poems about death

Release | John Hunter - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

Release | John Hunter

Darkness and tolls – they linger, side by side they loom.
I’ve seen my life tomorrow, in a densely shallow tomb.
Doom is closing in.
A weight of times forgotten, sanity has its costs,
Fading at a hero’s pace, all light in the night is lost.
Doom is closing in.
Free of contradiction, fawns of fate arise,
resign the conscious battle, deathly fear subsides.
Doom has closed me in.

Where Do We Go When We Die | Judy Moskowitz - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

Where Do We Go When We Die | Judy Moskowitz

Do we fall into a deep coma of nothingness
or do we rise, shaping clouds
listening to conversations downstairs
flickering lights, moving objects, sending signs
through telepathy
transmitting a forced white noise
invisible to the blind eye
waiting to be a reincarnate of ourselves
in a different casing
or a trickster
making the living believe

Ships of Evil | Michael Kagan - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

Ships of Evil | Michael Kagan

Bones in the sand
from the shores of history
the curse of the pointless point
the dog slinks back to the underbrush
he can see the blood in its teeth
fearing the virus
in the darkness of it’s mind
it has cut all ties
with love and trust
knives clutched in
dismembered hands
death awaits the madness
hate filled expression
in a leaking coffin
the trees cannot sleep
they hear the screaming
through their leaves
standing in caustic rain
an old dead volcano is stirring
it has angered the
oceans of magma
burning rocks and
blocking the sun
all disappears in it’s molten path
nothing will grow
for one hundred years
the birds and animals weep
it has shaken the
very nature of things
with bellicose vessels
and sails of black
sorrow exploding
from ugly flags
shutting off life
and the light in the eyes
beautiful dreams
run off and take cover
living forever
before the after.

Robin | Steve Denehan - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

Robin | Steve Denehan

For four decades death was a stranger to me.
I empathised, I offered my shoulder but I did not really know death.
Then, this year, death came.
An uncle, an aunt, another aunt, a friend.
Death came, they left.
The clink of tea cups and teary smiles.
Cold and waxy sunken cheeks.
“No more pain now Dad”, my daughter tells me with her smiling, bun-filled mouth.
She is four years old.
She is right.

A Death Scene | Hadrian Hazlitt - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

A Death Scene | Hadrian Hazlitt

An old woman is
dying on her bed.
Her husband is sitting
by her side, clasping
her hand with his wrinkled
hands and through the open
window a breeze slinks in
and embraces
the couple as the
day is dying fast.
But neither of them
notices these. It isn’t
worth admiring the
beauty of sunset
nor grumble to the
cold embrace of the
wind—not this time though.
The old woman smiles.
To her husband,
As if she’s not going
To die. Just having
a deep slumber. “Do you
You think we’ll meet again?”
She asks. “In an afterlife,
I mean.” He nods and
says “Yes, we will,” not
because he’s certain.
But it’s kind of a good
prospect to hear.
“Don’t forget me darling,”
she says and shuts her eyes,
and there are tears sliding
Down her cheeks. The husband
waits, though he knows she won’t
wake up again. “I
won’t forget you, my love.”
He bends and kisses
his wife. He barely
notices the tears on
his cheeks. Now he
just has to wait.
He only wishes the waiting
won’t be long.

When Will Mummy Return | Isa T. Hassan - Contemporary Poetry Website Featuring Notable Poems

When Will Mummy Return | Isa T. Hassan

Smugly draped in mortal darkness
She bade a familiar farewell
And named the date of return
There were no hazy hints
On that morning of departure
She was brought back
By a wailing ambulance
Indifferent
To the wailing welcome
And the mournful faces
The children still rush out
Chanting ‘mummy oyoyo’
Each time a car stops
By the bereaved homestead
Hoping mummy has returned.

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