Life Narrative Poems | Examples
These Life Narrative poems are examples of Narrative poems about Life. These are the best examples of Narrative Life poems written by international poets.
(“Citadel of Light Merit Badge”, 2016, original pen and ink)
Battle For Your Mind
We live in a time of upheaval and change,
Challenge and war,
But the biggest battle
Is what some call “jihad”
An internal struggle of light and dark
As a soul makes their way along the path.
But along with the esoteric jihad
There is the exoteric, external struggle for your soul,
And battle for your mind,
A battle between the Death-eaters
And the Life-givers.
In this battle of temptation
Desertion is always an option,
And as many times as we may vacillate
What matters most is where we finally settle.
And in an infinite universe
On a timeline of eternity,
As Led Zeppelin said,
You can always change the road you’re on.
But once we know how it will end
Then the momentary ups and downs
Cannot confuse and distract us.
This is the Path of Seeing
The path of no return
The warrior path
In the battle for your mind.
(9/16/25)
Observing driving factors of world influence, i note the word 'road-map?'
Also percentages and interest methods
In banking..The value of such against
Pure human values.' And are big buisness
Involved in major and macro developments?
I leave the reader to draw their own
Conclusions.?
(“Creation Myth Merit Badge”, 2016, original oil)
Death Cult In Our Midst
There is a death cult in our midst
Some you can tell, many you can’t
Until they open their mouths
And out comes the hate for Life
And cheering on of Death.
Everywhere you look you can see the cult
Online, on TV, in movies and games
Where death and destruction
Is glorified and normalized
And you score points and win
When you kill.
The line between fantasy and reality
Thus blurred and/or erased
Leaves US where we are today
Broken and divided
Fearful and emboldened.
What does tomorrow bring?
More death
The cult dreams, whispers, chants and sings.
More death
Until only the pure remain.
(9/15/25)
Call it karma, call it fate, call it destiny
There is a force unseen that blows our course.
And yet as we roll and tumble
We wish to be free
And so resist
Shake our fists in defiance of the gods
And innovate, invent and imagine our way
Into a better life.
But still we suffer pains and dissatisfactions
With every up and down,
Still we roll and tumble
Along the path of our destiny.
But the spark of freedom catches and glows
As we feel it is our right to be “Me!”
My body my choice, my mind my choice
My life to be self-determined…
As the path divides and turns
Into a broad tangled delta
Before the sea.
Where does it all end? We don’t know
But we can see
The desire to be our own gods of destiny
Unleashes every possibility
From Pandora’s transhuman box of demons
In our lust to just be me.
(9/15/25)
(“The Night Sky”, 2014, original oil)
Lila, at Play
The world conforms to the wishes of those in it
Not necessarily to what we want
But certainly to what we need
Mirror-like in reflecting all we bring
Yielding to all we project.
And so cultures throughout history
Create their own world view paradigms
For the next to build on
Or tear down.
The modern world is still the age of reason
Ruled by logic and mechanical processes,
But it hasn’t always been so
And it won’t always be so.
The world as it is
Conforms, mechanically or playfully
And that depends on us.
I don’t know about you,
But all things being equal,
I’d rather live in a playful world,
Not one devoid of reason
And immersed in magic and mystery,
But one in playful balance.
Where plants can talk and animals listen
Where sunlight heals and sings
Its ancient song
Weaving lattice bridges
To distant stars
Across time and space, mind and matter,
Linking then and now, us and them
Together.
(9/14/25)
A soft wind whispers
early September.
The year is passing
and you are closed
for good.
You were more
than brick and mortar—
You had a heart.
Now you rest in shadows
in the downtown.
You still bear the voices
of those who came in
for a burger or a drink
also playing video games
or sports.
I still hold in my heart
how you cared for
the servers working
their way through college.
They were the dearest friends.
But mostly I remember
the Friday nights when
I stood on the dining porch
and you urged me to sing.
I still hear the applause.
I still hold dear the night
when I painted a waterfall
while nursing a drink
in your loft.
O how a blank canvas came to life.
Each morning the sun shines
but your lights are off.
Sparrows dance in the sidewalk
and chatter by the front steps.
But as I drive and take a look
I sing my song for you.
A Meeting With Amitabha
On my way to meet with Amitabha
The Buddha of infinite light,
I ponder my life, my place in the world
Its trajectory, and my mortality.
Who is it that dies? What is it that goes on?
And where is this infinite light not found?
We all die, but how we do it
Makes all the difference.
They say how we live is how we die,
And so if this gives any solace
As we live our life, directly knowing what that is,
We get a glimpse what our death will be like.
The beauty though of being alive
While we are alive
Is we can always change its trajectory.
And so I head out to meet the Buddha Amitabha
As he sits resting, ever peaceful,
In his infinite light.
(9/13/25)
Life is full of steps and stages
As we learn what it is to be alive.
And every stage is marked
By the recognition that we were wrong
About what it is we now know.
Like a box within a box
Or nesting Russian dolls
Continually we open onto a new world
A new level of understanding.
We talk of insects and crustaceans
Reptiles and amphibians shedding their skin
But we do it too, just more subtly and subjectively,
And as more evolved beings, continuously.
What is it we shed besides old dead skin?
Old dead ideas, outgrown, outlived
Making way for the new
Slowly changing the programmed self
Into a newer version, gradually adjusting
Our identity
With software updates
That continually need the bugs worked out.
When does this all end?
Never, Life says
With every new layer of skin.
(9/13/25)
There is a party of hate and you are invited
If fact it’s an open invitation
But everyone seems to leaving
Everyone that is tired of hate and death.
The party of hate meanwhile
Revels in the death of others
The death of their own
And the death of those to come.
It makes up policies like soft on crime
And defund the police
Which only leads to more death
Especially of children and minorities,
But that is what the party wants
To further its goal of systemic victimhood.
These are modern day sacrifices
To the gods of change
Made with hate in their heart
But fear in their mind,
Fear that they may be wrong,
May have it all wrong
That hate and death is better than love and life.
Of course they are wrong
And they know this
Because as long as they are alive
There is still a seed of love in their heart.
(9/12/25)
But yes, I tell my muse, we will be together until the end
She is relieved, having spent so much time fixing me
Correcting me, inspecting me, subjecting me to her will.
I am seventy-three as of yesterday, so I know she was worried.
Wondering if I was done; I am not seasoned, I am old.
I refuse to admit this, dying my hair burgundy, wearing go-go boots.
Poetry is my fourth hobby, but it is a part of my soul now.
My self-inflicted goal is ten poems a day.
I have been able to meet this goal for five years now.
But yes, I say to my muse. No worries.
You will be with me until my hands and head no longer move
And my brain figures out where we go after this earth life.
Old Man
(for Pema)
The older I get the more I feel I fade away.
It’s not a bad thing it’s just what is
As old friends die off one by one
While others just drift away
And the passions I once knew
Become nothing more than a lingering scent.
Maybe it takes too much effort
To do or feel anything more,
Maybe it’s simply having done that
And been there so many times before.
Eventually even the joyous play
Of dogs or children
Only remind me how tired I am,
Tired but still happy
With an inward glow
Of appreciation for the Life that flows
Within me and without me.
(9/8/25)
we came up same building,
same busted elevator, same rumors in the walls —
three girls stacked on top of each other
like secrets whispered through radiator pipes.
6S - she’s half rican, half black,
but don’t call her half - she all attitude,
dark skin glowing when she laughs too loud,
hips slick like she dancing with nobody’s permission.
5E - 5’1 and built like a threat,
she got a stare that’ll stop you mid-lie.
she hate surprises, so we never sneak up -
she come knocking first if you do her wrong.
then me - 7N, freckles spread like stars on light skin,
red-brown hair tied up, book in my lap,
content to stay inside while they chase block heat.
they pull me out anyway - stoop nights, corner gossip,
big dreams that don’t always fit our pockets.
we so different it make no sense -
three girls shaped like soft rebellion,
like hard lessons, like love
that never needed no permission slip.
puberty tried to twist us up,
boys tried to break us open,
life threw her worst
and we just leaned closer -
me, yaphia, tarita - same building girls,
same busted elevator,
still going up.
My mind has become a hoarder’s paradise
As I have gotten older, fat and lazy.
All that I gather collects
Along the halls, across table tops
On every available surface.
Eventually only narrow pathways remain
Through the labyrinth,
Pathways I traverse daily
As I shuffle back and forth
On my habitual ways.
This is the anatomy of a mind calcifying,
Layers and layers of thought and memory
Cemented accretions which then erode
Into the walls of my labyrinth.
Somewhere at the center
I know there is a garden still untouched
By the clutter of this life,
Complete with eye bright centaur
Chiron on his grassy knoll.
Knowing it’s always there
Is all the solace I need.
(9/7/25)
God created the earth
Grounding connects you to the earth
Garlic grows from the ground
Incorporate these 3 and explore the difference, experience wellness and embrace the change within your mind, body and life. I’m just saying.
Fear of the Outsider, the interloper, the alien
Is as old as humanity itself.
Xenophobia doesn’t just apply to someone foreign
And “not like us”,
It applies to anyone who may threaten
Our way of life, the status quo, the norm
And way “it’s always been.”
From local bar to climbing crag, surfing beach,
Ghetto corner, and Union shop floor,
The locals, sometimes multigenerational deep,
Tend to claim their turf
With the worst of human qualities;
Fear and loathing
Sublimated into snide ostracism,
Backstabbing gossip and withering looks
If not fully expressed with seething hate
Slander, bullying and assault.
Meanwhile life goes on for the Xeno
Head down, eyes averted, pathways diverted,
While in their heart
They recognize the love their haters have
For their cherished way of life and ground
Is not exclusive
And no different from their own.
(9/6/25)