Despite What So Many Poem by Francis Duggan

Despite what so many have previously said
You can hurt the living but you cannot hurt the dead
The dead past all feelings but the living can hear
And the living know shame and the living know fear,
The living we hurt with some things that we say
But the dead they are deaf to all sound where they lay
Of what you say of them the dead not aware
Though those who speak ill of them do seem quite rare
But the living know of hurt and the living feel shame
And the living they yearn for success and for fame,
The living can hear and the living can feel
And to those without life you cannot give a raw deal
And despite what so many have previously said
You can hurt the living but you cannot hurt the dead.