By Category: Death

“Who sleeps at night? No one is sleeping.
In the cradle a child is screaming.
An old man sits over his death, and anyone
young enough talks to his love, breathes
into her lips, looks into her eyes.”

-Insomnia, Marina Tsvetaeva

~

“beautiful red blood is leaving my veins
running out of my hands
dripping on the floor
I'm bleeding and it feels good
like my release finally arrived
beautiful red is surrounding me
no threats, no fears, just free at last

beautiful red blood is fading to black
no I cannot see, I'm losing my life
beautiful red is all I can see
suffocating, I cannot breath
falling, I cannot stand
no regrets, facing my death

beautiful red
dripping down

drip drip, losing my beautiful red
just a body dripping to death, just a soul, finding it's way
no regrets, I'll see my friends again

beautiful red blood is what I've seen
pain in my life is what I've felt
hate for stupid is what I've shown
I lived my life and now I'm gone

beautiful red
dripping down.”

-Beautiful Red, Astrid Van der Veen

Recommended by Darcy.

~

“Death twitches my ear. 'Live,' he says, 'I am coming.'”

-Minor Poems, Copa, Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)

~

“The snow came down last night like moths
Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,
Covered the town with simple cloths.

Absolute snow lies rumpled on
What shellbursts scattered and deranged,
Entangled railings, crevassed lawn.

You think: beyond the town a mile
Or two, this snowfall fills the eyes
Of soldiers dead a little while.”

-First Snow In Alsace, Richard Wilbuar

~

“I read about a woman,
someone famous,
who walked into a lake,
pockets loaded with stones.
They said she was mad.
I think she was brave.
As the water crept
over her chin, her nose,
how did she stop herself
from heaving out the stones?”

-Jinx, Margaret Wild

~

“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”

-on his deathbed, Oscar Wilde

~

“The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the time in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life itself.”

-The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

~

“A Plague has stricken the Moths / The Moths are dying, / Their bodies are flakes of Bronze on the carpets lying / Enemies of the delicate Everywhere have / breathed a pestilent mist into the air.”

-Lament For The Moths, Tennessee Williams

~

“You are closed and shuttered to me now, a room without doors or windows, and I cannot enter. But I fell in love with you under the open sky and death cannot change that.

Death can change the body but not the heart.”

-The Powerbook, Jeanette Winterson

~

“After the third barrage, I counted more than twenty bodies. One cyclist was shot in the back right below our balcony. There were two big puddles of blood on the Avenue of Eternal Peace. People carried the body of a little girl toward the back of the hotel. After twenty-three more minutes, a few people gathered up enough courage to approach the wounded. The soldiers let loose another blast, sending the would-be rescuers scurrying for cover. The crowd was enraged. I grimly kept track of the time. An hour later, the wounded were still on the ground, bleeding to death.

For the rest of the morning, and throughout the afternoon, this scene repeated itself over and over again. In all, I recorded eight long murderous volleys. Dozens died before my eyes. By midafternoon, the crowd was down to about five hundred maniacs who stood on the corner screaming, 'Kill Li Peng! Kill Li Peng!' Only when a steady rain began to fall at 4:15 did they finally drift away. The rain cleansed the street of blood. When it stopped, the crowds returned, and the soldiers fired again, and again, and many more people died.

I thought how strange it was that Beijingers didn't want to get wet, but they weren't afraid of getting killed.”

-Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Jan Wong

~

“In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead. The actual dying part, the withering away of my physical body, was a mere formality. My spirit, my emotional being whatever you want to call all that inner turmoil that has nothing to do with physical existence, were long gone, dead and gone, and only a mass of the most fucking god-awful excruciating pain like a pair of boiling hot tongs clamped tight around my spine and pressing on all my nerves was left in it's wake.”

-Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel

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