Death remains my Enemy
I've known it since a boy,
The shadow in my garden
The monster I avoid.

It slithers in the darkness
Just above my head,
It whispers of the starkness
As I go to bed.

Survival at its source
Is desperate against death
It writhes and bites and coils,
Just for added breaths.

No anodyne of Angels
Nor ghosts trapped on the earth
Nor hopes of resurrection
Nor promise of rebirth

Can effectively assuage
The lonely deafening silence
The feebleness of age
The tired hands of violence.

David McLansky

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/death-remains-my-enemy-a-riff/