I know it's not a topic people like to discuss, especially when dealing with the loss of a dear friend and a loved one, but regardless, we still must deal with it... I have written many a poem concerning this topic. I wrote them to help me to deal with death around me, of a few family members, death in general... The first poem I am posting here was to help me deal with the suicide of a girl I loved dearly. A friend and a lover... I found myself sitting beneath an old oak tree in a cemetary in Berwick, La. Sign ng, hating, feeling lost and hopeless... The notebook I had brought with me that night was to be used to write my own suicide letter instead became my first notebook full of poetry. Many of those poems I later published in a collection called "The Teardrop Renaissance- Damnatio Memoraei"... This poem helped me to decide to stick around a little longer. I hope it helps someone else....
The Passing
It was as I sat amid the silence
to contemplate the angry pestilence
of Death creeping 'cross the land
(and violence dangling from Misery's hand)
That too my dismay it suddenly became obvious...
Yes, as I leisured there beneath
the solitude of the weeping old Oak Tree,
the barren One, leafless and still,
together We embraced the frigid Winter's chill
and in contempt, a truth I learned...
Oh! How the tears so casually fell
to mourn for the Ones with souls left to sell,
As Death chose at random Those
whose disguise allowed there tears not to show...
To my astonishment, He had overlooked my own soul...
Death allowed to offer me Life
in the form of heartache and strife-
For as He passed, His glance was cast
To my painful memories of the loneliest past,
and too my dismay, He'd force me never to forget...
Yet I begged of Him "DO NOT not forsake!
Do not overlook this life you should take!
Allow me not this horrid life!
Absolve me of this carcass my soul abides!
That in my condemnation I should dwell in this loneliness here!!!"
But He quickly averted too his prey,
For only Innocents he taketh today...
Weeping and sobbing with grief
as I sat beneath the sorrow of that sad tree...
Revelation cleared my dismay,
even death has passed me by today.
By Michael J. Richardson
The Passing
It was as I sat amid the silence
to contemplate the angry pestilence
of Death creeping 'cross the land
(and violence dangling from Misery's hand)
That too my dismay it suddenly became obvious...
Yes, as I leisured there beneath
the solitude of the weeping old Oak Tree,
the barren One, leafless and still,
together We embraced the frigid Winter's chill
and in contempt, a truth I learned...
Oh! How the tears so casually fell
to mourn for the Ones with souls left to sell,
As Death chose at random Those
whose disguise allowed there tears not to show...
To my astonishment, He had overlooked my own soul...
Death allowed to offer me Life
in the form of heartache and strife-
For as He passed, His glance was cast
To my painful memories of the loneliest past,
and too my dismay, He'd force me never to forget...
Yet I begged of Him "DO NOT not forsake!
Do not overlook this life you should take!
Allow me not this horrid life!
Absolve me of this carcass my soul abides!
That in my condemnation I should dwell in this loneliness here!!!"
But He quickly averted too his prey,
For only Innocents he taketh today...
Weeping and sobbing with grief
as I sat beneath the sorrow of that sad tree...
Revelation cleared my dismay,
even death has passed me by today.
By Michael J. Richardson
