437 Death poems

Now that you too must shortly go the way Which in these bloodshot years uncounted men Have gone in vanishing armies day by day, And in their numbers will not come again: I must not strain the moments of our meeting Striving for each look, each accent, not to miss, Or question of our parting and our greeting, Is this the last of all? is this—or this? Last sight of all it may be with these eyes, Last touch, last hearing, since eyes, hands, and ears, Even serving love, are our mortalities, And cling to what they own in mortal fears:— But oh, let end what will, I hold you fast By immortal love, which has no first or last.

Just enough rain an hour ago to give the wispy dry grass some hope, turning it green instantly. This place has been abandoned, the old faith overgrown, confused by brambles, and in these hard times, its upkeep cut from the budget. But we walk, soaked to the knees, making our slow pilgrimage among gravestones, speaking blurred names back into the world.

Caretakers — died in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, one after another. One didn’t show up because her husband was in prison. Most others watched the clock. Time breaks for the living eventually and they can walk out of doors. The handle of time’s door is hot for the dying. What use is a door if you can’t exit? A door that can’t be opened is called a wall. My father is on the other side of the wall. Tomatoes are ripening on the other side. I can see them through the window that also can’t be opened. A window that can’t be opened is just a see-through wall. Sometimes we’re on the inside like a plane. Most of the time, we’re on the outside like doggie day care. I don’t know if the tomatoes are the new form of his language or if they’re simply for eating. I can’t ask him 
because on the other side, there are no words. All I can do is stare at the nameless bursting tomatoes and know they have to be enough.

I poured a whiskey and soda watching the tree outside dissolve: light going backward   pushed to corners to the white sliver of wood around the door. Where was that river seething with light? I recall the banks menaced by wasps swollen on summer sap, a cement hollow stuck with their strange cradles a woozy stench of damp clay the blunt poison of water snakes.

He was born in Alabama. He was bred in Illinois. He was nothing but a Plain black boy. Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot. Nothing but a plain black boy. Drive him past the Pool Hall. Drive him past the Show. Blind within his casket, But maybe he will know. Down through Forty-seventh Street: Underneath the L, And Northwest Corner, Prairie, That he loved so well. Don’t forget the Dance Halls— Warwick and Savoy, Where he picked his women, where He drank his liquid joy. Born in Alabama. Bred in Illinois. He was nothing but a Plain black boy. Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot. Nothing but a plain black boy.

Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest; Whose heavenly gifts increased by disdain, And virtue sank the deeper in his breast; Such profit he by envy could obtain. A head where wisdom mysteries did frame, Whose hammers beat still in that lively brain As on a stithy where that some work of fame Was daily wrought, to turn to Britain's gain. A visage stern and mild, where both did grow, Vice to contemn, in virtue to rejoice; Amid great storms, whom grace assured so To live upright and smile at fortune's choice. A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme; That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit: A mark, the which (unparfited, for time) Some may approach, but never none shall hit. A tongue that served in foreign realms his king; Whose courteous talk to virtue did enflame Each noble heart; a worthy guide to bring Our English youth by travail unto fame. An eye whose judgment none affect could blind, Friends to allure, and foes to reconcile; Whose piercing look did represent a mind With virtue fraught, reposed, void of guile. A heart where dread was never so impress'd, To hide the thought that might the truth advance; In neither fortune loft, nor yet repress'd, To swell in wealth, or yield unto mischance. A valiant corps, where force and beauty met; Happy, alas, too happy, but for foes! Lived, and ran the race, that Nature set: Of manhood's shape, where she the mould did lose. But to the heavens that simple soul is fled, Which left with such as covet Christ to know Witness of faith that never shall be dead, Sent for our health, but not received so. Thus, for our guilt, this jewel have we lost; The earth his bones, the heavens possess his ghost.

(excerpt) OF THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL Wherein, by occasion of the religious death of Mistress Elizabeth Drury, the incommodities of the soul in this her life, and her exaltation in the next, are contemplated THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY Forget this rotten world, and unto thee Let thine own times as an old story be. Be not concern'd; study not why, nor when; Do not so much as not believe a man. For though to err, be worst, to try truths forth Is far more business than this world is worth. I'he world is but a carcass; thou art fed By it, but as a worm, that carcass bred; And why shouldst thou, poor worm, consider more, When this world will grow better than before, Than those thy fellow-worms do think upon That carcass's last resurrection? Forget this world, and scarce think of it so, As of old clothes, cast off a year ago. To be thus stupid is alacrity; Men thus lethargic have best memory. Look upward; that's towards her, whose happy state We now lament not, but congratulate. She, to whom all this world was but a stage, Where all sat heark'ning how her youthful age Should be employ'd, because in all she did Some figure of the golden times was hid. Who could not lack, what'er this world could give, Because she was the form, that made it live; Nor could complain that this world was unfit To be stay'd in, then when she was in it; She, that first tried indifferent desires By virtue, and virtue by religious fires; She, to whose person paradise adher'd, As courts to princes; she, whose eyes enspher'd Star-light enough t' have made the South control, (Had she been there) the star-full Northern Pole; She, she is gone; she is gone; when thou knowest this, What fragmentary rubbish this world is Thou knowest, and that it is not worth a thought; He honours it too much that thinks it nought. Think then, my soul, that death is but a groom, Which brings a taper to the outward room, Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light, And after brings it nearer to thy sight; For such approaches doth heaven make in death. Think thyself labouring now with broken breath, And think those broken and soft notes to be Division, and thy happiest harmony. Think thee laid on thy death-bed, loose and slack, And think that but unbinding of a pack, To take one precious thing, thy soul, from thence. Think thyself parch'd with fever's violence; Anger thine ague more, by calling it Thy physic; chide the slackness of the fit. Think that thou hear'st thy knell, and think no more, But that, as bells call'd thee to church before, So this to the Triumphant Church calls thee. Think Satan's sergeants round about thee be, And think that but for legacies they thrust; Give one thy pride, to'another give thy lust; Give them those sins which they gave thee before, And trust th' immaculate blood to wash thy score. Think thy friends weeping round, and think that they Weep but because they go not yet thy way. Think that they close thine eyes, and think in this, That they confess much in the world amiss, Who dare not trust a dead man's eye with that Which they from God and angels cover not. Think that they shroud thee up, and think from thence They reinvest thee in white innocence. Think that thy body rots, and (if so low, Thy soul exalted so, thy thoughts can go) Think thee a prince, who of themselves create Worms, which insensibly devour their state. Think that they bury thee, and think that rite Lays thee to sleep but a Saint Lucy's night.

Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! Though cold and stark and bare, The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;—alas! no longer To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be Thy father’s pride;—ah, he Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger. To me, as I move thee now in the last duty, Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond; Startling my fancy fond With a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty. Thy hand clasps, as ’twas wont, my finger, and holds it: But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff; Yet feels to my hand as if ’Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it. So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing,— Go lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed!— Propping thy wise, sad head, Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing. So quiet! doth the change content thee?—Death, whither hath he taken thee? To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this? The vision of which I miss, Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee and awaken thee? Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail us To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark, Unwilling, alone we embark, And the things we have seen and have known and have heard of, fail us.

I saw where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature's work. A flow'ret crushed in the bud, A nameless piece of Babyhood, Was in a cradle-coffin lying; Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying; So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb For darker closets of the tomb! She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then strait up shut For the long dark: ne'er more to see Through glasses of mortality. Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below? Shall we say, that Nature blind Check'd her hand, and changed her mind, Just when she had exactly wrought A finish'd pattern without fault? Could she flag, or could she tire, Or lack'd she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health, and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry, That babe, or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock, And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd; and the pain, When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, 'reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimed life? The economy of Heaven is dark; And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark, Why Human Buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral, That has his day; while shrivel'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbed use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years. Mother's prattle, mother's kiss, Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss. Rites, which custom does impose, Silver bells and baby clothes; Coral redder than those lips, Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never tuned for thee; Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them, Loving hearts were they which gave them. Let not one be missing; nurse, See them laid upon the hearse Of infant slain by doom perverse. Why should kings and nobles have Pictured trophies to their grave; And we, churls, to thee deny Thy pretty toys with thee to lie, A more harmless vanity?

After Suji Kwock Kim 1 decorating the dead is among the most basic human instincts, to return the borrowed body & acknowledge Earth as maker & home. Neanderthals used antlers & flowers. Egyptians had pyramids with peasants buried in the walls they built. some niggas just get a pine box. hopefully you get a hole or a flame. some only get a cold cabinet in the morgue until somebody or nobody claims them as a loss. 2 a permanent fixture on my to-do list is research life insurance plans. pick a good one with a fair rate & enough money to buy a nice box. 3 everything gonna be all right this morning