Death poems
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The Death Baby
© Anne Sexton
I was an ice baby.
I turned to sky blue.
My tears became two glass beads.
My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl.
They say it was a dream
but I remember that hardening.
More Than Myself
© Anne Sexton
Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
Christmas Eve
© Anne Sexton
Oh sharp diamond, my mother!
I could not count the cost
of all your faces, your moods--
that present that I lost.
Hurry Up Please It's Time
© Anne Sexton
What is death, I ask.
What is life, you ask.
I give them both my buttocks,
my two wheels rolling off toward Nirvana.
Live
© Anne Sexton
Live or die, but don't poison everything...Well, death's been here
for a long time --
it has a hell of a lot
to do with hell
Consorting With Angels
© Anne Sexton
I was tired of being a woman,
tired of the spoons and the post,
tired of my mouth and my breasts,
tired of the cosmetics and the silks.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
© Anne Sexton
No matter what life you lead
the virgin is a lovely number:
cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper,
arms and legs made of Limoges,
Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)
© Anne Sexton
Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
The Addict
© Anne Sexton
Don't they know that I promised to die!
I'm keeping in practice.
I'm merely staying in shape.
The pills are a mother, but better,
every color and as good as sour balls.
I'm on a diet from death.
The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator
© Anne Sexton
The end of the affair is always death.
She's my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
Sylvia's Death
© Anne Sexton
for Sylvia Plath
O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
Wanting to Die
© Anne Sexton
Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.
Suicide Note
© Anne Sexton
Once upon a time
my hunger was for Jesus.
O my hunger! My hunger!
Before he grew old
he rode calmly into Jerusalem
in search of death.
Courage
© Anne Sexton
It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
Cinderella
© Anne Sexton
You always read about it:
the plumber with the twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.
Cramped In That Funnelled Hole
© Wilfred Owen
Cramped in that funnelled hole, they watched the dawn
Open a jagged rim around; a yawn
Of death's jaws, which had all but swallowed them
Stuck in the bottom of his throat of phlegm.
Symphonic Studies (After Schumann)
© Emma Lazarus
Prelude
Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July
Romance Moderne
© William Carlos Williams
Mountains. Elephants humping along
against the skyindifferent to
light withdrawing its tattered shreds,
worn out with embraces. It's
the fillip of novelty. It's a fire in the blood.
