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.

......

Time

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
Who shall put forth on thee,
Unfathomable Sea?

......

The Road

by Nancy Fotheringham Cato

I made the rising moon go back
behind the shouldering hill,
I raced along the eastern track
till time itself stood still.

The stars swarmed on behind the trees,
but I sped fast at they,
I could have made the sun arise,
and night turn back to day.

......

Clancy Of The Overflow

by Banjo Paterson

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just 'on spec', addressed as follows, 'Clancy, of The Overflow'.
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
'Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy

......

The Fallen Elm

by John Clare

Old elm that murmured in our chimney top
The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
And into mellow whispering calms would drop
When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
And when dark tempests mimic thunder made -
While darkness came as it would strangle light
With the black tempest of a winter night
That rocked thee like a cradle in thy root -
How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
Thy strength without - while all within was mute.

......

Recent Time Poems

Sky of Fireflies

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

Sultry evening surprise,
the starry sky of fireflies!
Pink, shining, full moon
on rosy, Dragonfly Lagoon.
Lofty fireflies are winking,
as gold time is blinking.
Ash silhouetted clouds,
partially veil fleet crowds,
that glow emerald green,
until so suddenly unseen.

......

Drowsing in Dreams

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

Sleeping in blossoms, plush pillows!
Fleeting dreams, of pink, cloud billows.
Red, orange, purple and golden,
spread over green park, so olden.
Soft, the sighs, as hummingbird flies,
Oft' plagued by purple martin cries.
Falling through petals ~ deep, downy.
Crawling time, scented and drowsy.

We Are Merely An Algorithm

by jan christian MN

in this molten hollow, crusted with land
overdue says the axis, manic spinning
round and about the magic gravity bond
there was barely a doubt in the eyes of the abyss
it gazes back when the word is said
quick, quick, the moment seeping quick
brushing—in bristles soft—our mystic time
each moment passing by, the fabric
layer stretching out into a platter: shine
presented on the altar of conscience

......

Our time

by Mario Marcou

We but a rain drop in time.
Our knowledge expands to shine
Only to be cut back by the next dime.
An accident with purpose or design
were we are still children in a jigsaw puzzle
civilizations with works to assign.
The tall ladders of history
almost ignorant of the past to tell its story
Yet naive of the generations to come
while millions of graves testified evidence in bone

......

Months

by Peter Quitadamo

Regret and rebirth combine in this dark month.
Regret over a year wasted. Trips not taken. Words unsaid.
Rebirth as a new one begins. No pathway forbidden.

The hopes of a new year have died along with the resolutions long discarded.
Will my body ever feel the warmth of spring sunlight again?
A sad, desperate month. Heartsick, depression, and suicide reign.

The temperature tentatively creeps up. Snow births a muddy field.
An optimistic tree launches its first assault of buds only to be killed by frost.

......