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Comment by bluebird on August 24, 2014 at 9:42pm

Zell,

It is a wonderful poem, isn't it. I didn't write it, though -- W.H. Auden did. But yeah, it captures this hell very well, I think.

Comment by anne on August 23, 2014 at 9:48pm

Linda did not write the poem. She just posted it.

Comment by bluebird on August 23, 2014 at 6:00pm

I'm agnostic, verging on atheist since my husband died. If there is a god, I detest her/him, because s/he did nothing to prevent my husband's death.  And even I don't believe that god, if there is such a being, kills people or allows them to die because s/he needs more angels in heaven or any such shite.

I didn't see or read the poem you are all talking about, and I don't know if I know Linda (I'm assuming she only posted the poem, and that she didn't write it)...but there is a lot of really bad poetry written about death and the afterlife and so forth. Bad as in trite, clichéd, poorly written, very rhymey-rhymey (yes, not a word, I know), etc. On top of which, it assumes knowledge of a god that no human can know (if that being exists at all).

Anyway, i'm getting off topic, sorry. As a poet, I have a serious distaste for bad poetry. If I may, I would like to post here a very good poem about death, written by W.H. Auden, usually called "Stop All The Clocks" after its first line:

 

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.