Loaves
When the street was becoming alive
man had become a charged bull,
goring the god to death.
My father wept, took the corpse home,
that was his child.
In the wild fire, a tall eucalyptus
had burned, turned black.
What did you think, this year,
spring would not come?
I remained very sad those days.
When the self was me, my image
I was dying without death;
through the veils, I would not see.
Was the pinnacle of your is, was becoming
empty? Tell me when we would learn,
the tiny truth of a primate? Or become
snakes eating our own children?
poem by Satish Verma
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The Eve of My Death
The eve of my death, a baby was born, and this kept me alive.
The eve of my death, a baby took her first stumbling steps, and this kept me
alive.
The eve of my death, a school bus filled with laughing children drove away,
and this kept me alive.
The eve of my death, I looked out my window to see my child be swept
away to prom, and this kept me alive.
The eve of my death, my baby, my child reached out her hand to accept her
diploma, she is not a baby or a child any more, and this kept me alive.
The eve of my death, I walked with my daughter down the isle, and this kept
me alive.
The eve of my death, I held my new born grandson in my arms, and this kept
me alive.
The day of my death, I feel my grandson's tears hit me like a cool spring rain,
I see his father behind a podium an inch away from tears, I feel the
flowers on the casket that holds the only thing that keeps me alive.
poem by Stephen Howard
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Say a Prayer for Darfur (Revised)
Say a Prayer for Darfur (Revised) (Warning for Mature Audience, violence depicted)
Darfur, yesterday,
Cozy, thatched huts,
Shining in the sun, nestled in the sand.
Darfur, yesterday,
Brightly-garbed, graceful women, friendly, strong men.
And the children…
The children,
Running and leaping,
Playing and laughing.
Today, a grinning skull
Hangs like the moon,
Over a gutted Darfur.
For Death came to Darfur,
Draped with murder and mayhem,
Wrapped in hate, lusting for power, land and oil…
Death came to Darfur,
On the backs of camels, driving trucks,
Wielding fire, sticks, bullets and bombs.
Today, behold, Darfur,
Burned, charred huts, starving children,
Dead bodies baking in the sun,
Untold numbers of women raped,
A tiny baby beaten to death,
Rumors of school children being burned alive!
Villagers locked in their huts and cremated, alive.
Children with noses cut off and eyes pulled out,
The village of Labado lies like an agonized, charred corpse.
Come, weep with me,
Pray with me,
For Death camps in Darfur!
poem by Mary Naylor
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The Earth Weeps
the earth weeps
for its children,
lost in the darkness
of passion and greed.
turned away from the limitless skies
of their father.....
turned away from the breasts
of she who succored them....
burning the home they live in
for the sudden rush of fire!
breaking out the windows of hope,
eating food they cannot swallow.
wild hogs,
blindly, stupidly,
destroying everything
in their paths.....
the crumbs of their insatiable lust
hanging on their chins,
their eyes glazed, and empty....
no one home anymore!
the trees kneel with sorrow,
and the rivers cry for deliverance....
the earth weeps,
...and so do I!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Night Close
Under night close
Death rose to greet me.
I turned; looked back,
Though nothing beckoned -
No one cried or mourned.
Scorned by all
- My fellow race -
I shed the byes to empty space, then
Gazed upon the stony face
Of Death anon, and
So chose our treaty.
Line of Death
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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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
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Father Death Blues
Hey Father Death, I'm flying home
Hey poor man, you're all alone
Hey old daddy, I know where I'm going
Father Death, Don't cry any more
Mama's there, underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store
Old Aunty Death Don't hide your bones
Old Uncle Death I hear your groans
O Sister Death how sweet your moans
O Children Deaths go breathe your breaths
Sobbing breasts'll ease your Deaths
Pain is gone, tears take the rest
Genius Death your art is done
Lover Death your body's gone
Father Death I'm coming home
Guru Death your words are true
Teacher Death I do thank you
For inspiring me to sing this Blues
Buddha Death, I wake with you
Dharma Death, your mind is new
Sangha Death, we'll work it through
Suffering is what was born
Ignorance made me forlorn
Tearful truths I cannot scorn
Father Breath once more farewell
Birth you gave was no thing ill
My heart is still, as time will tell.
poem by Allen Ginsberg
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Death, My Friend
Death, my friend - so good to see you!
Stand aloft and view my soul!
I have to say you’re looking frightful -
Bony chum, you affable ghoul.
Death, my friend, so charmed I’m sure!
State your case and tell me straight -
Am I worthy of reward, so
Venture I to Heaven’s Gate?
Death, my friend, a new acquaintance!
You're always welcome in my home -
Though the stare from empty sockets
Indicates to Hell we roam!
Death, my friend - my bosom buddy.
My! your finger points at me!
Be you tired of my frivolity?
Aha, I see - Oblivion, we!
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Death and I
When death comes
I’ll need not love –
Consumed,
No wreath or dove
Could offer me salvation,
Not when I’m no more.
A weathered stone will bear my name –
Identity of once a being
Living out existence in
A world of risk, and never seeing
Sense of why we’re here.
My genes will die away thro’ child –
Hue of eyes and hair, the way of thought,
Will quickly dim with generation –
Bow to future dominance –
Memories of provenance
Resigned to curious few.
When death comes
I’ll need not grace
Below; no grieving face
Will call my resurrection,
Not when I’m at ground –
Death and I so bound.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
D eath Crawl
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In daily dying to ourselves
In daily dying to ourselves
As we pain
Each day, each minute,
We get used to dying
And every death that comes
Close to our skins
Whichever is it
As there are many of them
At the end
Not a death that comes
Really matters.
And so the stress is gone
In fact, we start to welcome
It like a guest,
The invited one, we even
Ask it to stay
And be home with us.
Little deaths here and there
Each is real, nothing frightens anymore.
And death becomes
So boring so common so tiny to tinker
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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What If It Was Your Child
I saw a child yesterday sitting on a corner, tears
streaming down its face, and I stopped to ask
why and the child replied, “no one likes me,
they laugh at me and say I lie, but I don’t lie.”
I walk away after leaving a hug and some words
of encouragement, but as I walked home I said,
“thank God it was not my child.”
Today thousands starved to death because they
had no food. Some ones little girl, some ones
son, but my child ate well.
I turned off the television news and I said, “thank
God it was not my child.”
Every day it seems there is more tragedy, more
horrors, children dying, abused and killed, and it
seems nothing is done to change these things, but
my child is safe, warm and fed.
So when I go to sleep at night I pray and say,
“thank God it was not my child.”
This morning someone screamed at my child and
when I in anger started to reply I thought of Jesus on
the cross, his father watching as he suffered and died
at the hands of the very ones he came to save and I
walked away and prayed, “thank God it was not my
child.”
So my friends the next time you are upset over some
wrong you feel has been done to your child, think of
all the wrongs in the world and should you feel the
need for revenge remember, Jesus could have called
all the angels in Heaven for help but instead he cried,
“father forgive them they know not what they do.”
And God said, ” what if it was your child? ”
Sylvia's Death
For Sylvia Plath
O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
wandering loose in a tiny playroom,
with your mouth into the sheet,
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer,
(Sylvia, Sylvia
where did you go
after you wrote me
from Devonshire
about raising potatoes
and keeping bees?)
what did you stand by,
just how did you lie down into?
Thief -
how did you crawl into,
crawl down alone
into the death I wanted so badly and for so long,
the death we said we both outgrew,
the one we wore on our skinny breasts,
the one we talked of so often each time
we downed three extra dry martinis in Boston,
the death that talked of analysts and cures,
the death that talked like brides with plots,
the death we drank to,
the motives and the quiet deed?
(In Boston
the dying
ride in cabs,
yes death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer
who beat on our eyes with an old story,
how we wanted to let him come
like a sadist or a New York fairy
to do his job,
a necessity, a window in a wall or a crib,
and since that time he waited
under our heart, our cupboard,
and I see now that we store him up
year after year, old suicides
and I know at the news of your death
a terrible taste for it, like salt,
(And me,
me too.
And now, Sylvia,
you again
with death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
And I say only
with my arms stretched out into that stone place,
what is your death
but an old belonging,
a mole that fell out
of one of your poems?
(O friend,
while the moon's bad,
and the king's gone,
and the queen's at her wit's end
the bar fly ought to sing!)
O tiny mother,
you too!
O funny duchess!
O blonde thing!
poem by Anne Sexton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Say It Ain't So Joe
(Head)
Say it ain't so Jo, please, say it ain't so
That's not what I wanna hear Jo
And I got a right to know
Say it ain't so Jo, please, say it ain't so
I'm sure they're telling us lies Jo
Please tell us it ain't so
They told us that our hero has played his trump card
He doesn't know how to go on
We're clinging to his charm and determined smile
The good old days have gone
The image and the empire may be falling apart
The money has gotten scarce
One man's word held the country together
But the truth is getting fierce
Say it ain't so Jo, please, say it ain't so
We pinned our hopes on you Jo
And they're ruining our show
Ooh baby don't you think
We're gonna get burned
Ooh baby don't you think
We're gonna get burned
We're gonna get turned
We're gonna get burned
Yes we're gonna get turned
We're gonna get burned
We're gonna get turned
Yes, we're gonna get burned
We're gonna get burned
We're gonna get burned
Yes we're gonna get turned
We're gonna get burned
Say it ain't so Jo, please, say it ain't so
That's not what I wanna hear Jo
And I got a right to know
Say it ain't so Jo, please, say it ain't so
I'm sure they're telling us lies Jo
Please tell us it ain't so
Say it ain't so Jo, please, say it ain't so
That's not what I wanna hear Jo
And I got a right to know
Say it ain't so Jo, please, say it ain't so
I'm sure they're telling us lies Jo
Please tell us it ain't so
Say it ain't so
song performed by by Hollies
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To A Twelve Year-old Child
-A 12-year-old girl, who became despondent over her family’s poverty, hanged herself inside their makeshift house a day after her father told her he could not give her the P100 she needed for a school project.
-The government is taking responsibility for a 12-year-old girl who took her life because of extreme poverty but assured that steps are being taken to ease hunger and poverty, officials said on Thursday.
-News reports of The Philippine Daily Inquirer,2007
The deep shadows that enveloped your home
And never retreated since you were born
Became the light that illuminated your mind.
I sorrow for your death, my dear child
Your mother’s milk on your lips barely dried
And she is not tired from singing cradlesongs
I did not tell you that there is life…still
There is life beyond a pad paper and a pencil
that fathers forced into shameful indolence
could not purchase, even with their blood
This world did not demand heroism from
someone so tender and innocent as you
Because it owed you; you did not owe it.
I sorrow for your death, my dear child
But I must release the black garb soon
for your small grave is a large gift
to every cold, famished child like you
An intensely brilliant light for a world
that is too dark; yes, too disgracefully dark
for the blindingly clear sparks and lightning
emitted by charged voices hoarse from
traveling too much space in too much time
You are the voice of the unheeded loud voices.
Your grave is the commanding energy
that will rouse a nation groping in the dark
for its soul fatigued from hopelessness,
broken promises and aimless wandering
Resigned to a fate worse than death
For there is no hunger in the cemetery,
not even cold, in spite of its glacial ambiance
Your corpse is the chance at redemption
of them that wear the crown but never
rode the horse to the unspeakable places
where every human blight celebrates
victory handed on a silver platter by the enemy.
I sorrow for your death
It is one death too many
the death of a million children
that should end with your death
But I will not slur your sacrifice
The tears that flow are an amalgam
of crushing grief and a song of hope.
poem by Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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…'
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
The Reign of Death
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Weeping God
When the very soul dies,
death does not need a label,
living with death becomes a ritual.
Craving for the kiss of time,
under the shadows of moments,
you are not you in the expanse of false pretentions.
I will be watching myself.
Questioning the validity of dying without the sun
night will not forget.
It pours the suffering, anguish and hurt.
The duality of black and white,
drives you to despair.
Poem was alive,
when it was not written.
Core of your being,
trembles on the name of limbs atrophied.
You were too close to the destiny,
which was always on the wrong side.
For the sake of innocence,
your truth remained crippled,
your bronze god weeping.
poem by Satish Verma
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November
Old November, sere and brown,
Clothes the country, haunts the town,
Sheds its cloak of withered leaves,
Brings its sighing, soughing breeze.
Prophet of the dying year,
Builder of its funeral bier,
Bring your message here to men;
Sound it forth that they may ken
What of Life and what of Death
Linger on your frosty breath.
Let men know to you are given
Days of thanks to God in heaven;
Thanks for things which we deem best,
Thanks, O God, for all the rest
That have taught us--(trouble, strife,
Bring thru Death a larger life)--
Death of our base self and fear--
(Even as the dying year,
Though through cold and frost, shall bring
Forth a new and glorious spring)--
Shall shed over us the sway
Of a new and brighter day,
With Hope, Faith and Love alway.
poem by Joseph Seamon Cotter
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A Voice On The Wind
I
She walks with the wind on the windy height
When the rocks are loud and the waves are white,
And all night long she calls through the night,
'O my children, come home!'
Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud,
Tosses around her like a shroud,
While over the deep her voice rings loud,-
'O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!'
II
Who is she who wanders alone,
When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown?
Who walks all night and makes her moan,
'O my children, come home!'
Whose face is raised to the blinding gale;
Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale,
While over the world goes by her wail,-
'O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!'
III
She walks with the wind in the windy wood;
The dark rain drips from her hair and hood,
And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued,
'O my children, come home!'
Where the trees loom gaunt and the rocks stretch drear,
The owl and the fox crouch back with fear,
As wild through the wood her voice they hear,-
'O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!'
IV
Who is she who shudders by
When the boughs blow bare and the dead leaves fly?
Who walks all night with her wailing cry,
'O my children, come home!'
Who, strange of look, and wild of tongue,
With wan feet wounded and hands wild-wrung,
Sweeps on and on with her cry, far-flung,-
'O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!'
V
'Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees,
The mother of Death and of Mysteries,
Who cries on the wind all night to these,
'O my children, come home!'
The Spirit of Autumn, pierced with pain,
Calling her children home again,
Death and Dreams, through ruin and rain,-
'O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!'
poem by Madison Julius Cawein
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The Wrong Question
this morning
you cry and with sobbing you report about
a child being mauled by the police
at the dead end
of Del Pilar street near the
municipal cemetery
the child was running away from
five policemen who kept on chasing him
and they caught him
and asked his age, his name, his father, his mother
and he said he is 19, Kiko, his father is Pepo, and his mother Karing
his father a fisherman and his mother a vendor
and he is from the far mountain
and just arrived to the city
and since he is frail and pale and looks like a sick child
he reaped the suspicion that he is a drug addict
and they mauled him almost to death
and he was hospitalized and charged
resisting arrest
Someone asks, not bothered at all by an imagination
of blood and broken bones and abuse of authority
'But why did he run away, in the first place? '
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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To They Who Are Hauted By The Spectre Of Death
Do not fear death because death is not to be feared.Death is the bride of every household therefore welcome her with open arms.Death is inevitable therefore do not deny yourself the pleasure of having a nice time while you're still alive.Death is a stage through which all of us must pass.Death is necessary and this old life would be very boring if we would all live forever.Accept the inevitability of death and die gratefully with less worry lines on your death mask, There are no worries in the other world and over there they offer you virgins to pamper you to compensate for your undeserved suffering in this world.Therefore be willing to die young and have a good looking corpse
poem by Ngaka Motaung
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Sinner's Visit from Death
Whence the reek, the sombre clouds?
Those of billows gargantuan;
Of storms immense, blushing black,
Wishing sought of me to assess?
And have I passed? I have?
Hence I hear a knock on oak;
Unwelcomed, dullened cloak
Flowing dourly - it was a bitter breeze.
‘Have you mulled my sins? ' I ask.
‘Have you seen my impotence -
Though observe destruction at mine hands?
Forgive me, I am but Man.'
‘And are not sinners forgiven? ' I excuse,
‘Hence forgiveness avoids me of Hell?
Must my Demons of Sin revisit eternally
And reflect back on me to suffer well
The synergy of vengeance and wrath?
Are you not now pitying of my terror?
See my withering, regretful flesh -
Feel you not my tardy repentance? '
But Death just focused his stare,
That which pierced my pulseless heart,
For I was empty of remorse in all my years.
He knew that - and led me away.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
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Death death death
poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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