Taper In The Storm
All our smiles, chats
Amorous talk.
Faded with the
Time's subtle walk.
No lust, no grief,
But parting song-
Is heard, my dear
From distance long.
Much blood oozed out
From scarlet heart,
Let get dried
Let be it blurred.
Silence' wide mouth,
Nibbling my past;
Storm of minutes
Now spreading vast.
The taper mind
With sinking flame
Will be flown to
Death's own dark realm.
How long can I
Stand still alone
In strong wind and
In hatred zone?
Lonesome days cry,
In nothingness.
Let death and me
Meet face to face!
poem by Nilakshi Das

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Related quotes
Conquest at the Hospice
For saying yes to be admitted
into the hospice, she has actually
accepted the seriousness of her
health case, that she is now
at the mouth of death.
She sends sms to dear friends
not telling that she is right at
the hospice but only wishing them
all the best in life that they
may keep their trust in God
to the very end of their days.
She knows how her daughters
have been saddened by her case
The medical treatment at the hospital,
taken so diligently each passing day,
has not really relieved her from
the agony in her mortal body.
And yet, during her last days,
as long as her lungs tolerate to breathe,
she uses the time to talk to friends,
sends them sms and wishes them all the best.
This hospice is her fortress of hope,
of courage to look at death face to face.
And we, who mourn over her last days,
realize how at this hospice, she has
vanquished the ugliness of death.
______________
poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen

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Red Is The Color Of Blood
Red is the color of blood, and I will seek it:
I have sought it in the grass.
It is the color of steep sun seen through eyelids.
It is hidden under the suave flesh of women-
Flows there, quietly flows.
It mounts from the heart to the temples, the singing mouth-
As cold sap climbs to the rose.
I am confused in webs and knots of scarlet
Spun from the darkness;
Or shuttled from the mouths of thirsty spiders.
Madness for red! I devour the leaves of autumn.
I tire of the green of the world.
I am myself a mouth for blood…
Here, in the golden haze of the late slant sun,
Let us walk, with the light in our eyes,
To a single bench from the outset predetermined.
Look: there are seagulls in these city skies,
Kindled against the blue.
But I do not think of the seagulls, I think of you.
Your eyes, with the late sun in them,
Are like blue pools dazzled with yellow petals.
This pale green suits them well.
Here is your finger, with an emerald on it:
The one I gave you. I say these things politely-
But what I think beneath them, who can tell?
For I think of you, crumpled against a whiteness;
Flayed and torn, with a dulled face.
I think of you, writing, a thing of scarlet,
And myself, rising red from that embrace.
November sun is sunlight poured through honey:
Old things, in such a light, grow subtle and fine.
Bare oaks are like still fire.
Talk to me: now we drink the evening's wine.
Look, how our shadows creep along the grave!-
And this way, how the gravel begins to shine!
This is the time of day for recollections,
For sentimental regrets, oblique allusions,
Rose-leaves, shrivelled in a musty jar.
Scatter them to the wind! There are tempests coming.
It is dark, with a windy star.
If human mouths were really roses, my dear,-
(Why must we link things so?-)
I would tear yours petal by petal with slow murder.
I would pluck the stamens, the pistils,
The gold and the green,-
Spreading the subtle sweetness that was your breath
On a cold wave of death….
Now let us walk back, slowly, as we came.
We will light the room with candles; they may shine
Like rows of yellow eyes.
Your hair is like spun fire, by candle-flame.
You smile at me-say nothing. You are wise.
For I think of you, flung down brutal darkness;
Crushed and red, with pale face.
I think of you, with your hair disordered and dripping.
And myself, rising red from that embrace.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken

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Bow Before My Death
I lie beneath the flame this night,
I bow before my death,
He takes my hand,
And holds me close,
Death embraces me,
He says the time has come,
Beginning now meets end,
He says the fires taken me,
And now it's time to walk,
Walk the path of fates sweet song.
I lie beneath the flame this night,
I bow before my death,
The fires stripped me of my sins,
Humility my pride,
Now death guides me through the dark,
And speaks to me kind words,
'The pain has stopped,
It won't come back,
Your senses now are cleansed,
The soul has been washed clean',
He says the end is pleasure.
I lie beneath the flame this night,
I bow before my death,
Death's a man clothed in blue jeans,
A white shirt stained with blood,
Death holds a knife,
Death slits my throat,
Death is the end of my beginning.
I lie beneath the flame this night.
I bow before my death.
poem by Holly Heron

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Spectral
Come brother death, come walk with me
And tell me thy tales of long ago.
Show me thy patterns in thy sands of time.
Lend me thy dark cloak against thy cold.
Come brother death, come walk by me
And sing me wraith's song, full of men's woe.
Trace me thy footprints where all the world ends.
Wrap thy slender white fingers around mine.
Come brother death, come run with me
Far to where all wind and stars do sing.
Far away from this human hurt and pain.
Far to where thy peace and darkness reign
Come brother death, come run by me
Past blood laid lands and frozen seas.
And sing me of when death shall be no more
And pain but a dust wrapped memory.
(1983)
poem by Tobbie WhiteBird Crowe

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New Year's Eve Midnight
There is excitement in the air
Hearts are bubbling with joy and light
We feel the Death that is near
And we sit in wait wit smiles wide and bright.
This is the end we all wish to witness
The only Death we want to see so often
This is the time to forgive and to bless
Because a year is dead; boxed in a coffin.
This has always been our sole wish
The only resolution we would die to achieve
That we travel the time between the Ram and the Fish
That we always remain here and never leave.
As we watch the year gasp his Last
We see our pains flickering in His eyes
The dear ones that are now naught but dust
And the dreams that have long seen their demise.
So we cover the Year in His shroud
With mixed feelings of love and hate
Then we recite his elegy out loud
And light the straw to His body cremate
Into the open sea the licking flames go
Sailing away with dark memories three hundred and sixty-five days old
The wind is whispering what we already know
That we let go and face the New Year all strong and bold
With lighter hearts we await the midnight howl
The first cry of the New Born One
Desperately we wish it to cry and never yowl
So our days never dim but always have the Sun
At last the time is apt to forgive a debt
For the New Year is finally here
Now we begin another journey hoping to win the ultimate bet
'Who lives longer - Me or the Year? '
poem by Goddy MensahNab

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Unframed childhood
In retrospect, everything is a mist
Memories are but faint and faded
Childhood lost amidst
Blurred reminisces long dead
A fogged vision unveils
Shapeless shapes in the distance
Dimensions and definitions still
to indiscernible importance
A face frozen, a child’s days framed
For a fraction of eternity
Reflecting moments of a mind untamed
To be my past’s testimony
I wish I had a photograph of my childhood
I could then say “this is me at ten”
I could then word
“I was a brat then”
poem by Rajesh Gurung

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Long Way Back Home
From the railhead to the boatyard
From the factory to the farm
From the mines to the millhouse
Ive weathered the storm
From the bar room to the bedpost
Ive wasted my days
All I have is my drink
And the time left to think
While time slips away
Just look at my face
As you tell me goodbye
Youll see what Im after
By the look in my eye
Just walk away
And leave me alone
Its a long way back home
Now in case you should ask me
What it is that Ive done
Well I say Im a soldier
Who once had a son
But my son doesnt know me
Thats his right to choose
Oh say can you see
My best friend is me
Im a friend I could use
Just look at my face
As you tell me goodbye
Youll see what Im after
By the look in my eye
Just walk away
And leave me alone
Its a long way back home
Now the pages have faded
The story grows cold
And the plot falls to ashes
Like the ruins of old
Those rats in my rafters
Theyre after my shoes
And anything else
They can find on the shelf
Ive said they could use
Just look at my face
As you tell me goodbye
Youll see what Im after
By the look in my eye
Just walk away
And leave me alone
Its a long way back home
Its a long way back home
song performed by by Gordon Lightfoot

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Xxii
When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point,--what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented ? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Beloved,--where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Sonnet XXII
When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point,--what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented ? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Beloved,--where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Sonnet XXII: When Our Two Souls Stand Up
When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curvèd point,--what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Belovèd,--where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Life and Death, How Ironic
Life, it described my Mother
Life, she was the image
Life, she was healthy
Life, she loved every day
Life, you saw it in her eyes
Life, you heard it in her voice
Life, how ironic it could be
Death, the impossible
Death, too somber a thought for her
Death, she would live a long, long time before it would confront her
Death, sickness maybe, but there is always a cure
Death, not even a thought in the doctor’s mind
Death, it now replaced life
Life and death, my mother passed away with a look of peace on her face
She died knowing that she lived every moment to the fullest.
poem by Janice Karp

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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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Cease smilng, Dear! a little while be sad
Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad,
Here in the silence, under the wan moon;
Sweet are thine eyes, but how can I be glad,
Knowing they change so soon?
For Love's sake, Dear, be silent! Cover me
In the deep darkness of thy falling hair:
Fear is upon me and the memory
Of what is all men's share.
O could this moment be perpetuate!
Must we grow old, and leaden-eyed and gray,
And taste no more the wild and passionate
Love sorrows of to-day?
Grown old, and faded, Sweet! and past desire,
Let memory die, lest there be too much ruth,
Remembering the old, extinguished fire
Of our divine, lost youth.
O red pomegranate of thy perfect mouth!
My lips' life-fruitage, might I taste and die
Here in thy garden, where the scented south
Wind chastens agony;
Reap death from thy live lips in one long kiss,
And look my last into thine eyes and rest:
What sweets had life to me sweeter than this
Swift dying on thy breast?
Or, if that may not be, for Love's sake, Dear!
Keep silence still, and dream that we shall lie,
Red mouth to mouth, entwined, and always hear
The south wind's melody,
Here in thy garden, through the sighing boughs,
Beyond the reach of time and chance and change,
And bitter life and death, and broken vows,
That sadden and estrange.
poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson

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Death, The Lover
By which name Should I call you,
O, Death?
The shadow man, or the king of the dark
Realm?
I have, on you my full honest
Faith,
Since I heard of your enormous
Fame.
You too follow my every
Footstep,
Now, I have made friendship with
Fate!
My sobs and sighs get their
Shape.
I don't anymore them
Hate;
Take me in your masculine
Arms,
Love me as you only can
Tame,
My burning lust for earthly
Terms...
I shall give you back the
Same! !
I cherish to see your masked
Face!
Give on my lips your immortal
Kiss;
O, Death! Hold me in your tight
Embrace,
In your wide chest let me lie in
Peace! !
--------- ---------
poem by Nilakshi Das

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Niobe
How like the sky she bends above her child,
One with the great horizon of her pain!
No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild,
No weeping cloud, no momentary rain,
Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief,
That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb.
She stoops in pity above the labouring earth,
Knowing how fond, how brief
Is all its hope, past, present, and to come,
She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage its dearth.
Through that fair face the whole dark universe
Speaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro’ one white flower;
And all those wrenched Promethean souls that curse
The gods, but cannot die before their hour,
Find utterance in her beauty. That fair head
Bows over all earth’s graves. It was her cry
Men heard in Rama when the twisted ways
With children’s blood ran red.
Her silence towers to Silences on high;
And, in her face, the whole earth’s anguish prays.
It is the pity, the pity of human love
That strains her face, upturned to meet the doom,
And her deep bosom, like a snow-white dove
Frozen upon its nest, ne’er to resume
Its happy breathing o’er the golden brace
That she must shield till death. Death, death alone
Can break the anguished horror of that spell.
The sorrow on her face
Is sealed: the living flesh is turned to stone;
She knows all, all, that Life and Time can tell.
Ah, yet, her woman’s love, so vast, so tender,
Her woman’s body, hurt by every dart,
Braving the thunder, still, still hide the slender
Soft frightened child beneath her mighty heart.
She is all one mute immortal cry, one brief
Infinite pang of such victorious pain
That she transcends the heavens and bows them down!
The majesty of grief
Is hers, and her dominion must remain
Eternal. Grief alone can wear that crown.
poem by Alfred Noyes

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Sonnet 22 - When our two souls stand up erect and strong
XXII
When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point,—what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Beloved,—where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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The Summons
Straight to his death he went,
A smile on his lips,
All his life's joy unspent,
Into eclipse.
The song of the shell he heard
Cleaving the dark,
As though 'twere the song of a bird,
Linnet or lark.
Why would he go so fast
Out to the dead,
All in a heavenly haste
Not to be stayed?
What did he see afar
That drew him after?
Light from a merry star,
Singing and laughter?
Nay, but a face was his
Only in dreams,
Only in dreams of bliss
In the star-gleams.
Nay, but a face that watched
Long years to see
Who came by the door unlatched,
If it were he.
What was the voice before
That lured him on?
'Oh, thou long-hungered for,
My son, my son!'
Lo, he hath heard, hath seen,
He hath slipped over
Where the great days begin
For friend and lover.
poem by Katharine Tynan

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I Met Death
I was waiting, watching one day
When Death came along, looking
As if there was something he wanted to say
His hair was as black as the sky at night
And in the wind it blew like smoke
He had come a long way in his worn black cloak
So I invited him in and I did say
If you’d like to you can stay
But Death said:
“I’m only passing through
For the clock’s hands they say
They are ticking the seconds of my life away”
And I answered,
Thinking I’d misunderstood
As Death’s dark black eye gleamed under his dark black hood
“If your Death, how can you die? ”
You see, Death didn’t seem the kind to lie.
And Death wasn’t phased at all,
“No longer Death I may become,
Or so says He if I don’t complete
The most horrible, horrible, feat.
“The most horrible feat? ”
I had to say
Could it be so horrible,
That Death couldn’t say?
“Death, ” said Death, “is the horrible feat.”
And then he faded away, like smoke into the blue, blue sky
But I think, before he left, I might have seen him cry.
I had never in my life, seen Death again
Until the night I stood outside in the rain
When he said, “I’m sorry miss, but this is good bye.”
And I found out what it’s like to die.
So we went, and parted, to each our own way,
But one more time I want to heard Death say, “I’m sorry miss, -“
Marking the end of the day
poem by Jinny Tikanus

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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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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.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
The March of 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 death death death death
poem by Mark R Slaughter

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