Related quotes: Under the death of winter's...

Metho Drinker

Under the death of winter's leaves he lies
who cried to Nothing and the terrible night
to be his home and bread. 'O take from me
the weight and waterfall ceaseless Time
that batters down my weakness; the knives of light
whose thrust I cannot turn; the cruelty
of human eyes that dare not touch nor pity.'
Under the worn leaves of the winter city
safe in the house of Nothing now he lies.

His white and burning girl, his woman of fire,
creeps to his heart and sets a candle there
to melt away the flesh that hides from bone,
to eat the nerve that tethers him in time.
He will lie warm until the bone is bare
and on a dead dark moon he wakes alone.
It was for Death he took her; death is but this;
and yet he is uneasy under her kiss
and winces from that acid of her desire.

poem by Judith Wright
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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.

The March of Death

Death death death death death death death death death death death

poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Single Candle/Death Herself

A single flame lights her face
The face of death
A single candle holds her fears
The fears of death

Her hands clasped anrond their souls
The souls of the dead
She feeds of their screams
The screams of the dead

Her legs lay bellow her
Bellow death
Her black gown over her body
The body of death

Her chest rises and falls with her breath
The breath of death
Her cloak drawn over her long flowing jet hair
The face of death

Her eyes unmoved unfeeling
Do you see it?
Do you see the soul of death?
Do you feel it?

Her skin as white as snow as it fades into darkness
The snow of tears
Her cloths as dark as night that swallows the light
The dark we all shall see

Her eyes close as she feels their souls flow
Flow from the dead
She leaves them there to lay in darkness
She steals from the dead

A single candle lights their faces filled with her
Filled with death
They fall into the darkness of her eyes, of her heart
The darkness of death

A single candle shall stay to light their way
Their way through the dark
A single candle holds their past
The pain and trials

A single candle lights her face
The face of death
A single candle holds her fears
The fears of death herself

A single candle

poem by Bethany Maxwell
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Winter night and the three little men

Winter Night and The Three Little Men.

The Fire burns bright,
While the woods turn to night.
The cold creeps in with sudden quickness
and trees set in sudden ice.
It is, suffice to say, that this is a cold Winter night.
The fire that night kept warm the three little Men
and cast a light that stayed the predators of that cold winter night.
The cold crept and the Wolves howled but all tried in vain
for the fire kept the three little men safe,
but men are lazy and some call them crazy.
All the same because that winter night was to
be the last for the little three men.
The three little men eyes drooped and finely closed
but the poor men forgot to tend the fire.
The fire went out with a flicker then a splutter
and Winter night crept in;
There was one witness that cold Winter night, the Moon.
Try as she could her brightness could not save the poor
little three Men, that cold Winter night.

Josiah, Lozier

poem by Josiah Lozier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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i Saw a Woman

i saw a woman
Dancing on her grave
She smiled and sang
La la lee
La la lo
La la lee
La la lo

She picked up Death's cat
By tail & twirled the thing
La la lee
La la lo

Death watched curriously
How this thing could be
La la lee
He scratched his head
La la lo

The woman looked back at Death
And flipped him off
Her skeleton bones
Were white as snow
Now her dance
Was beginning to slow

Death thought now
Was her time to go

Instead
She skinned the cat
And made a dress
Put it on
And picked up her song
La la lee

Death's eyes popped out
At what he saw next
The woman's bones
Grew new flesh

Her hair combed and tapered in curls
Death ran at her with fury
But tripped along
An old tomebstone
La la lo

Death on the ground
She picked up her dance
And danced on Death

Bone by bone
She trampled him in the ground

The last thing he saw
Was the woman's child
And he sang and danced
La la lee
Along with a whole
Party of bones
La la lo

poem by Deci Hernandez
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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…'

The Reign of Death

Death death death death death death death
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Death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death
Death death death death death death death

poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Blood From A Stone

Well Ive been walkin
Down a one way dirty street
Tryin to find the answers
And Ive been hopin
For a chance to meet
The rat that spread the cancer
And the lies theyve been spinnin
And the smiles theyve been grinnin
There sure has been some sinnin
But nobodys winnin
When the walls start to crumblin
You feel like youre stumblin
And nobody wants you when youre down
They took the boy from the city
But they cant take the city from the
Boys lookin pretty
Now hes lookin like a pity
Cut the flesh down to the bone
But you cant get
You cant get blood from a stone
You cant get blood from a stone
Well Im a rollin
But my trains gone off the tracks
And my wheels are spinnin
And Im a walkin
Down a one way dirty street
But my hearts not sinkin
From the love theyve been buyin
And the blues theyve been cryin
Now the time keeps a flyin
But nobodys tryin
Cause the love of the money
Didnt turn out so sunny
When the wells dry
No one comes around
They took the boy from the city
But they cant take the city from the
Boys lookin pretty
Now hes lookin like a pity
Cut the flesh down to the bone
But you cant get
You cant get blood from a stone
You can try
But I still got the fight in my eyes
Suck it dry
Cause Ive had about enough of your lies
They took the boy from the city
But they cant take the city from the
Boys lookin pretty
Now hes lookin like a pity
Cut the flesh down to the bone
But you cant get blood from a stone
They took the boy from the city
But they cant take the city from the
Boys lookin pretty
Now hes lookin like a pity
Cut the flesh down to the bone
But you cant get
You cant get blood from a stone, no
You cant get blood from a stone
You cant get blood from a stone
You cant get blood from a stone
You cant get blood from a stone
You cant get blood from a stone

song performed by by Cinderella
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Candles

Faith for reasons still unknown
Like bleak house fog seems everywhere
The truth has frozen into stone
And hope lies freezing in the midnight air
Though dark our days may seem
This is a different dream
Their freedom light dont shine at all
So I will light a candle for you
Keep it burning in the night
And pray that you are all right
I will light a candle for you
Little candle burning bright
When school yard heroes disappeared
The little girl, she stands alone
Oh I believe you if you say
A prayer can help to get her home
So I will light a candle for you
Keep it burning in the night
And pray that you are all right
I will light a candle for you
Little candle burning bright

song performed by by Chris Rea
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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At Thurgarton Church

To the memory of my father

At Thurgarton Church the sun
burns the winter clouds over
the gaunt Danish stone
and thatched reeds that cover
the barest chapel I know.

I could compare it with
the Norse longboats that bore
burning the body forth
in honour from the shore
of great fjords long ago.

The sky is red and cold
overhead, and three small
sturdy trees keep a hold
on the world and the stone wall
that encloses the dead below.

I enter and find I stand
in a great barn, bleak and bare.
Like ice the winter ghosts and
the white walls gleam and flare
and flame as the sun drops low.

And I see, then, that slowly
the December day has gone.
I stand in the silence, not wholly
believing I am alone.
Somehow I cannot go.

Then a small wind rose, and the trees
began to crackle and stir
and I watched the moon by degrees
ascend in the window till her
light cut a wing in the shadow.

I thought: the House of the Dead.
The dead moon inherits it.
And I seem in a sense to have died
as I rise from where I sit
and out into darkness go.

I know as I leave I shall pass
where Thurgarton’s dead lie
at those old stones in the grass
under the cold moon’s eye.
I see the old bones glow.

No, they do not sleep here
in the long holy night of
the serene soul, but keep here
a dark tenancy and the right of
rising up to go.

Here the owl and soul shriek with
the voice of the dead as they turn
on the polar spit and burn
without hope and seek with
out hope the holy home below.

Yet to them the mole and
mouse bring a wreath and a breath
of the flowering leaves of the soul, and
it is from the Tree of Death
the leaves of life grow.

The rain, the sometime summer
rain on a memory of roses
will fall lightly and come a-
mong them as it erases
summers so long ago.

And the voices of those
once so much loved will flitter
over the nettled rows
of graves, and the holly tree twitter
like friends they used to know.

And not far away the
icy and paralysed stream
has found it also, that day the
flesh became glass and a dream
with no where to go.

Haunting the December
fields their bitter lives
entreat us to remember
the lost spirit that grieves
over these fields like a scarecrow.

That grieves over all it ever
did and all, all not
done, that grieves over
its crosspurposed lot:
to know and not to know.

The masterless dog sits
outside the church door
with dereliction haunting its
heart that hankers for
the hand that loved it so.

Not in a small grave
outside the stone wall
will the love that it gave
ever be returned, not for all
time or tracks in the snow.

More mourned the death of the dog
than our bones ever shall
receive from the hand of god
this bone again, or all
that high hand could bestow.

As I stand by the porch
I believe that no one has heard
here in Thurgarton Church
a single veritable word
save the unspoken No.

The godfathered negative
that responds to our mistaken
incredulous and heartbroken
desire above all to live
as though things were not so.

Desire to live as though the
two-footed clay stood up
proud never to know the
tempests that rage in the cup
under a rainbow.

Desire above all to live
as though the soul was stone,
believing we cannot give
or love since we are alone
and always will be so.

That heartbroken desire
to live as though no light
ever set the seas on fire
and no sun burned at night
or Mercy walked to and fro.

The proud flesh cries: I am not
caught up in the great cloud
of my unknowing. But that
proud flesh had endowed
us with the cloud we know.

To this the unspoken No
of the dead god responds
and then the whirlwinds blow
over all the things and beyond
and the dead mop and mow.

And there in the livid dust
and bones of death we search
until we find as we must
outside Thurgarton Church
only wild grasses blow.

I hear the old bone in me cry
and the dying spirit call:
I have forfeited all
and once and for all must die
and this is all that I know.

For now in a wild way we
know that justice is served
and that we die in the clay we
dread, desired, and deserved,
awaiting no Judgement Day.

poem by George Barker
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Tommy's Dead

YOU may give over plough, boys,
You may take the gear to the stead,
All the sweat o' your brow, boys,
Will never get beer and bread.
The seed's waste, I know, boys,
There's not a blade will grow, boys,
'Tis cropped out, I trow, boys,
And Tommy's dead.

Send the colt to fair, boys,
He's going blind, as I said,
My old eyes can't bear, boys,
To see him in the shed;
The cow's dry and spare, boys,
She's neither here nor there, boys,
I doubt she's badly bread;
Stop the mill to-morn, boys,
There'll be no more corn, boys,
Neither white nor red;
There's no sign of grass, boys,
You may sell the goat and the ass, boys,
The land's not what it was, boys,
And the beasts must be fed:
You may turn Peg away, boys,
You may pay off old Ned,
We've had a dull day, boys,
And Tommy's dead.

Move my chair on the floor, boys,
Let me turn my head:
She's standing there in the door, boys,
Your sister Winifred!
Take her away from me, boys,
Your sister Winifred!
Move me round in my place, boys,
Let me turn my head,
Take her away from me, boys,
As she lay on here death-bed,
The bones of her thin face, boys,
As she lay on her death-bed!
I don't know how it be, boys,
When all's done and said,
But I see her looking at me, boys,
Whenever I turn my head;
Out of the big oak tree, boys,
Out of the garden-bed,
And the lily as pale as she, boys,
And the rose that used to be red.

There's something not right, boys,
But I think it's not in my head,
I've kept my precious sight, boys, --
The Lord be hallowéd!
Outside and in
The ground is cold to my tread,
The hills are wizen and thin,
The sky is shrivelled and shred,
The hedges down by the loan
I can count them bone by bone,
The leaves are open and spread,
But I see the teeth of the land,
And hands like a dead man's hand,
And the eyes of a dead man's head.
There's nothing but cinders and sand,
The rat and the mouse have fed,
And the summer's empty and cold;
Over valley and wold
Wherever I turn my head
There's a mildew and a mould,
The sun's going out overhead,
And I'm very old,
And Tommy's dead.

What am I staying for, boys,
You're all born and bred,
'Tis fifty years and more, boys,
Since wife and I were wed,
And she'd gone before, boys,
And Tommy's dead.

She was always sweet, boys,
Upon his curly head,
She knew she'd never see't, boys,
And she stole off to bed;
I've been siting up alone, boys,
For he'd come home, he said,
But it's time I was gone boys,
For Tommy's dead.

Put the shutters up, boys,
Bring out the beer and bread,
Make haste and sup, boys,
For my eyes are heavy as lead:
There's something wrong i' the cup, boys,
There's something ill wi' the bread,
I don't care to sup, boys,
And Tommy's dead.

I'm not right, I doubt, boys,
I've such a sleepy head,
I shall nevermore be stout, boys,
You may carry me to bed.
What are you about, boys?
The prayers are all said,
The fire's raked out, boys,
And Tommy's dead.

The stairs are too steep, boys,
You may carry me to the head,
The night's dark and deep, boys,
Your mother's long in bed,
'Tis time to go to sleep, boys,
And Tommy's dead.

I'm not used to a kiss, boys,
You may shake my hand instead.
All things go amiss, boys,
You may lay me where she is, boys,
And I'll rest my old head:
'Tis a poor world, this, boys,
And Tommy's dead.

poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Acid-colored Winter Within Thy Heart

Acid-colored Winter Within Thy Heart
Feeding lies directly into Thy veins
A blanket of white lies covers Thy soul
An Acid-colored Winter blizzard wanes.

Thy heart is clouded with uncertainty
Confusion is pumped throughout Thy mind
Blurring Thy vision like a cold winter storm
Leaving sanity far behind.

Feelings of fear and pain alike
Sting like acid vapors swirling inside
What could cause this fear filled joy
Leaving my emotions bound and hogtied?

The very first time we kissed
Left Thy emotions torn apart
Leaving a helpless void inside
Like an Acid-colored Winter Within Thy Heart.

poem by J.R. Reynolds
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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And Death Washes Only Bones

And death washes only bones;
The mouth of death speaks oft of every tounge
Never his patience once lost is found in all your nature;
Death washes a bone and the astrologer hands two back,
So the moon when lined up, shines down on Venus asleep.
Time smiles on the heart beating and long of face therein,
death puts it back on the middle shelf prearanged.

And death washes only bones;
Deep valleys are filled with man's rich oil,
And covered over memories by death too often dredged.
Lined up end to end exposed again to harvest the tears of wait;
And death washes only bones and man who drinks so bold,
There being no truth and lies sown shut death eyes all bottoms.

d.t.

poem by Is It Poetry
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Song from Aella

O SING unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me;
Dance no more at holyday,
Like a running river be: