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.
......
The Stone
by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him--
A stone for him?" she said.
Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead--
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of a warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired--
......
Death (If I Should Go)
by Joyce Grenfell
If I should die before the rest of you,
Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone.
Nor, when I'm gone, speak in a Sunday voice,
But be the usual selves that I have known.
Weep if you must,
Parting is hell.
But life goes on,
So........ sing as well.
The Golden Journey To Samarkand
by James Elroy Flecker
I
We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die,
We Poets of the proud old lineage
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why, -
What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales
Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest,
Where nevermore the rose of sunset pales,
And winds and shadows fall towards the West:
......
For The Dying
by John O'Donohue
May death come gently towards you,
Leaving you time to make your way
Through the cold embrace of fear
To the place of inner tranquility.
May death arrive only after a long life
To find you at home among your own
With every comfort and care you require.
May your leave-taking be gracious,
......
maybe the only way to find out is death
by Mackenzie Bilz
What do I do?
I feel like everything just keeps going wrong.
Things get worse and worse and never improve.
Every time I see the light, I can never reach it.
What do I do?
Hope is there.
Just at the edge of my fingers.
At the tip of my tongue.
It’s under my nose.
......
Goodnight
by John Hughes
We can take nothing with us when we say goodbye, our next venture the great beyond.
Who knows what we will find there but we can choose how we say goodbye.
Give me no food for months and let my body wrinkle and lose color, I wish to die sitting Indian style.
No wait I wish to loose my blood into the vast haunted vessel that is the earths waters.
Maybe I wish to fight a wolf to the death, battering an animal that would just as well eat me.
Perhaps I wish to dive off the highest building in the highest city and have my life flash before my eyes on the way down
I wish my bones to be arranged as a warning to all others that death comes to those who travel this way.
I wish the wolves would bite and suckle the marrow out of my femurs, a nice treat for a very good boy.
Maybe I’ll go out fighting off a mugger, if only the bastard had got himself a job.
Live as hard as you can and go out even harder, show the universe that you’re not afraid of its indifference.
......
Death
by Siyana Tsvetkova
Sometimes I wonder how would I die or different ways to kill or to be killed
I find the Idea of death very amusing
But I don't want to die and I won't be the first in line to live ether
Sometimes I wonder
If I jump off a cliff would I die
if I stab myself would it look pretty in the cold winter snow
The blood slowly leaving my soulless body and staining the white cold snow
Or my lungs slowly felling up with water and I slowly drowning and falling unconscious watching the world above me turning black
And what would it be like if I jump off a window falling onto the streets of the city cars passing by and lights lingering
What about a gun shot passing through my organs and blood allover my body and I slowly passing out
......
The Crushing Crash
by Somali Mukherjee
I got crashed; I became crashed;
There must be some reason;
I endured when I was lashed;
Still, all slandered me of treason.
I get flown by the Pilot,
Who, too, succumbed with me;
Tooth and nail he had fought,
But who won was destiny.
......
Verplicht sterven
by Mario Odekerken
Ze stonden ooit op een veld,
niet om te oogsten,
maar om te vechten.
Hun namen vergeten in rapporten,
hun adem verstikt
door bevelen die geen gezicht hebben.
De ene droeg een geweer,
de ander een kind.
......
