#retrospection poems on Hello Poetry

K Balachandran Dec 2015

The wound
though old
and hence
looked closed,

the pain
it caused
was quite
obtrusive,
even after
all those
years, were
somehow
left behind,
oblivious of
the misery
it created.

Couldn't leave
it like that,
insistent pain
made to decide at last,
when it was
opened again
memories
sprayed out
copiously, like
dark, coagulated blood,
never before seen.
Then, fresh blood
started to ooze
as if reluctant
to close the wound,
unable to forget
emotions that are
made to sleep
anesthetized.

#pain #loss #emotions #retrospection

Shefali Garg Nov 2015

The Beginning

Heavy-hearted though warm I feel
The skies are high,painted in teal
I am weak, Tyro with spirits at peak
Time has come to leave the nest
Steal the sights...fly high my best!

Flap the wings,may the mood swings
Light up...cheer up...be alive!
Wind may oppose ,its my first flight.
Face the thunders..don't let it rain
Do hold the clouds till energy drains.

My wings are heavy, want a break
Perch of memories, I may fall prey
A moment to live,rest I don't care
Now I am tired,and I am sane
Soon I will fly my home again.

#love #passion #memories #success #retrospection #weaknesses #outset #tenacity

Mel Harcum Jan 2015

Hannah

How alike--both born in Bergen County
among mansions and stone-lined yards,
but my childhood had been framed with lace,
yours a light bulb broken before tasting electricity.

My mother called me your “moral compass.”
My sister said I kept you from disappearing--
as if you were born from leftover ashes
smearing the stone hearth black

as the nights we’d lie awake and you’d
asked me what color to repaint your bedroom
and how to talk to that boy from your class.
You insisted I spend every night at your house.

Sometimes, we’d race our fourwheelers wild,
I always lost, far behind you--and further still
when you found that skin-and-bone crowd with
*****-stained clothes, their teeth and eyes

yellow as their cigarette-tarred fingertips
and when they stumbled near, I smelled
breath foul as the stench of a mouse
dead in my car’s engine--slowly burning out.

for Hannah

#death #alcohol #drugs #friendship #guilt #cigarettes #reflection #responsibility #retrospection #bergencounty

Shruti Chakraborty Sep 2014

Experiences

As they say
Words fall short to describe experiences.
Photographs are still pixels away
From being a reflection
Of one's memory -
A refracted reflection,
Of the experience itself.
So what about hopes
To capture, treasure memories for this lifetime?
What about people
Who love to imagine,
And spend their lives
Living on memories
Of those imagined sights,
Scenes, smells and people?

How much more real is our world from theirs', I wonder.

#life #memories #imagination #reality #experiences #retrospection

Shruti Chakraborty Aug 2014

There are Times

There are Times

When I am
Groping at the vapours
Of nothingness
Hoping to churn out
Life and hope from it,
(With a desperation
That makes me feel
As though I were
strangling emptiness itself.)

There are Times

When I wish with all my might
(Believing for just that dead moment
that my thoughts are powerful indeed.)
That the concrete reality
Would crumble and melt
into nothingness.

There are Times

When I remember
That it's darkness
Staring at me in the eyes
[Threatening me or encouraging me,
I know not.]
And I shut my eyes
To crawl within
The cold comfort of familiarity
That I first meant to escape.

There are Times

When I seek to
Merge into a shadow
As the gust of Light,
Having shot out
From unseen corners and walls of impasse
Now straining its eyes at me
Sears and sieves through
The dust of opaque fear
Settled since long before I was born.

There are Times

When I realise, a truth
Shall not be uttered by me
Not the right time,
How do you set a time for truth?

There are Times

When I must not let
The truth run amok
Lest it wreaks havoc.

P.S. / Epilogue

Don't tell me that you
Have already forgotten
That there were times,
You did not know
Or even want to know
What you wanted to do, or
What you ought to have done.

There are times when we seek hope, in the form of an opportunity, a person who could guide us, without realising that the only person at that juncture to help us, would be our own self. But there's a constant wait for (Godot?) something to change things, as if trying to make the universe say that we were in an unfair place that could not be helped, and only a definite pattern or turn of situations would give meaning to one's life. The manifestation cannot be, prior to the determination.

There are times when the opportunity doesn't merely knock at your door but stays put like a silent comrade waiting for you to pack your bags, so it can bring you to a new dimension of you yourself. Many a time, our fear stifles us, overriding the striving that seemed hope enough till now, only to bring things back to status quo.

There are times when one feels that one needs to take a stand, make his/her voice heard, to try and bring a halt to something that shouldn't happen, and is happening, yet. But circumstances spell out a different path altogether, and then we are faced with situations where we'd rather not let something be known to everyone, because it would do more harm than good. What is the truth, then?

#poetry #truth #fear #life #hope #thoughts #learning #retrospection #dilemma

Shruti Chakraborty Aug 2014

The Blame Game

Sometimes I think the situation's wrong
To then severe the blame from myself
Almost as though it were a part of me,
Thinking absolving oneself is a crime in itself,
All the while.
I discover a retrospected, yet un-inspected wrong-doing
And tug the blanket of blame over me,
And that's when another blame game
Conspires to defeat me as it calculates
The next mortal embrace
I shall make at the count of fear.

There are times when we grant forgiveness to ourselves, and on some occasions, one ends up giving blame to oneself, as if the so called 'acceptance' will purge all. Blaming oneself every now and then can be compared to self-flagellation with no growth resulting out of it. We assume we know we're in the wrong in a particular situation, not remembering that the only guide of the situation here is your opinion/interpretation of the incident, the incident which is infinite in itself. And then one starts to fear and get used to having guilt hover around. Eventually, everything around gets shaded into the vicious cycle of anticipated or retrospected wrong-doing.

#poem #poetry #fear #life #guilt #introspection #personification #retrospection

Steve D'Beard Jan 2014

Lament to the Passing of the Moment V2

I saw it coming

And

then it was right there;
in touching distance.

The

could've been
would've been
should've been

But

she faded
like a photograph
left to curl in the sun

The moment passed...

and then
she was gone

version 2 re structure, same words different flow

#memories #retrospection

Shruti Chakraborty May 2014

Before I Touch the Sky

You're welcoming the future with open arms
As you shrink from your own reflection.
Lost in creating that Utopian vision
Of the future
Which you think is waiting to walk up to you,
When all you have done
Is to run to the past for solace,
And away from it when you were you realised
You'd bore enough.

Before you soar off on the flight of dreams,
Dreams you're afraid to call your own yet,
Watch where to your thoughts sway
Amidst the sands of time.

#life #future #time #imagination #dreams #reality #expectations #introspection #present #learning #consciousness #fears #retrospection #dilemma

Shruti Chakraborty May 2014

Identity

They, you and I.
Are?
Interpretations, opinions,
Fears and convictions,
Likes-dislikes,
History and anticipations,
Of life.
All, save the living of it, maybe?

A song heard months back in time
You mused over the major & minor,
I'd pondered over the rhyme.
Each of us
As convinced about its presence.
Winter tastes different in my memory.

Epilogue:
You must choose between
His bespectacled vision
And my retrospective conclusion
But you must know
Which you chose
And why.

Context:

We live but one interpretation [actions being interpretations] of our experiences, chosen on impulse at times, shortlisted by some preset path on other occasions. Is it about the choices chosen and lived? It isn't so much about 'your' life really, that being a myth for we are constantly interacting with many other lives every day. An interaction of interpretations hence, converts to fears, beliefs, and so on. But what about our identity in essence?

Is life to be described in terms of the experiences [and their interpretation] that I may have had [hence unique to me and to the world] - like the difference in reflections of convex and concave mirrors of the same object, for instance. And how those experiences molded me [or I let them!], my beliefs, and preferences, since that too is a unique cluster held together under the umbrella of a name?

What about the infinite lurking before and after - Are we the entity or the impressions?

#life #reality #interpretation #identity #fears #beliefs #experiences #retrospection

Kabelo Maverick Apr 2014

Ice Cream Truck

The Sound of delight as the truck tyre rolls on the silent gravel
The clamorous sound of a Child torrents, and marks the race to calls heard by the 'siren devil'
Dusty feet running with cries of others who can't afford that red ice drenched in syrup
Ouma stunning, as a child dampens her tunic with red eyes pressed to see them
Hand reaches in my pocket coined with the Old
Man, I'm missing those times with no dockets for stealing a coin from the Old.

Return to Innocence

#retrospection

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