At the Executed Murderer's Grave
Why should we do this? What good is it to us? Above all,
how can we do such a thing? How can it possibly be done?
--Freud
1.
My name is James A. Wright, and I was born
Twenty-five miles from this infected grave,
In Martins Ferry, Ohio, where one slave
To Hazel-Atlas Glass became my father.
He tried to teach me kindness. I return
Only in memory now, aloof, unhurried,
To dead Ohio, where I might lie buried,
Had I not run away before my time.
Ohio caught George Doty. Clean as lime,
His skull rots empty here. Dying's the best
Of all the arts men learn in a dead place.
I walked here once. I made my loud display,
Leaning for language on a dead man's voice.
Now sick of lies, I turn to face the past.
I add my easy grievance to the rest:
2.
Doty, if I confess I do not love you,
Will you let me alone? I burn for my own lies.
The nights electrocute my fugitive,
My mind. I run like the bewildered mad
At St. Clair Sanitarium, who lurk,
Arch and cunning, under the maple trees,
Pleased to be playing guilty after dark.
Staring to bed, they croon self-lullabies.
Doty, you make me sick. I am not dead.
I croon my tears at fifty cents per line.
3.
Idiot, he demanded love from girls,
And murdered one. Also, he was a thief.
He left two women, and a ghost with child.
The hair, foul as a dog's upon his head,
Made such revolting Ohio animals
Fitter for vomit than a kind man's grief.
I waste no pity on the dead that stink,
And no love's lost between me and the crying
Drunks of Belaire, Ohio, where police
Kick at their kidneys till they die of drink.
Christ may restore them whole, for all of me.
Alive and dead, those giggling muckers who
Saddled my nighmares thirty years ago
Can do without my widely printed sighing.
Over their pains with paid sincerity.
I do not pity the dead, I pity the dying.
4.
I pity myself, because a man is dead.
If Belmont County killed him, what of me?
His victims never loved him. Why should we?
And yet, nobody had to kill him either.
It does no good to woo the grass, to veil
The quicklime hole of a man's defeat and shame.
Nature-lovers are gone. To hell with them.
I kick the clods away, and speak my name.
5.
This grave's gash festers. Maybe it will heal,
When all are caught with what they had to do
In fear of love, when every man stands still
By the last sea,
And the princes of the sea come down
To lay away their robes, to judge the earth
And its dead, and we dead stand undefended everywhere,
And my bodies--father and child and unskilled criminal--
Ridiculously kneel to bare my scars,
My sneaking crimes, to God's unpitying stars.
6.
Staring politely, they will not mark my face
From any murderer's, buried in this place.
Why should they? We are nothing but a man.
7.
Doty, the rapist and the murderer,
Sleeps in a ditch of fire, and cannot hear;
And where, in earth or hell's unholy peace,
Men's suicides will stop, God knows, not I.
Angels and pebbles mock me under trees.
Earth is a door I cannot even face.
Order be damned, I do not want to die,
Even to keep Belaire, Ohio, safe.
The hackles on my neck are fear, not grief.
(Open, dungeon! Open, roof of the ground!)
I hear the last sea in the Ohio grass,
Heaving a tide of gray disastrousness.
Wrinkles of winter ditch the rotted face
Of Doty, killer, imbecile, and thief:
Dirt of my flesh, defeated, underground.
poem by James Arlington Wright
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Cajun Born
I was born on the bayou
Thirty miles of Layfayette
My daddy was a cajun man
Lord he taught us how to plow
I remember mama's breakfast
Cush Cush and a Kaye
Being served on a Banyee
Oh, I wish I had some now.
I'm a cajun born
I'm a cajun bred
When I die
I'm a cajun dead
If I die in Alaska
If I die in Ohio
This soul will find its way
Back to the bayou.
We went to church every sunday
We had a French speaking preacher man
Joked about the preacher man
'Cause we thought he wore a dress.
After church we had a party
We played the music on the phonograph
We had a man singing Jole Blan
Made a sinner out of me.
I'm a cajun born
I'm a cajun bred
When I die
I'm a cajun dead
If I die in Alaska
If I die in Ohio
This soul will find its way
Back to the bayou.
When I'm ready to be married
I'm going to be this cajun lady
Some sorta like my mamma
'Cause there ain't no other kind.
'Cause there ain't no other kind.
Wherever fortune takes me
If it makes me or it breaks me
It's memories will forsake me
Louisiana on my mind.
I'm a cajun born
I'm a cajun bred
When I die
I'm a cajun dead
If I die in Alaska
If I die in Ohio
This soul will find its way
Back to the bayou.
If I die in Alaska
If I die in Ohio
This soul will find it's way
Back to the bayou...
song performed by by Emmylou Harris
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ohio
Crickets are chirping
To the awakening mother Earth
Frogs are croaking again,
I am walking on the land
That I have walked long ago
As I am walking back, to Ohio.
Ohio I have missed you
My long gone friend
How good it is to be back home,
I am sorry that I left you
But now I am home again
Back to my home, of Ohio,
Ohio don't you leave me
Like I had left you
Trying to find myself a better home,
I have searched and I had prayed
But now I am home again
Back to my home of, Ohio.
Crickets are chirping
To the awakening mother Earth
Frogs are croaking once again,
Now I am walking with them
As I walk down the wooded path
Back to my home, of Ohio.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dead Or Alive
There in the shadows, looks like a hand
Without its owner, to give it a command
Its got a purpose but I dont know what it is
Im in trouble
There in the streets, looks like a man
But something wrong that I dont understand
His eyes are open but he dont see a thing
His skin is peeling off, his bones are sticking out
Im getting scared
Oh my God (is it dead? )
Is it living? (is it dead? )
Is it dead or alive?
(is it dead? ), is it dead? (is it dead? )
Is it dead? (is it dead? )
Is it dead or alive?
Hiding in the cupboards, like little mice
Hiding in the frigerator, that isnt nice
Its not an animal, it dont have legs
No one else can see it
It moves so fast, corner of my eye
Look again its gone, its hiding
Wont somebody help me, doesnt anybody care?
It waits so patiently, for me to lose my guard
Im getting scared
Is it dead, is it
(is it dead)
Is it dead
(is it dead)
Is it dead or alive
(is it dead)
Is it dead
(is it dead)
Is it dead, is it
I remember there was a time
When dead and buried meant just that
Underneath the cold dark ground
Things stay put!
Oh them bones they make them bodies walk
Them bones, them bones
If they could only talk!
Is it dead (fade)
song performed by by Oingo Boingo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Response to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia, Has Been Condemned
I will grieve alone,
As I strolled alone, years ago, down along
The Ohio shore.
I hid in the hobo jungle weeds
Upstream from the sewer main,
Pondering, gazing.
I saw, down river,
At Twenty-third and Water Streets
By the vinegar works,
The doors open in early evening.
Swinging their purses, the women
Poured down the long street to the river
And into the river.
I do not know how it was
They could drown every evening.
What time near dawn did they climb up the other shore,
Drying their wings?
For the river at Wheeling, West Virginia,
Has only two shores:
The one in hell, the other
In Bridgeport, Ohio.
And nobody would commit suicide, only
To find beyond death
Bridgeport, Ohio.
poem by James Arlington Wright
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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The Dead Coach
At night when sick folk wakeful lie,
I heard the dead coach passing by,
And heard it passing wild and fleet,
And knew my time was come not yet.
Click-clack, click-clack, the hoofs went past,
Who takes the dead coach travels fast,
On and away through the wild night,
The dead must rest ere morning light.
If one might follow on its track
The coach and horses, midnight black,
Within should sit a shape of doom
That beckons one and all to come.
God pity them to-night who wait
To hear the dead coach at their gate,
And him who hears, though sense be dim,
The mournful dead coach stop for him.
He shall go down with a still face,
And mount the steps and take his place,
The door be shut, the order said!
How fast the pace is with the dead!
Click-clack, click-clack, the hour is chill,
The dead coach climbs the distant hill.
Now, God, the Father of us all,
Wipe Thou the widow’s tears that fall!
poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Ohio
Tin soldiers and nixon coming,
Were finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and nixon coming,
Were finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in ohio.
song performed by by Neil Young
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Conversation of Prayer
The conversation of prayers about to be said
By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs
Who climbs to his dying love in her high room,
The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move
And the other full of tears that she will be dead,
Turns in the dark on the sound they know will arise
Into the answering skies from the green ground,
From the man on the stairs and the child by his bed.
The sound about to be said in the two prayers
For the sleep in a safe land and the love who dies
Will be the same grief flying. Whom shall they calm?
Shall the child sleep unharmed or the man be crying?
The conversation of prayers about to be said
Turns on the quick and the dead, and the man on the stair
To-night shall find no dying but alive and warm
In the fire of his care his love in the high room.
And the child not caring to whom he climbs his prayer
Shall drown in a grief as deep as his made grave,
And mark the dark eyed wave, through the eyes of sleep,
Dragging him up the stairs to one who lies dead.
poem by Dylan Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Resurrection of Moshe gimp
The Einsatzgrupen rounded up
the Juden of SWIEBODZIN.
They first led out the men and boys
The younger children crying.
The Germans forced us to disrobe,
I saw my Father naked.
We faced a pit dug in the ground
then began the murder.
My father pushed me to the ground
as machine gun fire raked the line.
I found myself beneath the pile
of the bleeding, dead and dying.
A single gunshot here and there
They finished all who moved.
But I played dead convincingly
My Dad would have approved.
When the Germans tossed in lime and dirt
I didn’t make a sound.
There was air, foul, but fit to breathe,
beneath the earthen mound.
I listened till I could be sure
The assassins all had gone.
I struggled up toward the light
past the bleeding, dead and gone.
Once clear I raced towards the woods
to find a place to hide.
By grace of G-d, a righteous man
For pity, took my side.
With fake name and faked papers
I made it through alive.
Now I am here, Moshe Gimp
To speak for all who died
poem by John F. McCullagh
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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Sonnet: God’s Grief’s Greater?
How much of sadness fills the hearts of those,
Parents who lost their only child one day?
How much of despair, mother feels, of course,
Seating her only son, dead on the way?
How much grief-stricken do our siblings live,
Seeing their dear ones dead before their eyes?
How can a child on earth remain alive,
When AIDS-affected, widowed, mother dies?
What grief engulfs the hearts of women all,
Who find the babe from womb is born but dead?
How sad God feels when into sin we fall;
And sadder still when to hell, we’re misled.
The Mirth God feels is more when souls return;
His grief’s ’yond compare when in Hell, they burn.
6-26-2001
poem by John Celes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Mourners
I look into the aching womb of night;
I look across the mist that masks the dead;
The moon is tired and gives but little light,
The stars have gone to bed.
The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain;
A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree;
I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain,
The dead I do not see.
The slain I would not see . . . and so I lift
My eyes from out the shambles where they lie;
When lo! a million woman-faces drift
Like pale leaves through the sky.
The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears;
But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare
Into the shadow of the coming years
Of fathomless despair.
And some are young, and some are very old;
And some are rich, some poor beyond belief;
Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould
Of everlasting grief.
They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face;
And then I see one weeping with the rest,
Whose eyes beseech me for a moment's space. . . .
Oh eyes I love the best!
Nay, I but dream. The sky is all forlorn,
And there's the plain of battle writhing red:
God pity them, the women-folk who mourn!
How happy are the dead!
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Killing An Arab
Standing on the beach
With a gun in my hand
Staring at the sea
Staring at the sand
Staring down the barrel
At the arab on the ground
I can see his open mouth
But i hear no sound
I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm the stranger
Killing an arab
I can turn
And walk away
Or i can fire the gun
Staring at the sky
Staring at the sun
Whichever i chose
It amounts to the same
Absolutely nothing
I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm the stranger
Killing an arab
I feel the steel butt jump
Smooth in my hand
Staring at the sea
Staring at the sand
Staring at myself
Reflected in the eyes
Of the dead man on the beach
The dead man on the beach
I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm the stranger
Killing an arab
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Killing An Arab (live)
Standing on a beach
With a gun in my hand
Staring at the sea
Staring at the sand
Staring down the barrel
At the arab on the ground
See his open mouth
But hear no sound
I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm the stranger
Killing an arab
I can turn and walk away
Or I can fire the gun
Staring at the sky
Staring at the sun
Whichever I choose
It amounts to the same
Absolutely nothing
I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm the stranger
Killing an arab
Feel the steel butt jump
Smooth in my hand
Staring at the sea
Staring at the sand
Staring at myself
Reflected in the eyes of
The dead man on the beach
The dead man
On the beach
I'm alive
I'm dead
I'm the stranger
Killing an arab
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I went to college in Ohio, at Ohio University, and I graduated two years ago.
quote by Piper Perabo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hope Dieth: Hope Liveth
Strong are thine arms, O love, & strong
Thine heart to live, and love, and long;
But thou art wed to grief and wrong:
Live, then, and long, though hope be dead!
Live on, & labour thro’ the years!
Make pictures through the mist of tears,
Of unforgotten happy fears,
That crossed the time ere hope was dead.
Draw near the place where once we stood
Amid delight’s swift-rushing flood,
And we and all the world seemed good
Nor needed hope now cold and dead.
Dream in the dawn I come to thee
Weeping for things that may not be!
Dream that thou layest lips on me!
Wake, wake to clasp hope’s body dead!
Count o’er and o’er, and one by one
The minutes of the happy sun
That while agone on kissed lips shone,
Count on, rest not, for hope is dead.
Weep, though no hair’s breadth thou shalt move
The living Earth, the heaven above
By all the bitterness of love!
Weep and cease not, now hope is dead!
Sighs rest thee not, tears bring no ease,
Life hath no joy, and Death no peace:
The years change not, though they decrease,
For hope is dead, for hope is dead.
Speak, love, I listen: far away
I bless the tremulous lips, that say,
“Mock not the afternoon of day,
Mock not the tide when hope is dead!”
I bless thee, O my love, who say’st:
“Mock not the thistle-cumbered waste;
I hold Love’s hand, and make no haste
Down the long way, now hope is dead.
With other names do we name pain,
The long years wear our hearts in vain.
Mock not our loss grown into gain,
Mock not our lost hope lying dead.
Our eyes gaze for no morning-star,
No glimmer of the dawn afar;
Full silent wayfarers we are
Since ere the noon-tide hope lay dead.
Behold with lack of happiness
The master, Love, our hearts did bless
Lest we should think of him the less:
Love dieth not, though hope is dead!”
poem by William Morris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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When Love Is Dead
When love is dead
You move to separate beds.
You try to be polite
And ignore every slight.
When love is dead
You just nod your head,
Without paying attention
To what your partner mentions.
When love is dead
Although you share bread,
And live under the same roof
You do your best to remain aloof.
When love is dead
it becomes easy to shed,
any kind of pretence
as now it makes no sense.
When love is dead
A lot is left unsaid,
Why doesn’t any one make
A complete break?
Maybe like worn out shoes
You are too lazy to break the status quo.
poem by Mamta Agarwal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Aces & 8's
Walked up in the bar and sat down on the stool
And got the low down from the guy with the jewel
He was playin pool and he thought he was good
Cause he bet me five dimes, he could sink em with his foot
He grabbed a stick, tried to kick it with his heel
Did a sick back flip and ended up full kneel
He didn't squeal, but it looked like it hurt
And it did cause he took me for my cash and my shirt
I got worked, but what's worse than that
Just as he was leaving he tipped his hat
Then he laughed and said, I'm sorry bout your luck
When he walked out the door he got hit by a truck
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
How bout the guy, used to hang in the clubs
Getting all the numbers and getting all the love
He didn't wear gloves, he was too hard core
May he rest in peace, we don't see him anymore
Lots of stories and old cliches
Small town girl tryin to make her way
She moved to the city, all she wanted was a job
Now she's underneath the desk tryin to move to the top
It won't stop cause the circle won't let it
Be careful what you wish for, you might get it
You know the cat got macked by the bees
He was messin with the honey and the mouse and the cheese
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
You could beat the system, you could beat your girl
But who ya gonna beat come the end of the world
Imagine everything you ever worked for, strived for
Suddenly becomin everything your gonna die for
Now what'd ya live for
Nothing anymore right
How could you live your whole life uptight
See everything you did and everything you seen
Rolled around in the mud, but you couldn't come clean
And that makes you dirty, now how does that feel
Living life like an open cut that won't heal
Sore at the world and you don't know why
You bounced like a ball and that's how you'll die
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
That's a dead man's hand
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
Ace's and eight's
song performed by by Uncle Kracker
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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