Time Poems | Poemist

Popular Time Poems

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.

......

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

......

The Clocks Go Back One Hour

by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

Time changes with life and life changes with time.
October grows too old,
Hobbling backwards
With the burden of years,
On the sinuous alcove of time,
Tenebrous and feathery,
Her hidden lamps blinking furiously
At the silhouettes of wasted days.
The wasted leaves of autumn
Break forth and dance down

......

Nature Trail

by Benjamin Zephaniah

At the bottom of my garden
There's a hedgehog and a frog
And a lot of creepy-crawlies
Living underneath a log,
There's a baby daddy long legs
And an easy-going snail
And a family of woodlice,
All are on my nature trail.

There are caterpillars waiting

......

November

by Thomas Hood

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

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

......