Maggie's+Page

Maggie Cherneff All these poems circulate and touch upon the theme of loss, whether it is a loved one, youth, or innocence, the authors of each poem use language to express the deep pain that comes with losing something. (For the big wrap up click here )

"Old Ladies' Home" By:Sylvia Plath

Sharded in black, like beetles, Frail as antique [|earthenwear], One breath might shiver to bits, The old women creep out here To sun on the rocks or prop Themselves up against the wall Whose stones keep a little heat.

Needles knit in a bird-beaked Counterpoint to their voices: Sons, daughters, daughters and sons, Distant and cold as photos, Grandchildren nobody knows. Age wears the best black fabric Rust-red or green as lichens.

At owl-call the old ghosts flock To hustle them off the lawn. From beds boxed-in like coffins The bonneted ladies grin. And Death, that bald-head buzzard , Stalls in halls where the lamp wick Shortens with each breath drawn.

"Mid-Term Break" by: Seamus Heanly

I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells warning sound knelling classes to a close, At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying-- He had always taken funerals in his stride-- And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble," Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in a cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

"Funeral Blues" By:W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

"Ballad of Birmingham" By: Dudly Randall

"Mother dear, may I go downtown Instead of out to play, And march the streets of Birmingham In a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and hoses, guns and jails Aren't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone. Other children will go with me, And march the streets of Birmingham To make our country free."

"No baby, no, you may not go For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to church instead And sing in the children's choir."

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, And bathed rose petal sweet, And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know that her child Was in the sacred place, But that smile was the last smile To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion, Her eyes grew wet and wild. She raced through the streets of Birmingham Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick, Then lifted out a shoe. "O, here's the shoe my baby wore, But, baby, where are you?