Forgetting The Past
This is the most difficult task everyone finds hard to do
From the lessons we learn down to the things we go through
Do we look back to review the things we never want to repeat
Or do we look back because its hard to move on after a defeat
Moving forward should always
fade the memory of the past
Reminiscing isn't something to motivate the present to last
Do we fear our dreams because of our past nightmares
We're going revisit shadows of the past so be prepared
Life is about not expanding on the bad but making corrections
People walk steady taking steps in a new direction
Who could drive forward while looking through a rearview mirror
How do you expect the view of your future to become any clearer
Forgetting the past means not looking behind
Its pressing the play button instead of pressing rewind
The candle trembles in the draft
shadows stretching like whispered secrets.
A single heartbeat fractures the dark
and stars lean closer to listen.
Even the silence carries it still:
we once had our light.
Positively Preposterous Puckheads...STILL!!!
Boy! They sure don't drive no Coupe DeVille.
My wife dragged me here against my will,
I just, Touched Down! in Palookaville!
Her Uncle Buck, buck-teethed and busted bunions,
Always smelled just a bit like onions.
He'd cuss me out while eating Funyuns!
Yep, that Codger's one big Curmudgeon!
Aunt Tildy, wore garters with lace tassels,
Bought lavender soap by the passels!
Had dreams of Knights at White Castles,
And she tells my wife, I'M the ASSLE!
Cousin Clem, I call him "Phlegm," ain't right in the head!
He's thirty-five! and still wets the bed!
And his folks still wonder why he's not wed!
I don't care what that Doctor Phil said!
Last, but not least, is that beast they call Boo!
That cur must be older than...Twenty-Two!
And bowels!...Man, that mutt sure could poo!
As luck would have it...he spackled my shoe!
Damn! Sun's setting, they're sweating, and I'm stuck here...STILL!!!
Oh Lord, please send me that Coupe DeVille!
I might as well start writing my will!
There's "Nightmares Galore" here in Palookaville!
The brooding moorland
Is windswept and desolate...
And gives nothing back.
In this vast, hushed upper-land...
A very dreadful beauty!
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Inside that wide void...
A resounding emptiness
Which fills the whole sky.
For never greater volume
With such solitude than here.
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Strange, shrill calling birds
Above the rippling heather;
Their ragged shadows
Buoyed up on combing waves
Pushed out with each surge of wind.
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My fiancés' stone, ten years- she lost her life
Wish that she can hear me, yet well I know
And yet, in time, she would have been my wife
I grant I couldn't bear to watch her go
Do I think I shall e'er forget her scent
The vastness of my love, has yet, fused thine
And still, the ring I bought her, was ne'er meant
For this, a life of sadness, belongs- to mine
Served thy soul, unwelcoming-sordid boon
Rose odors- from her perfume bottle, still
Keeping my memories of her in tune
Glimpses of her smiles flash, ere- she fell ill
Kept inside my armoires' safe, ten long years
Her perfume bottle, overflows- with tears
Filled to the brim with old papers,
recipes, pencils, who knows what.
Manuals I should have thrown out,
that food menu I lost last year.
Black hole for kitchen escapers,
do you think old scissors still cut?
This cracked magnet lying about
is still a cherished souvenir.
Nostalgia in a large amount,
I wonder what else is in here.
in the seventies we all wanted to look like Farrah Fawcett of course
She was a gorgeous blonde actress, her smile was a heavenly force.
We ran to the hairdressers to get the Farrah Fawcett cut.
None of us looked like her, so the cut was kind of a bust.
That soft whir that hums away
Holds my heart with so much sway
It slips me to a bygone day
Now digital decay
Those nights when it could be heard
I never noticed when it whirred
But now i’d find my heart stirred
To remember how the white noise purred
At night, while my mind goes on
I realize that the noise is gone
When did it fade with the dawn
Will I follow it into the beyond?
Where is the sound of static?
In the cramped font room we’d sit and stare
At the telly on the blink needing care.
With a slap on its head,
While the cussing instead
Was more entertaining than the fair.
A sketchbook from back then
was stained with abstract colors
like our ten fingers
why didn't we arrange bright colors back then?
black, blue, and white
mixed together without a basis
I remember very well
how the pattern was ultimately
ruined by the darkness
while you labored
on your own sketch
and I only knew a little about that fetish
We grew like shoots
far away from the colors back then
like a line that had been etched
sometimes we disappeared
I still live with bangs on my forehead
exactly the same as back then
and you still like classic cars?
maybe we've only gone a few steps
Count 20, open eyes
ahh, that's just a coincidence
I still scold Wednesday
but you look good
with those stripes
Sometimes you give in
waiting for me to run awkwardly across
you strummed that music
making me confused
guessing your dream last night
but you were far more confused
because you didn't say anything
Do you still remember
the flaw in my eye?
While I was still writing poetry
I seemed to be starting to forget the calm
shape of your Adam's apple
when you drew black lines on our sketch.
On my dresser rests a bottle of glass
its angle still holding the light like water.
The stopper breathe when raised
and the air loads with her absence.
A breath of jasmine, faint but faithful,
returns me to the nights I waited
for the sound of her heels on the stair
her perfume arriving before her voice.
Now the bottle is nearly empty
yet one drop carries whole worlds:
laughter folded into nightfall rooms,
a touch that lingers longer than flesh.
Brittle as yesterday, constant as devotion
it reveals how a soul can remain
in the echo of fragrance alone
resting quietly where light cannot fade...
Your fur is worn thin now,
patches where love pressed too hard,
but to me you were never just a toy -
you were the voice of courage
when the dark grew too loud.
I held you like a secret shield,
breathing into your sewed ear
the worries I dared not share with my mother.
You guarded them in silence,
never speaking a word
but somehow - I always slept easier.
In daylight you became a friend
sailing ships across blankets,
chasing clouds across the plaster sky,
celebrating every victory
in make-believe wars you alone could prove
Even now,
you linger on my shelf,
a gentle witness that love
is stitched to last
beyond the years.
Tea bags and wet dog, crossword ink on fingertips.
Chocolate biscuit wrappers, garden pond algae.
Hairspray that held those curly grey locks in place. Regal.
Scents mixed and shaken,
ground and stirred – a dusting of her
that wafts through air like a time
machine, shuttling me back to a
bowling alley, a country show digging
up worms. A couch that belched
stories when sat on. Vegetable broth.
I’d bottle it. I’d use it sparingly.
Red carpet occasions only.
Or for our backyard patio boardgames.
I look back at my dad's radio
Shuffling through the channels
Cause the signal is too weak
But my dad will wait in awe
When the presenter starts off at the top of the hour
You'd see my dad fixed in his stool
Still to get to hear the nation address
The words of hope he hopes to hear
It's been many decades now but he's still keen
He's never wavered in what the country could be
And he's served it well
Like a true statesman, he put his family first
The radio brought together the whole village
It's where the hearts converged
And drummed all through the hour
Before the drums kept beating from a distance
That radio has seen the best of the years
From the regimes that got us out of houses to cheer on
To regimes that made it possible for kids to get an education
To the one who built futuristic roads
I bought him a new radio
But it doesn't sound like the old one
But he's eager to turn it on
And not miss the news
The PO£T
Sky when with dense clouds abound,
Seeing which peacocks dance around
On tender-green-dress-bedecked a hill,
In such a stirring scene, love-bound,
Which wayfarer wistful would not feel?
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Translation (Quintain) | 34.08.2025 | monsoon, Nature, passion, peacock, nostalgia
Note: Here is a verse (in Arya meter) from Bhartrihari’s Shringaara Shatakam (hundred verses on love and romance). Spring was dealt with in the preceding verse. The poet now paints a picture of monsoon: dark clouds surround; excited, peacocks dance; the earth is bedecked with a lush green dress; a traveller longing for conjugal bliss, feels homesick. Here is the transliteration of the verse in Sanskrit:
Upari ghanam ghana-patalam tiryak
girayo api nartita mayurah |
Kshitih api kandala dhavala
drashtim pathikah kva yapayatu || 47 ||
Specific Types of Nostalgia Poems
Definition | What is Nostalgia in Poetry?
Poems Related to Nostalgia
longing, sentimentality, remorse, yearning, homesickness, reminiscence, schmaltz, wistfulness, pining, fond memories, hearts and flowers, tear jerker,