Exile
I
At dead of night about the dying fire
They told a story how the dead appear;
And men, grown still with fear,
Forgot their old desire
For those who once were dear,
And shook and trembled lest their dead be near.
Alas, poor dead who were so sweet and human!
How are you grown a menace and a blight
A thing to shun, a thing of evil omen,
Stealing unwelcome through the halls of night?,
Who knows? perhaps yourselves are much affrighted,
And struggle back, remote and bodiless,
Fearful of sounds unheard, visions unsighted,
Black echoes, and the bitter loneliness.
But for me, in my heart is no dread
Of the coming again of the dead,
But a terror of life, without one
Who made life to be life - and is gone.
II
Yes, at these tales of how the dead return,
Hope stirs within my spirit more than fear.
So strange, so strange it seems, you are not here,
And so unnatural to me 'tis to learn
The trick of life without you, year by year,
That not so strange could any specter be
Or fall of footsteps on the empty stair,
Or shapes discerned upon the shadowy air,
As is this haunting sense of vacancy,
And your persisting absence everywhere.
Ah, could I see, as in the tranquil past,
The form I long for - always and in vain, -
Should I not cry, like one released from pain:
'Dear and long absent, you return at last,
And life its natural aspect wears again!'
poem by Alice Duer Miller
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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All Dead, All Dead
Memories, my memories
How long can you stay
To haunt my days
She came without a farthing
A babe without a name
So much ado about nothing
Is what shed try to say
So much ado my lover
So many games we played
Through every fleeted summer
Through every precious day
All dead all dead
All the dreams we had
And I wonder why I still live on
All dead all dead
And alone Im spared
My sweeter half instead
All dead
And gone
All dead...
All dead all dead
At the rainbows end
And still I hear her own sweet song
All dead all dead
Take me back again
You know my little friends
All dead
And gone
All dead and gone
Her ways are always with me
I wander all the while
But please you must forgive me
I am old but still a child
All dead all dead
But I should not grieve
In time it comes to everyone
All dead all dead
But in hope I breathe
Of course I dont believe
Youre dead
And gone
All dead
And gone
song performed by by Queen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When I Think Of Myself As Dead
WHEN I THINK OF MYSELF AS DEAD
When I think of myself as dead
I think of what it will mean for my loved ones
I pray they will not lose heart and hope because of it-
When my father died my brother lost hope-
When I think of myself dead
I wonder about God and God�s purpose
Is there really an afterlife?
What could it mean?
Will I meet again those who have gone before me?
When I think of myself dead
I think about a body in the ground
Worms eating it, cold paining it-
When I think of myself as dead
I think about never feeling anything again-
When I think about myself as dead
I think about the work I have left behind
And whether it will mean anything to anyone
And for how long-
When I think of myself as dead
I think of all the memories that will go with me
I think about nothing and more nothing and the end of the universe-
When I think of myself as dead
I think of life going on down below
Life with all its beauty and pain
And I pray and I pray again
My loved ones will be able to manage and make their own lives still happy
When I think of myself as dead
I pray to G-d
That somehow in some way
It will not be the end for me forever.
When I think of myself as dead
I think of myself as living again somehow
In a way I cannot now know-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Trees And The Menace Of Night
Trees and the menace of night;
Then a long, lonely, leaden mere
Backed by a desolate fell,
As by a spectral battlement; and then,
Low-brooding, interpenetrating all,
A vast, gray, listless, inexpressive sky,
So beggared, so incredibly bereft
Of starlight and the song of racing worlds,
It might have bellied down upon the Void
Where as in terror Light was beginning to be.
Hist! In the trees fulfilled of night
(Night and the wretchedness of the sky)
Is it the hurry of the rain?
Or the noise of a drive of the Dead,
Streaming before the irresistible Will
Through the strange dusk of this, the Debateable Land
Between their place and ours?
Like the forgetfulness
Of the work-a-day world made visible,
A mist falls from the melancholy sky.
A messenger from some lost and loving soul,
Hopeless, far wandered, dazed
Here in the provinces of life,
A great white moth fades miserably past.
Thro' the trees in the strange dead night,
Under the vast dead sky,
Forgetting and forgot, a drift of Dead
Sets to the mystic mere, the phantom fell,
And the unimagined vastitudes beyond.
poem by William Ernest Henley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Last Spring
THIS morning at the door
I heard the Spring.
Quickly I set it wide
And, welcoming,
'Come in, sweet Spring,' I cried,
'The winter ash, long dried,
Waits but your breath to rise
On phantom wing.'
A brown leaf shivered by,
A soulless thing--
My heart in quick dismay
Forgot to sing--
Twisted and grim it lay,
Kin to the ghost-ash gray,
Dead, dead--strange herald this
Of jocund Spring!
I spurned it from the door.
I longed that Spring
Should come with song and glow
And rush of wing,
Not this, not this!--But O
Dead leaf, a year ago
You were the dear first-born
Of Hope and Spring!
poem by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
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All Souls
I
A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
II
Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope -
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.
III
And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
IV
And now that they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: 'Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!'
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.
V
Till they say, as they hear us - poor dead, poor dead! -
'Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed -
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
Just a touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart -
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear, and the dead have sight.'
VI
And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
'One more, one more, ere we go their way'?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.
VII
And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, we too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . . .
poem by Edith Wharton
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The Complaint Of a Forsaken Indian Woman
Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!
In sleep I heard the northern gleams;
The stars, they were among my dreams;
In rustling conflict through the skies,
I heard, I saw the flashes drive,
And yet they are upon my eyes,
And yet I am alive;
Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!
My fire is dead: it knew no pain;
Yet is it dead, and I remain:
All stiff with ice the ashes lie;
And they are dead, and I will die.
When I was well, I wished to live,
For clothes, for warmth, for food, and fire;
But they to me no joy can give,
No pleasure now, and no desire.
Then here contented will I lie
Alone, I cannot fear to die.
Alas! ye might have dragged me on
Another day, a single one!
Too soon I yielded to despair;
Why did ye listen to my prayer
When ye were gone my limb were stronger;
And oh, how grievously I rue,
That, afterward, a little longer,
My friends, I did not follow you!
For strong and without pain I lay,
Dear friends, when ye were gone away.
My Child! they gave thee to another,
A woman who was not thy mother.
When from my arms my Babe they took,
On me how strangely did he look !
Through his whole body something ran,
A most strange working did I see;
---As if he strove to be a man,
That he might pull the sledge for me:
And then he stretched his arm, how wild!
Oh mercy! like a helpless child.
My little joy! my little pride!
In two day more I must have died.
Then do not weep and grieve for me;
I feel I must have died with thee.
O wind, that o'er my head art flying
The way my friends their course did bend,
I should not feel the pain of dying,
Could I with thee a message end;
Too soon, my friend, ye went away;
For I had many thing to say.
I'll follow you across the snow;
Ye travel heavily and slow;
In spite of all my weary pain
I'll look upon your tent again.
---My fire is dead, and snowy white
The water which beside it stood:
The wolf has come to me to-night,
And he has stolen away my food.
Forever left alone am I;
Then wherefore should I fear to die ?
Young as I am, my course is run,
I shall not see another sun;
I cannot lift my limb to know
If they have any life or no.
My poor forsaken child, if I
For once could have thee close to me,
With happy heart I then would die,
And my last thought would happy be;
But thou, dear Babe, art far away,
Nor shall I see another day.
poem by William Wordsworth
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To Isa in Heaven
Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven! — Young.
Where is she now?
Oh! Isa! tell me where thou art?
If death has laid his hand upon thy brow,
Has he not touched my heart?
Has he not laid it in the grave with thine,
And buried all my joys?—Speak! thou art mine!
If thou were dead,
I would not ask thee to reply;
But thou art living—thy dear soul has fled
To heaven, where it can never die!
Then why not come to me? Return—return
And comfort me, for I have much to mourn!
I sigh all day!
I mourn for thee the livelong night!
And when the next night comes, thou art away,
And so is absent my delight!
Oh! as the lone dove for his absent mate,
So is my soul for thee disconsolate!
I long for death—
For any thing—to be with thee!
I did inhale, alas! thy dying breath,
That it might have some power on me
To make me what thou art!—but, thou art dead!
And I am here!—it strengthened me instead!
Joy there is none—
It went into the grave with thee!
And grief, because my spirit is alone,
Is all that comes to comfort me!
The very air I breathe is turned to sighs,
And all mine soul is melting from mine eyes!
I hear, at even,
The liquid carol of birds;
Their music makes me think of thee in heaven,
It is so much like thy sweet words.
The brooklet whispers, as it runs along,
Our first love-story with its liquid tongue.
Wake, Isa! wake!
And come back in this world again!
Oh! come down to me, for my soul's dear sake,
And cure me of this trying pain!
I would give all that earth to man can be,
If thou wert only in this world with me!
Day after day
I seek thee, but thou art not near!
I sit down on thy grave in the cold clay,
And listen for thy soul!—oh! dear!
And when some withered leaf falls from the tree,
I start as if thy soul had spoke to me!
And so it is,
And so it ever more must ever be
To him, who has been robbed of all the bliss
He ever knew, by loving thee!
For misery, in thine absence, is my wife!
What joy had been, hadst thou remained in life!
It is now even;
The birds have sung themselves to sleep;
And all the stars seem coming out of heaven,
As if to look upon me weep!—
Oh! let me not look up to thee in vain,
But come back to me in this world again!
poem by Thomas Holley Chivers (1842)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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We Are Alive In The Moment Of Death
We are the nocturnal nightmares of fear induced
We are fear by which hope is reduced
We are the dead and the living the same
We are the board when your life is the game
We are as children hung from a rope
We are as children in fear of lost hope
We are the dead and the living the same
We are the board when your life is the game.
We are the silence of all that is night
We are the shadows scared of the light
We are the dead and the living the same
We are the parasite worms in your brain.
We are the killers of true passion in love
We are the angels of Hell’s mansion above
We are the wings upon which devils may fly
We are the fear and the tears that you cry
We are the dead and the living the same
We are the parasite worms in your brain.
We are the moon as we are the sun
We are the end and the story begun
We are the dead and the living the same
We are the board when your life is the game.
We are the children who beat you at school
We are the teachers that deem you a fool
We are the rotting as we are the fresh
We are alive in the moment of death.
poem by David Lacey
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Wise
Dead men are wisest, for they know
How far the roots of flowers go,
How long a seed must rot to grow.
Dead men alone bear frost and rain
On throbless heart and heatless brain,
And feel no stir of joy or pain.
Dead men alone are satiate;
They sleep and dream and have no weight,
To curb their rest, of love or hate.
Strange, men should flee their company,
Or think me strange who long to be
Wrapped in their cool immunity.
poem by Countee Cullen
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Dead And Broken
Too many things I've never spoken
I'm not feeling fine
I never told you what to do
I never made you a promise that you could hold me to
That'll be the day you see me crying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
How many different faces can you show me?
How many times can you be right?
Another world of fantasy
Another reason for dramatizing everything
Taking it all in just one more time
I'm dying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
Sorry to see that you're underestimated lately
I'd rather be dead and broken than living in your grace
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
song performed by by Godsmack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dead Tomorrow
Don't you understand me?
In the back of all these visions
All these dreams inside me rotting
Like the clock is ticking down
Words like eyes they turn you inside out
To drown you later in your life
You see nothing but feel disturbed
When the pain just comes rushing in.
Words convulsing in full circles
Turning inside out to make
Us better on the outside, so much stronger now.
Can't look back because the past is burnt out
From the past because its burnt out from the past
Because its burnt out tune me out.
All my life waiting for the answers to
These dreams alone of the knife
That's cutting from my life
It's cutting from my life
It's cutting from my life
It's cutting from my life
It's cutting from my
Dead Tomorrow, dead tomorrow,
You'll be dead tomorrow
Dead Tomorrow,
You'll be dead tomorrow
Dead Tomorrow,
All my life waiting for the answers to
These dreams alone of the knife
That's cutting from my life
It's cutting from my life
It's cutting from my life
It's cutting from
Don't you understand me?
In the back of all these visions
All these dreams inside me rotting,
Like the clock is ticking down,
Can't look back because the past is burnt out
From the past because its burnt out from the past,
Because it's burnt out tune me out.
Dead Tomorrow, Dead Tomorrow,
You'll be dead Tomorrow, Dead Tomorrow
song performed by by Velvet Acid Christ
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Horror Of The War
Of night How long time it has been you and me were best friends
I can't imagine even you've changed your face
How long time every day wiped away my pain
But last night even you became a strange
Oh night you were my best friend
Even you became so cruel how strange
What's wrong the world all have changed
Ah world humanity from you is lost how a unbearable reality
The horror of the dreary war surrounding everywhere rendering sullen vain strain
Everywhere the sounds of the bombs
The mortality voice of war is shouting through the darkness of the night covering. All around
Oh night what a horror I can't bear all this pain the ugly sound of the guns and bombs what's wrong with the world
The voices of bombs through the gloomy night are destroying me inside
The echoes of terrible woes of the war are gazing at the dark like a devil
Everywhere no sign of life
No sign of humanity at the darkness is lost
What a unbearable heart pain the world is lost
I heard her voice at the dark
She was there all alone
All her lover ones have had gone
At the darkness through the ugly silent of the might
I heard her voice she were there all alone
Has she lost her mind she was crying and talking with her dead mother what a unbearable heartache
She was calling everyone looking for help
Oh poor girl humanity is dead even her father refused to come there
And told her just wait till the morning ill be there
What a world I can't bear living all these heartache
I know tomorrow will be so late
Just praying for her to be found when tomorrow comes
Oh god you may help her to stay alive
Oh you night even you changed your face
I know after today nothing will be the same even our friendship is dead.
poem by Sossi Khachadourian
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Oh, who is afraid of life
Oh, who is afraid of life
The passion the sorrow and the strife?
In front of my window the multitudes are asleep
Sheltered so easily in their beds
Happy in their sleep as if they were dead
Yet I am alone and not dead
I wish not to lie in bed
Dead, dead, dead
Dead without any company
Here alone on my bed
with all these gracious thoughts about the world
These thoughts are fed by the sun
O life there is about you
This deep sense of sweet being
I would not have been without you here
Yet, you without me would have been the same
So let me stay, and stay more with you
Sweetness, joy, breath and rebirth
Keep away the death
copy rights 2010
Dead End
Well easily with me I show affection,
But it's a creepin up, a creepin up on me in another direction
I love, I write, and I die
And I try to ask no questions,
But the weary one is still me,
Do you think its obsession?
The smoke will find you a choker that matches your coat, not fit to be tied
The mirror it makes it all clearer as you stand alone and cant see your behind
Yea
They tried to tell me I could say that nobody could believe this
Well they tried to tell me I could say nobody could achieve this
The way you stayed of, locked away of
Keeping the flame for yourself,
The way you stayed of, pushin the blame of, reaping the fame for yourself
Oh well, it's a, it's a, dead end
It's a dead end
Oh, it's a dead end lonely day,
Say it's a dead end
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a dead end day
It's a dead end oh day
And it's a long way, a long way down,
Hey well it's a long way, a long way down
Change is coming a baby,
Don't be startled lady
Every once in a while they do it again
You gonna shake it, shake it,
You know you wanna take it
Back to where you once belonged,
Back beneath the sheets and between the pillow cases
And the snake he races out and he, he tangles into your hair
Funny the fruits you choose
Oh the time you take, the words you loose
And it all goes back to rotation over the back of your hand
Oh the back of your hand, oh the back of your hand
Oh the map is your hand,
it's the back of your hand, the back of your hand
say the back of your hand, oh the map is your hand, it's the back of your hand
stop whining all the time,
don't you find a little secret to yourself always saved your life,
stop listening to the words that you've heard
no one else but yourself will agree with you more
that it's a long, long way
it's a long, long way
and it's a long, long way, a long way down
hey, and it's a long way down,
and it's a lo- oh- oh- ng way down
hey, hey, hey, and it's a long, long, long, long way down,
say say, SCATS
and it's a lo- oh- oh- ng way down, hey and it's a long way dooooown
it's a dead end
it's a dead end oh
it's a dead end lonely day
it's a, it's a dead end
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a dead end day
It's a dead end oh day
song performed by by Jason Mraz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Forever
THOSE we love truly never die,
Though year by year the sad memorial wreath,
A ring and flowers, types of life and death,
Are laid upon their graves.
For death the pure life saves,
And life all pure is love; and love can reach
From heaven to earth, and nobler lessons teach
Than those by mortals read.
Well blest is he who has a dear one dead:
A friend he has whose face will never change—
A dear communion that will not grow strange;
The anchor of a love is death.
The blessed sweetness of a loving breath
Will reach our cheek all fresh through weary years.
For her who died long since, ah! waste not tears,
She's thine unto the end.
Thank God for one dead friend,
With face still radiant with the light of truth,
Whose love comes laden with the scent of youth,
Through twenty years of death.
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Song VI: Cherish Life that Abideth
Love is enough: cherish life that abideth,
Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him;
For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth,
On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth?
And what is the joy of man's life that ye blame him
For his bliss grown a sword, and his rest grown a fire?
Ye who tremble for death, or the death of desire,
Pass about the cold winter-tide garden and ponder
On the rose in his glory amidst of June's fire,
On the languor of noontide that gathered the thunder,
On the morn and its freshness, the eve and its wonder:
Ye may make it no more--shall Spring come to awaken?
Live on, for Love liveth, and earth shall be shaken
By the wind of his wings on the triumphing morning,
When the dead, and their deeds that die not shall awaken,
And the world's tale shall sound in your trumpet of warning,
And the sun smite the banner called Scorn of the Scorning,
And dead pain ye shall trample, dead fruitless desire,
As ye wend to pluck out the new world from the fire.
poem by William Morris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Falling -The Third Second
The stage is Critical!
WarnING!
Warning I am F U
UK
(In between there is a complement of object)
Kilogram Esperenza Detergent.
This Message is clear
'It is a Warning'
Check this out!
You are dead!
DEAD!
Not dad!
And daddy!
Weakness and weakened
Light
Comes to clear my mind
Full of stuff of life
kids stuff,
Adult stuff,
And other stuff that are strange to mine.
It actually does not depend on ages
It just come
It leaves you
Releases you
Unleashes you.
Here,
I see myself dead
Without being dead.
Like see
'a dead dog'
'a darling dead dog'
or just
'anonymous dog'
I fall,
Full Fall.
Wake up!
'Réveils toi! '
In French, sorry for that.
And
The fall does not cease
or stop.
poem by Atef Ayadi
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The King Is Dead
Aye, lay him in his grave, the old dead year!
His life is lived--fulfilled his destiny.
Have you for him no sad, regretful tear
To drop beside the cold, unfollowed bier?
Can you not pay the tribute of a sigh?
Was he not kind to you, this dead old year?
Did he not give enough of earthly store?
Enough of love, and laughter, and good cheer?
Have not the skies you scanned sometimes been clear?
How, then, of him who dies, could you ask more?
It is not well to hate him for the pain
He brought you, and the sorrows manifold.
To pardon him these hurts still I am fain;
For in the panting period of his reign,
He brought me new wounds, but he healed the old.
One little sigh for thee, my poor, dead friend--
One little sigh while my companions sing.
Thou art so soon forgotten in the end;
We cry e'en as thy footsteps downward tend:
'The king is dead! long live the king!'
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Ed Is Dead
Her head is in a bitter way
Her brains on fire
Shes just looking for the perfect wave
Its her brains desire
Ill think of her when I walk the strand
On this true hormos a night
Ed is dead (4x)
Shes just rotting in stupid bliss
With music on her bars uh
Her face burning in the l.a. sun
She got no got no fear of cars
I better kick my strand cruiser
To the friendlier oh oh oh oh oh oh
Ed is dead (4x)
Ed is dead
Ed is, yeah ed is
Ed is dead (3x)
E.i.d. (3x)
No, no, no, no, no
song performed by by Pixies
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When I'm Dead And Gone
When I'm dead and gone
At my funeral don't play another sad song
I wanna see tears of joy not of sorrow
Remember this day for it will be gone tomorrow
I want people to celebrate my death day
The same way they celebrated my birthday
Remember the good things I've done in my life, and forget the bad
Remember our love, cause at times that's all we had
When I'm dead and gone, who would really miss me?
I would hope that the memory of me make people happy
I'd like to say I'm sorry to all those I've done wrong
And thanks to all who showed me love my whole life long
I have to get these feelings out before I'm dead and gone
Same may wonder why I'm doing this poem
Maybe I feel like my life is reaching its final storm
I rather say this right now right here
Cause later I may not be able to say nothing I fear
No I'm not ready to meet death.
But I rather for you to know now,
Then when I'm dead and gone to be thinking something else.
poem by Daniel Chapman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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