World Poetry, Part Deux

For day two’s favorite poetry selection, I give you English poet John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud:”

 

John Donne, care of Wikimedia Commons.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and souls delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sicknesse dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

~John Donne

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Ghosts of the West

All the Pretty Horses –

it don’t matter none.

Just dust clouds on the wind –

the cowboys and their guns.

All the West was won,

the graves and ash to grind –

the child looks, but it don’t matter none.

All the Pretty Horses

have run their fated courses.

* My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well–they’re a skilled bunch of poets, with a supportive and thriving community.

To Whom it May Concern

Destiny

Quite the rest for me

Put far from mine own hand

A tourist in a foreign land.

Fate

May invoke a wait;

Still, not quite the range

Or any real sense of change.

Independence

Quite the instance;

Do what you will

Any need fulfill.

Freedom

Is quite random

But worry, worry

Leaves the future quite so blurry.

Decisions, decisions.

Fading Gods

He gazes down from hea’n above,

Watching through a powdered dove.

His people walk the Earth below,

Dreaming of what they can not know.

He sighs and turns away,

As his people begin to go astray.

He wanders then to ancient hall,

Where so many ‘fore had come to fall.

Broken statues linger here,

Of fallen Gods who’d known this fear.

That noble Odin,

That beauty Benten,

Oh great Anubis!—

All fell into the great Abyss…

Fear begins to creep,

Even Gods are known to weep—

Is he destined for this same grim fate?

Can he only pray and wait?

He is as great as any passed,

And his kingdom is so very vast;

He looks into their wand’ring eyes,

Ever watching from the skies.

Is this God destined for the same grim fate,

That fell on those before him?

They say he is so great a being—

But can he face that test of time,

That felled those powers all,

That came before him

In those days of old?