Death Poems
Remember Me
by Margaret Mead
Remember Me:
To the living, I am gone.
To the sorrowful, I will never return.
To the angry, I was cheated,
But to the happy, I am at peace,
And to the faithful, I have never left.
I cannot be seen, but I can be heard.
So as you stand upon a shore, gazing at a beautiful sea - remember me.
As you look in awe at a mighty forest and its grand majesty - remember me.
As you look upon a flower and admire its simplicity - remember me.
......
From An Essay On Man
by Alexander Pope
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
......
After The Funeral (In Memory Of Ann Jones)
by Dylan Thomas
After the funeral, mule praises, brays,
Windshake of sailshaped ears, muffle-toed tap
Tap happily of one peg in the thick
Grave's foot, blinds down the lids, the teeth in black,
The spittled eyes, the salt ponds in the sleeves,
Morning smack of the spade that wakes up sleep,
Shakes a desolate boy who slits his throat
In the dark of the coffin and sheds dry leaves,
That breaks one bone to light with a judgment clout'
After the feast of tear-stuffed time and thistles
......
A Parable Of Immortality
by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze
and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength,
and I stand and watch until at last she hangs
like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says,
' There she goes! '
......
Death of a Young Son by Drowning
by Margaret Atwood
He, who navigated with success
the dangerous river of his own birth
once more set forth
on a voyage of discovery
into the land I floated on
but could not touch to claim.
His feet slid on the bank,
the currents took him;
......
The Kabale kid
by Ankwasa Harlord
Dear Honoured child of the land,
Of the great hills, terrances beauty
A gentle chill that kisses Kigezi,
Its me a nephew, calling out
an cold ice voice,
Hoping to reach you by.
Back home, we were raised
To point fingers at the Television
And scream " Uncle Shaka "
......
Loss
by Vladimir Vinsky
I tremble. I’m perspiring.
You’ve been, you did, you were. Just now.
Negatory, sir. You had been. Just then.
You aren’t. No more. I can’t.
Why so sudden. Where goodbyes.
I crumble. A wolf fell behind.
I cry. I’m angry. Negation.
I hate it. I sit. I stand.
I fall. I plunge. I run. I shy.
I break the chair. Halt. You there?
......
Death of a Writer
by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu
A community wizened witnessed it all —
Death of a writer,
On a vast, naked stretch with images of
Debris and ingrained mortality.
My pillow was wet on that terrible night
And on my neck of sleep
Hung weariness of an abraded hour
Our streams developed bitumen
Our systems yielded to the force of bilharzias
Our air one space of ground muck
......
An Explanation
by Lee-Ann Azzopardi
When we were together
I would say: Peace be with you, sweetie pie. I love you
Now that you're gone
I say: Peace be with you, wherever you are
I did want to stay
But it would have been impossible
For the both of us
It was time to go
As my heart breaks from the solitude
Only if you could have stayed
......
100. Raindrops file like veins down the driver's side window
by Kea Campbell
Raindrops file like veins down the driver’s side window. Thunder booms like a bass drum that rattles lightning from the gloomy clouds. Sirens echo around my head like a song stuck in the back of your mind.
The pavement in front of me is as visible as knowing what tomorrow holds. Hazard lights in every direction, like a Christmas tree set to a rhythmic strobe. A pair of beating reds in front and behind, and I can almost make out the double yellow and white lines. Where am I even going?
Mirrors ripple, leveling the dips in the road, and suddenly, I'm hydroplaning. 65 miles an hour and I'm hydroplaning. The back wheels get tired of being caboose, the front agrees and my car has turned into a hand of a clock, counterclockwise.
Thoughts flood my head, a brainstorm. I wish they taught us this in driver's school. Stupid drivers school. I surf my files of memories as if they hadn’t just sit us in a classroom, daydreaming of their next paycheck.
I blink, and nothing has changed. The air like a maze of droplets, like a skewed version of Dots and Boxes. My car in the same place, sitting sideways. I reach for the door and it's locked. I panic and unlock the car. Silly me. The raindrops hitting my body from all sides except up. Trailing, a me-size hole in the rainfall. I can see everything clearly, like peering through the protective mesh behind your bedroom window.
I blink, and my car glides away, 65 miles an hour, sideways. I glance down at my body, hands open like a landing pad for the downpour; palm-up like and fingers sprawled out like I had just received a pair of my own. I hear a car horn barreling toward me until it becomes one with me.
I blink once more, and I see pitch black. I'm dry. The rain continues and thunder booms a half-second worth of daytime into the sky, into my room. And I'm staring at the ceiling above my bed, in my room.
......
