
Liesure without books is death, and burial of a man alive.
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The Eve of My Death
The eve of my death, a baby was born, and this kept me alive.
The eve of my death, a baby took her first stumbling steps, and this kept me
alive.
The eve of my death, a school bus filled with laughing children drove away,
and this kept me alive.
The eve of my death, I looked out my window to see my child be swept
away to prom, and this kept me alive.
The eve of my death, my baby, my child reached out her hand to accept her
diploma, she is not a baby or a child any more, and this kept me alive.
The eve of my death, I walked with my daughter down the isle, and this kept
me alive.
The eve of my death, I held my new born grandson in my arms, and this kept
me alive.
The day of my death, I feel my grandson's tears hit me like a cool spring rain,
I see his father behind a podium an inch away from tears, I feel the
flowers on the casket that holds the only thing that keeps me alive.
poem by Stephen Howard

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Decent Burial
Quietly I buried her,
It was only the last,
In life the burial was time and again.
Did she feel the banishment?
I never knew
She held it from me,
Just to keep alive the sunshine
To make it feel like a whole
Hiding the yawning hole
That makes bedmates
Strangers under one roof!
She played it to perfection,
Lovemaking was only a ploy,
She knew it was all game.
She did it for the children,
For me, for the family!
With her going to the soil
The banishment was complete.
She held life to be decent,
And got a decent burial!
poem by Pradip Chattopadhyay

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It's Death Again
It's Death again - He's always there -
Watching, waiting - e'er the stare!
Every time I look behind
Or reach to pull the window blind,
I catch a glimpse of grubby hood -
A little clue to where he stood;
The glint of light that caught the scythe.
Perhaps if I could pay a tithe…
But O! no use, he'll never go.
The adamant phantom; don't you know
He will but wait until it's time
For me to hear His fateful chime? -
The toll that claims my destiny,
To Hail: 'You're next, it has to be…'
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
The Reign of Death
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poem by Mark R Slaughter

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I am eternally grateful... for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.
Kurt Vonnegut in Timequake, (1997)

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Hell
You live by the book of wonders,
The book has hell on it when opened.
The inferno carries pits too grilling,
The grills are offered by devils,
Contagious diseases are handed over
To the body and bones, full of hatred.
A hell of books is opened by the librarian,
You choose a simple verb to read,
Then this verb is read, the verb that signals death.
Your death must never come by reading books,
Long scrolls so wonderful,
Of books the world is made
And the reason for books is reading,
Not living in Hell.
poem by Naveed Akram

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Beldame of Death
A crunch: afoot a dead arachnid
Spanning once a serving plate –
Oh! that others be alive
With such as me for spider bait!
I slunk along the silent hall
Of ancient ore attired in grime –
Feculent beyond the nose;
No bearing here, nor feel for time.
I shuddered in appreciation –
The ambience would mortify
A feeble mind, aghast, opined
Of murky thought, and typify
The will of Belial err I brought
Upon myself to loathe and dread
Exquisite retribution: to linger
Oftentimes alive, then dead.
Compulsion saw me edging on
Toward a narrow door of oak.
Behind, I knew, a greater evil
Waiting in her fusty cloak.
A choice of nil upon the table;
Aught of leave, I had to face
Alone the shrew – her flaming aura
Angling me; my deep disgrace
From ugly deeds I dealt in life,
A heinous world I honed in glee…
'Now take a crooked path to death,
For I have come to torture thee! '
Out of eyes of orange flame,
A piercing glare, then here it came –
The cackling cry of chanting song:
'You thought you'd die alone in pain
The once – nay nay! you'll die with me,
And so a catch: you'll die again
Ad infinitum - ever be!
Your soul to curse, my heart we'll gore,
Your liver to draw and quarter;
A sadomasochistic pair,
We'll slither together in slaughter! '
I answered only with a scream, from
Sensing near her craving lust.
My crimes to answer; wrongs annul;
Renounce my soul and turn to dust...
On an evening cool and quiet,
Stretch an ear to listen tight –
Are you lucky of a moment –?
Hark! my clarion call of plight.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
Notes on this poem can be found at:
http: //succumbedtothinking.webs.com/featuredpoems.htm
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poem by Mark R Slaughter

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Books
The universe (which others call the library). . .
-Jorge Luis Borges
Books which are stitched up the center with coarse white thread
Books on the beach with sunglass-colored pages
Books about food with pictures of weeping grapefruits
Books about baking bread with browned corners
Books about long-haired Frenchmen with uncut pages
Books of erotic engravings with pages that stick
Books about inns whose stars have sputtered out
Books of illuminations surrounded by darkness
Books with blank pages & printed margins
Books with fanatical footnotes in no-point type
Books with book lice
Books with rice-paper pastings
Books with book fungus blooming over their pages
Books with pages of skin with flesh-colored bindings
Books by men in love with the letter O
Books which smell of earth whose pages turn
poem by Erica Jong

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In my books I might hold the mirror to my own face. If others would like to borrow the mirror, they're welcome. The books aren't there to accuse others - merely to raise issues and keep the debates alive.
quote by John Scott

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Disingenuousness
Here lies another box for nature,
Carbon ready;
Black to eyes down here,
Where death is at its job.
Up there you’ll hear a rhythmic sob
Or two from living yet-to-dies –
A humming lacrimoso –
It all but cleans the eyes:
Forget it –
The dismal show of grief –
Life is only chemistry –
Our stay is only brief.
It’s we who hype it up!
Diaphragms jerk again;
The jet monotone of hearses
Feeds the disingenuousness
Of undertakers –
They seem to stare at something up ahead –
For them, it’s in the blood,
To taxi off the dead.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
The March of Death
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poem by Mark R Slaughter

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If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skulls, then why do we read it Good God, we also would be happy if we had no books and such books that make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. What we must have are those books that come on us like ill fortune, like the death of one we love better than ourselves, like suicide. A book must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
quote by Franz Kafka

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.
quote by William Styron

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dad and Me
Inside our house you'll find crannies and nooks.
Crevices and cracks and fissures and books!
Books under the bed and on the floor,
Books around the table and beside the door,
Books on the bookshelf and surrounding it,
Books all over the house, every single bit!
Not a one of these books are non-fiction,
Different worlds are their depiction.
Fictional, sci-fi, dark and fantasy,
Horror and happy, more books for me!
Books belonging to my father,
Or belonging to me as I rather.
My father and I in bookworm heaven,
Until mum cleans up around half past seven.
She throws the books in a huff,
Says it's a mess and to clean it up!
Well dad and I try to clean,
But on the work we quickly wean
And in one of the larger nooks
You'll find dad and me reading our books.
poem by Lenore Lee

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Death and I
When death comes
I’ll need not love –
Consumed,
No wreath or dove
Could offer me salvation,
Not when I’m no more.
A weathered stone will bear my name –
Identity of once a being
Living out existence in
A world of risk, and never seeing
Sense of why we’re here.
My genes will die away thro’ child –
Hue of eyes and hair, the way of thought,
Will quickly dim with generation –
Bow to future dominance –
Memories of provenance
Resigned to curious few.
When death comes
I’ll need not grace
Below; no grieving face
Will call my resurrection,
Not when I’m at ground –
Death and I so bound.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
D eath Crawl
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poem by Mark R Slaughter

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Deathwishes
yes there are three of
us
that makes a company
that day when it is about to rain
but doesn't
we are three
wearing white and i am the bad one
wishing death
for the other one that we do not like
to be with us
but will always be a part of us despite
our deep dislike
it is the truth
that death-wish that is there but we do not like to admit
it is there
speaking, singing, teasing, taunting
and no matter how we silence it with our handkerchief
they all speak
louder
singer wildly
teasing
badly
yes we are watching the burial
of a death that comes true
we are silent
do we have the same mutual wish for each other?
i am sure.
i do not wish to be the bad one forever.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
quote by James A. Baldwin

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Decay Lives
Behind the void - Where darkness fills black to give birth to the shade of grey - Fear is being stalked by Decay - Predatory sickness which morals onto nothing - Transfixed by the stench of the dead - Alive by feeding for millenium on death - Purer by the extreme conditioning where there is nowhere to find - If you do, you will find decay - Next to the living, alive in death - Alive by being dead.
poem by Unic Cjonr

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You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive.
quote by James Baldwin

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ssomething Knocks Out
Ceramic memories
and terracotta pain;
the injured crypt ultimately got opened.
At urn burial, the name was absent. A pristine
ritual for a nameless martyr.
The sword within him was not used
and pubescent bomb went unexploded.
You leave a beautiful war
glorified by defusing a land mine
and roadside bomb was dismantled.
Looking for a blue flame you entered the stone
house of death, and left the hurt gift.
The moon will smile again
when you come back as a bright star.
The dead potsherd comes alive
when I dig for your name.
poem by Satish Verma

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He's alive!
He's alive! He's back from the dead!
He has risen just like He said.
Conquering death and the grave.
Rising with mighty power to save.
He's alive! Come with me and see.
For He has won the victory.
Rejoice with me as the good news I tell
He's risen triumphant over death and hell.

Soul
My mournful soul, you, sorrowing
For all my friends around,
You have become the burial vault
Of all those hounded down.
Devoting to their memory
A verse, embalming them,
In torment, broken, lovingly
Lamenting over them,
In this our mean and selfish time,
For conscience and for quest
You stand-a columbarium
To lay their souls to rest.
The sum of all their agonies
Has bowed you to the ground.
You smell of dust, of death's decay,
Of morgue and burial mound.
My beggarly, dejected soul,
You heard and saw your fill;
Remembered all and mixed it well,
And ground it like a mill.
Continue pounding and compound
All that I witnessed here
To graveyard compost, as you did
For almost forty years.
poem by Boris Pasternak

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