Death PoemsHere You Go Death is frightening, and dying just as bad. Say what you will, ‘we don’t take it well Then how can we live, with all that ahead? Something must be fooling us constantly. Our brains are tricked so that we don't believe, for whatever reason, ‘we won't go on and on. Our thoughts are clouded so that we can’t conceive the exact process ‘that’s waiting for us. Or perhaps we think that ‘when the moment comes someone else will arive to take over-we'll survive. Where logic is concerned, we're all thumbs. How couldn't we know ‘we were born to go?Growing Up They said it was all good, the way that things were. But you were very young, and said they were lying. They said it was for the best, the suffering was all over. You were older now and the best seemed not very good. ‘They said there was nothing more they could do for you. “Good,” you said, old enough to know the way things wereUsefulness You can use death to achieve goals in life. For example, you can kill people for hire On the other hand, you can try to save people for hire and get paid whether or not they die on you. On a larger scale, there's the funeral industry, equipment for making war, pharmaceutical products for keeping us alive, safety measures that leave ‘you injured but not dead. All of these are vital ‘goods and services and therefore quite lucrative. All of them are based ‘on death or the threat of death- death’s reality The food you need s0 that you don’t starve. ‘The very air you breathe and the water you drink, which need to be held to standards of deadlines. It costs plenty to keep us from killing ourselves and in the process millions of people gain a very comfortable living, Despite its drawbacks, death can come in handy. Sometimes it may even seem all the world lives on death.Memories Countless memories are stored in your brain. Sometimes they rise up again and again. Sometimes they just stay deep in the fleshy darkness, Eventually you yourself become only a memory that either rises up again and again or remains deep in the brain of another. Only after everyone who ever remembered you is gone for good and all does the terrible insanity that once bore your name achieve a true oblivion. Good- bye.Weather Conditions On some days it’s so hot. ‘On other days it’s so cold. Hot, hot, hot. Cold, cold, cold, Finally the word goes out for you to settle down in your narrow bed where you will be comfortable forever.Going Ahead After you're gone, ‘you instantly begin to fall behind those who survived you. As the days pass, new things happen to those survivors and also in the world. After you're gone, you can’t keep up with the latest events: you're out of touch. So you fall behind farther and farther, left in the dust while others charge ahead.Losing Customers They asked for you on the phone, ‘but you didn’t take the call. They sent you a nice letter, but you didn’t reply. So your name was dropped from the list after another. No one wants to bother with somebody ‘who can't be troubled about a very special one- time offer (with a money- back guarantee). No one has the time to go looking For you over every inch of the earth,Safety in Numbers There are plenty more people than there were at one time. And plenty more are coming, It’s as if something inside them is always sereaming in an urgent voice: more, more, more, more. (Or maybe it’s like waiting in line. Everyone feels better if they see more are behind them than in front. “That makes sense,” you think as you make your way forward and soon find that you're next.‘Means to an End Only one way to arrive (that swollen body) yet so many ways to leave. You could spend your whole life counting those ways, thinking about them. But you can never know the way you will take until it takes you lit’s very strange That's fore sure.Smaller One by one, over the years, they went their way. Each of them departed without ‘much shout or show. As the group became smaller, you hardly noticed: Until the day you asked, "Hey, where did they all go?”Big Problem Sometimes, when all the noise dies down and you're by yourself, it’s pleasant to think that no one is left in the entire world, that you are the last. Everything is over, and history is like a movie whose last reel has already spun its way ‘through the projector, with no more attractions to come, {just a blank screen in an empty theater, {just a clear blue sky ‘over a quiet landscape. Nothing that ever happened makes any difference, there is nothing more for you to fret about. ‘until you realize that eventually you'll have to join the others, that even though the world is gone, the biggest problem in the world still remains for you.The Note Everyone says that the universe is a marvel. ‘But you never thought that. Everyone says that life is well worth having, But you never thought that What you thought was contained in a note pinned to your hanged body. Everyone thought that Your hand was beautiful But they never said anything,Suddenly Where did you go? ‘They looked for you. They looked everywhere. But even if they had looked for you over every inch of the earth they would never have tracked you down. Yet only yesterday anyone could have found you at home ‘called you on the telephone.Premature When it’s all over, they sometimes say things such as “before his time” or perhaps “too young,” But the fact is this everything happens because “its time has come.” ‘And the last thing that happens to you will always be “on time.” No one is too young. Nothing is premature. Everyone, including you, is right on schedule. It’s true.Staying Staying around here can be so very hard. Really very hard. Getting up every day and tying your shoes and eating your food. ‘You go to bed at night and sleep your sleep and dream your dreams. Then another day comes and another night goes. It never seems to stop. ‘Yet going can be hard too, really very hard Limited options indeed.Birthday Even after a person is gone from this world, people often tend to remember birtdays. They say: today is the birthday of someone ‘who would have been so many years old. So just in case you're not around next year: happy birthday.Hospital People go in who then come out. People go in who never come out. In, out, in, out. It makes you wonder, “Will this place be the last for me?” But you don’t really ‘want the answer to the question about ‘those ins and outs.Still Whoever you are or think you are, whatever you've done or imagine you've done. A tubercular poet ‘a syphilitic musician, a mad philosopher, and many others. Whose voices were always only echoes, echoes that are still reaching you. Who are stil thinking and still imagining who you are and what you've done.Closing Time It doesn’t matter if you were a hundred or sixty- three or seven and a half. However old you might have been, whatever mark you made will be erased. ‘Things don’t last. ‘When you're gone you are gone and that is that. It might seem that something stays, that some part of you still casts a shadow. It might seem a lot of lunatic things, anything except the actual case. The world closing up that tiny space where you used to be. Tt closes so fast.Calculation ‘The number of people ‘who have been born is the same number ‘of people who have died (or will someday die). ‘The equation is perfect and must remain so. Because if the balance of the born to the dead should ever be off. Ifeven a single person who has been born shirks the common destiny, how could you stand to live with such monstrous figures?‘Memento ‘You meant to take care and put your affairs in order. But the unexpected occured and there wasn't time. Later, the loved ones came and gave away some things, while putting aside some others: ‘keepsakes or valuables ‘They cried over an old comb that still had some hairs twirling through its teeth. Yet they laughed a little too. ‘Then someone uncovered what you left in the attic. “Oh, dear,” they said softly and went home to forget you.De Facto In order to get things done, it’s essential to have pain: without it, nothing could be. But we're so easily fooled: ‘no one praises hunger, yet everyone likes to eat, Little pains and big pains they keep you living, ‘however much it may hurt. But when it comes to dying, ‘you want your epitaph to read: fe never knew what hit him.”You Dream You Die ‘You wake up so frightened because in the dream you knew it was all over, the end. Even if you aren't bothered by this idea when you're awake, it's still there in your mind. ‘And so you dream it’s all over, no more, the end of you forever. ‘You wake up so frightened. When it finally does happen, it probably won't be like a dream. ‘At least you sincerely hope not. ‘The thought of oneself dying and never waking up again ‘can drive a person to suicide.Complexity Whatever events may lead to that last moment, the finale is always the same: ‘Simple heart failure. ‘And all the time you thought that life was so complex. It's just the beat of a drum: ‘Thump- thump.‘The Conclusion It was always your sincere intention to understand it all before it all ended. But your intention ‘was thwarted: so many things took your time away. You can only wonder what a few years of focused reflection might have gotten you ‘Maybe they could have helped ease the panic before it all ended, ‘And maybe they wouldn'tThe Taste ‘They said it could be over. “You were sure the end was near. ‘The dread of being so sure, ‘Yet they turned out to be wrong, It wasn’t going to be over, not with that kind of certainty. But you had tasted how it felt to be so sure that it was all over, Now the dread of uncertainty. Af only you hadn't listened to them. If only you had no ears to hear, and no mouth with which to taste.Impossibility You descend the staircase in the darkness alone and pause before taking the last step. Behind you ina room upstairs your own voice cries out, ‘an impossible sound. Lights turn on and people rush about the house without seeing you there on the last step.Your Evacuation ‘The excrement of life. The purgative of death. Why not relief? Why only Pain? Pity.Knowing Before you existed, before anything existed, nobody knows what existed. ‘This was a long time ago. ‘Then something happened that started other things happening and later on you happened. ‘This was not so long ago. ‘Someday it all may all just stop or it may never ever stop. Start, stop, start, stop. Nobody knows how long,Counting the Ways Millions of years, billions of bodies. Some are where they last fell Some are where they were put Some are buried, some were burned. Some are scattered in little pieces. Billions of bodies, and then yours, Fallen, burned, buried, or in little pieces.Odyssey All sorts of paths ccan lead to all sorts of places. Yet every place ends up as the same place. This isthe place ‘where the paths are feeding you. It’s not the path but the place it goes, if you didn’t know.Request You lie in the bed, an arm full of tubes, a mind full of drugs, but still thinking. ‘You see the figure enter the quiet room and you lift your arm and focus your mind, ‘You ask the doctor, if itcan be arranged, that your last day not be your worst day.‘Thoughtful When you're on your last legs, whether you're confined to a bed or screaming in a crashed- up car, ‘many things may occur to you. Something that won't occur to you, cither confined to a bed or screaming, is that it doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do during your existence, ‘You won't think, “That's done with, so why get excited at this lat stage?” Perhaps there are a few who may think this way, but they are rare exceptions. 1fonly we could all think in this manner, it might make up for what went before ‘canceling out the chaos of our lives and steadying us upon our last legs.Carpe Diem? Perhaps once in a while, ‘or possibly quite often, it may strike you that you are not yet dying, not in any serious sense: ‘you can “seize the day”, as has often been advised. No reason not to follow this bit of poetic wisdom and to think of being alive much as you might regard some time off from work ‘or a vacation from school: ‘a carefree period of play. This may be a simple view ‘but what else can you do as you wait for the approach of that awful Sunday night before returning to the job or the last day of summer before the school bell rings?Absolved of Debt Possibly you're the kind of person who's doesn’t save up for a rainy day or worry about a ill left ‘unpaid for a month or two, ‘or even one long past due. It's not that you're dumb or lazy, anything like that, ‘but you believe in things known by heart not head, and these are what make ‘tomorrow easier to take. ‘This is how it is for you: all the years of your life, you've been assured ‘that nothing will happen, when you're on the brink, to prompt you to thinkUnthinkable ‘The thought unthinkable: things will still be there afier you're not here. All of the trees, the traffic: ‘Those scenes from a play for which you didn't stay. Itmakes much more sense that when you are gone the show won't go on Still, you leave things behind pretty much as you found them, but never mind- you won't be around.ight Voices Why should you have to live? We don't. Why should you have to suffer? We don't. Why shouldn’t you have to die? We did.