Category Archives: Death

“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]

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Call the roller of big cigars,
 The muscular one, and bid him whip
 In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
 Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
 As they are used to wear, and let the boys
 Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
 Let be be finale of seem.
 The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
 Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
 On which she embroidered fantails once
 And spread it so as to cover her face.
 If her horny feet protruded, they come
 To show how cold she is, and dumb.
 Let the lamp affix its beam.
 The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

“Should the Wide World Roll Away” by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]

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Should the wide world roll away
   Leaving black terror
   Limitless night,
 Nor God, nor man, nor place to stand
   Would be to me essential
 If thou and thy white arms were there
   And the fall to doom a long way.

“In the Prison Pen” by Herman Melville [w/ Audio]

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Listless he eyes the palisades
   And sentries in the glare;
 'Tis barren as a pelican-beach --
   But his world is ended there.

Nothing to do; and vacant hands
   Bring on the idiot-pain;
 He tries to think -- to recollect,
   But the blur is on his brain.

Around him swarm the plaining ghosts
   Like those on Virgil's shore --
 A wilderness of faces dim,
   And pale ones gashed and hoar.

A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;
   He totters to his lair --
 A den that sick hands dug in earth
   Ere famine wasted there,

Or, dropping in his place, he swoons,
   Walled in by throngs that press,
 Till forth from the throngs they bear him
   dead --
      Dead in his meagerness.

Askew [Haiku]

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askew tombstones
 under a yawning tree:
  a crow on its branch.

Last Dance [Haiku]

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tattered butterfly
 comes to rest after a
  spastic last dance.

“A Slumber did my Spirit Seal” by William Wordsworth [w/ Audio]

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A slumber did my spirit seal;
   I had no human fears:
 She seemed a thing that could not feel
   The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
   She neither hears nor sees;
 Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
   With rocks, and stones, and trees.

“The Wise” by Countee Cullen [w/ Audio]

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(For Alain Loch)

Dead men are wisest, for they know
 How far the roots of flowers go,
 How long a seed must rot to grow.

Dead men alone bear frost and rain
 On throbless heart and heatless brain,
 And feel no stir of joy or pain.

Dead men alone are satiate;
 They sleep and dream and have no weight,
 To curb their rest, of love or hate.

Strange, men should flee their company,
 Or think me strange who long to be
 Wrapped in their cool immunity.

“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe [w/ Audio]

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It was many and many a year ago,
   In a kingdom by the sea,
 That a maiden there lived whom you may know
   By the name of Annabel Lee;
 And this maiden she lived with no other thought
   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
 But we loved with a love that was more than love --
   I and my Annabel Lee --
 With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven
   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
   In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
   My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
   And bore her away from me,
 To shut her up in a sepulchre
    In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
   Went envying her and me ---
 Yes! -- that was the reason (as all men know,
   In this kingdom by the sea)
 That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
   Of those who were older than we --
   Of many far wiser than we --
 And neither the angels in Heaven above
   Nor the demons down under the sea
 Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
 
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
 And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
 And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
   Of my darling -- my darling -- my life and my bride,
   In her sepulchre there by the sea --
   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

“Dreamland” by Lewis Carroll [w/ Audio]

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When midnight mists are creeping,
   And all the land is sleeping,
 Around me tread the mighty dead,
   And slowly pass away.

Lo, warriors, saints, and sages,
   From out the vanished ages,
 With solemn pace and reverend face
   Appear and pass away.

The blaze of noonday splendour,
   The twilight soft and tender,
 May charm the eye: yet they shall die,
   Shall die and pass away.

But here, in Dreamland's centre,
   No spoiler's hand may enter,
 These visions fair, this radiance rare,
   Shall never pass away.

I see the shadows falling,
   The forms of old recalling;
 Around me tread the mighty dead,
   And slowly pass away.

Long Lost [Free Verse]

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crumbled ruins: 
   once a fine home,
      occupants long gone

did their voices 
   resonate into stone,
      trapping something
   of their existence:
      some subtle indication
      that there was life here...