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 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.
Strange Meeting
by Wilfred Owen
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
......
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--
......
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.
......
as we metamorphose
by Ghairo Daniels
as we metamorphose
two points of a straight line
birth and death that need to
lightly kiss, after plunging depths
dissolve scars, burns from rock
fires, drawings in mud or deserts
falling through dream spaces
crossing grids ferocious or mundane
......
Goodbye dad
by Aldo Kraas
Goodbye dad
I am heart broken
That I have lost you
So fast
I can't stop crying
Yes I could never believed
That you had to part so soon
But deep down
I could not stand to see you
Suffer every day
......
108. Fading
by Kea Campbell
I chauffeur my silhouette as it seeps from the concrete beneath my feet.
Emotions flux like water and ride up my veins, diluting my sturdiness with self-deceit.
Tears lace over my pillow and bathe my subconscious with rosewater dreams.
Reminders dress up my skin as white blushes into red velvet-colored sheets.
My tongue runs wild on the lengthiest lead, but I hold and I bite on personal business we speak.
Words bloom bitter behind my teeth as thoughts decay gently beside your secrets I never leaked.
Tell me what you please and I'll keep, confidential, everything you fancy.
......
Starving Candles 01
by Mario Odekerken
Wicks curled inward,
as if in mourning.
The wax remembers warmth,
but the flame is gone.
No shadows move,
no light stretches across the wall.
Only silence remains,
and the slow hardening
of something once alive.
The room forgets it was ever lit.
......
