Moving On Poems | Examples

List of Member Poems

Premium Member Gum leaf falls

A gum leaf lets go—

            not falling,
                      exactly,

       but trying each wind
               for its name,

                    turning
          green-side,
                         grey-side,

               turning—

                         turning—

                   until the earth
                          lifts
                            to meet it.

Premium Member Shall we see

Time i see it not.' Yet its journey has yet not stopped' if two hundred years were
The span of your days.? You would read
Better, the woes of each age' failing this
Hit the history trail, if more did could have
Less seething, or tantying, or railing  rage.? Look at 1853; 56.' You might get to learn of dark tricks, 1910 a time of Spanish flu, 1914 and a war just grew?  Forty one years untill the second go.' To clear out
fachists is the way it did go.' 1965 we got
Into nam..' right after the Korean one 
damn! con-vid has been and gone
If you were two hundred now you 
would have lived through every, one..Maybe you can see a pattern now, old europe can be a greedy sow, many world leaders, on puppet strings, its not just a theory, things
Turn to similar in our timeframe again, convid has been and gone' old europe eyes Crimea again..For you see a  stratagist, once said who rules there, holds the world, in a 
pillory, Fred or charlie or wally? Or who.? Can't you see
On which foot is the shoe.' I suggest you find out really fast, or your jacksie, might
Get one up it? way too hard' and, quite fast.'

Premium Member Things Lost In Memory Lane

I took a trip on trains and buses thru memory lane.
Tried to find several things there I thought I left behind.
But upon my arrival, I only found I went there in vain.


Premium Member "Verbally Lost In a Loop of Calls of LipService "

Stanza 1
Lost in a loop again,
Where assurances polished,
But actions stay missing. 

Stanza 2
Lost in a loop again,
Hearing lips craft carefully 
Sentences,
That collapse once the room 
ejects.

Stanza 3
Lost in a loop again,
Where apologies come
Pre-packaged,
But accountability never
Conveys.

Stanza 4
Lost in a loop again,
Listening to voices rehearse
Integrity,
Like a script they never intend to perform. 

Stanza 5
Lost in a loop again,
Caught between what they
Say
And what they refuse to do.

Stanza 6
Lost in a loop again,
And the echo becomes a
Warning,
That lip service is just
Another silence.

Premium Member Puppeteer Parade

brainwashed zombie
introvert unawares
unfalteringly spiteful ghost
indulgently reflective queen
ambulate the puppeteer parade


(Weekly Magnetic Poetry Challenge • September 21–27, 2026)

Along the Old Woman’s Pond


I had set out,
meaning to go to the market, 

walking past 
the old woman’s pond. 

Then I thought, 
the market would be crowded, 
full of noise and commotion. 
I would lose myself 
in that throng. 

And so, ever since,
 I have been walking 
only the roads, 
past the old woman’s pond.


Premium Member Speak My Name

For years—
when the soul stars dream and die...
I called it caution:
the way I listened for his footsteps
before entering a room,
the way my thoughts learned
to stand behind my teeth.

In the book of things unsaid
I pressed a leaf—
foliage of farewell—
between two pages,
its red gone brown, its veins
still spelling the road away.

O fall, let this lore of love be the last
command disguised as tenderness.
Let the house forget my silence.
Let the mirror lose his face.

I am the Eyes of Time.

I have watched a tree survive
every season of being stripped
and still keep its roots.

neither dusk nor dawn can delude me:
the leaf of life sleeps upon my lips...
but when I speak my name,
it rises into the wind.

Premium Member The Dance Of Life

What is a ripple without its rhythm?
Ripples and rhythm fashion life
Together like a pulsing heart
Rippling with the magic flow
Caught in rhythm like the beat
Flowing, swirling, with ups and downs
Creeping along with measured steps
A team of joined togetherness-
The Dance of Life goes rolling on.

Premium Member Death I Do Not Fear

If I should die
Before the dawn, overcome
by a morbid scene.  Rise up!
My soul – step to the Light!
And the brighter dream heart 
Keeps.  Caged men may be subjects
Of time, forced to obey and
Bend, but the spirit once freed minds 
No such rules, will love where it
Wants~ or offend. So, laid down I may be – cleaned,
Drained and perfumed—beyond then, life’s hurtful
Rhetoric~ nevermore be gloomed.

Premium Member Moving On 3


A grandson said to his grandfather,
"Grandpa, it is said that sometimes
'No' does not mean 'No'.   It is said
That sometimes 'No' means, 'Don't
Give up on pursuing me, but come
After me more'.

And he also said, "Grandpa, one time
I saw a sign that read, ' Don't accept a
'No' until you have heard it twice'.

In reply to his grandson, the grandpa
Said, "Well, son, I don't know about
Such 'No's' as you refer.  I only know
That I was taught, 'Yes' means 'Yes',
And 'No' means 'No".  Anything beyond
That could lead to confusion".

The grandpa further stated, "That doesn't
Mean that I do not sometimes continue
Knocking on closed doors.  But it does
Mean that principally speaking, for more
Than 60 years, I have known when to move on."

The Basel Accord of 1499

The autumn wind of fourteen- 
ninety- nine
Blew over Basel in a crisp, sharp
line,
Where Swabian battles found their
silent close,
And from the ash, a sovereign 
peace arose.

On twenty-second days of that 
September chill,
The ink was dried, the clashing
swords were still.
The Holy Empire loosed its ancient
hold,
As Swiss resolve was etched in lines 
of gold.

The treaties signed, the mountain 
cantons free,
To chart their course of armed
neutrality.
While far away, across the shifting 
deep,
Old empires woke from centuries of
sleep.

The month drew closed, the 
modern world awake,
With every bond the Swiss had
dared to break.
A second half of autumn, fierce and 
grand,
That drew the borders of a fearless 
land.

What do you do?

How far can someone be pushed to the edge before they just jump
Self sabotage everything because you always feel your not enough 
Walking on glass around others and understanding their pain but when it comes to yourself no one does the same
How far can someone go walk the miles in someone else's shoes
Before you  forget you're someone else too
How much can you feel for someone else before you start breaking down
Is it your own emotions or just watching someone else drown
When you put in for someone else and give them the crown, but you get the scraps and try to keep them down
What does it mean when you lose yourself and you left it somewhere along the way and start to feel numb and it just never goes away
What do you do when your stepping on glass and hope it doesn't cut 
Do you walk down the line or do you stop..

The Secret Screening

Two years ago, our story closed,
Yet you lingered in the margins.

Two months ago, in a darkened theatre,
You held my hand like a secret kept,
A love hidden from another love.

I thought it was a return,
But it was only a hiding place —
You wanted the comfort of my yesterday,
While promising someone else tomorrow.

Today, I no longer check the stars for us,
I check my own worth.
And it whispers back, clear and calm:

I deserve more than a love shown in the dark.
I deserve a love that can stand in the light.

Let Time Steep 26-08-2026

Tea must blossom in the water
before its deepest flavour can emerge;
perhaps the heart is much the same-
we suffer less when we learn to let go.

But the longer the tea is steeped,
the more bitter it becomes.
And the more we turn a thought over,
the more tears that it can bring.

Yet bitter tea is not always unpleasant 
and tears do not always mean sorrow.
Sometimes a cup grows darker
only because it has been given time
to become what it had always meant to be.

Steep it once, and it will be strong.
Steep it again, and it will soften.
Maybe people are like that too:
what hurts when held so tightly
will begin to loosen, inch by inch
when given time to breathe.

We do not ask the first cup 
to be the most pleasant.
Nor should we demand ourselves
to wash away a heavy sadness
in a single moment.

Let it steep.

Let the days be water.
Let the heart slowly open
Let what is too bitter today
become gentler with time.

Some things are not meant 
to be rushed away-
they are meant to 
slowly
dissolve.

Can I ask you something

Yesterday you asked me if I was coming back
The birds went silent
The wind hid behind the trees
And time stopped dead in its tracks
As you.
And everything around us awaited a response
I was nowhere near ready to give
My face held a puzzled expression as we kept walking
I forced the air out from my lungs
Unsure of the right way to say no
So I said “Maybe”
Time went back to chasing the sun
And the birds started singing again
As I whispered to the wind
“I'm never coming back”

Moving On Categories

Definition | What is Moving On in Poetry?

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.

Related Poetry Forms

past, present, future, lost love, love hurts, i'm over you,

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