Time Poems | Poemist

Popular Time Poems

Lament

by Dylan Thomas

When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave

......

Be Drunk

by Charles Baudelaire

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what?Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything

......

The Mississippi River Empties Into The Gulf

by Lucille Clifton

and the gulf enters the sea and so forth,
none of them emptying anything,
all of them carrying yesterday
forever on their white tipped backs,
all of them dragging forward tomorrow.
it is the great circulation
of the earth's body, like the blood
of the gods, this river in which the past
is always flowing. every water
is the same water coming round.

......

The Victims

by Sharon Olds

When Mother divorced you, we were glad. She took it and
took it in silence, all those years and then
kicked you out, suddenly, and her
kids loved it. Then you were fired, and we
grinned inside, the way people grinned when
Nixon's helicopter lifted off the South
Lawn for the last time. We were tickled
to think of your office taken away,
your secretaries taken away,
your lunches with three double bourbons,

......

In Memoriam Jack Lemmon

by EJ Thribb

So. Farewell
Then
Jack Lemmon.

Hollywood comedian
And much-loved
Star of
Some Like It Hot.

Yes. That was your

......

Recent Time Poems

Tell me how I got this far

by Aldo Kraas

Tell me how I got this far
Praying for my Father
Every single night
Also after I pray for my Father
He answer my prayer
And it makes me feel so happy
To have my prayer answered
By my Father
I know that I should think first
About me

......

aloe vera

by e. m.

do you miss it?
an apple fell on your head and you called it magic
a bird took flight
simple nature
simple desire

i made a wall
not of bricks
never of stone
of leaves

......

Only A Moment

by Michael J. Nappi

A scowl...
With hands on face
We are marked,
Stalked… and prey

Ticking away in escape
It cannot be saved
Moments pass behind us
Now becomes then

......

Time Deserted

by Michael J. Nappi

Slapped by the vicious hand of time
truth sits perched, atop it's finger.
Blood is drawn, and turns to wine
through life's infernal wringer.

Days accumulate like miles,
they take their toll in distance.
As sun baked earth, cracks a smile
travel on... despite resistance.

......

Jessamyn's Song by Michael R. Burch

by Michael R. Burch

“Jessamyn’s Song” was inspired by Claude Monet’s oil painting “The Walk, Woman with a Parasol,” which I first saw around age 14 and interpreted as a walk in a meadow or heather. The woman’s dress and captivating loveliness made me think of an impending wedding, with dances and festivities. The boy made me think of a family. I gave the woman a name, Jessamyn, and wrote her story, thinking along these lines, while in high school. The opening lines were influenced by “Fern Hill” by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, one of my boyhood favorites and still a favorite today. “Jessamyn’s Song” was substantially complete by age 16, my first long poem, although I was not happy with the poem, overall. I have touched it up here and there over the last half century, but it remains substantially the same as the original poem.

Jessamyn's Song (circa age 14-16)
by Michael R. Burch

16

There are meadows heathered with thoughts of you,
where the honeysuckle winds
in fragrant, tangled vines

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