death poems

tyvm now we know who wrote it . Kari Edwards. the blog's great btw... i will go thru it in detail when i have time.



the place i picked up the poem from had only a bit of it.. here's the full version, from the site you dug out.




the bells never stop in varanasi



everyone's dying
everyone's dying to die
everyone's in my way
on my way to die
it's too hot and dusty to die
I am eating the ashes of the dead
I am eating the exhaust of cars
I am dying to die
I am an image sacrifice
I am looking for a boat to take me to heaven
namaste
your boat has bad karma
out of the way
I am burning inside of shame
I am at the seat of the ash
of time
of guatama
of a boat to nowhere
burning inside
I am the end of time
shiva orange
rat queen
goddess of money
sleeping in time to die at the hands of doms
sunrise to sunrise from the beginning of time
alone at the end of time
rowing nowhere to wash my soul
lost in serpentine alleys and back ways
amongst the amputees and water buffalos
amongst entrepreneurs that will cut your throat
and amongst the dust breathing souls
looking in the eyes of the ones
looking back
for anything
not burning



*


there is not that and both and more
more and nothing
here, there is no more
never or not and more

here Allah is Allah
the clay child rides the rat
in the city of clay pots

everything is everything
has a purpose
gets used and reused
Krishna is Shiva
is both Krishna
Shiva Vishnu
and both
get reused


this and that and nothing
or that and both
the ganges
flips its views
depending on location
call it time
call it harmony
call it a petite kingdom
with limited access
a plastic Jesus
a ballistic buddha
piles of ashes
monkeys scream
black death
millions of chanting souls
a mass display of
here is there and nothing and both



~~~~~~~~~~copyright of kari edwards~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Charles Baudelaire
Les Fleurs du mal

A Fantastic Engraving

Skull decked, askew, with tawdry diadem
Carnivalesque-no other frill, no gem,
No garment: nothing, not the merest rag-
This ghastly skeleton, bone-bare, on ghostly nag,
Gallops through space. No spurs, no whips...
And yet his steed pants toward Apocalypse,
Nostrils a-snort in epileptic fit.
Headlong they rush, athwart the infinite,
With rash and trampling hoof. The cavalier,
His flashing sword aflame, slashes-now here,
Now there-amongst the nameless slaughtered horde;
Then goes inspecting, like some manor-lord,
The charnel-ground, chill and unbounded, where,
Under a bleak sun's pallid, leaden glare,
History's great sepulchered masses lie,
From ages near and ages long gone by


Une Gravure Fantastique

Ce spectre singulier n'a toute toilette,
Grotesquement campé sur son front de squelette,
Qu'un diadème affreux sentante le carnaval.
Sans éperons, sans fouet, il essouffle un cheval,
Fantôme comme lui, rosse apocalyptique,
Qui bave des naseaux comme un épileptique.
Au travers de l'espace ils s'enfoncent tous deux,
Et foulent l'infini d'un sabot hasardeux.
Le cavalier promène un sabre qui flamboie
Sur les foules sans nom que sa monture broie,
Et parcourt, comme un prince inspectant sa maison,
Le cimetière immense et froid, sans horizon,
Où gisent, aux lueurs d'un soleil blanc et terne,
Les peuples de l'histoire ancienne et moderne.

Chinese poem
The following poem was written by Miu Hsi, and is found in Han Burial Songs. It is a poem about death from the perspective of the dead.


"Bearer's Song"



When I was alive, I wandered in the streets of the Capital;


Now that I am dead, I am left to lie in the fields.


In the morning I drove out from the High Hall;


In the evening I lodged beneath the yellow springs.


When the white sun had sunk in the Western Chasm


I hung up my chariot and rested my four horses.


Now, even the Maker of All


Could not bring the life back to my limbs.


Shape and substance day by day will vanish.


Hair and teeth will gradually fall away.


Always from the days of old men has it been this way


And none born can escape this thing.



 

yeah.. kind of point-blank.. but true.


real "death poems" -
http://www.salon.com/weekly/zen960805.html

The stone says:

"The Time Thou Killest Will in Time Kill Thee"

The dead go quickly
Not knowing why they go or where they go. To die is human,
To come back divine. Roosevelt gives way to Truman
Suddenly in the empty White House a brave new voice resounds
And the wheelchaired captain has crossed the great divide.
Faster than memories, faster than old mythologies, faster than
the speediest train.
Alexander of Macedon, on time!
Prudhomme on time, Gorbachev on time, the beloved and the
lover on time!
Les morts vont vite. We living stand at the gate
And life goes on.
-Kenneth Koch


for more on Kenneth koch go to:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/75

I have enjoyed reading this again D'artagnan

At some point in a LONG life (as with which I am blessed), one is usually acquainted with the night.

This says it very well.

Talk with angel of Death
AbuMubarak

This is the tale of an average man,who acts upon
contrary to Allah's plan.If you are reflected
herein,then repent and commit no sin.


It was early in the morning at four.
When death knocked upon a bedroom door.
"Who is there?" the sleeping one cried.
"I'm Izrael, let me inside."

At once the man began to shiver,
As one sweating in deadly fever,
He shouted to his sleeping wife,
"Don't let him take away my life."

"Please go away , oh Angel of Death!
Leave me alone, I'm not ready yet.
My family on me, depend,
Give me a chance , O please, I'll repent!"

The Angel knocked again and again,
"Friend! I'll take your life without a pain,
'Tis your soul that Allah require,
I come not with my own desire."

Bewildered, the man began to cry,
"O Angel, I'm so afraid to die!
I'll give you gold, and be your slave,
Don't send me to the unlit grave."

"Let me in, O friend!" the Angel said,
"Open the door, get up from your bed.
If you do not allow me in,
I will walk through it, like a jinn."

The man held a gun in his right hand,
Ready to defy the Angel's stand,
"I'll point my gun , towards your head.
You dare come in , I'll shoot you dead."

By now, the Angel was in the room,
Saying "Oh Friend! Prepare for your doom.
Foolish man, Angels never die,
Put down your gun, and do not sigh."

"Why are you afraid? Tell me O man,
To die according to Allah's plan?
Come, smile at me, and do not be grim,
Be happy to return to Him."

"O Angel! I bow my head in shame.
From morn till dusk, I made my wealth,
Not even caring for my health."

"Allah's command's I never obeyed
Nor five times a day I ever prayed.
A Ramadan came and a Ramadan went
But no time had I repent."

"The Hajj was already Fard on me
But I would not part with my money,
All charities I did ignore
Taking usury more and more."

"Sometimes I sipped my favorite wine
With flirting women I sat to dine.
O Angel! I appeal to you
Spare my life for a year or two."

"The laws of the Quran I will obey,
I'll begin Salah, this very day.
My fast and Hajj, I will complete
And keep away from self conceit."

"I will refrain from usury,
And give all my wealth to charity,
Wine and wenches, I will detest,
Allah's oneness, I will attest."

"We angels do what Allah demands,
We cannot go against His commands.
Death is ordained for everyone,
Father, mother, daughter or son."

"I'm afraid this moment is your last,
Now be reminded, of your past.
I do understand your fears,
But it is now too late for tears."

"You lived in this world two scores or more,
Never did you, your people adore.
Your parents, you did not obey,
Hungry beggars, you turned away"

"Your two ill-gotten, female offspring's,
In nightclubs, for livelihood they sing.
Instead of making more Muslims,
You have made your children Non Muslims"

"You ignored the Muezzin's Adhaan,
Nor did you read the Holy Qur'an.
Breaking promises all your life,
Backbiting friends, and causing strife."

"From hoarded goods, great profits you made,
And your poor workers, you underpaid.
Horses and cars were your leisure,
Money- making was your pleasure."

"You ate vitamins and grew more fat,
With the very sick, you never sat.
A pint of blood you never gave,
Which could a little baby save."

"O human, you've done enough wrong,
You bought good properties for a song.
When the farmers appealed to you,
You did not have mercy,'tis true."

"Paradise for you? I cannot tell,
Undoubtedly, you will dwell in hell.
There's no time to repent,
I'll take your soul, for which I'm sent."

The ending, however is very sad.
Eventually, the man became mad.
With a cry, he jumped out of bed.
And suddenly, he fell down dead.

O Reader! Take a moral from here,
Never know, your end may be near.
Change your living and make amends,
For heaven, on your deeds depends!

Your sister in Islam

ASIFA

The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam   (1048-1122)


If the heart could grasp the meaning of life,
In death it would know the mystery of God;
Today when you are in possession of yourself, you know nothing.
Tomorrow when you leave yourself behind, what will you know?

***

Neither you nor I know the mysteries of eternity,
Neither you nor I read the enigma;
You and I only talk this side of the veil;
When the veil falls, neither you nor I will be here.

***

The cycle which includes our coming and going
Has no discernible beginning nor end;
Nobody has got this matter straight-
Where we come from and where we go to.

***

If my coming here were my will, I would not have come,
Also, if my departure were my will, how should I go?
Nothing could be better in this ruined lodging,
Than not to have come, not to be, not to go.

***

Since the wheel turns at no wise man's will,
No matter if you count the spheres seven or eight,
Since we must die and all desires vanish,
No matter whether the ant feeds in the grave, or the wolf above ground.

***

Wash me in wine when I go,
For my burial service use a text concerning wine;
Would you find me on the Day of Doom,
Look for me in the dust at the wine-shop's door.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson's Grave

Author's Ridge
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Concord, Massachusetts




XXI Consecration of Sleepy Hollow Cemetary

Written by Ralph Waldo Emerson   

XXI ADDRESS
TO THE INHABITANTS OF CONCORD AT THE
CONSECRATION OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
SEPTEMBER 29, 1855

SLEEPY HOLLOW

"No abbey's gloom, nor dark cathedral stoops,
No winding torches paint the midnight air;
Here the green pines delight, the aspen droops
Along the modest pathways, and those fair
Pale asters of the season spread their plumes
Around this field, fit garden for our tombs.

And shalt thou pause to hear some funeral-bell
Slow stealing o'er the heart in this calm place,
Not with a throb of pain, a feverish knell,
But in its kind and supplicating grace,
It says, Go, pilgrim, on thy march, be more
Friend to the friendless than thou vast before;

Learn from the loved one's rest serenity;
To-morrow that soft bell for thee shall sound,
And thou repose beneath the whispering tree,
One tribute more to this submissive ground; -
Prison thy soul from malice, bar out pride,
Nor these pale flowers nor this still field deride:

Rather to those ascents of being turn
Where a ne'er-setting sun illumes the year
Eternal, and the incessant watch-fires burn
Of unspent holiness and goodness clear, -
Forget man's littleness, deserve the best,
God's mercy in thy thought and life confest."

A Poison Tree
by William Blake


I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole.
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

 

AngeliqueEast, I really liked the poem by the King of Texacoco. My favorite part is how he lists the powerful men who lie stripped of their achievements in the belly of the earth. There is something exceedingly powerful about it, at least for me.

A death poem by one of my favorites:

Edge
by Sylvia Plath

The woman is perfected
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

This poem may be a bit out of context but its still one of my favorites because it talks about fighting for life till the very end.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

E.W.Wilcox
Glad you liked it TheSeasAsleep, it's one of my old time favorites. It is a very powerful poem.


A BURIAL
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Today I had a burial of my dead. 
There was no shroud, no coffin, and no pall, 
No prayers were uttered and no tears were shed 
I only turned a picture to the wall. 

A picture that had hung within my room 
For years and years; a relic of my youth. 
It kept the rose of love in constant bloom 
To see those eyes of earnestness and truth. 

At hours wherein no other dared intrude, 
I had drawn comfort from its smiling grace. 
Silent companion of my solitude, 
My soul held sweet communion with that face. 

I lived again the dream so bright, so brief, 
Though wakened as we all are by some Fate; 
This picture gave me infinite relief, 
And did not leave me wholly desolate. 

To-day I saw an item, quite by chance, 
That robbed me of my pitiful poor dole: 
A marriage notice fell beneath my glance, 
And I became a lonely widowed soul. 

With drooping eyes, and cheeks a burning flame, 
I turned the picture to the blank wall's gloom. 
My very heart had died in me of shame, 
If I had left it smiling in my room. 

Another woman's husband. So, my friend, 
My comfort, my sole relic of the past, 
I bury thee, and, lonely, seek the end. 
Swift age has swept my youth from me at last. 

 

Death Alone
by Pablo Neruda
Written in 1940


 
There are lone cemeteries,
tombs full of soundless bones,
the heart threading a tunnel,
a dark, dark tunnel :
like a wreck we die to the very core,
as if drowning at the heart
or collapsing inwards from skin to soul.

There are corpses,
clammy slabs for feet,
there is death in the bones,
like a pure sound,
a bark without its dog,
out of certain bells, certain tombs
swelling in this humidity like lament or rain.

I see, when alone at times,
coffins under sail
setting out with the pale dead, women in their dead braids,
bakers as white as angels,
thoughtful girls married to notaries,
coffins ascending the vertical river of the dead,
the wine-dark river to its source,
with their sails swollen with the sound of death,
filled with the silent noise of death.

Death is drawn to sound
like a slipper without a foot, a suit without its wearer,
comes to knock with a ring, stoneless and fingerless,
comes to shout without a mouth, a tongue, without a throat.
Nevertheless its footsteps sound
and its clothes echo, hushed like a tree.

I do not know, I am ignorant, I hardly see
but it seems to me that its song has the colour of wet violets,
violets well used to the earth,
since the face of death is green,
and the gaze of death green
with the etched moisture of a violet's leaf
and its grave colour of exasperated winter.

But death goes about the earth also, riding a broom
lapping the ground in search of the dead -
death is in the broom,
it is the tongue of death looking for the dead,
the needle of death looking for the thread.

Death lies in our beds :
in the lazy mattresses, the black blankets,
lives a full stretch and then suddenly blows,
blows sound unknown filling out the sheets
and there are beds sailing into a harbour
where death is waiting, dressed as an admiral.

The original is always the best Francis. Thank you.

W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good


A shame this poem has become associated with a certain film. On its own, I think it is very powerful.

Of course, "He" can be replaced with "She" throughout.