Sometimes a poem only needs its title.
Sometimes though it’s clear
The lessons of history
Were never learned
In the first place.
(9/11/26)
It is said that the mind
Is a terrible thing to waste.
I do indeed believe it true.
That is why by God's grace,
I thrive to maintain 'peace of mind',
Never giving others 'A piece of my mind'.
However, sometimes I allow other things to
Happen inside of this guarded mind of mine.
Sometimes, 'forgetting' gets the best of me;
Like writing a letter and forgetting to mail it.
Attention, contest soupers.
I.e. Some time ago, I wrote a poem
For a contest; thought it might place;
You guessed it. When I checked, I had not
Placed, nor was my poem ever submitted.
It is also said that, "winners never quit,
And quitters never win". How true it is.
It's also true that, 'winners never forget,
And forgetters never win'.
Oh well. Maybe next time.
They built him where the cliffs outlived the storms,
stone stitched to stone by hands that feared surrender.
His windows faced the horizon,
yet none were made to open.
The gulls called every morning.
He answered only with echoes.
Winters polished his walls into silver,
summers baked silence into every crack.
Travelers praised his strength,
never noticing the ivy growing inward.
One autumn, the tide stopped asking permission.
It climbed the rocks
not with rage,
but patience—
a language granite never learned.
Night after night
the sea rehearsed the same sentence
until the cliffs began repeating it
in their sleep.
No tower collapsed.
No banner fell.
Yet somewhere beneath the oldest stone,
where no map had ever reached,
a single drop of saltwater
remembered
it had once belonged
to an ocean.
And that was enough.
For years afterward,
the castle remained exactly as it had always seemed—
except that every sunrise,
those who listened carefully
could no longer tell
whether the wind
was leaving,
or something inside
had finally begun
to breathe.
A clever young squirrel
named Sammy was bold,
Until a sharp frost made the
branches turn cold.
He stood on an oak tree and
looked at a pine,
But lost all his courage and
started to whine.
"I've forgotten the trick!"
Sammy cried to a bird,
"My paws are too heavy, my
vision is blurred!"
A blue jay flew down with a
twitch of her wing,
"Just focus your eyes and
remember the spring!"
The chipmunks all gathered
to watch from below,
They shouted
encouragement down in the
snow.
"You've done it a thousand
times, Sammy, just try,
You don't need real wings to
feel you can fly!"
He wiggled his whiskers and
lined up his feet,
And pushed off the bark with
a rhythmic beat.
He sailed through the air like
a furry brown airplane,
And landed safely in the pine
tree again.
The crowd cheered so loudly
the forest did shake,
And Sammy celebrated with
an acorn cake.
He learned that whenever
you face a big fear,
Just trust in yourself and
your friends cheering for you.
Spoke to my mind when my mouth forgot to move.
Said some words and tried to actually understand them, because actually understanding would change something.
Not me, not the person in front of me, but what we are to each other.
But each time, it felt harder to say them out.
The person sitting in front of me, looking for an answer, eyes moving like breeze, cooling me down.
The given flower, held tightly in my hand, making me more drenched than ever.
And still, those eyes looked for an answer.
I tried to get rid of the flower, while it got stuck to my palm as her hands were open.
And I realized I was the one stuck, and I spoke to my mind when my mouth forgot to move.
The city grew so bright it blinded night.
Its towers cast their neon into clouds,
And every window glimmered like a sun.
The children learned the names of countless brands,
Yet none could point to Venus in the dusk.
Old men recalled a river made of light
That once flowed overhead from hill to hill,
But younger ears dismissed such tales as myths.
What river could exist above the sky?
Then one small girl, while chasing after wind,
Climbed past the rooftops to a silent place
Where darkness still survived behind a wall.
There, trembling in the vast unguarded black,
A single star unveiled itself to her.
The city had forgotten how to look.
The star had simply waited to be seen.
There are times I still think of you
hard to let you go
First love so young could it hold
parted we never will know
Once in awhile your in my dreams
your face so clearly beams
To heal my heart I forgot your name
to never think it ended my pain
Life is funny cause you go on
other lovers fill your heart with song
Time eases and life belongs
moments of you can't be wrong
I know you did great always strong
without me sure you got along
could it ever though somehow be
that in this moment you remember me
Just a girl who crushed my world
and handle my heart with a twirl
Someway I knew you were the girl
your name forgotten...my sweet pearl
One day Nobita learned Doraemon would fade,
His memories lost, every bond they had made.
So Nobita swore, “I’ll fix you, my friend,”
No matter the cost, I’ll fight till the end.
From weak and unsure to brilliance and light,
He studied through days and struggled through nights.
Step by step, with a dream standing tall,
He rose as a genius, surpassing it all.
Years later he came, with hope in his eyes,
To fix Doraemon, his greatest surprise.
But Doraemon stood there, with no trace of past,
Not knowing the friend who loved him so vast.
Nobita held on, tears falling like rain,
“I did it for you,” he whispered in pain.
Then deep in his heart, a feeling arose,
A bond beyond time that silently grows.
No memory needed, no past to defend,
Their souls still remembered — forever as friends. ??
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The morning the pigeons swam~
not flew, but breaststroked
through liquid air,
we knew something was wrong.
Down at the harbor,
fishermen pulled up their nets
and found only clouds,
dripping silver like mercury.
Mr. Thacker’s roses
bloomed backward,
petals sealing tight
into green fists.
At noon, the church bell
rang itself silent,
each note swallowed
by the steeple’s shadow.
And then—you.
Walking on the river,
not as a prophet would,
but laughing, stumbling,
kicking spray into the sky
where it hung, glittering,
refusing to fall.
By dusk, the world
righted itself—mostly.
But sometimes, when the wind
tugs just so,
I swear I see the streetlights
drip upward,
one luminous drop at a time.
You told me to put make-up on,
The more the better,
The more fake I look the better.
You forgot to ask me what I want,
What lights my eyes,
What draws my smile.
I think it musta been '66 -
the year of the storm when he was in a fix
and you could buy french fries for a dime.
Wasn't that a time -
the day Dave forgot to rhyme.
when you retire you forget that other people still work
they cannot receive phone calls
they do not have time for lunch
they are too tired at night to party
you forget they want to be left alone on weekends
it is their only free time the whole week
until I retired. I never had any kind of freedom or spare time
It is curious how I forgot that in a mere fifteen months
Maybe today, alone I stand
Spoiled by a quiet command;
A concealed teacher underhands
a lesson you cannot let pass.
If what is brought is such a challenge,
and what's sought is comfort, not damage.
Then maybe today, who's abandoned?
If there's a trap, there's cached safe passage.
Maybe tomorrow, the sudden will come to pass.
If ever so, commit yourself to what will last,
And if you need evidence to lay in your hands,
Then maybe yesterday you forgot what you have.
How can you be alone when unto you is cast
challenge after challenge, lessons you can get past?
From whom gives these problems to you?
To whom lulls sweeter swan songs tuned?
Maybe today,
you will remember the more there is to you.
A quiet evening where memories stood still,
A silent turn, till we meet again,
You the one who has forgotten me
And me, the one still hasn’t.
To me, time stood still,
And in yours, only a trace of regret.
Two hearts aflame, but not ready yet.
Like rain that rose, then stalled its fall.
You didn’t smile,
I could not speak,
But in the silence
everything was said.
We did not cry,
did not embrace,
just passed through each other’s hearts
like echoes fading in a storm.
©Chitra Arun
There lies a land behind the smoke,
Where silence screams and hearts are broke
Where lullabies drown in bombs and drones
And cradles turn to shattered stones
Babies cry with lips so dry
No blood, no milk, no tear left to cry
No schoolbell rings, no hospital stands,
Just bones and ruins buried in the sand
They queue for crumbs and bleed for rice
A bottle of water, the price of life
Each has lost __ be it a child or spouse
a parent, a sibling or a shattered house
Then phosphorus rains on wrecked-out souls
To burn their skin to elevate their pains
And we the modern civilized race
Watch stage 5 famine take its place
What further war-crimes must I define
Palestine bleeds while the world stays blind
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.