Nostalgia Poems | Examples

A Triad of Tanka X: The Brooding Moorland

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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The Perfume Bottle

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

To The Brim Rimas Dissolutas

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.

we wanted Farrah Fawcett cut

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.

The-Sound-Of-Static

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?

Percussion Maintenance

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.

Color In Your Fingers

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.

The Perfume Bottle

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...

More Than A Soft Toy

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.

Nana's Perfume

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.

Dad's radio

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

Monsoon passion when spells

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?
_____________________________    
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 ||

Spring season when spells

Sweet-scented breeze when wafts around,
A thrilled Koyal breaks into song,  
On tree branches fresh sprouts abound, 
On her face, love-making gone long,
Pearly sweat beads do when alight,
To whom would a scene not delight?
_______________________________  
Translation (sestet*) | 33.08.2025 | spring, night, delight, nightingale, nostalgia
*Wonder, if it can be called a Sestetto Rima-- iambic meter with a rhyme scheme of ABABCC.

Note: Here is a verse (in Harini meter) from Bhartrihari’s Shringaara Shatakam (hundred verses on love and romance). The poet paints here a picture of a spring season in full spell: when fragrance wafts around, tender sprouts surround, a Koyal sings, sweat beads alight from her face from prolonged coitus, who’d not get delighted? Here is the transliteration of the Sanskrit verse:

Parimala amrtah vatah shakha nava-ankura-kotayo,
Madhura-viruta-utkantha vachah priyah pika pakshinam |
Virala surata sveda-udgara vadhu-vadana-indavah,
Prasarati madhau ratryam jatah na kasya guna-udayah || 37 ||

The Texture of Time

Pebbles in the stream
water carves their jagged skins
grinding them to smooth
time's current erodes all forms
each grain spilled feeds entropy

Age carves us rougher—
wrinkles, fissures, furrows spread,
chaos marks the skin;
it knurls the gnarled into grips
that drags daylight into night

For a rock, a tree
disorder unfolds; same way
each form cracked to dust
on path worn to final ash
as time decays, all texture

1410 Contest 3rd Place

I can recall moments now lost in time,
Long before meeting, I knew you were mine.

• Short Nostalgia Poems
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Poems Related to Nostalgia

longing, sentimentality, remorse, yearning, homesickness, reminiscence, schmaltz, wistfulness, pining, fond memories, hearts and flowers, tear jerker,