Formative Poems | Examples

Nothing Is New

“Nothing is new
under the sun!” Sorry,
can’t buy that! Man ill fated then, to
dog-paddle eternally in pools of mediocrity -- never
destined to attain higher pinnacles of physical, 
spiritual development? – cursed to always relive the
same themes, patterns; to struggle with repetitive
developmental flaws, manifesting as both inner and outer
soul corruption...rejecting unique
new arrangements, by refusing to alter
programmable psychic disks? – not 
capable of exploring the possibility of an evolving 
trans-formative mind, with an equally capable feeling heart…

Were I to accept any of this, I would never
write another word of poetry….

SIGNIFICANCE

an
  instinctive
       voice
of
   formative
         lyricism
with
warmth
      &colour

extensive
  reflective
      phrasing
exemplified
with
wistful
  nostalgia

blissful
   echoes
of
introspection
in
   waves
      of 
        comptemplation

When The Lights Go Down

In their formative
moments
artists live alone
Sharing themselves
only when
the pain has dulled

In corners
of dark musings  
their spirit’s hide
Calling out  
whenever the lights go down
— and the rush is gone

(The New Room: May, 2025)

children are parental pawns

Parental perimeters
Rules upon rules
Encage their helpless children
Who have no other life guides
Until the formative years are over

Children are parental pawns
Humans without power
Creatures with no rights
No say so, stuck in cages
At the mercy of parents who have all the power

A Hollow Place

(“A Moment of Grace aka The Empty Mirror”, 2024, original encaustic)

A Hollow Place

Sometimes it seems that who I am
Is nothing more than the dripping sediments
At the edges of a hollow cave
All the stalactites and stalagmites
Of a lifetime of experience
Calcified into a personality.
I may fool myself and even others sometime
With the wonders these shapes create
But in truth they are the mere dregs
Of all those formative years.
And what I’m really left with
When all the lights are out
And all the visitors gone 
Is just the hollow place inside.

(11/24/24)

Three sides to every story

both mother and father nurture
their child in his formative years
but though all three live in one home 
starkly different are their fears

the breeze, the tree and Mother Earth
take a selfie through cracks in time
yet each applauds its charisma
feeling within, a unique chime

that we be as He, God shapes us
soul eternal, awash with light
which when distanced from source becomes 
a feeble form crouching in fright

subject, object and the force field
each imprint their footprints in space 
which is the eternal witness
of dance of release and embrace

which attribute to us is dear
choose from love, wisdom and power
melding with the void, feel complete
with God’s grace that doth empower

When Children Play

When children play,
Imagination, their fast friend,
takes them on grand adventures.

Adults observe their little ones, 
cherishing those formative times
when children play.

Kids become heroes
when they join hands with
Imagination, their fast friend.

Let’s encourage kids
to use Imagination, which
takes them on grand adventures.

Wisdom

Wisdom is trusting the Lord,
Must be with all of the heart.
Wisdom comes from the Lord,
Must ask Him if I am to have.

Wisdom births humility,
It is worth more than pure gold.
Wisdom brings a love for life,
Cherish it with all your being.

Wisdom teaches tongues to speak right,
And bids right actions toward others.
Wisdom fills conversation with grace,
Seasons our words with godly salt.

Wisdom is found among the aged,
Long life brings understanding.
Wisdom is beyond earthly value,
Though it may cost all, get it.

Back in my early days,
Thought I knew it all,
But my knowledge wasn’t filled,
With wisdom from the Lord.

If I knew back then in my formative years,
What I know today or even a fraction,
Would I have been a better person,
Would I have been more responsible?

Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.
Grant me wisdom for today, Lord.
It’s Yours to hold or bestow,
For wisdom is Your gift, not my reward.

Relativity

Time clearly moves faster as we age
(as we slow down and the years accumulate),
for the simple reason that each unit becomes smaller
relative to our life.

At one year’s old that year makes up 100% of our experience,
while at four it becomes 25%,
at fifty 2%, and at one hundred just 1%...
And so life races on, an avalanche of sorts
of all we have accumulated.

It’s simple math,
but just as our situational awareness places our body in space
(and thus helps us drive, as the car becomes an extension of us)
so are we placed in time
by all the years contained in our body-mind.

And yet, inversely as we age there is less of us to go around
less of our neural net to spare for new experiences and memories,
and so those of our youth remain formative 
sometimes larger-than-life
while the present as we age become ever more fleeting
insignificant even, to the point of senility.

So, life goes on, within us and without us,
and our experience of it speeds up as we slow down
(and so correlatively slows as we speed up);
Einstein had a simple theory about this
which maybe came from just observing his life.

(10/30/23)

Essence a Freed Verse

ESSENCE
 in a
 gift for telling
details
 be it
 the
connotations
of expressions
or
 found
in a  fresh
approach
of formative or
 imagining
so extraordinary
&
personal
with
 an especial
 sense of society
in  an
amazing array
of different
backgrounds

striving
 penetrating
 insight
reveal
a dynamic change
 in
 an inevitably
 different turn
increasingly with
an alternative
canon
 expectant
of vivid
 change
to
depict
&  picture
 the consummate

Swordmaster

I was the age when your parents give you and your siblings all the same haircut. The same age when you first discover the joy of smashing dandelions, a formative time for any child. I preferred clapping my hands around each flower, prying my sweaty palms apart, slow as a secret, to reveal each white stalk I caught. My sister, however, with our bowl cut bangs shifting with effort, preferred the stick. She was a swordmaster, a force with dead branches, a miracle to me. In a matter of seconds, twenty dandelions decapitated with eight-year-old grace. Their lithe, skinny green bodies fell to the earth as their soft skulls filled the air like snow on a summer afternoon.

Bully - the Formative Years

The phase 
Amazed 

Went those 
Days dazed

Childhood 
Escaped

Those days
Bullies

Pushed me 
I learned

I pushed 
Back up!

Shut up!
Fist fight

Fury
And might 

Fought back
Tender 

Fear years

My Third Eye Was Watching

my consciousness removed 
picking me up from the floor 
where my emotions became 
a formative liquid gliding down 
my limbs i awakened to your 

false promises false doctrines 
I opened mine eyes to blindness 
covenant secrets i opened my 
third eye exposing your untimely fate 
you plotted for me i never admired 

the unseen the invisible i truly needed 
to remain naive to your wild uncanny 
empty gestures I saw you rattling my 
innermost peace I moved over aimlessly 
only to discovery I'd awakened to self 

eyes wide open my third eye 
vibrant aware an yet I chose to 
indulge you in false pretense 
losing myself again into the 
channels of disbeliefs simply 

to believe you were real 
knowing full well you were 
an empty space a glance 
on my journey to peace 
I saw you there again

Change

CHANGE
everyone
  aware but
overlooked

everywhere
fees
the change

tearing the air
showcasing
the contemporary
 to amplify
the  chosen
commissioned
 specialist  &
supportive of the
 conscience
so dedicated

an effort
so
 richly rewarded
catalysing
interest
in
a change in
attitude
 acclaimed &
claim a
 rich heritage

an awareness
 in new contexts
into a realm of
the
 nuanced exotic
 perspective
 stepping into
the formative&
 curious

NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE   using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.

Answering To Please An Ear

“Did you understand The Narrative?”
And I answered in The Affirmative.
But it was a lot sugared and inventive,
What should’ve been kept and left ‘Native’
For a society still Helplessly Conservative
With her applause for stories of The Summative …

“And did you enjoy The Narrative?”
I made sure I said ‘Delicious’ in a voice penetrative 
But in my mind had A Crying Alternative
I thought worth treating as Imperative
For our Youths in the eye stared by The Formative
And often dying to appear assertive …

The Understood and Enjoyed Narrative
I knew I wouldn’t delay its purgative, 
All these while answering to an ear please
And clogged nostrils deny a sneeze.

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