The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.
quote by Pope John Paul II
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cemetery In My Mind
Locked in the mall in a state of fright
Looking for salvation in a car headlight
But you cant have what you cant buy
Tomorrow is better than yesterday,
Tomorrow is better than today,
Tomorrow is better than yesterday they say
Cemetery in my mind
Cemetery in my mind
This must be my time
Wake work drink sleep retire
Tide comes up way too high
You can fall but can you rise
Cemetery in my mind,
You can fall but can you rise
Theres no pulse no sign of life,
Cemetery in my mind.
song performed by by Midnight Oil
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cemetery Drive
cemetery drive,
covered in mist,
driving down the road,
so cold,
the crypts and tombstones cast dark shadow,
the bats and the wind,
grimly howl,
cemetery drive,
a place of shadow,
cemetery drive,
tall dead trees,
comfort the dead,
black roses grow along the road,
they fight the cold,
and give the living hope,
the living hope their hearts never stop,
and they'll never have to call cemetery drive home,
and tend to the shadows and black roses
poem by Catie Belle Stark
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Autobiography (Polish It Like A Piece of Silver)
I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas.
What did Judy say? 'God-forsaken is beautiful, too.'
A very old man who has cancer on his face and takes
care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a
manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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Improvisations: Light And Snow: 04
On the day when my uncle and I drove to the cemetery,
Rain rattled on the roof of the carriage;
And talkng constrainedly of this and that
We refrained from looking at the child’s coffin on the seat before us.
When we reached the cemetery
We found that the thin snow on the grass
Was already transparent with rain;
And boards had been laid upon it
That we might walk without wetting our feet.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Lilydale
[ music: robert buck/lyric: natalie merchant ]
Come as we go far away
From the noise of the street
Walk a path so narrow
To a place where we feel at ease
Some think it is haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
Theres a stillness here
Thankful found
Childs pose angelic
A stone lamb at her feet
Part the matted overgrowth
To read the carven elegy
Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
Theres a stillness here
Thankful found
Born in new albion
Of rice family elite
Wed to myron bilowe
Thrice with sons
Blessed was she
Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
Gods acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground
Here soon to rise up
Amelia tender and sweet
Her last words spoke
All is well
All is peace
Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
Gods acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground
song performed by by 10000 Maniacs
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Should Human Beings Abort?
Even the beasts that roam the streets
Stay protected by society!
The luckier ones, tasty food greets,
As home inmates shower pity!
Yet, human children seldom find
A home within the human womb;
Life willed by God, must some rescind,
And kill the unborn by aplomb?
All human lives are equal made
By God, the Omnipotent One;
The murders in the womb can’t fade:
By parent’s choice, God’s work’s undone!
No man would seed a fertile soil,
Destroying crops when sprout, seedlings?
Such frenzied acts make God’s blood boil –
What treachery by ‘sane’ earthlings!
The tortured cries of unborn seek
Revenge by God, when parents kill;
The blood of human lambs spilt, weak
A mighty lake in size could fill!
The cemetery of unborn lives
Grows bigger than all those who die!
Should human love become like knives,
And kill their little neighbors nigh?
Within the womb, the tiny tot
Destined as future offspring stays;
But men / women empty the cot,
And cut life’s thread in umpteen ways!
Copyright by Dr John Celes 12-14-2009
poem by John Celes
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A Jewish Cemetery In Germany
On a little hill amid fertile fields lies a small cemetery,
a Jewish cemetery behind a rusty gate, hidden by shrubs,
abandoned and forgotten. Neither the sound of prayer
nor the voice of lamentation is heard there
for the dead praise not the Lord.
Only the voices of our children ring out, seeking graves
and cheering
each time they find one--like mushrooms in the forest, like
wild strawberries.
Here's another grave! There's the name of my mother's
mothers, and a name from the last century. And here's a name,
and there! And as I was about to brush the moss from the name--
Look! an open hand engraved on the tombstone, the grave
of a kohen,
his fingers splayed in a spasm of holiness and blessing,
and here's a grave concealed by a thicket of berries
that has to be brushed aside like a shock of hair
from the face of a beautiful beloved woman.
Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld
poem by Yehuda Amichai
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Soothing graves
one thing about grave
about the cemetery that i like
they are all so real, real as death
and the people who come visiting
they come with their real self
laugh, smile or tears they are
all so reall, for there is no more need
to fake one's feeling, put on a face
everything is now known to the dead
or remains forever unknown
there is a quietness in the grave
and the cemetery that i like
it is the ingratiating quietness
that is so soothing to the soul
the calm acceptance of life
that to die is also a part of living
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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Just love the Cemetery
one thing about grave
about the cemetery that i like
they are all so real, real as death
and the people who come visiting
they come with their real self
laugh, smile or tears they are
all so reall, for there is no more need
to fake one's feeling, put on a face
everything is now known to the dead
or remains forever unknown
there is a quietness in the grave
and the cemetery that i like
it is the ingratiating quietness
that is so soothing to the soul
the calm acceptance of life
that to die is also a part of living
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Stranger
I met him on the way last sunday
He said that he is a Postmaster
I said how glad to meet him
and I gave him some letters to post.
I met him again, yes the same person on monday.
He said that he knows my father and he too a blacksmith.
Then I gave him a knife to sharpen.
I met him at the cemetery gravel road on Tuesday.
Yes, the same gentleman.
He said that he is a Pawnbroker, he knows my mother well
and he lives behind the cemetery.
I gave him my wedding ring and begged for money.
He took it and ran away.
One day when I was just passing the graveyard I saw his tomb with a photograph.
and this was written.
'Once a post master
and a blacksmith
killed a pawnbroker
died as a gambler'
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
quote by Harold Wilson
Submitted by anonym
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A Fantasy
I'll tell you something: every day
people are dying. And that's just the beginning.
Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born,
new orphans. They sit with their hands folded,
trying to decide about this new life.
Then they're in the cemetery, some of them
for the first time. They're frightened of crying,
sometimes of not crying. Someone leans over,
tells them what to do next, which might mean
saying a few words, sometimes
throwing dirt in the open grave.
And after that, everyone goes back to the house,
which is suddenly full of visitors.
The widow sits on the couch, very stately,
so people line up to approach her,
sometimes take her hand, sometimes embrace her.
She finds something to say to everbody,
thanks them, thanks them for coming.
In her heart, she wants them to go away.
She wants to be back in the cemetery,
back in the sickroom, the hospital. She knows
it isn't possible. But it's her only hope,
the wish to move backward. And just a little,
not so far as the marriage, the first kiss.
poem by Louise Gluck
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If no man is an island?
If no man is an island
and if every human being
has an impact on all others,
then why can man not find peace
and are the warhorses
still thundering by
and does the bell at the cemetery
keep on tolling?
[Reference: No man is an island by John Donne]
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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How Wide The Dawn
How wide the Dawn
Is smiling!
How silent-new
The air is breathing!
How raw the sea
Without a wave
Is looking!
And in the night –
Id est last night
How strange
The owl chanteth!
How far, how far
Its cry did seem
And yet
It was so near!
How thrilled the tree
Below my lighted window
And in the night
The solemn night
The owl was still a-calling
To spirits wild
Perhaps
Or long white ghosts
Perhaps!
And in the eyes
Of the pale moon
The lake nearby glistened:
How white
How thin
The rays that fall
In midst of the dark waters!
And from the lake
A soundless sound
Is coming:
For in the waves
And from the waves
There comes a little gurgling
And in the night
In the long night
The owl is speaking, speaking!
Ah! this night – in the night
The people in the house
Are all a-sleeping
I – only I
The vigil, the night-vigil
Am making:
And I
And only I
Will my reward receive
For I
And only I
Am seeing
For I
And only I
Am hearing
And I
And only I
Am feeling!
How strange how sere
The feeling!
How from the clear night
The mist of sudden riseth!
And from afar
Past ten long fields
The cemetery is burning
With the pale light
Of the swift moon
That fall
On every wall
This long, long night!
It seems
It seems
That the cemetery’s open:
And yet
And yet
There is no noise
No sound
But from the yews
A soundless sound
Is coming:
A restless sound
Like souls
This night all-aching
And restless
Restless
At some thing
I am not hearing!
Ha! We on earth
Make prisons
And lodge
Bodies – human bodies in them:
And we on earth
Make cemeteries
And lodge
Bodies – human bodies in them
And the long night
Under the light
Of heaven
How waning-blue
And tight
Is coming!
So:
At long last
We fall into a prison
If not the one
In fine to the other
And at the last
And in the last
We enter our last prison:
And in the night
The long and lonely night
The cemetery is shining!
poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
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Last Will And Testament
Comrades, if I don't live to see the day
-- I mean,if I die before freedom comes --
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.
The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot
can lie on one side of me, and on the other side
the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye
and died inside of forty days.
Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery --
in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,
fields held in common, water in canals,
no drought or fear of the police.
Of course, we won't hear those songs:
the dead lie stretched out underground
and rot like black branches,
deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.
But, I sang those songs
before they were written,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.
As for my neighbors,
the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha,
they felt the great longing while alive,
maybe without even knowing it.
Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
-- and it's looking more and more likely --
bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia,
and if there's one handy,
a plane tree could stand at my head,
I wouldn't need a stone or anything.
Moscow, Barviha Hospital
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.
quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Afternoon In The Cemetery
A dog with a lame leg drags itself around the tombs
Mrs. watson talks with someone whos been dead for years
A sickly smell of urine rising from her tights
Two old ladies on a park bench sitting silent already dead
What a wonderfull place to have a cup of tea
What a wonderfull place to read a book bout love
What a wonderfull place to sit around with me under a tree
On an afternoon in the cemetery
Millions of flies spiral around a cross before they land
In a fresh grave someone dug last night
The little chappel looks so sad even the flowers seem to cry
And all those people seem to wait for the moment they will die
What a wonderfull place to have a cup of tea
What a wonderfull place to read a book bout
What a wonderfull place to sit around with me under a tree
On an afternoon in the cemetery
song performed by by Fury In The Slaughterhouse
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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(Mother poems) To his mother the kitchen meit
Mother, Mother
D'you see that there
Beer hall
I don't want to go there
Mother, mother
Do you see those there boys and girls
Into that abandoned house they go
To make babies as if baby making
Is going out of fashion
Protect me mother I don't
Want to run with the wrong crowd
Mother, mother
Do you see that man
He carries death
In the bulging bag slung casually on his
Broad shoulders
He sells drugs and illicit booze
Stand close to me mum I don't want
To fall into the clutches of the bootleggers
And the merchants of death the drug lords
Mother, mother
Do you see that inviting
Jail house
Be with me mother
Give me the tons of your love
I don't want to miss you in jail
Mother, mother
Do you see that silent cemetery
Stand by my side mother
For I am scarred
And the cemetery is so silent
So discouraging for those who don't
Want to die young
poem by Ngaka Motaung
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Clearly, it is difficult for us to come to a true understanding of what human sacrifice meant to the sixteenth century Aztec; but it may be observed that every culture possesses its own idea of what is and what is not cruel. At the height of their career the Romans shed more blood in their circuses and for their amusement than ever the Aztecs did before their idols. The Spaniards so sincerely moved by the cruelty of the native priests, nevertheless massacred, burnt, mutilated and tortured with a perfectly clear conscience. We, who shudder at the tales of the bloody rites of ancient Mexico, have seen with our own eyes and in our days civilized nations proceed systematically to the extermination of millions of human beings and to the perfection of weapons capable of annihilating in one second a hundred [times] more victims than the Aztecs ever sacrificed.
Jacques Soustelle in Dances of Anáhuac
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I can’t forget it
I can’t forget it
The day changes everything’s
My idealism. wishes, happiness
When the news comes from my younger brother
Telling me that my father was pastaway
I couldn’t think anymore and must go home
Saw my father for the last time before we send him to the cemetery
I walk and Elizabeth walk beside me
I never know what she thinks about my father
Who never seen him before
All member of the family saw us with sadness
My father potter's field under the asemtree
Together with my grandpa and grandma
In the environment of Sawunggalih family cemetery
Where my mbah buyut Sontowijoyo lived too
Nowadays many people come, pray and give the flower
To their place, burn kemenyan for entering their prayer to
Paradise (Kahyangan) , the place of Goddess
To ask manythings will happen in the world
As there hope in their belief
at that evening after the ritual
Jakarta, November 24,2005
poem by Prasetya Utama
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