Elegy for Japan
Over the tortured shores of Miyagi,
a spinning uranium sky, full of ghosts,
those taken during lovemaking, meals,
while singing their earthly songs,
whispering stories of their gone lives,
of the broken, the taken, the swept-away:
they tell of Owatatsumi, gathering the bodies
to his sunken necropolis, wrapped to sleep
in his ribbons of kelp; of children stolen by waves,
rocked to rest in the embrace of mermaids;
their passions by the sea, goods of their days,
of the polished mandolin, its gentle tune
carried away from long-fingered hands;
of the silk-tailed calligraphy brush, snapped
under the house; of painted, porcelain bowls
and carved chopsticks, separated from mouths.
They tell of the vanished, the interrupted,
of the never-again, and the once-was.
For the orphans with their bottomless eyes,
huddled on tatami mats in freezing shelters,
for the shattered man in the rubble, the frozen dog
in the mud, for Fukushima, Iwate, and Ibaraki,
for the crematoria belching and billowing without end,
for the trembling, twisted landscape, for all the lonely dead,
for the parents and children, husbands and wives,
and everything left unsaid, for you, for you, for you.
poem by Lauren Tivey
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Related quotes
Prayers of parents make a peaceful heaven to a home
Prayers of parents make a peaceful heaven to a home
The children who neglect their parents will be cursed,
The Nature makes such children’s house a hellish dome,
They are lucky children who are blessed by their parents,
It is said that there is a heaven under the legs of mother,
The children love or not to their mother but she loves all,
She embraces good or bad children but she can’t smother,
Mother is habituated to pray to God for all their happiness,
A few children won’t love their parents but love their wives,
In old age parents are in need of only their children’s love,
Who devote God, adore parents will be happy in their lives,
Love of parents always comes to children from the sky above,
God bless those children who are blessed by their parents,
And God curse those children who are cursed by their parents.
poem by INDIA Mazid S Kazi
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Life-force
once again the earth
stealthily gnawed at her own margins
entombing gods and humans alike.
freezing all human activity
in its innocent sleep
the buried gods
from the earth below
bear witness to
frozen petrified children
still at their study…
panting parents
under the dead weight
of their young ones…
a just fed infant alive
with a mouthful of milk
in the arms of a mother dead…
a life entrapped for thirteen days
with its breath still intact…
the debris of several limbs
under the rubble of once
a make believe world
and
piles of decaying bodies
impatiently await
a mass burial
as bulldozers devise
bizarre beds
for the dead amid the rubble…
overwhelmed and stunned
the sorrow of the world
erased its boundaries
to find one another
once again.
*(A RE-POST IN SYMPATHY WITH THE QUAKE VICTIMS OF IINDONESIA. this is written after an earthquake in iran a couple of years ago. it's published by postcolonial discourse, an online literary journal from canada)
poem by Indira Babbellapati
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When the Parents Refuse to Come Home
When the parents refuse to come home
The children sleep beneath the babysitter’s skirt.
She will eat you out of house and home.
When the parents refuse to come home
The children shall set the house on fire,
And the babysitter shall save the family pet
That is content to be hand fed at the breast.
This night the parents are outside the loop,
They are out for a night on the town to renew their bound without the incessant want of children who shall burn the house down for attention.
The babysitter is watching TV under the blaze of the burning house where the family pet snicks beneath the smoke colleted by the ceiling.
When the parents stay out all night the children are discontented with the babysitter who have no time for children, she rather babysat the TV.
The babysitter refuse to pay taxes on her earning, she have parked the children in their beds where they learn the art of conversation from the TV.
The parents are having fun while the children are safe in the dream shatter of the right brain telling midnight stories of the day’s doings and the babysitter has invited her boy friend over for the night and he will eat you out of house and home while in their dream the children are buring the house down.
When the parents dance the night away in the night club the children are dreaming of the violent of the babysitter who eat the last of the pot roast left over from dinner.
When the parents refuse to come home the babysitter is contemplating the meaning of death and dying in the burning house.
The babysitter will grow up to become a parent and she will hire a babysitter when she go out to dance the night away as her children burn the house down.
poem by David E. Patton
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The Route March
Did you hear the children singing, O my brothers?
Did you hear the children singing as our troops went marching past?
In the sunshine and the rain,
As they’ll never sing again—
Hear the little school-girls singing as our troops went swinging past?
Did you hear the children singing, O my brothers?
Did you hear the children singing for the first man and the last?
As they marched away and vanished,
To a tune we thought was banished—
Did you hear the children singing for the future and the past?
Shall you hear the children singing, O my brothers?
Shall you hear the children singing in the sunshine or the rain?
There’ll be sobs beneath the ringing
Of the cheers, and ’neath the singing
There’ll be tears of orphan children when
Our Boys come back again!
poem by Henry Lawson
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Come, Let Us Sleep and Dream
Let us sleep and dream
Let us pluck out the stars
From heaven and plant them
in the ocean of mermaids.
Let us explore the castle
of fairies and paint the
stories of their flights
in long and lonely nights.
Let us sleep and dream
Let us sleep and dream
when days leave us scars
that let us cry and scream.
Come, let us sleep and dream
knowing that in our sleep
there we find mermaids
and fairies, tending our scars
by the magic of their sweet voice
and their mystic loving hands.
poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen
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Memorial Day
Memories of those who are no longer here
are shared by millions who hold them dear.
Their faces so young that stay in the mind
of parents and wives and husbands that find
their loved ones were taken so young in their years.
Their children were left too young to cry tears,
never knowing their fathers or seeing their smile
or having them there as they walk down the aisle.
No war's ever worth their great sacrifice,
fought with their lives, they paid the great price.
And now we take time just one day a year
and pray somehow, somewhere they can hear
we miss them and honor them in memory
and hope their children's lives will turn out to be
ones that are filled with love and with peace.
So in their futures 'Memorial Days' will cease.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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I Remember The Torture Room
i remember the torture room
i thought at first
it is hell where hot fires
and forks
hurt my skin and pierce
the flesh of my body
i imagine it
to be this oven
of cinders where
devils with tails
and horns
frighten me
it isn't
the torture room
in fact
is in the big house
where people
come and do not
talk
where we
have no
convergence
of the minds
where
she loves him
but he loves
another
where wives
hate
and batter
their husbands
where husbands
too
slap their wives
and abandon
them
for another
where children
have no
respect
for parents
and where
parents
do not mind
their children
where governments
run the state
for their
own personal
profit
where people
sell their
votes
where there is no care
and love
where hope cannot
thrive
where there is
indifference
violence
and perpetual
hatred and
always for
retaliation and
revenge
it is indeed
a beautiful house
an earth filled
with colors
but those
who live here
have converted
this
into a torture room
we, now live
in the room
that we deserve
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Our children are not going to be just ""our children"" - they are going to be other people's husbands and wives and the parents of our grandchildren.
quote by Mary S. Calderone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Our children are not going to be just our children-they are going to be other people's husbands and wives and the parents of our grandchildren.
quote by Mary Steichen Calderone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Children Of Love*************10/4/79
love is looking into their eyes
and seeing the joy of your little
girl and boy.
these are the children of love
'pure and clean' just like a dove.
they fly above their elders lives
touching all the husbands and wives.
for most of them are the parents
of these children of love.
they are the guardians of these white doves.
'children of love' young and carefree
teaching all of us what life is meant to be.
showing us joy when we are sad
explaining happiness when they are glad.
expressing to us
what we choose to hide
life and love is one of a kind.
children of love is what they are
always near, never far.
they listen to us and what
we have to teach.
but we are the ones
who stretch out and reach.
trying to touch love
'from these little white doves'.
poem by Louis Rams
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September Eleventh 911
September 11th will be a day many won’t forget
Unthinkable news were on the television set
That dreadful day changed many lives
Lives of children, parents, husbands and wives
One should live with peace and not with threat
poem by Ana Monnar
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Toy for Future Children
A blind and deaf bullet buried in the field
Dozing through decades of blood and bones
Then one morning
In a bustling future
As the children return to the field
Returning to goof around and chase each other
The blind and deaf bullet will be dug up
Will be dug up and awaken
In the middle of this happiness
As the children shriek and crow
The bullet will wake up
Wake up and open its eyes
Open its eyes and explode
Explode and the children will die
Die with their bodies and faces shattered
There, that’s the toy left over by your parents
O my children
What more can I say
What can say to my children, to my children
To a pitiful future.
Lost on the Lady Elgin
Up from the poor man's cottage--
Forth from the mansion door;
Sweeping across the waters,
And echoing 'long the shore;
Caught by the morning breezes--
Borne on the evening gale;
Cometh a voice of mourning,
A sad and solemn wail.
Lost on the Lady Elgin!
Sleeping to wake no more!
Number'd in that three hundred,
Who fail'd to reach the shore!
Oh! 'tis the cry of children,
Weeping for parents gone;
Children who slept at evening,
But orphans woke at dawn.
Sisters for brothers weeping,
Husbands for missing wives--
Such are the ties dis-sever'd
With those three hundred live.
Staunch was the noble steamer--
Precious the freight she bore;
Gaily she loosed her cables,
A few short hours before.
Grandly she swept out harbor,
Joyfully ran her bell;
Little thought we, 'ere morning,
'Twould toll so sad a knell.
poem by Henry Clay Work
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Everyone's Gone To The Moon
Everyone's Gone To the Moon
by Pee Wee King, Chilton Price and Redd Stewart
sung in the special "Art or Bust"
Streets full of people all alone.
Rows full of houses never home.
Church full of singing but it's out of tune.
Everyone's gone to the moon.
Eyes full of sorrow never wet.
Hands full of money all in debt.
Sun disappears in the middle of June.
Everyone's gone to the moon.
Long time ago life had begun
and everyone went to the sun.
Hearts full of motors painted green.
Mouths full of chocolate-covered dreams.
Mobs that can only lift a spoon.
Everyone's gone to the moon.
Everyone's gone to the moon.
Everyone's gone to the moon.
song performed by by Nina Simone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Broken children
I've come across many neglected children
They carry a pain
Thats left a mark
An uncured wound
A broken heart
A broken home
Due to parents disappearing
Or out there searching
Always there children they are hurting
Why! ....
Because of greed
Because of need
Because of temptation
Or because of drugs!
These children never did ask to be born
And find there status torn
Ripped apart and shredded!
How selfish can those parents be
All for want and for themselves to repair
The only place they have come to tear
Are the roots of those children
Who live there lives searching for there souls
Life becomes a riddle
When only themselves they muddle
Walking down those empty streets
Meeting up with others who swollowed the same
Now they've decided to create a new game
Let it be violence!
And push those parents into shame
Yet it is always
Those poor children who live with blame!
If this is freedom of choice!
Then let those poor children
Make a voice!
poem by Suzan Gumush
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Song of The Coffle Gang
This song is said to be sung by Slaves, as they are chained in gangs,
when parting from friends for the far off South-children taken from
parents, husbands from wives, and brothers from sisters.
See these poor souls from Africa,
Transported to America:
We are stolen, and sold to Georgia, will you go along with me?
We are stolen and sold to Georgia, go sound the jubilee.
See wives and husbands sold apart,
The children's screams!-it breaks my heart;
There's a better day a coming, will you go along with me?
There's a better day a coming, go sound the jubilee.
O, gracious Lord? when shall it be,
That we poor souls shall all be free?
Lord, break them Slavery powers-will you go along with me?
Lord, break them Slavery powers, go sound the jubilee.
Dear Lord! dear Lord! when Slavery'll cease,
Then we poor souls can have our peace;
There's a better day a coming, will you go along with me?
There's a better day a coming, go sound the jubilee.
poem by Anonymous Americas
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5 a.m. Port of Pulawan
the port of pulawan
is insomniac,
it is the meaning of its name,
it does not sleep,
people here, even the children have
deep sunken eyes
like an old deep
well,
when you call a name,
it echoes deep down there and it comes back
to you after
a while, telling you
'there is no water here! '
when you arrive here,
you call a name, and it is the same answer,
like what their eyes
are saying,
in fact, shouting,
you hear it well,
a friend of yours with long hair
disembarked immediately
the sound of arrival faded with the smoke of the
ship,
he is met by your student who flunked the bar this year,
the first time that you notice
that this guy is limping,
she carried a bag full of clothes,
dirty ones from the hospital
her mother has cancer of the lymph nodes
and at terminal stage
she has her only daughter
who drops her samsung tablet on the floor of the boat
nothing is broken,
they invite you for a ride in their old
black car,
you shake your head, you want to wait
somebody is coming,
the one you doubt you love says that she is coming to fetch you.
you want to go back to your way.
The sun shines. The sea is very calm.
The children are now wearing their deep sunken eyes.
Deep dry wells,
running out of water.
Pretty much like
you.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Children of Ignorance
the children of ignorance
with bits in their mouths,
led blindfolded to the slaughter
without a thought or a prayer.
whipped into a frenzy by lies,
wrapped with golden ribbons,
sold by street vendors in suits
with hollow faces and marble eyes.
fed the 'word of God' with shotguns,
wearing crucifix painted robes;
selling their daughters for gasoline,
and their sons to political wars.
marching to hatred and violence,
leaving the weak to suffer and fall.
in the name of patriotism and Wall Street,
led like dumb sheep to die.
and they're already dead!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Rest in Death
My soul rest from bounty days and years.
With generosity, you gave me long life...thank you!
Now, family and friends surround me with love
Read this poem I wrote for you, don't
wake me let me sleep.
Spirit needs to rest in peace.
Ring the bells and beat the drums.
Fill mouths with songs and eyes with hope.
Turn your heads toward the past.
Recite and paint it magical meanings,
Let songs and poems be my epitaph,
And a soft bed upon my soul rest
Weep not for me family and friends,
Raise your chin up like a rose
raising it petals to dawn.
Speak not of flowery deeds, instead
plant each step In life's garden.
Circle my tomb, sing my last song;
recite my last poem, touch my face,
my smiling lips and silent eyes.
Now my friends, my children, your children
and their children, go back...
Gather memories, place them in
Picture frames, dresser drawers,
and backpacks.
All these death can't take.
You, others, still others…now leave!
Go back to your dwellings
As I rest with death.
May 8,2010
poem by Almedia Knight Oliver
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Necropolis
Through the jungle by the river Styx
I've journed long and far this day
Lurking shadows in the parapets
Will never make me turn away
Darkened city veiled in crimson mist
Entombed in time without decay
Never thought it would be like this
It feels like I'm living inside a dream
But my mind tells me I'm
Lost in Necropolis, lost in Necropolis
Lost in Necropolis, lost in Necropolis
Now I know what it's like to be
Inside the city of the dead
All I think of is breaking free
>From all the spells chained to my head
Sword and axe are my destiny
I watch the stars turning blood red
There is light yes I've got to believe
For this feels like living inside a dream
I know now that I am
Lost in Necropolis, lost in Necropolis
Lost in Necropolis, lost in Necropolis
I have seen your cities burning
I have felt your daughters yearning
For the peace before the tides of war
I have witnessed funeral pyres
Burning bright with man's desire
I will fight the demon horde forever more
The world is full of mysteries
That men have never seen before
Magik lives in all dynasties
The light of love shines ever more
In the crypt of Atlantean Kings
I found what I was looking for
Magik Trident of Volusia's Sea
I know it's like living inside a dream
But don't you ever get
Lost in Necropolis, lost in Necropolis
Lost in Necropolis, lost in Necropolis
poem by Greg Dills
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