Life & Death

A poem about Hope.

I read somewhere that Death is just

One long, deep, dark and endless sleep

And sleep the sleep of death you must

With the dinosaurs in the deep.

And the thought drives me half insane

That I should never wake again.

 

My mind protests against the thought

My heart will not bear the idea

It cannot be! The notion wrought

In me the darkest kind of fear.

To be Nothing - no thought nor deed

To sleep, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep…

 

So I visited a graveyard

The slumbering corpses to ask

What lay in store in the Beyond

Just silence, and fear, and dark?

My voice rang through the darkness dense

No stirring, no answers - silence.

 

It came then to me, by and by

The dead don’t hear, or speak, or sing

The living know that they shall die

And the dead know not anything.

Questions asked to those who are slain

Are but wasted breath, all in vain.

 

So then what shall the living do but grieve?

As long as I live, Life I shall cherish.

Then what shall the living do but believe

That one day, though my thoughts shall all perish -

One marvellous day, devoid of all pain

I, once being dead, shall live yet again.

 

Reviews

[iamkim]

a very strong poem! nicely done!

[Blood_knight3000]

Dark poem. Good job with the way it flows and rhymes.

[DeevaMarx]

Hi, I really liked the last two lines. They were the best of the whole piece and I know exactly the emotion you were trying to write about. I've tried a few times myself. Not so sure about the rhyming though, as soon as you rhyme you ad levels of innocence to the words that can sometimes take away from the underlining wisdom in some cases.
That's just a personal preference mostly.

Good job!

[Coyote Poetry]

"The dead don’t hear, or speak, or sing
The living know that they shall die
And the dead know not anything."
A graveyard always can make me appreciate life. Names are the last words we remember of good people who have moved on. A powerful poem. Thank you.
Coyote

[State of Grace]

A very dark and deep poem but all together true. Great job!

[Zoe Jay]

This is absolutely first class writing. The meter of eight syllables per line is absolutely perfect, scans beautifully, and there is not even a trace of a sense that it is labored. Absolutely textbook writing, this is what I aspire to! Beautifully executed structure and rhyme scheme, it's a sophisticated enough rhyme scheme that it doesn't overwhelm the poem, yet strong enough to really hold it together and give it a lot of feel and make it very pleasant to read. I also love the content, there is a lot of thought here. The fear of death is one of the most fundamental driving factors in human spirituality and morality, and you have driven straight to the heart of our nature with this poem. But you also offer hope and strength. It is conventionally very hard for us to cope with the notion of death as being an ultimate ending, it gives us that existential angst for which we eternally seek an antidote, and it is from that angst that springs our morality, our philosophy, our concepts of justice and honor, our society, our science, the majority of our art. This poem looks those ancestral fears full in the face. And you remind us of how we may cope - if you fear death, if you fear the ultimate void, then live for now, live well, and hope, if you will, if you can, that death is not the ultimate void we fear it to be. Deep thinking, with an equal balance of hope and despair, the light of life and the darkness of death, expressive, and beautifully expressed in intelligent, sophisticated, well thought out verse. Absolutely outstanding on every front!

[CalebSchadeck]

wow, this its its wow you answer the meaning of life (in a way) its brings so many thoughts to the reader great job!!!!! I want to write like you :)))

[falling_toxic_rain]

i think this is good:) and its the truth, if its hard to believe

[Kiri Nells]

This. Is. AWESOME! Publishing material, my friend. So heartfelt and honest, so dark and depressing, so hungry and thought provoking... OMFGoodness!

[sarah]

A really dark poem but a great poem!