Absences Poems | Examples

While The World Wasn't Looking

While the world wasn’t looking,
the stones learned to weep,
and the ocean—that old blue beggar—
knelt down to drink its own salt.

While the world wasn’t looking,
the vines twisted into alphabets,
spelling the names of the forgotten—
each letter a green, grasping hand.

Love—they were whispering love—
not in the tongue of men,
but in the slow dialect of roots,
in the patient hunger of shadows.

While the world wasn’t looking,
a child built a city of dust,
and the wind—that indifferent thief—
stole it grain by grain,
not out of malice, but because
even the wind must eat.

Oh, beloved, what vanishes
does not always leave.
Some absences grow hands.
Some silences learn to sing.

While the world wasn’t looking,
I loved you like this:
not with fire, not with gold,
but like the roots love the rain—
silent, patient, and unseen

The Weight Of Excuses

Strict parents taught her how to survive,
To navigate life with lies she loathed to tell.
She crafted a list, excuses for every misstep,
Because the truth felt like a risk she couldn’t take.

Sometimes, she wielded honesty—
A rare, deliberate shield against blame.

But since leaving home, she’s forgotten that art.
Her list, once a lifeline, now defends others’ absences.
“They must’ve had no choice,” she tells herself,
When someone she cherishes disappears without a word.

“They wanted to be there,” she assures,
When her first party in years
Ends with empty chairs where her friends should have been.

Excuses grow, stacking like pages in a book,
A fragile armor against the sting of abandonment.

Now, after daring to trust her heart,
She flips through her library of “what-ifs” and “maybes,”
Desperate to find an answer that fits her narrative.
A reason that soothes without truth,
That comforts without cutting deep.

The dusty pages offer no solace,
Only reflections of things that could have been.
Still, she clings to the search,
Afraid of what she might uncover
If she dares to stop looking.

ABSENCES

     There are absences that never flew far away
       because they are so dear, desired...
     they are hearts, they are stars that shine
     suspended in the air, in the vastness of cosmos...!

Absence

lyrical times
         forgotten
absences now
      remembered
days pass
of
   times past

days
glide by
      so slow
 this life in the
         shadows

a bleak future
     lies ahead
in
an empty 
   wasteland
of cold years

Time Rest Poetrix

released from absences
the time thinking only himself
he decided to have a break

Today

I didn't desire to live today
just of memories...
Today I didn't wish
absences...
Today I wanted
attendance... and do
happen time...
Today I didn't desire
dream your kisses,
I wanted to kiss you
strongly...
Today I didn't wish
lock myself in fears...
I wanted to break the hull,
reveal the veiled,
unravel the
secrets...
Today, I wanted
actually
to live...!

Foreboding

Death burns 
holes in my mortal heart—
I am not opposed to it 
yet I detest how it looms over 
everything and everyone 
I love. 

How I cringe 
thinking about how 
in this lifetime I will 
face more absences,
more voids, more tears.

It is the 
foreboding of 
a storm—the clouds 
form gradually, making 
you so very alive and 
so very aware— 
yet you do not feel 
the true impact of
the blow until
it rains. 


6.14.22

Solitude of the Lonely Poetrix

In their hiding places
solitaires shine silences
how many absences inhabit them ?

Too Late To Make Things Right

The young go-getter reached the ladder’s top rung
by making work his foremost purpose in life.
Lengthy absences from wife and children stung,
but wealth he provided outweighed any strife,
so he thought. To his work-first ethic he clung
till poor health and retirement cut like a knife.
Loved ones’ aloofness cuts deeper. He has found
the saying’s true: What goes around comes around.


September 21, 2022
entered in the Ottava Rima Contest     Placed 6th
Sponsor: L. Milton Hankins

Absence 2 and Hrms Commonwealth

II
I was thinking ... Absences
Used to make hearts grow fonder
Or so the proverb said, in my youth
True in some ways ... Untrue in another 
Some have departed poetry and breath
Such is human existence
Absences makes a heart stronger
But only if we survive the heartbreak 
(I no longer spend time with pets
Lest I get fond of them in Africa
Where crime pays ... Stealing
A post-Mandela culture here - sad to confess ... 
( I fought apartheid too)

And so did the late Queen Elizabeth
The Commonwealth is her baby, growing again
After apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia
Tried to murder her Commonwealth of the nations

Demptius

would you also be able to cry 
arriving where you called home, 
seeing every empty and cold corner 
without even the shadow of the one who left? 
I speak of these colossal absences 
hammering at every moment 
a nail of anguish in the chest, 
just to make it clear that absolutely everything 
has lost its meaning and in the window of the planet 
only a sad and desolate landscape 
of remoteness reigns, 
the devastated and battered land 
by the sound of a wind that doesn't care to be bad, 
sweeping inhumanly 
the place where all the names 
that you call by the same poisoned letters dwell, 
the place where each new face of the days 
belongs to the same ghost 
that for your nightmare and torture 
no longer haunts you.

Reciprocity

Throuch  life we seek
company for our intimate absences,
Presence for our uncertainties...
We seek in others, the word
that takes us to the future and unburdens us
the hurts...
We seek company for our emptiness,
prestige for our missteps,
applause for our mistakes...
That, we seek, but almost never
We offer in return...
Reciprocity we almost always erase...
But isn't that what they're also looking for in us?
We are what we offer... this law is fundamental!

Demptius

would you also be able to cry arriving where you called home, seeing every empty and cold corner without even the shadow of the one who left? I speak of these colossal absences that prevail and hammer at every moment a nail of anguish in the chest, just to make it clear that absolutely everything has lost its meaning and in the window of the planet only a sad and desolate landscape of remoteness reigns, the devastated and battered land by the sound of a wind that doesn't care to be bad, sweeping inhumanly the place where all the names you call by the same poisoned letters dwell, the place where each new face of the days belongs to the same ghost that for your nightmare and torture no longer haunts you.

How To Live

Some things can change your life.
Some people can make your living miserable.
Others wonderful.
Maybe you can choose who to keep close 
But some things are inevitable, 
Destined to happen.
You can suffer from absences 
But you lose in vain 
And forget to appreciate what you have.
You think all people are like this:
When they lose someone
They realize how precious he or she have been in their lives. 
Some spend whole life to find the true meaning.
Some live without headaches.
Some see it as a duty.
Some who are tired have surrendered. 
I am no different 
but one thing I have learned now 
whatever happens
I am the god of my own life 
and I decide how to live it.

................................

we come alone in this life 
we leave alone in the next life
we come with nothing 
we go with nothing 
we come and go 
as if nothing had happened.

Wild Nature

In virgin forest
            there are...
            Scary silence,
            endless voids,
            relentless density...
            quiet beasts alone,
            wild beasts on the prowl...
            Visible impossibilities,
            extreme absences... and me
            no birds on the shoulders,
           hunter of me...!

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