Staring at the earth
From the top of a tree -
It is countless vile bodies
Ripped at the seams.
It is umpteen million lifetimes
Ignited then burned
For it's dust that we all come from
And to dust we shall return.
What does it matter
If I feel down today?
If I believe the Bible,
Then I might just blow away.
If I believe my mother,
Then she loves me very much -
But how can you love something
That crumbles at the touch?
Staring at the sand
By the side of the sea -
These countless tiny particles
Might soon be me.
We are umpteen million granules
Tossed and then turned,
For it's dust that we have come from
So to dust we must return.
Consciousness shattered -
Or is it? I ask.
Time alone reveals
Both my future and my past.
But now these limbs are nothing
And consciousness prevails.
So this is what it's like
When your body finally fails.
Staring at the place
My sympathies held sway -
Like countless rotten apples,
Mankind will decay
In umpteen rotten cultures
Where hate and greed prevails.
Material thinking lowlife live
each one in private jails.
©2005 Jon Lloyd
There's some very interesting existentialist takes here that place death as the great leveller.
beautiful structure of the poem, the more you read the more you understand it, each line contributes to the whole, it's pretty much a perfect poem. I love the message and the way you have expressed it! Great work! Elya Thorn
Wow. Powerful and almost taunting at the same time as humbling. I really loved this one....
That was so deep, I've never heard of life and death being thought of like that.
Your words are beautifully phrased. A very poetic way to describe death and there after. It made me sad, yet I enjoyed reading it.
JL taking into account i am very very new to the site, i just wanted to say, that this is by far the most powerful poem i have read... x A x
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
This is powerful, Jon! There is a sense of poetic truth in you. I could somehow relate the idea of being turned to dust to that of 'Elegy written in a country churchyard' by Thomas Gray. He talks about death as a leveller in one's life. This poem also reveals the truth that inspite of all our pretensions and presumptions, the human life is limited and all are going to be the same. You have brought out the inevitability of death here. The refrain has a haunting quality... Well, I have also written a poem called 'Dust', though it is completely different from yours. You could probably read it up sometime...