437 Death poems

She wakes up in the afterlife in a fog. Unaware that she had an enemy, she was unprepared when the villain approached to deliver a fatal head injury. Part of her soul is stuck in her tomb, but as is common, it has a fake door where intercourse can occur, while another part of her soul begins a new adventure in form and in name. Always a reticent young woman, in premature death her speech-producing anatomy becomes irrepressible as she tries to render her circumstance comprehensible.

I dug, beneath the cypress shade, What well might seem an elfin's grave; And every pledge in earth I laid, That erst thy false affection gave. I pressed them down the sod beneath; I placed one mossy stone above; And twined the rose's fading wreath Around the sepulchre of love. Frail as thy love, the flowers were dead, Ere yet the evening sun was set: But years shall see the cypress spread, Immutable as my regret.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading - treading - till it seemed That Sense was breaking through - And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum - Kept beating - beating - till I thought My mind was going numb - And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space - began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race, Wrecked, solitary, here - And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down - And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing - then -

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air - Between the Heaves of Storm - The Eyes around - had wrung them dry - And Breaths were gathering firm For that last Onset - when the King Be witnessed - in the Room - I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away What portion of me be Assignable - and then it was There interposed a Fly - With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz - Between the light - and me - And then the Windows failed - and then I could not see to see -

I know that all beneath the moon decays, And what by mortals in this world is brought, In Time’s great periods shall return to nought; That fairest states have fatal nights and days; I know how all the Muse’s heavenly lays, With toil of spright which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds of few or none are sought, And that nought lighter is than airy praise. I know frail beauty like the purple flower, To which one morn oft birth and death affords; That love a jarring is of minds’ accords, Where sense and will invassal reason’s power: Know what I list, this all can not me move, But that, O me! I both must write and love.

I never hear that one is dead Without the chance of Life Afresh annihilating me That mightiest Belief, Too mighty for the Daily mind That tilling it’s abyss, Had Madness, had it once or, Twice The yawning Consciousness, Beliefs are Bandaged, like the Tongue When Terror were it told In any Tone commensurate Would strike us instant Dead - I do not know the man so bold He dare in lonely Place That awful stranger - Consciousness Deliberately face -

Little soul, you and I will become the memory of a memory of a memory. A horse released of the traces forgets the weight of the wagon.

The body of the boy who took his flight off the cliff at Kilcloher into the sea was hauled up by curragh-men, out at first light fishing mackerel in the estuary. “No requiem or rosary” said the priest, “nor consecrated ground for burial,” as if the boy had flown outside the pale of mercy or redemption or God’s love. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” quoth Argyle to the corpse’s people, who heard in what he said a sort of riddle, as if he meant their coreligionists and not their sodden, sadly broken boy. Either way, they took some comfort in it and readied better than accustomed fare of food and spirits; by their own reckoning: the greater sin, the greater so the toll. But Argyle refused their shilling coin and helped them build a box and dig a grave. “Your boy’s no profligate or prodigal,” he said, “only a wounded pilgrim like us all. What say his leaping was a leap of faith, into his father’s beckoning embrace?” They killed no fatted calf.  They filled the hole.

I didn't tell you that, in the end, he begged For the end.  Death like the bed after The bedtime story.  Death like a widening Crack of light beneath the door. He begged them to let him Go so he could go.  Said I want To die.  Then said kill me.  Please. You and I endure that first pain. We just want to die.  People with that Other ultimately physical agony say Kill me and know they won't discuss it In therapy.  Kill me.  I’m thinking Of him today because I want to die And I am ashamed to say it.  My thinking Is red and sticky.  Rather than kill me, I'd like you to listen as I live In a perpetual whine.  Can’t I still be Somebody’s baby?  Say yes for yourself. Call me some time.  Every day I wish to die, Remind me how he insisted. Kill me.  And I’ll live again.

For Geoff Dyer his front yard is the true Benares — Devara Dasimayya, tr. A.K. Ramanujan His death in Benares Won’t save the assassin From certain hell, Any more than a dip In the Ganges will send Frogs—or you—to paradise. My home, says Kabir, Is where there’s no day, no night, And no holy book in sight To squat on our lives.