~~Grace-Notes~~

**For every piece of beauty, there is a dark thought **

Posts tagged death

4 notes

It is the part of a man endowed with a good understanding faculty, to consider what they themselves are in very deed, from whose bare conceits and voices, honour and credit do proceed: as also what it is to die, and how if a man shall consider this by itself alone, to die, and separate from it in his mind all those things which with it usually represent themselves unto us, he can conceive of it no otherwise, than as of a work of nature, and he that fears any work of nature, is a very child. Now death, it is not only a work of nature, but also conducing to nature.
from the Second Book of “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius

Filed under death philosophy stoic aurelius meditations

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Whatsoever thou dost affect, whatsoever thou dost project, so do, and so project all, as one who, for aught thou knowest, may at this very present depart out of this life. And as for death, if there be any gods, it is no grievous thing to leave the society of men. The gods will do thee no hurt, thou mayest be sure. But if it be so that there be no gods, or that they take no care of the world, why should I desire to live in a world void of gods, and of all divine providence? But gods there be certainly, and they take care for the world; and as for those things which be truly evil, as vice and wickedness, such things they have put in a mans’ own power, that he might avoid them if he would: and had there been anything besides that had been truly bad and evil, they would have had a care of that also, that a man might have avoided it. But why should that be thought to hurt and prejudice a man’s life in this world, which cannot any ways make man himself the better, or the worse in his own person? Neither must we think that the nature of the universe did either through ignorance pass these things, or if not as ignorant of them, yet as unable either to prevent, or better to order and dispose them. It cannot be that she through want either of power or skill, should have committed such a thing, so as to suffer all things both good and bad, equally and promiscuously, to happen unto all both good and bad. As for life therefore, and death, honour and dishonour, labour and pleasure, riches and poverty, all these things happen unto men indeed, both good and bad, equally; but as things which of themselves are neither good nor bad; because of themselves, neither shameful nor praiseworthy.
from the Second Book of “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius

Filed under philosophy marcus aurelius stoic honor peity life death

18 notes

OPETH “DRAPERY FALLS”

Please remedy my confusion
And thrust me back to the day
The silence of your seclusion
Brings night into all you say

Pull me down again
And guide me into pain

I’m counting nocturnal hours
Drowned visions in haunted sleep
Faint flickering of your power
Leaks out to show what you keep

Pull me down again
And guide me into…

There is failure inside
This test I can’t persist
Kept back by the enigma
No criterias demanded here

Deadly patterns made my wreath
Prosperous in your ways
Pale ghost in the corner
Pouring a caress on your shoulder

Puzzled by shrewd innocence
Runs a thick tide beneath
Ushered into inner graves
Nails bleeding from the struggle

It is the end for the weak at heart always the same
A lullaby for the ones who’ve lost all reeling inside
My gleaming eye in your necklace reflects stare of primal regrets
You turn your back and you walk away never again

Spiralling to the ground below
Like Autumn leaves left in the wake to fade
Waking up to your sound again
And lapse into the ways of misery

Filed under opeth blackeater park drapery falls metal progressive death

6 notes

I was mortal, but am fiend. I was merciless, but am pitiful. Thou dost feel that I shudder. My teeth chatter as I speak, yet it is not with the chilliness of the night - of the night without end. But the hideousness is insufferable. How canst thou tranquilly sleep?
from “The Premature Burial” by Edgar Allan Poe

Filed under poe writing reading death doom fear suffering

0 notes

“Thanatos Machine” by Terese Svoboda

You don’t need a machine to do that.
A plastic bag will do. But he built it,
his tools cast about in the unit
while he got up his nerve to use it.

Nothing more was stored there.
A poured cement floor, a triple-locked door
after door after door down a corridor
reeking with the odor of everything over.

In heretofore phrases, he left a note
outlining his Help! in argot
so wrought it was hopeless to ferret out
his intent, meant or not.

A ball-peen hammer was all she had.
The shards cut her. What else had he hid?
At least, she cried, he’d thought ahead.
He drove home instead.


Filed under poem poetry terese svoboda thanatos machine death