Returning From A Mountain Retreat And Finding You Not There
The old valley at Machayeng! So
Full of the bones of the warriors
Of our forefathers who in death
Trouble not the living.I wish people
Would respect the dead and it's wrong
To turn the graves of the dead into
Places of worship for the living
My friend! I challenge you to visit
The caves at Meqheleng! They are majestic!
The rock formations are intricate man!
I never in my life thought that nature
Could be so soothing to the soul
And it's sad and I am back in the sad
House.And I thought it was a sad empty
Threat you were making.And it has happened
And you have gone.And three sad years have
Passed and I have even forgotten in my
Sadness what it's like to make love
To a woman.But sad seasons come to pass
And sad men too pass away.And they live
Their sorrows behind for their sons
To inherit.No man in his right mind must
Tell his son to have male children
Better to have a daughter and have less
Troubles.I know my own sons each one of
The three of them died a violent death
poem by Ngaka Motaung

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Here Lie's The truth
“Here Lies the truth”,
On Her tombstone this will be wrote.
It was never spoke when She was living,
So also in death, it will be unspoke.
By Her it was never said
it was as though pulling out Her soul,
So here lies the truth and herself dead
Both has died in sadness and woe.
Here lies the truth,
Not once by her was it cried,
Not in the days that she was living,
Not even in the day that She had died.
She must of believed that it was a sin
To open Her heart and listen to the word
So She closed her heart and locked it shut,
And She never believed in no one but Her.
Here lies the truth,
It lived but a very short life,
Though the Woman died of years of age
The truth though, never had a chance to try.
Everyone She knew had learned Her lie
They never believed a word that she said
So when She finally tried to speak the truth,
Her heart stopped; and She laid dead.
Here lies the truth
It lived but a very short life,
It was loved by neither Child or Man,
For they believe its living was but a lie.
So here in the grave it will lay dead
As it had lived in this woman's soul,
Never again will it be uttered or thought of,
Never till the end of time will it be thought of or known.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave

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Children's Playground In The City
THIS is a place where men laid their dead,
Each with his life-tale of good or ill;
Here prayers were murmured and hot tears shed,
And passionate anguish moaned its fill.
Silent now is each voice that cried,
And the tears that were wept have all been dried
In the dust; and dust are the hearts that bled
With hopeless longing for hearts grown still.
Dead and forgotten! for Death, requiter
Of love, taught Memory how to forget!
The love that remembered them died. Grow brighter,
Oh, dim grave-garden, with dead hearts set!
Room for the small flying feet to pass,
The feet of the children over the grass!
The dead, if they knew it, would feel them lighter
Than the weight of a stone that no tears make wet.
We must die too, and the grief that will live
Must die as surely--death comes to all;
But you who come after--let Nature give
To our graves her tears, to our dust her pall:
Let her hide us away in her cold broad breast,
Let us be forgotten, and be at rest,
And over our heads let the great world strive,
And the children's voices carol and call.
If your heart on the flower of remembrance is set,
There is one way to pluck it--and only one:
Dare you ask your country not to forget
A name that needs to be graved on stone?
By grief, strife, sacrifice, scorn of fame,
You may grave on the people's hearts your name,
Or your name may die, and your soul live yet
In the cause you died for--the work you have done.
poem by Edith Nesbit

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The New Ezekiel
What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried
By twenty scorching centuries of wrong?
Is this the House of Israel, whose pride
Is as a tale that's told, an ancient song?
Are these ignoble relics all that live
Of psalmist, priest, and prophet? Can the breath
Of very heaven bid these bones revive,
Open the graves and clothe the ribs of death?
Yea, Prophesy, the Lord hath said. Again
Say to the wind, Come forth and breathe afresh,
Even that they may live upon these slain,
And bone to bone shall leap, and flesh to flesh.
The Spirit is not dead, proclaim the word,
Where lay dead bones, a host of armed men stand!
I ope your graves, my people, saith the Lord,
And I shall place you living in your land.
poem by Emma Lazarus

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A Happy Man
When these graven lines you see,
Traveller, do not pity me;
Though I be among the dead,
Let no mournful word be said.
Children that I leave behind,
And their children, all were kind;
Near to them and to my wife,
I was happy all my life.
My three sons I married right,
And their sons I rocked at night;
Death nor sorrow never brought
Cause for one unhappy thought.
Now, and with no need of tears,
Here they leave me, full of years,--
Leave me to my quiet rest
In the region of the blest.
poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson

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The Death Penalty
Bring back the death penalty screamed a lady as the blood ran, dripping from the cold concrete as her sons blood fled from its body. Bring back, bring back the death penalty screamed a mother as her child dies slowly watching the pools of life fade away from his eyes.
Bring back, bring back the death penalty screamed a mother while she watched her child being killed by the hands of another man, bring back the death penalty.
Bring back the death penalty as she screamed holding her dying child while he laid his last words and breath upon her chest. Bring back the death penalty she screamed in mercy so that she will so that she will no longer have to hold any more of her dying sons and lay them in graves before she lays in her own.
Bring back the death penalty she screamed as her sons soul left his body and he became another victim to a violent society. Bring back the death penalty, bring back our sons.
poem by Melvyn Mohan

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Mother Nature She Rules
For her actions Mother Nature is above any blame
Since she always treats life and death as the same
The dead of the World in her bosom lay
And she goes on living and night follows day.
Mother Nature she dons her green cloak of the Spring
And in her leafy woods nesting birds chirp and sing
The life that she gives one day she will receive
And for her dead children she never does grieve.
For to sustain us on Nature we must depend
Yet Nature is one who does not need a friend
She will live without us when the life from us gone
Forever and ever she keeps keeping on.
Her Seasons they come and her Seasons they go
And her streams and her rivers to her oceans flow
And from the Earth's most northern to the most southern shore
Mother Nature she rules and will forever more.
poem by Francis Duggan

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Why?
why? (the king of love is dead)
by Gene Taylor
recorded by Nina Simone, 1967
Once upon this planet earth,
Lived a man of humble birth,
Preaching love and freedom for his fellow man,
He was dreaming of a day,
Peace would come to earth to stay,
And he spread this message all across the land.
Turn the other cheek hed plead,
Love thy neighbor was his creed,
Pain humiliation death, he did not dread
With his Bible at his side,
From his foes he did not hide,
Its hard to think that this great man is dead. (Oh yes)
Will the murders never cease,
Are thy men or are they beasts?
What do they ever hope, ever hope to gain?
Will my country fall, stand or fall?
Is it too late for us all?
And did Martin Luther King just die in vain?
Cos hed seen the mountain top,
And he knew he could not stop,
Always living with the threat of death ahead.
Folks youd better stop and think
Cos were heading for the brink.
What will happen now that he is dead?
He was for equality,
For all people you and me,
Full of love and good will, hate was not his way.
He was not a violent man.
Tell me folks if you can,
Just why, why was he shot down the other day?
Well see hed seen, the mountain top.
And he knew he could not stop,
Always living with the threat of death ahead.
Folks youd better stop and thinkand feel again,
For were heading for the brink.
Whats gonna happen now that the king of love is dead?
song performed by by Nina Simone

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Skeleton, My Rival
Interesting that I have to live with my skeleton.
It stands, prepared to emerge, and I carry it
with me—this other thing I will become at death,
and yet it keeps me erect and limber in my walk,
my rival.
What will the living see of me
if they should open my grave but my bones
that will stare at them through hollow sockets
and bared teeth.
I write this to warn my friends
not to be shocked at my changed attitude
toward them, but to be aware
that I have it in me to be someone
other than I am, and I write to ask forgiveness
that death is not wholesome for friendships,
that bones do not talk, have no quarrel with me,
do not even know I exist.
A machine called skeleton will take my place
in the minds of others when I am dead
among the living, and that machine
will make it obvious that I have died
to be identified by bones
that have no speech, no thought, no mind
to speak of having let themselves be carried
once around in me, as at my service
at the podium or as I lay beside my love
or when I held my child at birth
or embraced a friend or shook a critic's hand
or held a pen to sign a check or book
or wrote a farewell letter to a love
or held my penis at the bowl
or lay my hand upon my face at the mirror
and approved of it.
There is Ignatow, it will be said,
looking down inside the open grave.
I'll be somewhere in my poems, I think,
to be mistaken for my bones, but There's Ignatow
will be said. I say to those who persist,
just read what I have written.
I'll be there, held together by another kind
of structure, of thought and imagery,
mind and matter, love and longing, tensions
opposite, such as the skeleton requires
to stand upright, to move with speed,
to sit with confidence, my friend the skeleton
and I its friend, shielding it from harm.
poem by David Ignatow

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Our Numbness Along the Road Leading to Our Destiny
that night i passed by the road
leading to the house where i live,
someone died on the road
i did not mind i was eagerly heading for home
this morning while going to the university
another body sprawled on the road,
another dead body
there is a crowd of people
curious but not mourning
i do not stop for death
i am going towards mine
and we who are still living cannot really be surely
lucky
everyday we are dying
we simply have to wait for that fateful time
it is our turn we do not have to anticipate it
every hour
a part of us dies
it is enough
sharing these moments of death
and so i say
i cannot stop for another person's death
destiny has once taken him
and there is nothing that i can do
i am also just merely passing by...
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Everlasting Gaze
You know I'm not dead
Now you know where I've been
As you sleep
Torn I am
Weighted down
Patiently
Born of love
You know I'm not dead
I'm just living in my head
Forever waiting
On the ways of your desire
You always find a way
And thru it all
Into us all you move
Forgotten touch
Forbidden thought
We can never have enough
You know I'm not dead
Found below
The creatures scream
Stranglehold
A god machine
Begging to
Tear us out
Worn as hope
You know I'm not dead I'm just the tears inside your head
Forever waiting
On the ways of your desire
You always find a way
And thru it all into us all you move
Forgotten touch
Forbidden thought
We can never have enough
You know I'm not dead
We all want to hold in the everlasting gaze
Enchanted in the rapture of his sentimental sway
But underneath the wheels lie the skulls of every c.o.g.
The fickle fascination of an everlasting god
You know I'm not dead
I'm just living in my head
Forever waiting
Forever waiting on cruel death
You know I'm not dead
I'm just living for myself
Forever waiting
You know I'm not dead
song performed by by Smashing Pumpkins

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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Dead Alive
Mourned to be the one -
To wake -
To live -
To see -
To walk -
Alive but dead -
Days by day, my oasis lives by the colour of night -
Energies of the living, absorbed -
To live in the between of dead -
Peace to be found, the yard where we spade the graves -
Where tombs act the way of stones -
The dead of the flowers, vase the portrait of a future to be -
Flesh to earth, invested to be inverted -
Still born -
Aged we pass to birth -
To be boned -
To die in death
poem by Unic Cjonr

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Of Him I Love Day And Night
OF him I love day and night, I dream'd I heard he was dead;
And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love--but he was not
in that place;
And I dream'd I wander'd, searching among burial-places, to find him;
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is
now;)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago,
Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead
as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living;
--And what I dream'd I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream'd;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with
them; 10
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently
everywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be
satisfied;
And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly
render'd to powder, and pour'd in the sea, I shall be
satisfied;
Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied.
poem by Walt Whitman

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Death is a Threat
Death is a threat.
That almost everyone fears.
But to every beginning.
There must be an end.
Even worse is when you know.
what others don’t.
Something like Death.
How do you take it?
What can you do?
How you do you live your life
until your time is due.
Forgive all your enemies.
Take each day as it comes.
If you are in a position to,
Accept your fate.
And pray before it is too late.
Death is a threat.
We hate to relent.
It visits us randomly.
There is no perceptual structure.
Don't try to analysis it for that is mental torture.
Treasure each day as you live.
Love is what you should strive to find.
Death is a threat.
To our every day life’s.
It can turn our whole world upside down.
Destinies forcefully change overnight.
Sometimes for bad or for something very right.
Your best friend leaves for ever.
Your life long dreams die when you thought never.
But it is all a test.
During which your strength manifest.
Better, don’t let Death know when you are expecting it.
Or for death that will be a treat.
© Sylvia Chidi- 17 October 2005
poem by Sylvia Chidi

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The City Dead-House
BY the City Dead-House, by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause--for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute
brought;
Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd--it lies on the damp brick
pavement;
The divine woman, her body--I see the Body--I look on it alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty--all else I notice not;
Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors
morbific impress me;
But the house alone--that wondrous house--that delicate fair house--
that ruin!
That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built!
Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted--or
all the old high-spired cathedrals; 10
That little house alone, more than them all--poor, desperate house!
Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a Soul! itself a Soul!
Unclaim'd, avoided house! take one breath from my tremulous lips;
Take one tear, dropt aside as I go, for thought of you,
Dead house of love! house of madness and sin, crumbled! crush'd!
House of life--erewhile talking and laughing--but ah, poor house!
dead, even then;
Months, years, an echoing, garnish'd house--but dead, dead, dead.
poem by Walt Whitman

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To Doris
She said I come from a land flanked by the warmer seas
A flat brown land that stretch for miles with hardly any trees
In my dreams I see the big game parks and the open plains I see
'Oh' Africa my Africa I hear you calling me.
I hear the male lion cough and roar and the wild hyena scream
And the Natives dance before my eyes so real to me they seem
I hear them singing in the night and their drumming I too hear
And Africa close to my heart though miles away from here.
Doris accent is a give away as accents often are
You'd know that to get to this great Land that she's had to travel far
Her lovely South African accent one never should mistake
The migrant may live far from home but ties that bind are hard to break.
A farmer's daughter from South Africa her life story ought be told
A woman close to eighty years though she doesn't look that old
A teenager in the thirties the hard life she has been through
Her only brother a prisoner of war in Europe in world war two.
Her ill mother convinced her son had died lost the will to live on
And he returned home to the tragic news that his mum was dead and gone
There's sorrow blood and tears in war and tragedy as well
And for mums with sons on battlefields life must be living hell.
She raised five sons in South Africa and one died at twenty five
Brain damaged by measles as a child she helped him to survive
And Doris with great sadness says that her son's life was far too brief
There's ups and downs in life she says and there's happiness and grief.
With her son and daughter in law she lives east of Melbourne now by road off 'One Tree Hill'
A woman from a far Country and suppose she always will
Feel homesick for her home Country, I love Australia she say
But my homeland is South Africa the brown Land far away.
poem by Francis Duggan

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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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Mayan Appreciation
The Maya appreciate people
even when departed are dead.
Maya invite dead spirit
to continue in the world;
to remain in the world
to help with their toil.
To do this the Maya pass
coca leaves three times;
around honoured laid out
corpse of the dead person.
While in esteemed western society
we do not even appreciate;
the living when they are alive
when unknown strangers unknown to us.
Why is it people living at altitude
in primal harmonious agricultural lifestyles;
have a reverent respect for nature essential
have a more enlightened attitude to life?
I thought pursuit altitude sickness
was supposed to harass affect;
people living at such high altitude
yet Maya living in clouds of Gods;
become tired ill with decent into valley
of pristine fertile green pastures;
where interactive infection breeds
swifter than can grow green spring grass.
Even among Maya some villagers
get drunk so become violent;
and cannot behave as civilized
people by necessity must behave.
Even when Mayan villagers
must sacrifice a lama for meat;
music is appreciation played
all care all life reverence;
must be appropriately given
to all community animals sacrificed.
Even the tinku the fighting ritual
an encounter of differing energies;
tinku is ritual encounter not brawl
to restore unity among participants.
Tinku meaning equals fighting not to win
but to define territory between villages;
the recognition is that community unity
is needed for essential survival of villages.
Feathered hats of warriors are shaped
like hats of conquistadors who took territory;
this fighting ritual is for luck to keep away evil
evil legacy is greed rage conquistador values.
poem by Terence George Craddock

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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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Invitation To Eternity
Say, wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of bright and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor light nor life to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me?
Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean's waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And darkness darken into caves,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity
Where parents live and are forgot,
And sisters live and know us not?
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to be--
That was and is not--yet to see
Things pass like shadows, and the sky
Above, below, around us lie?
The land of shadows wilt thou trace,
Nor look nor know each other's face;
The present marred with reason gone,
And past and present both as one?
Say, maiden, can thy life be led
To join the living and the dead?
Then trace thy footsteps on with me:
We are wed to one eternity.
poem by John Clare

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