"afterlife" poems
Another night without you,
morning come and you're gone.
Where are you,
in a world filled with hatred and war.
I hope you're somewhere safe,
somewhere much more inviting.
Children with their fathers,
hand in hand,
laughing until they can laugh no more.
And I sit alone,
quietly watching them with the fear
that I will never see my daddy again.
I've cried all my tears,
I haven't laughed for the whole year.
There's not a day I don't think about you,
or a day I don't miss you.
Maybe, someday,
we will meet again.
In an afterlife
with so much more joy than this one.
But I hope you'll recognize the broken girl I've become,
with scarred wrists and teared eyes.
I'm not the happy child I was when you left,
I'm something much darker.
It's not a happy Father's Day for the fatherless.
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 3:36 PM UTC
We know the world is a crazy place
and that is it easy to give up, throw in the towel.
The idealism of youth gives way to the cynicism of middle age
when we realize that despite our best efforts, change is very difficult.
To be a parent and, in particular, to be a father....why bother?
Some say fatherhood is driven by ego,
the child providing the ultimate selfish representation of oneself.
Others say driven by fear,
the fear of mortality and the unconscious and genetic need
to propagate and maintain our lineage, our species, our world.
While both can be true, I believe the best manifestation of fatherhood
is driven by tikkun olam, a Jewish concept that we all have an obligation
to better the world, to move it to a better state than currently exists.
We do what we can when on this earth to love our family, friends,
and be as righteous as this world will allow.
Our genetic legacy is not nearly as important as
our obligation to pass on what we know, have learned, have experienced,
and enable our children
to carry the mission to an always higher level.
No matter what our belief in the afterlife, and what the future may hold
we are here now in THIS life,
and as long as we move the ball further and further
in the right direction, there can be hope.
Truly being a father, a good father, enables hope. Maybe that is enough.
Jun 19, 2011
Jun 19, 2011 at 7:17 AM UTC
Lay my body rich with coins
As my dawn turns to dusk I will depart
Bless my soul to be reborn
And pray I keep my heart
Charon waits upon his boat
To carry me to the Otherside
I'll travel The River Styx
And marry time, as I am Waiting's bride
Bearded Ferryman of the dead
Refuse me not as I pay your debt
Tell Hades to lift the gates
For fate and I have met
Guide this monstrous beast
Along the waters spine
As we set off towards Afterlife
Where waits the Underworlds divine
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 5:45 PM UTC
Insignificant dust
Swept under a cosmic carpet.
From pharaohs
To the night stockers at Wal-Mart,
Beg the questions asked countless times before.
I tell myself it doesn't matter
Because I'm on the up and up.
I won't be in this place forever
So what's the harm in taking it easy?
Some alternative country song plays on the air;
Singing about nostalgia and the west.
They don't have those things in China.
And here I thought I'd get to start over
In an afterlife with my family.
When I see their lifeless eyes,
I can tell no one thinks beyond themselves.
Nov 21, 2013
Nov 21, 2013 at 7:31 PM UTC
The first new star flashed waves of blue tonight ,
securing my belief in the afterlife
A grove of ferns lit my imagination
For I became a shipwrecked captain -
that stumbled upon an island nation
Exploring the deep jungle without machete ,
potable water nor compass
Knee deep in mangrove forest
Tropical winds whispered and moaned
A lean-to of fronds became my maritime home
In the presence of a million stars
An army of sand ***** paraded before -
their newfound master from near and afar
Crashing waves lulled a poor sailor to rest
The whispers of Poseidon
A dream about a lookout in the crows nest
Counting orbs in the tail of the Milky Way-
with visions of mermaids , ghost ships and rogue waves
Aug 1, 2018
Aug 1, 2018 at 9:05 PM UTC
Myself caught in the heatwave sunlight, brown eyes
furrowed in the sun, scarf loose on my neck/
the transcendental Denpasar morning-birds
are playing their melodies in my head still,
three years post-Indonesia.
All of my soul to India now,
sky the pink of painted elephants
on Jaipur dawning,
my afterlife was somewhere here
perhaps two generations ago, chances are.
Vijay Raghav Rao and Alla Rakha
playing the Tabla/via earphones/treading the
Funary Box City (Kashi) future Spring
hands held together keeping calm pace.
Looking about, my twenty-two year old face
catches humid wind
S
I
L
V
E
R
S
H
O
P
tattered bike leaning on the gated guest house entrance
PERENNIAL AZURE SHIVA SITS CROSS LEGGED/
COBRA NECKLACE IMITIATONS ON THE GODDESS THROAT/
MEDITATING SHIVA/
dulled from years and corrosion.
Brahmin center of the market street
flapping it's tail,
sweat beads from my forehead bleeding
to oily pavement.
At last the months have come for the river Ganges,
April penumbra/savage thunderclap
while school children uplifting the heart
AND MIND
are ROARING in their laughter
the CONTINENTAL DISCORD OF JOY
sleeping with their eyes open
while others are too tired for the Earth.
Sidney Bechet floating swan songs during
the black hour cremations/
“Bechet Creole Blues”
CATERWAUL IN THAT VOID
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF DEATH/
LUNACY OF LIFE
(I've arrived at the simultaneous crossroads
of both)
searing flesh in open air pyramids/
Manikarnika Ghat,
Asia F
L
O
W
S
through dreams
like inevitable prophecy
and as ash blends with stars
the CITY seems fulfilled
and mystifying
in it's
(((((RESPLENDENCE)))))
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 3:40 PM UTC
Why worry
About the afterlife.
There's nothing
To worry about.
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 11:22 PM UTC
I doubt
material wealth
means anything
in the afterlife
on the off chance
that I'm wrong
bury me
with my books
and my plastic owl.
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 2:29 PM UTC
I think I love you
There no denying this synergy
It's greater than you and me
I think love you the feeling you giving me absorbing your energy my love will
offer you inner peace
I fall in love with all I want to do is love you
I have Fallen for you I know I love you
I love each part of you
No comlntepmlnting my love for you
This situation is highly anticipated your heart
Will be apperciated
No need to abbreviated it my love for you
Never ends in any era
If there is an afterlife I still love you there
I search for you dear my love I will share
I think love you
I think love you forever
I want to show you I love you
I have fallen for you
My love is calling for you
I think love you
Its no denying this love for you
I know I love you I really want you
I love U
Oct 30, 2018
Oct 30, 2018 at 1:16 PM UTC
*a child is born free of mind
but is hardened into thought
and by the time one dies
most are fixed and ******* into
worlds of their making,
heavens of their fantasies*
so one thinks one's an Indian, one a Chinese
or an American or British or Swedish
or French or Russian or German;
or one thinks one is a Christian or Muslim
or Jew or Hindu or Sikh or Catholic
or Doaist or Buddhist or Marxist or Communist
or even for that matter, an atheist
- or whatever you will...
one finds a badge to pin proudly to one's chest
and each identity becomes so strong
it becomes so real
it all comes into the question of right and wrong
of evil and good
and it falls into loud declamations
and my tribe is good, your tribe is evil
my brand is holy, your brand unholy...
and so it goes,
with all sorts of justifications
that beat sense out of all loyal adherents
and it squeezes humanity out of the human
as paste out of a tube...
ah, and yes,
the energy goes on into the afterlife
as Christians go into a Christian Heaven
and Hindus and Buddhists into various Lokas
and Muslims in their own Paradise
and so it goes on,
this Human Tragi-Comedy,
yes, yes, certainly all created by the Almighty
who was created by your mind's poverty
so that
a child is born free of mind
but is hardened into thought
and by the time one dies
most are fixed and ******* into
worlds of their making,
heavens of their fantasies
Oct 22, 2010
Oct 22, 2010 at 7:34 PM UTC
My old great-aunt Elaine with her withered hands gave me $200 and beaded handbag
"This your mad money," she told me, as we sat on that nursing home couch, "And it ain't for your purse. This goes in your shirt, where only you know you got it."
The assisted-living nurse chuckled to herself. They got along, my great-aunt and her.
"Why?"
"Cuz if you get angry," she said, in that Marlboro-raspy voice of hers, "And you gotta go, you walk out on your date and you leave 'is *** And then you got your money for a strong drink. And your cab."
The nurse laughed
My aunt re-situated herself on the nursing home couch. Elaine Dauterive. Her mind was going, and so was her health, but she was as regal as a queen on her throne in that moment
her fire-red hair, ungrayed, was her crown
No cape as royal as that sleeping gown.
"Don't you think for once second I can't take care of you, honey," she said in that creole drawl, and I knew what she meant
Because even after she'd gone I would have that mad money
All stuffed in my bra for when I needed it
Because she was older than time, for me, seeing things like
The Great Depression, World War II
What I read in history books
I'd be ****** if I took what she said with even one grain of salt because Auntie-Lane, I'll be ****** if I don't love you
And I know you're on your way out and
I'll buy you whiskey in the afterlife with some of that $200 cash that you busted your *** scrounging up for me
Southern hospitality at its finest
And those liver spots redder than wine adorn you like badges of honor for all of the years you've endured
My elder - creole woman, with a soul as fire-red as her hair, breathing more smoke than air
My old dragon
On a pile of gold: her mad money
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 11:00 AM UTC
the first time i saw a ****
i didn't know she was my sweetheart,
and i didn't understand her
not like feet or arms
which i understood immediately
but **** grew on me
like ivy over bricks
in time **** ate my mind
and i was haunted by her
perfume
then i suffered
a severe case of **** on the brain
of which there is no cure but death
unless of course
there are ***** in the afterlife
the ****
such a tender
slit that oozes love like gelatin
a veiled curving vulnerability
it's secret poorly hidden
for easy discovery
but still,
i didn't understand women
the holders of this sacred chalice
until the great epiphany
and i realized
that the woman's heart is a **** too
a silky slit
the marrow of her soul
waiting to be opened and brimming
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 3:43 PM UTC
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Afterlife Airlines.
I’m your pilot, Captain Meta Physics.
Please fasten your sleep belts
as we are about to leave the body.
Please direct your attention to your stewardess
while she demonstrates safety procedures.
In the event of a drastic reduction in karma,
a mask will fall down from above you.
Place it on and breathe deeply of pure love.
Should those passengers who are clinically dead
find themselves returned by a surgeon’s skill,
the life raft under your seat will inflate
with a new sense of purpose.
After take off the stewardesses will serve milk and honey.
For your entertainment, the movie is
anything with Shirley Maclaine in it
or there are seven channels of chi
on the chakra-phones being dispensed soon.
For those contemplating joining the Tantric Mile High club,
please be considerate of your fellow passengers.
We’re making good time because
the breath of God is always behind us.
Below us to the right is the Ocean of Ego
and to our left some passengers may glimpse
the chain of islands: Faith, Hope and Charity.
We’ve been advised that it’s a little busy on The Other Side
so we’ve been placed in a holding pattern
on the astral plane.
Passengers are reminded to retrieve all emotional baggage
for security reasons
and please help Customs
by declaring all religious preferences.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re cleared for landing now.
On behalf of the crew, I hope you enjoyed
your transdimensional flight with Afterlife Airlines
and we hope to see you aboard again soon.
Please fasten your sleep belts,
we’re coming in for reincarnation.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 1:57 AM UTC
I am lost for words, as I am empathic with the planet.
Although we truly stand in line for death and the afterlife, it is important that we mother our young.
I do not deny the allurement of sociopathic inclinations and I heartily validate the sexuality of suburban expression.
But, we both know – politicians rise like winged beasts from the murky depths of sociological oceans.
Can I touch your skin and give you compliments?
I love your being, just as it is.
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 11:30 PM UTC
What is this?
I am restless
I don’t know why
But, I feel no interest
Just force a smile upon
What is this?
I see no color
But, I am not blind
Oh, I see, the world is black
No love, no affection
What is this?
This emptiness I never felt before, or
I did but chose to ignore
And live a life of mere glass that can shatter
Shatter at the slightest touch
What is this?
I am breathless
As if someone is following me
Or is it that I want to catch someone
How do people smile so easily?
Live so freely
Will ‘they’ answer me?
If I ask
The reason for life to be bestowed upon us
What is this?
I feel alone, separated, anxious
I am scared
I want to live
No perhaps I don’t
Yes
No matter where I search
Whom I ask
They give no reply
What is this?
I am eager
I want someone to share my feelings with
I searched here and there
Tried to open up to many
But ended up hurt
What is this?
Ah! I see, perhaps end
Searching for someone I came across this question
Why is life bestowed upon us?
I am alone
I want someone
I call out will all my might
But no one listens
I am tired
I will just live like others
Yeah
What is this?
In the end I give up
That someone I want to share my feelings, myself with
Is no where
Oh! I give up
I am really afraid
Scared
I am as if bond by invisible chains of
Of what
Hatred, love, anger?
No perhaps emptiness
What is this?
I am alone
In this darkness days pass
But no one comes
Please come
Someone
I want to open up
Share
I can no longer live alone
Why
Why is life in the first place?
I don’t want jealousy to devourer me
Please I am alone
What is this?
I feel attracted to someone or
Perhaps I am forcing myself to be attracted
Wanting to live on imaginary lies
Yes
Lies
All are lies
This life is itself
Having no reason to exist
Is there an afterlife
A happy one
Where I can find someone to open up
If there is I wish to die
Oh! God forgive me
But I can no longer
Handle these injuries, pain, and suffering
Not anymore
I am gradually giving up
On the believe on the very existence of happiness
But,
Please, if my angel exists let my voice
My hearts reaches you and find me
Before I am devoured by this darkness
For,
I give up on this life of mine
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 6:10 AM UTC
Oh Allah !
In this coming, spiritual month of Ramadan-
I plead for forgiveness,
I ask from you to cleanse our souls,
Forgive us all,
For we have sinned,
We are frail by heart,
We are liars and judgmental,
Oh Allah !
My eyes shed tears for all of this human race,
All those who have passed away,
For people who are still here,
And for those who have lost their strength,
I pray for all these people,
For their forgiveness, for their health,
I ask for your help,
Oh Allah !
To you we all shall return,
We are your disciples Almighty Allah,
And I ask from you to lead us to the right path,
We are your creation,
We have erred and ask for forgiveness,
How guilty are we and how we've fallen in abyss,
Please listen to our prayers and let us taste the essence of a heavenly afterlife.
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 10:21 AM UTC
Far too many tides have you held him, Calypso, now let him go:
thus commands Athene daughter of Zeus, She who cannot stand his wails
any more. The fleet-footed Hermes delivers the writ of the heavens.
Does the wail of a mere mortal trouble the mighty Athene more than
the heart of her kin? Will you Hermes not accept a bribe and tell Her you
never found me? That Calypso's home is too hard to find on sea?
The will of Zeus cannot be altered, bow or the bolt will make you kneel.
Twenty years has he suffered, let him go this prisoner of his deeds. Eternity
awaits you: while his soul, death. Let him not regret his life in afterlife.
Thus did I leave on high-tide who steal to my own palace like a thief.
Twenty years play in my mind, but the strongest still is Telemachus's smile.
I leave her who cared so much to win my heart yet only the Zephyr -
Brought me cheer, that carried the smell of home and Penelope fair.
Here I leave the immortal who will die for me: for her who I know not if she
loves me yet. Who Athene brings don't fail me in life, even if they falter.
Oct 10, 2012
Oct 10, 2012 at 2:38 PM UTC
I claw out of the grave like the phoenix
And for my 15 minute lifetime
I burn like the sun, the gas lamp, California, the Holocaust
Before fizzling out again
I live to die
I awaken on the production line
I breathe in the ash pouring from the apocalyptic clouds
Disappointed, I turn to my grey sarcophagus
The faceless, factory-made, invisible-as-Kether generation
Buried in the grocery store pyramid
Like Goya's dog, I peer blindly, so tiny
Upwards, into the infinite nothing that awaits
The afterlife, the void, Abraham's *****
Death, limbo, desolation row
The nihilistic emptiness from which I rise
Mar 21, 2019
Mar 21, 2019 at 2:45 PM UTC
Music is my heart.
Music is my soul.
Music is whole.
Music is...
The drums, the symbols.
The sticks, the beat.
That the rhythm of my feet.
Keeping all in sink.
Music is my body.
Music is my mind.
Music is what you'll find.
Music is...
The base, beautiful base.
Hear that artwork.
That's my hands at work.
Enjoying the rhythm.
Music is my presence.
Music is my spirit.
Music is the ultimate.
Music is...
The melody, harmony.
That's my voice,
Listen, it's your choice.
Please hear whet I say.
Music is my culture.
Music is my life.
Music is the afterlife.
Music is...
Music is my mind, body and soul.
It is my culture spirit and heart
It's my presence rhythm and thought
Music is music, and music is me.
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 8:59 PM UTC
i tried to drink
my feelings away
until i nearly drowned
but their grief,
patient as a vulture,
kept waiting for me
even at the gates
of the afterlife.
Sep 22, 2025
Sep 22, 2025 at 2:25 PM UTC
to those who say suicide is selfish and cutting is pointless,
understand you can never comprehend what they dealt with.
you may say you have it worse than they did,
on deeper levels that **** was well hid.
somethings easy for you may be hardest for others.
it's not easy to leave mothers, fathers, friends, and siblings.
your strength my weakness, your weakness my strength
those who suffer go through many trials of a never ending darkness.
some wear their scars on their sleeves,
others hide it tucked well deep beneath.
help sometimes is not what they really need.
I can assure you this wasn't a selfish and greedy deed,
they loved you so much, more than you will ever know.
sometimes in an ironic way, the better is finally letting go.
whether you believe in afterlife or rather nothing at all
remember the best of times, and for them stand proud and tall.
their presence may no longer reside on our earth,
but forever in our hearts and mindw they shall always remain.
we will never fully understand and comprehend,
but i know we will all reunite in the end.
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 8:32 AM UTC
to every family that has lost someone to the war on drugs, i offer you a piece of my heart. take it and make it yours.
when the other children ask if i miss you, i answer no. how can i miss someone who has not even left? you are still alive, i feel it; i know it to be true. you live in the paper thin walls of our home, a ghost lingering on the dining table.
(i'm sorry there's hardly any food laid out. sometimes mother forgets to buy any or her hands shake too much for her to cook -- i don't know if it's from the cigarettes or the lambanog. brother is always out nowadays, trying to make money. he leaves before the sun is up and comes home long after mother has gone to bed. i think they're like this because they can hardly bear to look at your seat without dying a little more.)
grandmother tells me to talk some sense into mother. "just because he died doesn't mean she can let her children die too. she is just sad. she needs someone to talk to." what she means is: comfort her. but i wonder. what comfort can you offer a dead man walking?
sometimes i stare at the sky from the hole on my ceiling, and i wonder which star is you. is it the bright one that is always at the center of my vision? the one a little ways to the left? on better days, brother joins me and takes my hand in his. i swear it's almost like you're back, laying beside me.
it's hard without you here. we miss you. when i see the other children and their fathers -- whole, unhurt, alive -- i feel a pang of pain. it's like hearing the gunshot all over again.
i don't know if you were still alive then, but i was the one who called for help. i screamed until my lungs gave way to the torrent of pain that filled even the spaces between my bones. i don't know (nor do i wish to) if you were still alive or if you had already had a taste of sunset.
it's a little funny. you had promised me we'd go to the lake that day. just you and i. you had gotten a job the week before and you wanted to celebrate with your favorite daughter. (i didn't have the heart to remind you i was your only daughter.)
and i want you to know i am holding you to that promise. when we meet again. in space. heaven. eternity. in whatever version of the afterlife we end up in. we'll go to the lake.
just you and i.
Dec 31, 2016
Dec 31, 2016 at 7:20 AM UTC
I find such comfort in the phrase ‘you only live once’
Because I can’t imagine doing this all again.
I never want to witness the leaving of light from someone’s eyes,
Never want to be tossed in the endless tide of monotony,
Never want to collapse from my hurricane brain,
Never want to curl up and wish to be taken to a dark silent eternity.
I pray there is no afterlife,
No endless time existing.
I only want it all to end,
To have a complete lack of anything.
I don’t want to meet the grim reaper,
Or greet God at His pearly gates.
I simply wish for nothing,
To live once, truly,
So I need not feel this way
Forevermore.
Sep 21, 2025
Sep 21, 2025 at 6:40 PM UTC
My thoughts are chemicals.
I am made of recycled cells
That I ingest, I take in what's best
For optimal health, active or at rest.
My DNA as mysterious as the Cosmos,
The Cosmos less of a mystery than Ocean floors.
I come from the Ocean, an awesome notion,
A family with all others, every Thing is a cousin.
My ancestors all made it to reproduction.
I am assembled, through history, through selection.
My traits have been crafted, positively reacted.
Nurtured by Nature, genes that have lasted.
I am made from the stars,
Drink water that passed through dinosaurs.
I experience Life, though filled with a bounty of strife,
Through eyes of a Human, intelligence my paradise.
And though my species feels more advanced
And in control of a world we craft with our own hands,
We are not self-efficient, resources increasingly deficient,
A virus to be easily shaken, in which the planet would not be missing.
I have a fleeting gift,
Amidst the destruction that here lives,
And that is my consciousness,
No fear of abyss, no promise of bliss,
But in my spark of a lifetime,
Seemingly insignificant, and that's fine,
I have inside endless thoughts with my mind,
No need of afterlife with a gift so divine.
Mar 6, 2015
Mar 6, 2015 at 12:19 PM UTC