Tag: grief

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Poet Dave Whippman

GOOD COPY

Auden was wrong: sometimes the world can
Stop, watch and wait, hold its collective breath
After some outrage of nature or Man.
There is no equality in death
But hierarchy; grief is sorted.
Two minutes observed silence for some,
The rest unspectacular, unreported –
For most of us, tragedy will come
Privately: the policeman at the door
Bringing terrible but personal news.
If, as the victim, you want something more,
You need numbers, and photographic views:
Towns ruined by bomb or wave, something scenic.
Grief, to be shared, must be photogenic.
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Dave Whippman is a UK poet and prose writer. He lives in the north of England.
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Poet Runaway Sentence

how to explain
devastation
by earth and water
to a child
who loves the earth
and the ocean?

as snow melts
and rains come down
water pools on streets
and seeps
in new england basements
during mud season?

slow water rising
not the same
as tidal waves crashing
no worries, little one
no earthquakes here
no walls of water here

find a way to teach
no worries
but to worry
no nightmares but care
words to action
truth to power

in facing the torrent
not to turn away.

marian of runaway sentence is an opinionated mom living in western Massachusetts who stresses the importance of using your words.

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Poet Evelyn Adams

Somber Splash

On a new toy
Run film
Tsunami old news
We’ve seen it all

Water to the wheels
Water to the doors
Water to the second floors

Shock of water
Is
Cars rushing
Warehouse next, floating

Shrink of water
Is
We are small
And
The earth can get rid of us
Whenever it wants to…

Evelyn Adams is a poet living in Boston, USA. Read more of her poetry and prose at  her blog www.fillingahole.wordpress.com

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Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

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Poet Colleen Hannah

LIVING LIFE IN A SUBDUCTION ZONE

Forced down and shifting sideways
Living life in a subduction zone
The mantle’s quaking dust has flown
The clock stopped counting time is done

Living life in a subduction zone
And it’s heave ho and away we go
Clock stopped counting time is done
I wait in line for cracks to form

And it’s heave ho and away we go
The love wave starts its surface hum
I wait in line for cracks to form
Dig my fissure root within

The love wave starts its surface hum
It is all or nothing stick the pin
Dig my fissure—root within
Clinging deep the earth gives in

Forced down and shifting sideways
Living life in a subduction zone
And it’s heave ho and away we go
The love wave starts its surface hum…

Colleen Hannah, @1RoguePoet http://www.vancouverislandpsychosis.wordpress.com lives on Vancouver Island, right next door to the Cascadia Subduction Zone. She wrote me, “Knowing an earthquake like Japan’s could happen here as well, I wrote my poem keeping in mind how fragile we are not only in body but in love and life as well, I hope it will help in some small way.”

She adds, “This is a pantoum with parataxis ending in invented form. The invented form consists of changing traditional ending to using first lines of the first 4 stanzas, in a five stanza pantoum, as the last 4 lines of last stanza.” Here’s her traditional ending to the poem:

TRADITIONAL ENDING

It is all or nothing time to win
The mantle’s quaking dust has flown
Clinging deep the earth gives in
Forced down and shifting sideways

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JAPAN

There is a day when waking
we shed our swings of innocence
picking up the tools
of promise
we work to change the world.

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Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

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Poet Mike Cowan

black muddy waters

black muddy waters
came rolling by
they’ve swept my love
in their raging tides

Earth, to my wife
had sworn to be,
a home of peace
to her and me

but waters rose
from angry seas
and covered Earth
and lands and we

and in the swift
blink of an eye,
my love was sailed
to the Other Side.


Mike Cowan is a Southern poet living in rural Jackson County, Georgia.
On writing this poem, Mike commented on his own blog, Southern Musings, http://southernmusings.wordpress.com “I actually saw a picture of this man walking on top of literally a field of twisted metal and cars and debris. The caption read that he was looking for his wife.”
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Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

In the UK, go to: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now

In both Canada and the US, click on the red buttons I’ve added on my sidebar

(red buttons are on the Home page https://hgstewart.wordpress.com), top right.