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.
......
Lament
by Dylan Thomas
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
......
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.
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,
......
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! '
......
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.
......
My Love Is To Kill
by Ilya Fkari
I love…
I love to live, and I love to kill.
My nature is to steal the essence of the will.
To see you fade into the picture,
to have you captured in the frame.
......
