Agony of the old
Had I died as a lad, my parents would have wept.
Had I died as a man, my children and wife would have wept.
Had I died ere my wife, my wife would have wept.
A widower, an invalid, a cumbersome,
When I die who will have wept?
28.11.2002
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Tears not the scale
As a teenage boy I wept most
When my grandmother died.
As an old man I wept least
When my own mother died.
Do tears tell the depth the grief?
Tear glands dry with the aging.
23.10.2006
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: LVI
Who has not wept with Manon? Of all tales
That thrill youth's fancy or to tears or mirth
None other is there where such grief prevails,
Such passionate pity for the loves of Earth.
Who has not wept with Manon in her sin,
Wept in her punishment? What angry heart
Has been unmoved in youth to see her win
With those sad archers to the inhuman cart?
Who has not followed her beyond the seas,
And sold his life for her, and bowed his pride,
And sinned all sins to buy her back to ease,
And died all deaths to venge her when she died?
And I, blest boy, who each new happy night
When all was done still lived in her delight!
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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I had a cat and my lovely cat was ill
I had a cat and my lovely cat was ill
It was admitted in hospital for treatment,
Previous day it fought with a cobra to kill,
The cobra suddenly escaped to save but died,
It moves around my house to kill the snakes,
And it is just like a tiger and guards my house,
My children always play with it and feed it cakes,
Alas! why is it not recovered but died?
Dead body of my cat is put on sofa and all wept,
Why, pretty thing! could you not live with us all?
One by one all kissed it and sadly said it has slept,
If it is not seen at home tiger, tiger we used to call,
Alas1 with a bur-i-al ceremony in a grave it is kept,
All wept and wept and said, what a sweet fall!
poem by INDIA Mazid S Kazi
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A painful passage
I wept and wept, endlessly wept,
Like of which I have never wept
Save at the time of my mother’s death,
While some sequences I read
Off the book ‘The Blind Assassin’
Of Ms Margaret Atwild, wherein
A little girl, by name, Griffen
Watches speechless the gaze of the mother,
Who is in sick bed, the little sister
Being away at play, quite unaware,
And the mother in her feeble voice
Beseeching her to take care of her sister,
To which she assuredly nods and weeps
At the impending end of her mother,
Without thinking who is there to take
Her own care or that what is in store.
I wept and wept, endlessly wept
As the two little sisters resembled
My two granddaughters, me their mother,
As though their mother is in death bed,
With fear of death looming over my head.
I wept and wept, recurrently wept
When I read, wrote and rewrote
The above passage many a time.
27.03.2001, Pmdi
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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That's The Sum Of It
I don't know which to mourn. Both have died on me, my wife and
my car. I feel strongly about my car, but I am also affected by my,
wife. Without my car, I can't leave the house to keep myself from
being alone. My wife gave me two children, both of whom, of course,
no longer live with us, as was to be expected, as we in our youth left
our parents behind. With my car, I could visit my children, when they
are not too busy.
Before she died, my wife urged me to find another woman. It's advice
I'd like to take up but not without a car. Without a car. I cannot find
myself another woman. That's the sum of it.
poem by David Ignatow
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Love lost matters nil.
I had lost my wealth in a gamble; I wept.
I had lost my son in a battle; I wept.
Out of love or out of loss had I wept?
Out of fear or out of need had I wept?
No one ever for the love lost had wept.
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Total Anarchy...
total anarchy...
the dollar died.
the mourners wept,
lips numb and bleeding.
plastic prayers,
to no avail...
'in god we trust...'
and god just died!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Thin Walls
she was tall
blonde hair
not especially beautiful
unmarried
early forties
and through
thin walls
came to know
her existence
mostly alone
two years
my next door neighbor
but for a three month stretch
laughter with a man
love making with a man
perhaps happy
don’t know
then gone for awhile
came back
no hair
gaunt
Alice
the super’s wife
visiting often
speaking words
of comfort
hope
but there was
none
dead a month later
wept
really wept
we never talked.
poem by Charles Chaim Wax
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The River Ran Red: The Kalinga War
The river ran red; thousands died as they gave their lives
The king bowed his head; Widows and orphans this day
Families in mourning, and he, only he, was the cause.
The river ran red. Resistance at the cost of lives
Humans and animals died side by side
The mutilation and the pain, the Daya flowing red, flowing red
And thus it came about that
He knelt and cheeks wet, the King wept.
Edicts in stone that speak. Misery and bloodshed
But no glory. As far from glory as conscience can be
Watching the mayhem in misery..
The river ran red. The King wept.
Copyright: Rani Turton
poem by Rani Turton
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A pious man
A pious man had gone to Burma
From where he came as a destitute,
Ran a petty shop on borrowed money,
Made to marry in late thirties to go
bankrupt,
Bore two sons and a daughter
From his equally poor but virulent
wife,
Became invalid in money and mind,
Lost his wife to his brother in celibacy,
Added one more daughter from him,
Lost the second son in electric shock,
Wandered and laboured for food,
Reaped every kind of humiliation,
And then died, later to be followed
By his wife, leaving the children
To be grown by the remaining father,
Who too died with children spreading
Under different shelters to live
And get married.
I shed my tears thinking that pious man,
Who gave me sweets when I was
Twelve, who begged of me with his Eyes
For money when I started earning.
04.10.2004
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Pious Ones
I saw a man so pious that he wept for me
And this meaning was written in those languages;
Nothing of medicine and surgery was committed
On me, for I bleed and am wounded like any man.
I saw a piety in me that wept for him,
On seas of ice we skated to be wise and learned
Throughout our stay on Earth.
The wisdom of a man is superior to his audience,
And so we wept for the One who created us,
Tears of brine destroyed the flames of Hell,
And entered the gardens to fill the pools
That were so much sweeter than they were before.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Song III
She sat and sang alway
By the green margin of a stream,
Watching the fishes leap and play
Beneath the glad sunbeam.
I sat and wept alway
Beneath the moon's most shadowy beam,
Watching the blossoms of the May
Weep leaves into the stream.
I wept for memory;
She sang for hope that is so fair:
My tears were swallowed by the sea;
Her songs died on the air.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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The Song Unknown
It was many a day and many a night
A windswept night ago
When over the tempest-tossed sea rose and swelled
A terrible cry of woe
And one maiden fair sat straight up in her bed
And wept for she knew her lover was dead
It was many a day and many a night
Many a night ago
It was many a day and many a night
A windtorn night ago
When over the balmy sea rose and swelled
A song of mourning low
And one maiden fair wept long and wept loud
For she knew it was her lover who was wrapped in that shroud
It was many a day and many a night
Many a night ago
It was many a day and many a night
A windswept night ago
When over the rolling sea rose and died
A song we shall never know
It is sung by the maiden fair and the stars shining brightly
And her lover who lies in the depths of the sea
It was many a day and many a night
Many a night ago.
poem by Rebecca Walker
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The Man Who Died For Me
The man of whom I choose to speak
Was holy as can be,
For he was sinless, quite unique,
The man who died for me...
It was a long, long time ago
Yet changed all history,
Such that today most people know
The man who died for me...
Though famous in a foreign land,
His fame did not come free,
For some refused to understand
The man who died for me...
They schemed and plotted day and night,
Their hatred plain to see
And in their blindness chose to fight
The man who died for me...
And once arrested, he stood still,
Before them silently,
Until the time they chose to kill
The man who died for me...
Then he declared his holiness,
His future destiny
And yet not one agreed to bless
The man who died for me...
The crucifixion was decreed
At callous Calvary...
And there I wept to see him bleed...
The man who died for me...
They say He was God's Son and more,
His death brought victory...
I was baptised, now I adore
The man who died for me...
Denis Martindale, copyright, October 2011.
Tune in to the Revelation TV channel on Sky etc.
The Watch Now online option is on their website:
revelationtv-dot-com with extra links and videos.
poem by Denis Martindale
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Back From A Two-years' Sentence
Back from a two-years' sentence!
And though it had been ten,
You think, I were scarred no deeper
In the eyes of my fellow-men.
'My fellow-men--?' Sounds like a satire,
You think-- and I so allow,
Here in my home since childhood,
Yet more than a stranger now!
Pardon--! Not wholly a stranger--,
For I have a wife and child:
That woman has wept for two long years,
And yet last night she smiled--!
Smiled, as I leapt from the platform
Of the midnight train, and then--
All that I knew was that smile of hers,
And our babe in my arms again!
Back from a two-years' sentence--
But I've thought the whole thing through--,
A hint of it came when the bars swung back
And I looked straight up in the blue
Of the blessed skies with my hat off!
O-ho! I've a wife and child:
That woman has wept for two long years,
And yet last night she smiled!
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Two aged men, that had been foes for life, Met by a grave, and wept - and in those tears They washed away the memory of their strife; Then wept again the loss of all those years.
The Sinner's Prayer
The old man died, his spirit rose
And left the Earth behind...
Towards a place God only shows
To those He chose to find...
And this old man began to think
Of sins that he had done
Such that his faith began to sink
And hopes died one-by-one...
Along the Path of Righteousness
The old man had to stroll...
With thoughts his life was one long mess
For he lacked self-control,
Why God would love a man like him,
He could not comprehend
And with these doubts filled to the brim,
How could his spirit mend?
As he walked on, the Pearly Gate
Came suddenly in view...
As he prepared to face his fate,
God whispered, 'I love you! '
And all at once the man wept sore,
Because of all his sin
And God saw all his tears outpour
And rushed to let him in...
The man looked at the angels there,
Their wings were tipped with gold,
He saw such sights beyond compare,
So glorious to behold...
The angels sung such harmonies
The man wept sore and then
He humbly fell upon his knees...
'Let me go back again! '
God asked him why he sought to leave
And so the man explained,
'I cannot stay for I would grieve
With so much to be gained...
For back on Earth, where sin is rife,
Lost sinners go astray...
I need to preach eternal life
And warn of Judgment Day! '
God held him close and He wept, too,
'Return with all My love! '
That's how so many millions knew
What that man found above...
And millions wept the whole world wide
To think of what it cost,
For sinners, Christ was crucified...
That He might save the lost...
Denis Martindale, copyright, April 2012.
We can hear the word of the Lord on
Revelation TV on UK Sky Digital 581
as well as the WATCH NOW link on
the revelationtv-dot-com website...
poem by Denis Martindale
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A Question
AND so in the death-darkened chamber they met,
The woman that once he had loved and the one he loved yet—
The wife who had warped his desire and the woman he could not forget.
They stood by the bier where between them he slept,
And the love he had lost in his wife to her swimming eyes leapt;
But the woman his life had belonged to—his paramour—spoke not nor wept.
It was only a story of sated desire—
Of a love merely sensual burnt to an ash by its fire,
And a husband who turned to a more luscious love that was his for the hire.
All had sinned. For the husband had killed by his clutch,
Rough-handed, the fruit of a love that had dropped at his touch.
One woman's great sin was not loving, his wife's was in loving too much.
And so he had died; it was over at last;
And across him the two women looked at each other aghast—
Across his cold corse, and across the cold corse of the loathsome dead Past!
Then the smouldering love of the wife leapt to flame,
And she poured forth her kisses upon him, and called on his name.
But the other said “No, he is nothing to you; soul and body I claim!”
They looked at each other awhile. Said the wife wearily,
“He is mine; for I loved him, and ever shall love him; let be!”
But the other sneered, “No, he is mine, and mine only, because he loved me!”
Then the two laid their hands on the body between;
And fought for it, wife against paramour, fiercely, unseen—
For the body diseased and polluted, as ever his spirit had been.
And this is a question for answer in Hell:
To which of the two did his spirit belong, can you tell?
Think, was it the woman he loved, or the one who had loved him too well?
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Mother only could cry.
He died at ninety two miserably,
Subjected to curses, humiliations,
Neglects, together with immobility.
His mother, if alive, would have wept.
26.07.2010
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Passion And Love
A MAIDEN wept and, as a comforter,
Came one who cried, 'I love thee,' and he seized
Her in his arms and kissed her with hot breath,
That dried the tears upon her flaming cheeks.
While evermore his boldly blazing eye
Burned into hers; but she uncomforted
Shrank from his arms and only wept the more.
Then one came and gazed mutely in her face
With wide and wistful eyes; but still aloof
He held himself; as with a reverent fear,
As one who knows some sacred presence nigh.
And as she wept he mingled tear with tear,
That cheered her soul like dew a dusty flower, —
Until she smiled, approached, and touched his hand!
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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