Lonely Funerals: Compassionate Verses
It’s been a while since we posted on the GFG Blog, but this weekend, we heard about a project in Scotland that is too important not to share with our readers. Michael Hannah is an independent funeral celebrant based in Dundee. He has generously written this guest post for us. For many of us, the […]
Poem
THE NEW BRIDE by Catherine Smith Dying, darling, is the easy bit. Fifty paracetamol, bride-white and sticking in the throat, ten shots of Johnny Walker, and the deed is done. A twilight day of drowsing, then the breathing slows to a whisper, like a sinner in Confession. Death is dead easy. No, what happens next […]
Poem
Teenage Room by Paul Wooldridge My mother speaks in detail, I avoid her tired gaze and stare at local headlines, folded double down the page. She talks of calls and records, staying strong and on the go. I know I should be helping, be of use, keep up the show. I only want to slope […]
Poem
Widow’s Villanelle by Paul Wooldridge Beneath the darkened upper floors you smile and wave, left on your own, with stillness waiting through each door. Redundant now, your faithful chores, that once supported fragile bone beneath the darkened upper floors. That one is left is nature’s flaw. The tiring days and nights alone with […]
Poem
This is the second poem we have have published by Paul Wooldridge. You can find the first here. Paul started writing poetry following the death of his father and as a result much of it deals with death and grief. Paul is not a poet in the fulltime sense of the word, he is an ordinary person […]
Poem
The Soul by John Whitworth The soul is like a little mouse. He hides inside the body’s house With anxious eyes and twitchy nose As in and out he comes and goes, A friendly, inoffensive ghost Who lives on tea and buttered toast. He is so delicate and small Perhaps he is not there at […]
Friday poem
Roadside Flowers by Paul Wooldridge The trees along my route are wrapped in flowers, quickly passed each day but only noticed by a few. Their colours burst then slip from view as each is lost, submerged in grey, their brightness all too quickly sapped.
Last poem
Japanese Maple by Clive James (who is dying) Your death, near now, is of an easy sort. So slow a fading out brings no real pain. Breath growing short Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain Of energy, but thought and sight remain: Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see So much sweet beauty […]
No Time
No Time In a rush this weekday morning, I tap the horn as I speed past the cemetery where my parents are buried side by side beneath a slab of smooth granite. Then, all day, I think of him rising up to give me that look of knowing disapproval while my mother calmly tells him […]
Father
Mickey, Cormac and Cathal Mac Connell at the funeral of their brother, Seán Mac Connell When my father died The professionals cried, The undertaker and doctor. Little more need be said Of a man with a heart of gold Locked in a tabernacle of arthritic bones who could melt stones… with his words. Who loved […]
