memory poems

The Closet of Metaphors | Judy Moskowitz

- Leave a Comment

Cleaning out the closet takes time and thought
the days and weeks of avoidance
deciphering what needs to go
what needs to be saved
for a rainy day
parting ways is not always easy
hard to say goodbye to comfortable shoes
gone
the sweater that no longer compliments
when you needed it most
gone
the things you thought would last a lifetime
those too tight jeans have left a mark
gone
the empty hangers of lost possessions
I never checked the attic

The Saloon Mirror | Krushna Chandra Mishra

- Leave a Comment

Not many days ago that hot noon
in the barber’s saloon the mirror
served me a truth to alert me if I
was still the young man that I think
I am without a doubt ever raised
anywhere in my world of admirers.

I got my life’s lesson sitting stunned
as the wizard barber made me a paste
of some magic stone in his black pestle
with his hammer crushing that with a hum
of abracadabra to a pop played on his radio.

Every time after that embarrassing noon I had
my lucky encounter with my vanishing youth,
I would be drawn to that intimate hair-dyer
for looking into his whispering mirror and ask
if I still required his nod for looking young longer.

I often ask me now before I move out of home
if there would be time still for me to have a look
into a teaching mirror before I was sure myself
things were not out of hand for me to run
from pillar to post for a saloon bath past a dye.

My Room and My Memories – A Poem by Neeraj Kumar

- Leave a Comment

My room
And
My memories
Both are full of
Rotten suffocation,
I live among them.

Changing weather
And
Passing days
Keep bringing
So many shifts!
Good and bad–
I keep on sorting.

Bitter memories
Could I erase
Out of my mind
Anyhow,
I live in this effort.

With golden moments
May I decorate
My home
Sequentially,
I keep on searching such a plan.

Sometimes
When the darkness of mind
Envelopes me
with black,
I come to my balcony.

May a beam
Come spontaneously
From somewhere
To enlighten me,
I keep on waiting.

Trap of Life
Can be broken
Only by an Arjun
I search him in Abhimanyu.

Originally published at http://www.knkayastha.in/p/my-room-and-my-memories-both-are-full.html. Read it in the original Hindi at http://www.knkayastha.in/2013/11/Neeraj-Hindi-Poem.html.

Rose-Tinted Binoculars | Steve Denehan

- Leave a Comment

A time ago, when I would run, the grass would barely bend,
The laws of physics and myself were not considered friends.
I would fly along at such a pace my shadow would surrender,
Before a letter was even sent I could return to sender.
I could jump from any crazy height and land without a mark,
I could tumble down most any hill, make a fire from a spark.
My hands would very rarely rest upon my handlebars,
The road was but a playground for weaving through the cars.
From our secret lair we could watch the world and never once be seen.
If dirt was steel, I was a magnet with not an inch left clean.
Ghost stories made the short walk home last a thousand years,
A multitude of hidden things to fertilise my fears.
I made a fairly decent dent into the sugar mountain,
And quenched my never-ending thirst with a sticky fizzy fountain.
Trees were climbed and blood was spilled and bees were caught in jars,
And our hearts came tumbling from our mouths as we lay and watched the stars.

Picnic | Ananya S. Guha

- Leave a Comment

Gather all the wood
we must set the fireplace
in order to garner memories
woollen clothes and fever
measles and chicken pox
bunking school college and the rest. The doctor arrives.
Garner all those events
reconstruct those mired memories
hunt out the black and white photos, some stray loitering in
cupboards, some in washed out albums. Gather the wood set the fireplace, let’s go out for a picnic,
before the rains wash way all these.

A Walk through Time | Rajnish Mishra

- Leave a Comment

A walk in this house newly rented,
Steps sure, eyes closed.
A walk in that house in my past
Old rooms, old stairs; corridors.
Old house that was home.
Old house, that is home.
This walk assured and this closure
Efface, betray that walk,
Old house, its stairs and rooms.
Betray, in a way, my city, my home, my heart.
I turn to my left or right,
Go forth or back, from mazes emerge,
As once I emerged,
From lanes-labyrinths, of my city, my home.
Live I now split in two:
In a now and a then.
Constancy and change, take turns,
They play with me, on me.
Pangs surely I feel for what I forgot, erased:
My places old, home and lanes.
Can’t bring them to life, eyes closed.
My city, my home, a memory, a phantom.
My past betrayed by present, mine own,
Or nature of man or time, or change.

More at https://poetrypoeticspleasure.wordpress.com/.

Bruce | Roy Pullam

- Leave a Comment

The RPMs of the guitars
Like the motor
Of a fine-tuned engine
Climbed to a roar
His voice
A young man’s angst
As he growled
His dissatisfaction
With the lack
Of freedom
The smothering blanket
Of the status quo
Echoing the feeling
Of so many
In the death trap
Of the comfortable
Clarence’s growl
The sax full-throated
Powerful and unrepenting
Both a challenge
And a curse
The universal anthem
Of escape
Mocking my own
Submergence
Into the mainstream
Reminding me when
I felt
Born to run

The Unremembered Elegance of Cinema Screen Curtains | Steve Denehan

- Leave a Comment

Velvet.
Of course, they were velvet.
That electric silence when they started to part.
It was glorious.
The curtains beckoned us to other worlds.
We were grateful and eager and we walked through.
We, the audience, an intrepid newborn community of explorers and optimists.
Rarely though, did the film deliver on the curtain’s promise,
And afterward,
we talked of other things as we filed out to O’Connell Street.

Broken Sunlight | Marjon van Bruggen

- Leave a Comment

I’ll always remember
The evening sun, splendidly streaming
there, behind the window
which broke its light into rays
a great eye open in the curious sky
looking down on our long silent dinners
spreading the largesse of its beautiful light—
altar candles on the frugal tablecloth.
On the wall, nearing the dark
the gilded mirror reflected the scene
in old, velvet colors
—–
Marjon van Bruggen started writing poetry when she was 17 and never stopped. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.

Best Poetry Online