Outpace Poems | Examples

Meadow Butterfly

The butterfly, its crimson mottled wings
flitting in the delicate Autumn breeze;
uncurled proboscis taking sweet nectar
from early dawns, newly opened daisies
does not regard the corpses of the men
whose dead eyes ever stare the grass below
fresh attention-seeking meadow flowers.
Men's bodies yet unclaimed, save for ravens
who do outpace the sunshine-seeking flies
and vacillating mothers, sisters, wives
to take an early feast of tongues and eyes.
They watched from high upon a sunlit hill
the eve before, gold sun on flashing blade,
the yet unhacked brawny sinuous limbs
rip through the waves of verdant sweeping green.
And all but them were silent for a while
the wind had stopped, the cawing of the crows,
the crickets chirp, the children's playful laugh,
until the clash of steel on steel on flesh.
The butterfly, its crimson mottled wings
lifted by the delicate Autumn breeze
is taken to a meadow fresh and new.

Something Borrowed

Tick-tock ya can’t rewind
Time doesn’t stop or fall behind
Clock hands cut like a sharpened knife
Time doesn’t lose it runs your life

Born with a cry blink then you're grown
Chasing years you’ll never own
Gold turns gray fast and sly
Can’t outpace it don’t even try

Heroes fall and empires bend
Every story meets its end
Watches shine but they betray
Marking life that slips away

No bribes deals or cheat codes work
Time doesn’t flinch and it won’t shirk
Kings and beggars rich or broke
We all breathe time like secondhand smoke

Tick-tock ya can’t rewind
Time doesn’t stop or fall behind
Clock hands cut like a sharpened knife
Time doesn’t lose don’t let it steal your life

Sweetest Big Puppy Love

“Sweet puppy love he does impart-
          that flows out from his giant heart!”
                                              _by Poet

Our grandson has a very special pet
who's nine months old, and such a loving one!
If you could see him, surely you'd forget
he's still a puppy wanting to have fun!
He might outpace you on a morning run;
then on your lap, he spreads out long and wide.
One hundred pounds already, and not done;
sweet Bernese Mountain Dog stands tall with pride!
But, how big will he get?  I ask myself, wide-eyed.

This Time Around

The world unravels like a threadbare flag—
stitched in whispers, undone by the weight of sky.
You stand accused of love’s ancient crime,
the heart’s embezzlement, the art of leaving.
But who can blame the eternal lover
when the clock rewinds without consent?

The same moon tugs at the hem of the ocean,
the same stars blinking like guilty witnesses,
and here, again, this fragile fabric
of what surrounds us—still stained
from the last time we were here.

To lose you: a wound deep enough
to unseam time itself. I’d rather
see the world collapse into a single moment,
a black hole eating its own memory,
than watch you vanish.

This time, this time:
the hymn repeats itself,
a needle caught in vinyl’s slow suicide.
Even love cannot outpace entropy.

So look around:
a world in doubt is still a world.
A crime committed in the name of love
is still a prayer. And this time around,
we'll call it salvation,
even as it ruins us again.

modern

I used to be blind, how could I not see,
So many shapes around me, changing endlessly.
How beautiful the stars in the sky’s embrace,
The moon swaying gently on its swinging trace.

We don’t understand the speed as it flies,
Engrossed in our daily lives, we don’t realize.
We fail to notice the world turning around,
Like an unshaped jar, without a sound.

We have white ice, while on the other side, flowers bloom,
For life, everyone fights, for hope they resume.
The march of time spins like a spinning thread,
It’s hard to keep up, with the future ahead.

Art and knowledge give much to mankind,
But the ignorant live in their homes confined.
The traveler left behind in the march of the crowd,
Holds a grudge against those who’ve moved ahead.

Those who lag behind are seen as worn and weak,
Those who outpace others, from the rest they sneak.
The best place to be is right in the middle,
For civilization reaches, its hands to the sun’s glitter.

Time tarries not

Time tarries not for anyone,
Still, I can't outpace my shadow.
Forever chasing what’s begun,
Success, in its season, will show.

Not minding little yet achieved,
Time tarries not for anyone.
Though dreams remain still unrelieved,
And countless tasks are left undone.

Old age begins its quiet reign,
The clock moves fast with every tick.
Time tarries not for anyone,
Yet fleeting hours are hard to fix.

Twilight ignites the fading skies,
As shadows chase the sinking sun.
I race along with weary sighs~
Time tarries not for anyone.

Time

Time

Time, how does it exist? Going far?
No, time can not live far, it is time
Hmm, time is not a time, only far

Hmm, time, far, it is moving time
Time does not exist without far
Object living, moving time too far

Time, space, space is the far
Time, can’t be the life in space
I won't get to the end of the space

It’s not possible; the speed of light
The expansion of space is best
I am just a wanderer of time far

How can live in the future?
Must overtake the space in
Speed, outpace expansion

Can we be faster than the universe?
If yes, then the time has gone, as far
As far, forever, life dead; far

Speed of space, then so far
We can not find the real life
Space is faster than our time

We never get forever life
Space faster, light nothing
Get the space? It is dead 
… passed life

Space
Time
Faster?
Together?
Death live

Forever
Life

Running Thoughts

You can never outpace your own thoughts in a race; best is to run alongside them.

You never chose to run, and there was no start gun, forever you will be behind them.

So don't waste your time, little child of mine, running around thinking's race.

Just watch your thoughts run like they have since they begun, and let your mind's legs take a break.

Lamb Chop At the Fair

Lamb Chop really wanted to ride the pink bear
The bear shrugged and said “I don’t care”.
Donkey friend stood on carousel on a dare.
Elephant tried to outpace the solemn bear.

I watched Lamb Chop’s eyes, from my white mare.
She was laughing in earnest, happy with the fair.
Donkey friend brayed, his voice hoarse in the air.
People in the stands turned to stop and stare.

It was the best time ever Lamp Chop said in her lair.
Which was a shoebox under Sherry’s bed, so fair.
The lid was shut, which made my eyes slightly glare
I thought we needed another ride on that pink bear.

The Walker

bedeviled by saucy angels
he takes a twilight walk

behind his eyes
the old world is fading away
left and right
were but one
unclimbable horizon

he quickened his steps
as if fast walking would
outpace the beating of his
homeless heart

as for the tender-hearted angels
they were undressing
always undressing

always demanding
he stay rooted in his earth


if he could

even if he couldn't

Firearm Requiem

(In memory of the 19 children and two adults killed by gun violence in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, 2022…as well as the countless others who have and who will suffer similar fates.)

Firearm Requiem

By Mark Stucky
In the U.S., guns outnumber people
and sales outpace population growth.

Guns under beds.
Guns in closets.
Guns in cars.
Guns in trucks.
Guns in purses.
Guns in holsters.
Guns in forests.
Guns in offices.
Guns in classrooms.
Guns here.
Guns there.
Guns everywhere.
Guns pointing at them.
Guns pointing at me.
Guns pointing at you.

Why let so many fingers on so many triggers?
Why protect guns more than lives of children?
Why choose gun wrongs over gun laws?
Why is America the monarch of mass shootings?

Did gun rights come from Mt. Sinai,
written by God’s own fingers?
Did (not) guns (once again)
make America great(ly pained)?

When will we as a nation
collectively have courage
to save generational blood
and beat guns into plowshares?

(First published in Agape Review, 15 June 2022. See also my poems “Hate Vacuuming” and “Weapons of Wonder.”)

The Long Walk

I can no longer keep up,
your steps far outpace mine. 
My gait is now
barely a notch up 
from a shuffle. My feet ache.
I watch you bound off
into the distance, powering 
yourself towards some set goal
that clicks the kilometers over
until your mark is reached
and you come back.

My distance is meager,
measured within the circumference 
drawn around a seat, 
a vantage point warranting a stop
to take in the view. I sit 
and survey the places I've been
and imagine places where
I would like to go but now,
never will. My thoughts float
the river and ride the tides
going out and then 
coming in. 

We stroll back,
you slowing your stride 
to stay in lock with mine,
the distances we each walk
getting further 
and further apart, 
yet after all this time,
we still arrive home together,
as we did at the start.

Dreams

I know that love is not always
a constant

like aspects of weather, fluctuating by
degrees~ a heart in beat with each
step and direction...

Let us outpace all hate...or else reside
with resentment, where the failure to forgive
and move beyond.... 
                                 The real treasures of living
not found in artificial measures – the sweep of manufactured hands
as if they were blood and soul driven, 

the metal climax of chimes, though 
heaven does hear and count each clang
and ring of her wound man – 

Our dreams alone live outside the illusions
made by sleepers for omnipotent sprinting
free from all borders, an unattended brain 
left in the dust of its liberated mind....

Political Veres

Political verses

They came and looked.
Assaulted the dwellers
We preferred blindness

The winner robs all
Apartheid normalized
Slowly we see horror

They murder the holly.
That insists on surviving. 
The pure outpace evil.

Trains

I stand on a railway platform,
As two black trains come rolling in,
Roaring rapidly o’er the plains.
Braking in clouds of steam and smoke
They stop as if for me to choose.

One has come from out of the East.                     
I’d ride could it outpace the sun
To fresh faces and youthful places.

One has come from out of the West.                     
I’d ride could it outrace the dark
To past faces and former places.

I recall my youth, now long past,
And of the future down the tracks.
But for my route across the plains,
The train I pick will not matter:
Either will move me where I’m bound.

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