Best Mark Time Poems
Here in the heavy depths of insolent woes,
We gesture and talk and waste our time,
Staking claim to each minute of our earthly life,
Running the hours through a clock by the day,
Never sated, not content to find even love,
Buried deep inside the petals of a perfect rose.
So was a metaphor created from the rose,
Then plagiarized and used for all of time,
Simply here to represent the beauty of love,
A perfection to which we cannot aspire to in life,
Or even death, in the darkest of all those woes,
Great though they may seem by the passing day.
It's a fragile, soulful kind of love,
In the pressing presence of the breaking day,
Where your back breaks beneath ample woes,
And there just simply isn’t ever enough time,
To do what you plan to do with your life.
Then you start to resemble that rose.
Soft and delicate, with easy loss of life,
Mournful of the passage of time,
Counting down, day by dreary day,
Ever seeking out to find dear love,
The theoretical banishment of woes.
Such is the way of the deep red rose.
Has it ever occurred to us not to mark time?
Just to ignore it, along with any such woes,
Just to leap forth and enjoy life,
To live to the absolute fullest everyday,
And just as chosen by the poet's rose,
To find and hold on to, that one true love.
For I find, that it's mostly true these days,
That people don't make enough time,
For laughter and fullness in life,
So preoccupied with petty woes,
That they forget about the beauty of love,
And in doing that, they forget about the rose,
I know what the rose represents in my life,
And I work hard to expel my woes every day,
So that soon I will have time for true love.
*****Written in Sestina for Constance's Poetry 101 contest.*****
******* 5th Place winner*******
******Sarah Blake August 2010******
A sestina is a highly structured form of poetry consisting of six six-line stanzas and a three-
line envoy (thirty-nine lines). The end words of the first stanza are repeated in varied order
as end words in the other stanzas and also recur in the envoy.
The Dilettante Diaries: “Blue Highway at the Cross Roads”
here waits LOVE
waiting at the
cross roads
3 mark time
silent
guarded with
their
Love
Blood.
lyrics and stories
codes in Blue
and other
Rainbow hues
reflected
in mirrors
3 mark time
silent
guarded with
their
Love
2 hidden
the Gauntlet thrown down
x 1
Crosses over the Blue Highway
Listens.
Loves.
(Lovejoy-Burton/September 2018)
Luke 9:20 (KJV)
1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qIc2rGWINo
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5uN3B2YXWM
3. Likeness/Comparison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UisIxFV_M6M
4. "The Garden"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O_wADXASM8
5. "Together"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K8_TLPMb6Y
6. "Patience"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaFjfv6huNA
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYIU0eNZg2U
8. https://akiane.com/
So much to wish for and so little time.
I really must get my life back in line.
So much I had hoped for that did no0t come about;
But I can't fix a thing if I sit down and pout.
There's still time to do it, don't sit here and mope.
Just get busy and plan where there's still life there's hope.
The fact that I'm old doesn't mean that I'm dead.
I've still lots of ideas going 'round in my head.
Some people will say that my life is over.
Much past fifty and you;re pushing up clover;
But I'm just getting started, must be a late bloomer,
'Cause I don't feel old and my vision is truer.
I'm wiser, more steady and I know what I want.
In youth you're still searching, you don't know what's what.
To raise up a family I gave up a lot.
I cleaned, cooked and sewed and my dreams I forgot.
The kids were my life and I gave all I had.
I never looked back or felt angry or sad.
Now my babies are grown, they have kids of their own.
Sometimes they will visit or call on the phone.
Now it's my turn and I plan to have fun.
I'll pamper myself, take my place in the sun.
A house in the country away from the city.
I'll garden, raise chickens, I'll be sitting pretty.
I'll breathe the fresh air scented with flowers,
And mark time by the days, not by minutes and hours.
still bearing scars
they proudly mark time
the vets parade
allusive winds splatter metal amok
chasing leaves mark time across
cement jungles of error burn ravishing
imprints across eyes of the innocent
seasons beckon sweeping funnels
bitter rage evacuates human hope,
abounding distrust hidden in halls
echoing colorless, delectable death
hallow your hearts, replete lies seek
obstruction rebuilt to the core of
Capitol HIll, o’ to envision devalued
pinnacles of injustice embracing
common change, lives live, victims
victory, synonymous smiles, dear
diaries, echo empathy, fair futures,
galliant goals, resplendent respirations
sweep soiled souls, daily doses
of deep thrombosis depletions
My Parting Gifts
REMIT TO THE NATION…
Stand up and confront the scorn of the crowd,
Truth does not depend on the brash or the proud.
Your word is your bond, your heart is your vow,
Never bend to the trends that beguile here and now.
SUBMIT TO CREATION…
Respect all creation God put on this earth,
Each has their function; each has infinite worth.
We all lie down under stone and fresh clay,
Creation survives all our foolish forays.
ADMIT YOUR VOCATION…
Never mark time or keep fending off fate,
Waste not one talent or demand late rebate.
We each face our test against uncertain years,
We each have our purpose; our laughter, our tears.
Asleep
Now that they're all asleep
Suspended in lies
I wait for the snow to stop
I don’t want to miss the moment when the world stops
And everything is still
That moment that no hand can cease from moving
But when it hits the top of the arc it as to stop
You know when it hits the top it stops for ever so short of a period before it begins it’s downward fall
In that moment everything stops and starts again
It’s not a circle because that never ceases it just goes round and round
Never changing course. It can become smaller or larger but it is always round unless disturbed by some outside force
Oft I wonder how may of those stops I could collect and save. Maybe
I would save enough to bring back my dog for a few more days. He’d get kick out of that, to see me kneeling down to him and then grab him up in my arms, but time won’t wait form me. And where would I keep it?
I may have to save for an eternity but nobody really knows how to measure that either.
Our lives must stop and end or at least we think so. I know about all the Jesus stuff, and Hindu’s and Buddhist. But why do you have to belong to one of those clubs that seem so afraid to die. Death should a be celebration of ones life, you know like a second-line down in New Orleans.
I don’t know my Ma thinks I spend to much time looking up at the stars at night. Personally I think that of each and every day it should be the thing I do the most. Figuring out how to mark time when there is no end seems futile. I’d rather chase butterfly’s and catch frogs. I think when I grow up I’m going to be a homeless person so I can keep all my things in a shopping cart and keep trying to catch the end of that pendulum and then locate my dog
Most days, my thoughts
Are consumed by phantom pugilism
With things that once were
But long in absentia.
I re-trace the missteps,
That became teaching tools,
In the grandeur of life;
My unspoiled moments,
The fourth dimension has purloined,
Leaving me to mark time
With no pronounced purpose.
From my eyes
you kiss sleep
and the beats
of two hearts
mark time
as night turns day.
Sunrise plays
a soft tune
and runes
of light write free,
as the beats
of our hearts
in perfect counter-point
create
the morning song.
O Melancholy, my home-alone friend,
with Indolence conspiring to mark time,
with best intentions, and thoughts unpenned,
and faded vision, as the perfect rhyme,
so almost, so not quite, so very close,
distracted by my wastrel amigos.
If I could somehow loosen ties that bind,
and hold me in such unrelenting thrall,
if I the secret antidote could find,
to let me hear again the muse’s call,
my mind, now free, a-roving, unconcealed,
my deepest unsung thoughts in verse revealed.
Unending sojourn, inspiration sought,
and sometimes unexpectedly upturned.
When with the souls of poets we have walked,
their intimations shared, insights discerned,
if we, as in a dream, a trance adopt,
we too may tread their lofty mountaintop.
O Melancholy, my home-alone friend,
With Indolence conspiring to mark time,
With best intentions, and thoughts unpenned,
And faded vision, as the perfect rhyme,
So almost, so not quite, so very close,
Distracted by my wastrel amigos.
If I could somehow loosen ties that bind,
And hold me in such unrelenting thrall,
If I the secret antidote could find,
To let me hear again the muse's call,
My mind now free, a-roving, unconcealed,
My deepest unsung thoughts in verse revealed.
Unending sojourn, inspiration sought,
And sometimes unexpectedly upturned,
When with the souls of poets we have walked,
Their intimations shared, insights discerned,
If we, as in a dream, a trance adopt,
We too may tread their lofty mountaintop.
Existence travels lineally
In whirlwinds of emotion
Colored logarithmically
And perceived equivocally
Expression mere epitaph
Knowledge serendipity strung
Till the bubble bursts
Frozen peaks of discovery
Cataloged in the hermitage of worth
- Mark Time -
Hermetically sealed
Peddled for a dime
Love speaks
Feel heart peak
As joy tweaks
Truth tells
Know stern spell
Touch feels well
Live feel
Know what heals
Watch peace thrill
Joy hurls
Touch warm curl
Feel wit swirl
Faith knows
Hope sculpts show
Feel deep flow
Sense touch
Frame as much
Sparks as such
Prompt feel
Join fine will
In stance still
Forge wit
As strands fit
Poise that hit
Taste dream
Touch deep streams
In light beams
Heed grace
Light your face
In this space
String rhymes
That mark time
As dance mime
Seize chance
To brave dance
In strange trance
Be still
Sip clear fill
Glimpse goodwill
Just be
Dare to see
Soul set free
Leon Enriquez
14 February 2019
Singapore
The gray ladies drift down the hall
They remind me of the clouds that drift inland from the gulf
Meandering and listless with no apparent purpose
Oh they have somewhere to go
If only they could remember
They will eventually become stormy and weep
Yet, know one will understand that it is loneliness
That makes them shudder so deeply with emotion
They are children that have grown old
And we have taken all their toys and joy away from them
To be replaced with TV rooms and game night
Will they remember and come back to haunt us on a rerun of Bonanza?
We the living have placed them here to mark time until the end
While we go on living out our lives knowing that we will be gray one day as well
And like those fat water clouds from the gulf we too will want to spill over the side
But no wants to talk with the old and the forgotten,
For they hold no future for the living.
Just a sad reminder of an appointment with destiny that must be met.
When the final day comes and we lay them in the earth, what then?
What type of celebration shall they have on the other side?
I hope someone climbs in the casket and joins me for one last drink, and for the sake of Pete put a cigarette between my lips and light it.
I am thinking I could use one last smoke before they chunk me in the clay.
Blind fold me if it makes you feel better.
Just don’t let me become one of those old gray ladies.
Time stops for no one Poetry Contest
Sara Jama
From the first heartbeat to the very last
From the first cry to the last gasp
Life and time rise and then fall
The hands on the external clock never pausing
As the legs of the day keep moving
From dashing sunrises to dashing sunsets
To the everlasting stars and moons in the sky
To the gravitation pull of the tides
Life keeps marching on
Orchestrated like and infinite
To the rhythm of the seasons
To the spins of the earth
Time never sits
Time never sits for anyone
Even when we're gone
As the sands of time
Funnel through our hourglass
Methodically, esoteric, and destined
Each pebble is a milestone in our lives
Each pebble adds purpose to our internal clocks
These heaps of pebbles lead us up the hill and down
From the first baby steps, childhood to adulthood
And to the lifetime of discoveries
From baby blues to aging greys
These stepping stones mark time
And our existence though short-lived
Where our internal clocks naturally yield in the end
As light begets darkness
And only then does the time sit inside our window
Outside nature continues its course