death poems

The Air I Breathe In | Rajnish Mishra

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I’m not sure yet, how easy is death, for I love to live,
I always have. Ah, to live with you,
How happy a state would it be! Not changing at all,
Even a whit, even post-love?

Still loathe and avoid all mention of death, I do.
Death, the recurrent theme, now intertwined with another: You.

You overpower death, or, let me rephrase it,
Fear to fear, losing you as a possibility,
So engrosses me, pervades my being so,
That I forget death for a while, and now,
I have you and death in front of me.

My thoughts run.
They run to hide in your protective lap to lie there, to sleep, fearless,
For death can’t reach there, you’ve told me with your reassuring eyes.
Your eyes are brown, which shade, I never had courage to stay and stare
And know for sure. They’re bewitching, unnerving, beautiful.
I hardened the cyst but the soft core of truth, of weakness; remained.
You’ve told me that the fear of loss – of life, of love; is true.
But asked me to rest while you weave round me a cocoon.

More at https://poetrypoeticspleasureezine.wordpress.com.

Overqualified | Ivan Jenson

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I am being groomed
to be entombed
it happens every night
when I lay down
and cross my hands
over my chest
like my grandfather did
when he napped
and like a graduate of life
in death I will be
black-capped
and buried
deep with my diploma
and ready
to submit my resumé
which will be
whatever the heck
my gravestone
words will say
and as for me
I will be hired
by the HR department
of eternity

More at http://www.ivanjenson.com/.

Poet Poseur | Rajnish Mishra

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Bare fingers stretch the feeling-bands, the poet poseur,
Bakes his poems on a fire, he says, that blanches his heart:
A fire that blanches his heart, makes breathing hard and feeds his art.
Decades diseased, then death, of a friend.
She waited for it. She woke every morning half-ready,
Half-knowing her next day could also be last.
She waited patiently, as friends do for friends long lost,
Expected any moment from pools of oblivion return.
News reached me in time, they thought, not I.
In time to book my ticket and catch my plane.
In time to reach at her place before they took her to grave.
In time to tell the others that I was one of them.
How can anyone think that I, a man with a job
would manage at such short notice?

In time another call then came after death one more.
And time I could not find to go there one more time.
Thus told them one more time, I was not one of them.

Death has always been an interesting subject –
frightening but interesting.

More at https://poetrypoeticspleasureezine.wordpress.com.

Midnight | Agnieszka Filipek

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once again
a piece of my flesh died
on a bed of moon dust
I made love to death

the ash remaining
on my lips forever
singing a lullaby
to hungry birds

and all I wanted
was to collect my tears
in the glass bottle
of your perfume

(First published in Qutub Minar Review, India)

More at http://www.agnieszkafilipek.com/.

Beyond the Veil | Rising of the Sun

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when the owl hoots
the thunder strike
angry angel
object there was all
action there was all
*
when you placed your head on my lap
i thought you’ll last
but all my stories is for the untold
no way, my heart pump hard
*
a day b4 your forever journey
we had a talk
the plans you had for your sons
had been locked in the dune of your heart
a tears of pains i had to endure
*
when your ripe carved mango smiled at me
i knew it was a mirage
deliberating over santa’s story
it stung in my heart
how lonely is it
*
the key to my smile
i woke up looking the mirror
i saw you smiled
i smiled back
oh! he left
*
why do you leave me in this lonely world
all my fame is you
my foes are all grown
there hate is ripe
now i can’t act
*
i can’t hold my tears
i just had to let it go
it seems so hard to forget my patting clone
your leaf had dried-up and i can’t witstand

Final Scene | J. K. Durick

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When I finally leave, and I will eventually,
I’ll do something theatrical, stand there mid-
room saying my say, with gestures worthy
of the scene. I imagine a little Lear perhaps
or, more fitting, Willy Loman, my overdone
version of heroic. I’ll stand full height, with
shoulders back, at attention, and demanding
attention from my audience, the groundlings
I have left, those jaded theater goers who for
some reason stayed around for the last act of
my little play. I have been practicing my lines
for years, watched so many friends say theirs
as they departed stage left, tried to catch each
phrase and move they made, set my phrasing
accordingly, would practice for hours before
any available mirror. I’m saying, I am finally
ready to leave, deliver my ultimate oration,
my closing soliloquy, deliver it and then turn
in a slightly stagy way and be gone, finally,
and you thought I’d never leave.

Autopsy Report | Stan Morrison

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No amount of hand sanitizer
Can create a surfeit of clean
And disguise the dying flesh
Bronzer and a comb-over
Can’t cover the decay inside

You are a very Narcissus
Papa’s little pride and joy
You’ve prove to us plebeians
Wealth doesn’t define success
Status isn’t a sign of intelligence

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