#z

Don't we all hope to die with a smile on our faces? ↗

— Jeff O'Brien

#dying #humor-irony-death-zombie #irony #death

Now, you might think that because there are more poets than ever, there might be more opportunities for poets than ever. And you’d be correct. If your fondest wish is to become the next totally obscure minor poet on the block, well, you’re probably already successful at that. This literary landscape has proven itself infinitely capable of absorbing countless interchangeable artists, all doing roughly the same thing in relative anonymity: just happily plucking away until death at the grindstone, making no great cultural headway, bouncing poems off their friends and an audience of about 40 people. A totally fine little life for an artist, to be sure. No grand expectations from the world to sit up and listen. One can live out one’s days quite satisfied to create something enjoyed by a genial cult. But that’s not why any of us are here tonight. We’re here to conquer American Poetry and suck it dry of all glory and juice. ↗

— Jim Behrle

#death

Just before the Clear Air Turbulence went back into warp and its crew sat down at the table, the ship expelled the limp corpse of Zallin. Where it had found a live man in a suit, it left a dead youth in shorts and a tattered shirt, tumbling and freezing while a thin shell of air molecules expanded around the body, like an image of departing life. ↗

— Iain Banks

#death #life #shell #space #vacuum

Whoa!” I jerked my hand up to stop him. “Wait, what?” I asked as sick horror shot through me. “You mean, like when the bodies get cut open?” Delight lit his face. “Yes, you’ll be helping with the autopsies. You didn’t know that? ↗

— Diana Rowland

#death

Good morning!” my partner, Derrel, said in an insanely cheerful voice. “I need my Angel to come out and play. ↗

— Diana Rowland

#death

I walked into the café, bypassing the waiting people as I scanned for the hulking figure of my partner. It’s official , I thought with a sigh as I spied him at a table for four and realized who else was with him. God hates me. ↗

— Diana Rowland

#death

All of a sudden it seemed as if I could smell the brain, and not in a oh-how-gross way, but as if someone had taken the lid off a pot of gumbo to let the aroma fill the room. And I knew it was the brain that smelled so utterly enticing—knew it with every single cell of my being. What the hell was wrong with me? ↗

— Diana Rowland

#death

Yeah, so? I was ignorant, but I’m not a fucking moron. Why would I give the shit to you just so I could buy it back from you later?” I leaned back against the counter. “Hon, you’re fucking with the wrong chick. I’ve been around too many drug dealers to buy into a scheme like that.” He shocked me by bursting out laughing. “Drug dealers? Well, that’s an interesting analogy.” He shook his head but a sardonic smile stayed on his face. ↗

— Diana Rowland

#death

Hey,” I said before he could say anything else that would make the mood even weirder or break it entirely. “You wanna grab some coffee or something someday? I mean, some time when I’m not crawling with maggots,” I added with a laugh that sounded nervous to my own ears and probably sounded desperate and pathetic to his. I totally braced myself for him to hem and haw and say that he couldn’t or had a girlfriend or something. I was shocked instead when he gave me a nod. “That sounds nice. And I’m cool with the no maggots thing too. ↗

— Diana Rowland

#death

The fiendlike skill we display in the invention of all manner of death-dealing engines, the vindictiveness with which we carry on our wars, and the misery and desolation that follow in their train, are enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized man as the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth. ↗

— Herman Melville

#violence #war #white-people #death