Coming Of Age Poems | Examples
These Coming Of Age poems are examples of poetry about Coming Of Age. These are the best examples of Age Coming Of poems written by international poets.
Growing up to fast,
Coming of age.
Both about maturity but different
One witnessed something they were not supposed to see, while the other saw when ready
One forced to be a man, the other gradually becoming a man
One having a parent who would mentally abuse, while the other has two amazing parents
One having to work hard just to get a tiny bit of affection or recognition, while the other does not need to try
Growing up to quickly and Coming of age both involve maturity and growing up but are they really the same?
On Friday nights we’d sneak into
the railyard and wait
in the shadows
between the floodlights for a train
slow enough for us to hop,
our hands already tingling
with the promise of flight.
We trotted beside the train,
waiting for the right moment
to grab a boxcar’s ladder
and climb to the roof like outlaws—
aware of the danger
and thrilled by it—
as the train gathered speed.
We jumped as it rounded the curve—
boots hitting gravel, hearts pounding—
but a voice barked out of the dark,
and then a dog, all teeth and fury,
came tearing toward us.
We bolted for the fence
without looking back.
We hit the chain-link fence at speed,
scrambled like fugitives—
I braced for asthma to take me
but my lungs opened wide,
no tightness, no fire, just breath
pure and clean, lifting me over
like I was born to run.
I landed laughing—
heart hammering, lungs still free—
and something in me shifted.
I had outrun fear, leapt past
the story that said I couldn’t—
and for the first time,
I believed it.
after "Do not go gentle into that good night", by Dylan Thomas
Age can not scour away the furrowed gnarls time obeyed,
Nor mask the snarls, gouged as trenches on brows.
Grace knurls the grip that time has long betrayed,
To swage wrath and fury to a form that age endows.
Grace reveres the knurled design that time has hewn,
Not as a defect or flaw, but as grip etched by yen of years,
Like old trees twisted, contorted, too far gone to prune.
It’s grace that cradles calloused scars, not fears.
It’s the gnarls of age that knurls the last grasp of rage
to rebel against the curse of dusk’s encroaching bite.
Stroking the rebellious snarls that ring on anvil stage,
as loved ones bear the thumps and flails of the plight.
It's the gnarls of age that knurls the grip to fight,
against the blight in the coming of good night.
Grace can't grind away the wrinkled gnarls time obeyed,
Nor hide the snarls, ploughed as furrows in the brow.
It carves the knurls for grip that age has disobeyed,
To a shape what decrepit, flailing lovers can still avow.
Grace respects the knurled design that time has hewn,
That's not a flaw, nor fault, but a form that time engraves.
With old branches twisted, scarred, gone too far to prune,
Grace hugs the bumps and twists that life well-spent saves.
It's the gnarls of age that knurls the grip to rage
Against the blight of the coming of the night,
Despite the cranky snarls that ring on anvil swage,
As loved ones bare the brunt of frail days plight.
So let the gnarls knurl the grooves to grip tight.
To fight and rage against the fading of the light.
Conservatives’ banning’s apropos of nothing
At twelve when he delt with this
shouldn't have to jump through hoops
should’ve been able to explore when a teen
But because of many conservative groups
The Ire excessive was the coming of age
Juvenile mistakes made in adult years
Denied the ability to pick up social skills
Sexual assault and sexual awaking
considered pornographic
Q**r’s often live a second adolescents
This is a guide for the coming of age allies
States have taken off the shelves
Intersectional as his life
Chapters are a collection, four acts
referred to as “parts” in this guide
self-contained essay’s
The memoir progresses through Johnson’s life
Two letters appear alongside
the chapters for mother and brother
Conditioned to think what’s the truth
Indoctrinated in us
Stop crying, racialized
School bullies
The flee market incident
Institutionalized violence
Family structure marginalized
Community –college fraternity
And black joy
Tells the truth
A black and q***r boy’s experience
Gender identity
Toxic masculinity
Brotherhood
Do you remember like I do,
the way we’d jump with giddy—
Or how we’d grit our teeth,
waiting for something to happen?
Your feeling,
A pulse that nipped the green off my leaves,
like I was holding something in my mouth,
something I couldn’t swallow.
A space between urge & action.
A pause before the pull,
where everything hangs,
and nothing falls.
A candle-age dream,
showing me how to walk.
A guardian spirit,
with the grace to talk.
Fishing for a whale,
to break the tide.
Pockets full of change from the wrong time—
I should trade them like marbles,
so that in hopscotch,
I only worry about tripping.
She'll be the queen of my decrepit ridgeline,
Her crown, heavy with my wasted want.
Never knows best, a fault of design.
Her tensions a dagger, a cunning divine,
A soul-bleeder, god as a vaunt.
She'll be the queen of my decrepit ridgeline.
The arson of anger will never confine,
For the plaid that’s been woven, I a gaunt
Never knows best, a fault of design.
I check the guest list for a name I can’t find,
A ghost of a promise, a lingering taunt.
She'll be the queen of my decrepit ridgeline.
I hate sour drinks, but I chug it all in time—
A golden apple; a jaunt.
Never knows best, a fault in design.
As the season passes, with its cruel incline,
I swallow one more time; her shadows daunt.
She'll be the queen of my decrepit ridgeline,
But never knows best, a faulty design.
Roads long squandered,
Routes trained to memory.
a crack in the long unyielding concrete
unremarkable.
Then, a wildflower
A peculiar pink.
Leather, nostalgia.
Cinnamon, mellow.
Stop dead in my tracks,
Wistful, yearn.
Many a while did I dream of creation
After all, what does it take?
Soil, water, an undefeated soul.
Many a while did I long for something that called me God.
Many a while did I pick up a pen,
Dropped it back down.
Afraid of laughter no one laughed,
Fearing fingers yet unpointed.
What does it mean to begin?
What does it take to begin?
Paper, ink, a sliver of hope.
Do I have what it takes to begin?
Now every new page,
A breath of awakening
In a book awaiting it's soul.
A step, far from empty pages.
Albeit one, this stride
holds strength of lifetimes far spent.
And as I sit, winds of change,
Of beginning, blowing through my hair finally let down.
A start.
Breaking apart the shackle that is anticipation.
Everything goes, and so will this fear.
And as my soul, my blood, my sweat, my tears, I wring into form,
Perhaps,
I have what it takes to begin.
They say the journey to adulthood is supposed to be a slow coming of age process that allows the time to contemplate what role we’ll play in our future. We check off all the options. Burn out some brain cells in college or maybe find that ‘special someone’ and take a few years to plan a life. One sunny day in May of 1975, a recruiter asked “Why Not?” I replied, “Might as well.” Two days later some drill sergeant in a Smokey the Bear hat was screaming his bad breath into my face. Growing up only took 48 hours.
You will never know
Til you spread your wings and try—
Sweet taste of freedom
a tender voice recites, muse’s lyrics flow
non-believers have poisoned Earth Mother's waterways
She unleashes winds blown hotter and dryer
perennial white blossoms swoon midst zephyrs
dangle from sterling chaste trees
twisted maple bark echo braids sacred hair unscathed
gold filters branches
thousand-year rooted Algonquin memories
elders and granddaughters amble amongst crackling twigs
streams pristine align to augur a promising path
within a bison pelt tepee awaits the knowledge keepers embrace
fire and smoke dense and opaque
evoking a bittersweet melancholy
broadleaves tremble breathe and sway
hymn chants of traditional wisdom expel
severed is the braid as is the child from the woman
her nascent efflorescence
transition is significant as we are wedded
and bound to nature’s perennial sentient
let the path before us grow wider and brighter for future generations
Dangerous Fools and Evil Idiots
They agree to disagree
Always spitefully fastidious
About each other’s pedigree
Always at the war, that goes
With no hope to prove who’s right
There’s no right, because it flows
Through their fingers to the light
Of forgotten source they knew
In the times of childhood years
When the mornings looked brand new
And they lived knowing no fears.
unleashed
I may waiver
satin spoils
are new to me
yield,
your monotone salute
suckling praised
a freedom from fur
the hunt is mine
devoutly
As the weather chooses its flavour for the hour,
Stubble-ended wood shaves itself on the layers of unseen ground.
Synthetic puke seeps through pores seeking to devour
Every tiny, curled hair floating in the murk around and around.
Pool party skies reside a millimeter higher than the tallest fingertip:
Leftovers infect this mass of last meals passed on.
A spindle of cloth runs out with time enough to graze my lip
And still no locks of winter-lived years could sink a single talon
Into the darkest dark of fleeting moments taken from a fork.
Shall this be all that has come from years after that first unscrewed cork?
My horse's haunches sway,
Saunter up hillocks and down a valley path,
Above a ridge off and on: a village where some people fish,
Phosphorescent flotsam washed ashore.
Green embers breathe as if through shriveled lungs.
Wax in contrast to the gloaming dark that's coming on.
Shrubbery shadows lengthen, enlarging blacknesses.
Crickets ratchet down their temperatures.
The earth cools in wan mirage.
Time lapsed, the stars make
A slow, quiet carousel of lights.
It circles far above us disengaged.
Wings of crows scoop pools of air,
Then dive down open maws
On tiny, furred crawlers shocked stock still.
Crows chalk their caws across the night.
A copse will grow into a stand of oaks.
The vintage children like to climb.
Gnarled limbs reminding them of fiction sailing ships.
Hand over fist to where the topmost rigging is.
For now, people and trees are bottled tiny on a shelf.
At dry dock like some whittled models are.
Until the oak is christened keel and frame
And of agers live lives and make their livelihoods at sea. (9/18/22)
Coming of Age
The breeze is blowing through her hair,
and like the sun she’s headed west
as apprehension fills the air.
All by herself she leaves her nest
of comfort where her dreams were curled
and sets out on an unknown quest.
A quest to find within this world
of varied visions widely spread,
a place to have new dreams unfurled.
Ambitions deep within were bred
throughout her tender years to find
the great adventures up ahead.
And so, she sets out heading blind
along life’s path of vast extremes
and leaves her comforts far behind.
Her time has come of age it seems
to follow all her lifelong dreams.
July 22, 2022