Death Diary - Endymion

I've been reading (and a few times contributing to) AngeliqueEast's thread, 'death poems' in the Poetry Forum.
I've been inspired to write about death at last. Also about war.
I'll post whatever I can come up with - so some of it might be a bit rough, but I'm challenging myself here and feel a bit of a need to experiment.
(I'll try and write something every day, but not sure what will happen).
Some of it might not be to people's tastes - so, sorry if anything here offends anyone, but in defence I'll say now that anything I post here will be written with respect, both for the dead and those remaining.

If I blow myself out early - please feel free to come talk to me here and post up your thoughts.

Best, Endy.




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The Black Rose (Requiem)

Autumn has turned your green leaves red,
The rose is withered black and dead.
I remember your funeral,
I remember your grave,
The old man's toast
And the speech that he gave.
I remember your father, his face so confused,
Trying to speak of the paths that we choose.
And outside the church, how we all stood around,
Staring at bright, leaf-covered ground.
And suddenly we missed you,
"Like a pain," someone said,
And each of us laughed,
Because you couldn't be dead.
Yet you die in my sleep, with your arms thrown wide,
And your green leaves turn red as you fade from our side.


Endymion 2005
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One down, twenty-three to go…

There are thin-faced dogs on the street,
searching for cheap cuts of meat.
There are dead-eyed lads on the prowl,
all lost in the Here-and-Now.
There are burning bushes
and shattered bones.
There are tears of anguish
and lobbed stones.
There's a shadow moving out of the glow.
There's one down and twenty-three to go


Endymion 2005
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War Cries (an anti-nazi poem in two sentences)


Ovens where the remains of Nazi victims were cremated. Photo from the National Archives.

War smokes the starlight from the night, destroying all that tries to
humble in its wake and hammers on the heads of babes unborn
to men impassioned who defend their name with battle cries of alliance
and women on their knees who raise the iron glove of defiance
in the face of the furnace, Fight-for-Freedom.

War, a monster crushing down all life until bone-dirt defiles the soil
that drains the land of youth and on the bleak horizon
only war, barbaric war tradition, scours the soul of absolution,
war, they cry for war, they die for war and all is war.


Endymion 2005

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Journal

The anniversary of a death
- a whisper from the grave
but nothing said.

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Wish you were here.
We could go to the pub,
and I'd buy you a beer.
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I said, "Don't worry, it'll be like going home."

F*** death.
F*** it royally.

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