
While others pay?
All men must know the way of woe,
From saint to thief,
And tears were meant to overflow,"
Said Grief.
Said I to Death: "From ail and fret
Grant me relief."
Said Death: "I know you are beset
By Pain and Grief.
But my good will you must await
Since human breath
To suffering is consecrate,"
Said Death.
Said I to God: "Pale Sister Grief,
Bleak Brother Pain,
Bedevil me beyond belief,
And Death's unfain . . ."
Said God: "Curse not that blessed Three,
Poor human clod!
Have faith! Believe the One with Me,"
Said God.
poem by Robert William Service

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Sonnet 07
Grief dies like joy; the tears upon my cheek
Will disappear like dew. Dear God! I know
Thy kindly Providence hath made it so,
And thank thee for the law. I am too weak
To make a friend of Sorrow, or to wear,
With that dark angel ever by my side
(Though to thy heaven there be no better guide),
A front of manly calm. Yet, for I hear
How woe hath cleansed, how grief can deify,
So weak a thing it seems that grief should die,
And love and friendship with it, I could pray,
That if it might not gloom upon my brow,
Nor weigh upon my arm as it doth now,
No grief of mine should ever pass away.
poem by Henry Timrod

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This Sepration Srom Thee My Love!
This sepration from Thee my Love!
I can't withstand.
Helpless you made me,
I may perish in this grief.
Love enter this dwelling,
I shall lock the doors.
Without you,i am extinguished and
Thrown out from this dwelling of love.
I may perish in this grief.
O My saaki you made me oblivious of my existence,
Now tell me whom have thee brefriended?
How could they be prettier than me Love?
listen I may perish in this grief.
In darkness, the pearl seller told me straight truth
The real Pearl lies hidden in a stone only.
Listen love, i may perish in this grief.
(Translation from Kashmiri by a K Mota)
Sift And Shift
with grief are black veils of women
trying to filter the gleaming of tears
with grief are the hands trying to
sift and shift the sounds of the cries
with grief are women
mourning for the deaths of men
for the loss of children
for the rape of the earth
the thin crust of morals
dirt of the feet
dusts.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Grief
When friends have gone, memories shall not,
Be unkind as the fragrant flowers that fade,
With vast images moving hands and foot,
And sinking through into where grief reside.
Within the mind, emotions overwhelm and define,
Streams moving slowly in pitiless winding flow,
And take each dropp of darkness beyond time,
To heal under rainy clouds made of sorrow.
Passing the source illusion of heart has taken,
The loved given to all; and love left alone,
In clouds that took sorrow could not be awaken,
To signs of grieving until grieving is done.
Then feelings awake to cope with the pain,
Having patiently waited for the release day,
When joy resonate will come resolute again,
And grief floats in the clouds away.
If there be swords that tears the heart open,
And leave bitter scares of inescapable reality,
To numb the existence of human being,
It is the vulnerability of grief in our society.
poem by Gerry Legister

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Tutorial in grief
A lesson in grief
I struggle to find
Inside my mind
Thoughts that will offer
Some crumb of comfort
Black calligraphy,
Brave, brush strokes
Across the blinding stab of pain
That comes with loss
Ah, but then there is darkness.
Impenetrable, like none you imagined
And you will put every effort
Into figuring the exit route.
Wasted effort.
Sit my friend.
Rest, and in its own time,
It comes.
Grief has its own timescales, agenda
You will wish without ending
For a last day, an hour, a minute.
Yet if you search inside yourself
You will know,
Exactly, to the word,
Everything you would both have said.
It is not for you to deal with grief.
For grief will deal with you