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.
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Gone From My Sight
by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone'
Gone where?
......
The Slave Dealer
by Thomas Pringle
From ocean's wave a Wanderer came,
With visage tanned and dun:
His Mother, when he told his name,
Scarce knew her long-lost son;
So altered was his face and frame
By the ill course he had run.
There was hot fever in his blood,
And dark thoughts in his brain;
And oh! to turn his heart to good
......
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.
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! '
......
Incaprettamento
by George Payne
For as long as we can remember,
seeking favors of protection,
our kind has buried innocent
people alive: to protect borders.
To project strength. To prevent chaos.
To pray that the gods will not devour
us with their wrath. To honor the dead
and to raise new life from the hidden
......
Schopenhauer’s Spell
by George Payne
On more cynical days,
I struggle to find much
difference between us
and the cicada broods-
the ones that wait hundreds
of years to emerge. The
difference, perhaps, is
the time it takes to wake.
Are we asleep for millions
of years before hatching
......
Child of War
by Saleh Ben Saleh
I was never asked to choose a side, it is to fate I must abide. I am the child that war has aged, I am the soul that time has caged.
I am the breeze, lost in a storm, I am that flower whose stem was torn. I am a dream never achieved, I am the innocence that war conceived.
Among the rubble I stand alone, my precious home a pile of stone. Out in the cold without a cover, I starve to death or may recover.
I am the cries and all the screams, I am the victim of corrupt regimes. In every battle or every war, it is my blood they always draw.
I am a bird without his wings, I am the child who lost his limbs. Amidst the fear and all the dread, I am a body amongst the dead.
......
Les
by Falling Awake
In just one split of an instant
Life force entirely withdrew
With your vitality vanished
I find myself severed in two
As heavens expand between us
I fear I’ll recall less each day…
So, I think back through the senses
To keep time’s forgetting away
......
Epitaph for a Palestinian Child and other Poems for Gaza
by Michael R. Burch
Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch
I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
"Epitaph for a Palestinian Child" has also been published as "Epitaph for a Child of Gaza" and "Epitaph for a Refugee Child."
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