Death and Mourning

“Who saw him die?” “I,” said the fly, “With my little eye, I saw him die.”

“Who killed Cock Robin?” “I,” said the sparrow, “With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin.”

Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras And there were other signs That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us By land:

From the fool’s gold mouthpiece The hollow horn plays wasted words Proves to warn That he not busy being born Is busy dying.

Yonder stands your orphan with his gun Crying like a fire in the sun Look out, the saints are comin’ through And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

I shouldered a kind of manhood stepping in to lift the coffins of dead relations.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom taking the world into my arms.

Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way The ground opens up and envelops me Each time I go out to walk the dog.

White Godiva, I unpeel— Dead hands dead stringencies.

The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over.

Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I’ve a call.

How can I die alone. Where will I be then who am now alone, what groans so pathetically in this room where I am alone?

Give me your arm, old toad; Help me down Cemetery Road.

Death has got something to be said for it: There’s no need to get out of bed for it; Wherever you may be, They bring it to you, free.

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night we drink you at noon death is a master from Germany we drink you at sundown and in the morning we drink death is a master from Germany his eyes are blue… he sets his pack on to us he grants us a grave in the air he plays with the serpents and daydreams death is a master

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

After the first death there is no other.

And death shall have no dominion.

The absolutes the eternities Their outlying districts Are not my theme I am hungry for life and for death also I know what I know and I write it.

We are condemned to kill time: Thus we die bit by bit

We come from not being and march toward not being: nothing between two nothings, zero between two zeros, and since between two nothings nothing can be, let’s drink to the splendor of not being our bodies.

He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back. He thought they were old friends.

One day beside some flowers near his nose He will be thinking, When will I look at it? And pain, still in the middle distance, will reply At what? and he will know it’s gone, O where! and begin to tremble and cry. He will begin to cry as a child cries Whose puppy is mangled under a screaming wheel.