When Earth Quaked
Earth uncovered
Two hundred thousand dead
A woman groaned
Stone slabs crushed her head
These are the times
When God weeps
When the earth quaked
I heard His steps
In my pain
I am filled with anger
My blood curls
As I ponder
How many lives slip
In this quake's blunder
This is how earth rage
I am thankful
For the hands He sent
The press
People from every corner
Friends I never knew
This is how you know
He never sleeps
Many dead
But many spared
So I am not mad
New lives conceived
Still lives to be lived
Two hundred thousand dead
But millions breathe
poem by Buxton Shippy
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One Hundred Thousand Marching
One hundred thousand marching
One hundred thousand men
One hundred thousand heading
To a place and a time when
One hundred thousand dying
One hundred thousand cold
One hundred thousand praying
Forever young and never old
One hundred thousand lives were lost
One hundred thousand felt the pain
One hundred thousand maimed and slaughtered
And yet those armies march again.
poem by David Keig
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Can You Hear Them?
So sick and tired of living
And so afraid to die
I've lived so many lives
And still I wonder why
The way the world perceives me
Is not the way I am
The one half thinks I'm crazy
The other thinks I'm mad
I spent a long long time alone in my room
I need your help to get me out of this gloom
Can you hear them
All the voices in my head
They freak me out
Can you hear them
They won't be happy 'till I'm dead
They freak me out
Ten thousand million nightmares
Temptation by the score
I used to get so high
And still I wanted more
You think my time is wasted
In search of who I am
I tried to so hard to kill
The boy inside the man
I spent a thousand years one night in my room
I've lived so many lives and that is my doom
Can you hear them
All the voices in my head
They freak me out
Can you hear them
They won't be happy 'till I'm dead
They freak me out
Can you hear them
All the voices in my head
They freak me out
Can you hear them
They won't be happy 'till I'm dead
They freak me out
I never thought I'd smile again
Always thought I'd be here on my own
Sometimes when I'm down
You come and save me again
And again
And again
And again
I'll never understand it
It makes no sense at all
Just look at what I've done
It's time to count the score
I've spent a long long time alone in my room
I need your help to get me out of this gloom
Can you hear them
All the voices in my head
They freak me out
Can you hear them
They won't be happy 'till I'm dead
They freak me out
Can you hear them
All the voices in my head
They freak me out
Can you hear them
They won't be happy 'till I'm dead
They freak me out
song performed by by Ozzy Osbourne from Down To Earth
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Growing Pain
Im a battleship, frozen by my mothers anger,
Anchored in the north pole sea.
Im a sphinx, stamped on the hilton poster,
Hoping to see the desert.
Im a woman without country or state.
Opening her head to the universe,
Hundred thousand people in me.
Evry day theyre growing,
Evry day theyre feeling.
Hes an infant, blinded from his mothers sorrow,
Crawling in the bleeding sky.
Hes a building, floating in spring air,
Hoping to open his windows.
Hes a man, bound on earth soil,
Reaching his hands to the universe,
Hundred thousand people in him.
Evry day theyre feeling,
Evry day theyre growing.
Growing pain, growing joy,
Growing pain, growing joy.
Growing together, reaching each other.
Growing pain, growing joy,
Growing pain, growing joy.
Growing together, reaching each other.
song performed by by Yoko Ono
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Growing Pain
Im a battleship, frozen by my mothers anger,
Anchored in the north pole sea.
Im a sphinx, stamped on the hilton poster,
Hoping to see the desert.
Im a woman without country or state.
Opening her head to the universe,
Hundred thousand people in me.
Evry day theyre growing,
Evry day theyre feeling.
Hes an infant, blinded from his mothers sorrow,
Crawling in the bleeding sky.
Hes a building, floating in spring air,
Hoping to open his windows.
Hes a man, bound on earth soil,
Reaching his hands to the universe,
Hundred thousand people in him.
Evry day theyre feeling,
Evry day theyre growing.
Growing pain, growing joy,
Growing pain, growing joy.
Growing together, reaching each other.
Growing pain, growing joy,
Growing pain, growing joy.
Growing together, reaching each other.
song performed by by Yoko Ono
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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Earthquake (Death Poem)
Our so-empty lives are filled with pointless plans,
Every decision impacts life, and sometimes death.
The earth split - death was in that sometimes day,
Where unending need became the end of their world.
Montana was my home-from-home in Haiti,
Art deco paradise, an instant hellish grave.
What of my shoeshine man with dirty shoes?
Two hundred dead too hard, one is possible.
Little things we do to change the world,
The smallest possibilities in this nightmare,
Saving lives each day with lifeline texts,
Today we are the hand of God in hell.
poem by Ian Beckett
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For Zbigniew Herbert, Summer, 1971, Los Angeles
No matter how hard I listen, the wind speaks
One syllable, which has no comfort in it--
Only a rasping of air through the dead elm.
*
Once a poet told me of his friend who was torn apart
By two pigs in a field in Poland. The man
Was a prisoner of the Nazis, and they watched,
He said, with interest and a drunken approval . . .
If terror is a state of complete understanding,
Then there was probably a point at which the man
Went mad, and felt nothing, though certainly
He understood everything that was there: after all,
He could see blood splash beneath him on the stubble,
He could hear singing float toward him from the barracks.
*
And though I don't know much about madness,
I know it lives in the thin body like a harp
Behind the rib cage. It makes it painful to move.
And when you kneel in madness your knees are glass,
And so you must stand up again with great care.
*
Maybe this wind was what he heard in 1941.
Maybe I have raised a dead man into this air,
And now I will have to bury him inside my body,
And breathe him in, and do nothing but listen--
Until I hear the black blood rushing over
The stone of my skull, and believe it is music.
But some things are not possible on the earth.
And that is why people make poems about the dead.
And the dead watch over then, until they are finished:
Until their hands feel like glass on the page,
And snow collects in the blind eyes of statues.
poem by Larry Levis
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Dead Hope
Hope new born one pleasant morn
Died at even;
Hope dead lives nevermore.
No, not in heaven.
If his shroud were but a cloud
To weep itself away;
Or were he buried underground
To sprout some day!
But dead and gone is dead and gone
Vainly wept upon.
Nought we place above his face
To mark the spot,
But it shows a barren place
In our lot.
Hope has birth no more on earth
Morn or even;
Hope dead lives nevermore,
No, not in heaven.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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Epitaph
I lived in those times. For a thousand years
I have been dead. Not fallen, but hunted;
When all human decency was imprisoned,
I was free amongst the masked slaves.
I lived in those times, yet I was free.
I watched the river, the earth, the sky,
Turning around me, keeping their balance,
The seasons provided their birds and their honey.
You who live, what have you made of your luck?
Do you regret the time when I struggled?
Have you cultivated for the common harvest?
Have you enriched the town I lived in?
Living men, think nothing of me. I am dead.
Nothing survives of my spirit or my body.
poem by Robert Desnos
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One Hundred Ripples
One hundred ripples I mark today
One hundred steps along my way
One hundred steps lead to the pond
One hundred trees there do surround
One hundred birds nesting among the trees
One hundred bees filling the air with these
One hundred bees buzzing about in the air
One hundred flowers are pollinating there
One hundred flowers provide the aromas sweet
For one hundred bouquets given to lovers as treat
One hundred lovers walk the winding pathway
One hundred times to find romance there each day
One hundred times they will reach to explore
One hundred pebbles found along the pond shore
One hundred pebbles carry wishes through the air
One hundred ripples on surface creating there
One hundred ripples then spreading out will begin
One hundred waves soon lapping at the shore again
One hundred waves providing the means for
One hundred more pebbles to reach the shore
One hundred pebbles scatter along the pathway
One hundred steps retraced at the end of the day
One hundred small steps... this latest poem was conceived to denote
One hundred little ripples... spreading from 100 poems I wrote
poem by Mary Havran
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On Platina Prosperus Spiriteus
The Man whose Judgement Joynd with force of Witt
The lives of Popes & lives of Heroes writt
Who sung true Pleasure showd ye Golden mean
And taught Wild Youth to shun ye Lovers pain
Who wrote all this—Who more than this designd
All fine impressions of Celestial mind
That Man that Platina so lately fled
From earth to silent Darkness is not dead
Evn Death is here restraind ye stroke he gives
has killd the man ye Writer ever lives.
poem by Thomas Parnell
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The Sky And The Earth
Long ago the sky loved the earth.
But they could not meet,
Because of fear of sun's wrath,
Who paralyzed the earth with heat.
Then the sky cried,
And relieved the earth.
Through the rivers that flew wide
From angry sun's wrath
When at night sun went to sleep,
There was darkness all around.
And the sky used to weep
Until to help him moon and stars came round.
Now the sky could see the earth at night,
For the moon and stars shone bright.
Every thing was right,
Away from sun's sight.
But sun came to know,
And took a vow.
To punish sky and earth,
And asteroids and meteors took birth.
They smashed the earth raising dust cloud.
And the sky bust aloud,
And it wept continuously.
Until earth's scars were filled completely.
Sun became angrier because sky had dared,
To undo the punishment sun had ordered.
And now he shone more bright,
And the whole sky was set alight.
The sky yelped in pain,
But his every try was in vain.
For he had challenged the sun's might,
And got himself into a suicidal fight.
And to this day when the earth is warmed,
The sky weeps relieving earth's pain.
And it seems to meet at horizon,
And after sky weeps a rainbow is formed.
And to this day the sky is waiting
With patience unexhausted.
For the day when the sun will be dead,
And for the day of their meeting.
poem by Anjesh shekhar
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Teach Me, Lord
Please teach me, Lord, I'm ready now,
As ready as could be,
No longer proud and so I bow
Before Your Majesty...
For who am I and what am I
Of all on Earth below?
And yet for me, Your Son would die,
And to His Cross would go...
They beat Him up, they crushed His face,
They scourged His back as well...
You placed on Christ our great disgrace...
That grace saves us from Hell...
To think, they forced a crown of thorns
Into Christ's battered head
And Mother Mary deeply mourns
Lord Jesus lying dead...
But God, You would not spare Your Son!
You raised Him from the Tomb,
You glorified what Christ had done,
You overcame the gloom...
You sent Your Spirit to the Earth,
For Pentecostal praise,
To sanctify and prove His worth,
For only Christ obeys...
The Saviour of the world lives on,
He lives in hearts now warmed,
Because the hearts of stone are gone,
God-blessed, reborn, transformed.
The mortal flesh gets old and dies,
Our riches turn to dust,
Yet all the faithful realise -
The Trinity we trust...
That's why the rich and poor alike
Give money left and right,
The iron's hot and so they strike
And give with all their might.
The widow's mite was praised by Christ,
For she gave all she had...
Thus God knew what was sacrificed
And He was mighty glad...
Do not condemn the poor, my friends,
God hears their prayers each day...
He shares a love that never ends
And never fades away...
One day, the Son of Man will claim
The Bride of Christ and more...
One day, the world will praise His Name!
That's not what He died for...
He died to set us free from sin,
He died our lives to save,
He died our precious souls to win,
He died our sins to waive...
He lives to bless us, every one,
He lives to guide us through...
And blessed are those who hear God's Son,
Who whispers, 'I LOVE YOU...'
Please teach me, Lord, I'm ready now,
As ready as could be,
No longer proud and so I bow
Before Your Majesty...
For who am I and what am I
Of all on Earth below?
And yet for me, Your Son would die
And to His Cross would go...
Denis Martindale, copyright, May 2011.
poem by Denis Martindale
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Flower-Salute
THIS nosegay,--'twas I dress'd it,--
Greets thee a thousand times!
Oft stoop'd I, and caress'd it,
Ah! full a thousand times,
And 'gainst my bosom press'd it
A hundred thousand times!
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Another Huge Earthquake
Another huge Earthquake in Java and thousands are missing and dead
Just one angry outburst of Nature leaving millions of people in dread
Of another mighty earth tremor the fear it is real and widespread
Of the destructive power of our Earth Mother so much has been written and said,
Another huge Earthquake to talk of the anger of Nature no human structure can hope to withstand
Once great buildings left in huge piles of rubble as if they were castles of sand
Built by children on the beach at low tide that at high tide were washed out to sea
So great is the power of our Earth Mother and not one as mighty as she,
All of life lives off of Mother Nature and of her power we are aware
And though Nature can kill thousands of people Mother Nature is never unfair
People come and go like the Seasons but Nature she lives on and on
And she will be around forever though all present life forms may be gone
But she will create new life forms and Nature is forever more
And the stream from the hill will flow down to the river that flows to the great ocean shore.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Earth and Sky
As the earth begins to die
The sky watches
As the earth dies
The sky saddens
As the earth lay dead
The sky weeps
As the earth remains lifeless
The sky floods it with tears
As the flowers begin to blossom
The sky smiles bright
poem by Nathanial Pagan
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Murder
Upon the threshold, red-eyed Murder stands,
Fresh from his slaughter-house of human meat,
Blood on his broken teeth and on his hands,
Blood on his nails and on his purple feet.
With hollow voice he speaks, and sick'ning breath,
'A way there is, that only way is death!….
The dead will rise no more,-the dead are dead!
The spared will creep behind the sparer's back,
And breathe their plots and stab. The dead are dead!
And lie along the safe triumphal track.
The young-eyed babe, will lisp it's little tales.
The loving girl will slay her main in bed
Kissing his savage mouth, the victor fails
At Mercy's seat. The dead are safely dead'.
poem by Leon Gellert
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Anzac Square: What The Digger Said
Said the Digger: 'Soon forgot! Soon forgot, the deeds of war.
Better so, may be. . . Why not?
Beauty fades and laurels rot;
Last year's roses are no more.
Fame?' the one-armed Digger said,
'What of glory when you're dead?'
'Stone and brass,' the Digger said. 'Stone and brass: tho' these endure,
Marble flaunting o'er my head
Would be dead, as I'd be dead.
How may any man be sure
That the hearts of men shall hold
Memories of tales once told?
This alone I surely know: earth I am, and earth shall be,
Only Mother Earth can show,
When I go where all men go,
Aught of this that had been me.
Mother Earth, once stained so red,
She must know,' the Digger said.
'Would you raise, in braggart heaps, stone, cold stone, to mark the fame
Of full many a man who sleeps
Where the earth of Anzac keeps
Guard o'er legions lacking name
Plinth and pillar reared to show
Pomp and pride they cannot know?
'They ask no portentous pile, boasting to a heedless sky,
Stirring men a little while,
Subject, then, for sigh or smile,
Not for this do soldiers die,
With our passing let Pride be,
All we ask is Memory:
'Memory of such fair worth as a fighting man may claim,
And a plot of hallowed earth
In the city of our birth:
Earth that bears a hallowed name.
Let it be envisioned there:
Anzac worth in Anzac Square.
'Memory,' the Digger said. 'If so be the city judge
Soldiers worthy, who have bled.
Worthy of her love, the dead,
Shall the city, then, begrudge
One wide acre of her soil
For who saved the whole from spoil?
'Here, it may be, by God's grace, our son's sons may sit at last,
In the People's market place,
Knowing truly, as they trace
Memory of me long past,
'Tis enshrined forever there:
Anzac worth in Anzac Square.'
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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A Problem With Living Too Long
A godlier man, there never lived -
My dear old Uncle Fred,
And throngs should fill the funeral home
When word comes that he's dead.
For the numbers at the funeral home
Are a measure of one's worth;
The sum of all the lives one's touched
While here upon the earth.
But few will visit the funeral home
When my Uncle passes on,
For he's lived so long that those he's touched
Are already dead and gone.
Lady Of The Lake
Today I talked
to the old lady
who lives across the way
she said she died
a hundred years ago today
She told me
of the time she saw me
fishing in the lake
I had to laugh
I said
if You've been dead
for a hundred years
it couldn't have been me
you saw fishing in the lake
I'm not even fifty yet
She said
have you ever seen me
walk out of this garden
or talk to anybody else
I said
you've got me there
but like I said
if you died a hundred
years ago today
it couldn't have been me
you saw fishing in the lake
She said
a hundred years ago today
you drowned trying to save me
now it's time to except
that you are dead
poem by Dave Alan Walker
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