We read and analysed William Shakespeare’s Sonnet LX, a sonnet that contains the poet’s warning about the destructive power of time and a meditation on the role of art. I asked you to write your own poem bearing the issue of time in mind. You certainly wrote great poems and for this very reason I would appreciate your posting of them, so that whoever visits this creative writing blog may appreciate your talents. English is not your mother tongue yet you managed to render your thoughts and most of all your feelings in a very powerful way. Hats off!
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked elipses ’gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
As you already know, my belief as a teacher is that whatever I ask you to do, I do it myself, so… this is my poem (if I can define it such!)
Are you my enemy?
Are you the inexorable plough scarring my body,
leaving unbearable marks on my face?
What are you?
Are you the hourglass whose flowing reminds me of the precious role played by its specks of sand?
Are you the mounrnful knell? Tolling for me? Announcing my death?
Conversely are you the gift of life? You tick the cycle of nature, the birth of new life?
You are the beat of music, the flowing movement of a dancer, the record hit by an athlete, each second of yours is precious.
Your hands are stretching towards me.
Time, who are you? My foe? My friend?
A canvas, a poem, a sculpture, whatever work of art transfix you and outlive you.
Do they freeze you? Stop you? Are they your enemies?
Yet, if it were not for you Time, I would not have written this!
Like rain feeds the seed of life
so does time
and it tastes great that flavour of youth
which makes you bloom
Like rain ruins those petals
so time gives you the coup de grâce.
Adua Dalla Costa
There have been times when I prayed for it.
I prayed to forget,
I prayed to stop suffering,
but there also have been times
when I paryed to be remembered and to remember.
So, which one do I hope most for?
Living day by day, accepting pain and sufferance,
but also joy and happiness or
living as if I were not alive, without any memories?
I do not want to stop crying,
I do not want to stop despairing
because if I remember pains
I remember also love and bliss.
It would be a perfect term, but it is not real.
We forget, we forget everything
and we are forgotten.
Our mind is not unlimited,
time passes and memories are replaced by other ones,
maybe better, maybe worse.
Despite this, it is worth living:
even if I do not remember something,
I can say that I have lived it.
Sara Perin
What is time?
It's an hourglass in which every single grain of sand falls down
like every moment of our life, positive or negative.
Time is growing up
Time is making mistakes and correcting them
Time is learning
Time is changing
Time is running
Time is falling and then getting up again
Time is waiting for…
Time is for planning, believing, feeling, laughing
Time is for living day by day without thinking of the last grain of sand.
Silvia Salvador
TIME PASSES
What's time for me?
Is it a black shade which always runs after me?
Or only a wise wind which never abandons me?
Well, now I'm young,
I can't think it will hurt me,
it can only help me become
what destiny wants me to.
During your teens the wind
is violent and nobody besides it can win.
However if I talk about time
I can't forget death.
But is it a real end?
Our personality will survive
even a hurricane…
it will last for ever…
Alice Piccolo
The hands are thieves of time
which mercilessly dim the gaze
and fade memories.
What you call time captures the beauty of the flame,
leaving the shadow of dead ash.
Ineffable time slips through your fingers
and it disappears like sand in old age.
Time that like water wets the edges of the soul
that is resistant to the weather of the years.
Time, that hand in hand with death,
laughs the worries of man.
Time.
It is only the voice of regret,
of breaths worn and faded.
Step by step, time after time,
life goes on with his black wings
and this dark cloak carries away everything's mine,
but we will never know what time brings.
It brings warm? Illness? Love?
And when it gives me love it quikly disappears in somebody's breath.
Alessia Testa
Why does time scare us so much?
It isn't something real,
but there isn't a single person
who isn't afraid of it.
It isn't concrete,
but it is the most precious thing in the whole world;
because if we could stop it,
then our life would be eternal.
Life is just like a book:
sometimes it can be longer than others,
but sooner or later you will always come to an end.
Because time is destructive:
it gives you life
and then throws it away.
Valentina Lupieri
Gallop gallop gallop my dear
you dream the horizon far away
gallop gallop gallop with fear
night after night day after day.
won't you stand still, take a breath?
why do you run so fast, oblivious
tamed horse, why do you serve death?
she waits for you in the riotous
shade, she's faster than everyone
won't let you reach the long-desired
star, stop a moment, watch the sun
come with me, I will be your guide.
Daughter I can't, Time is my name.
Gallop gallop, I'm part of the game.
silvia maglio
What is the time?
It is so diffficult to define.
You just know that passes quckly trought
and than it smiles politely back at you.
When you are seventeen you care just about few things,
when you are fourty you understand the joy of being.
But what's a date?
It remembers you of love or hate?
Whichever feeling will come up to your mind
just think about a smile to find,
that will light up a face or two
forgetting about how old are you.
Either you are twenty or seventy-eight
time will rest something you can not define.
But bear in mind..times yes,passes by,
but a place in the world for you couldn't ever be denyed.
Martina Cimmino.
I'm watching you
and I don't understand your silence
I'm watching you
every time that you don't look at me
I think you are like the sea
so large
but so indifferent.
I don't talk while you leave
careless of me, and yourself
You follow your rhytym and my heart
knows you are never coming back.
But I fight because you are the fault and the Master
of disappearing beauty
on faces, on smiles, on bodies, on landscapes, that never come back
like some time ago
But you are Time
and I don't have anything to say
while I'm watching you,
and sometimes I
regret you.
TIME CAN VANISH
Time passes by
when it sags a granny’s cheeks
but stops
in the echo of her melodious voice,
in the smell of her freshly baked cake,
in the touch of her hand on the face of a kid.
Time passes by
when it makes snowing on the woman’s black hair
but it stops
when she dresses up for a party as if she was still sixteen,
when a man looks at her with wide eyes,
when she receives a bunch of roses from a mysterious admirer.
Time passes by
When it changes the seasons
But it stops
With a child standing speechless in the snow,
with girls chatting cheerfully on the seaside,
with you waking up in the morning because of a timid spring sun.
Time passes by when you read a book of History
but it stops
if you think that those men and women
had the same passions,
the same hopes,
the same fears
and the same feelings as yours.
Time passes by, relentlessly
every minute, every day, every month, every year of your life,
but when you visit a new place,
when you hear continuously the same beautiful song,
when you cry in terror,
it flies away for a moment.
When you stand motionless under the rain,
you laugh your most natural laughter,
you work and you’re tired
it dissolves.
When you sleep beside your lover,
when a smile can light up your day,
when you hold the hand of your child
it completely disappears.
Time does exist,
but it can vanish.
It is your life,
it is your time.
It is up to you.
Erika Capovilla
There is not a single poem I do not like. Tim himself read them and he said you are really good.
Congratulations.
Bye for now.
Your teacher of English,
Cristiana Ziraldo
Time is a rhyme
that you can't fight,
rich and poor at the same time.
It sets up in type
all of life.
It passes and flies away
and you don't have enough words to say
how quickly and slowly it stabs you.
Time is black,white.
Time is the sun,the sea.
Time is wind, peace.
It is seen or unseen,
you can live or drown,
you can be tugged or not
but something i know,
it doesn't stop.
Time is a rhyme
that you can't fight,
rich and poor at the same time.
It sets up in type
all of life.
It passes and flies away
and you don't have enough words to say
how quickly and slowly it stabs you.
Time is black,white.
Time is the sun,the sea.
Time is wind, peace.
It is seen or unseen,
you can live or drown,
you can be tugged or not
but something i know,
it doesn't stop.
veronica sidoti
Time
For me time is past present and future
it is something that always changes.
It makes you older, taller, even better
but somehow it can scare you.
For me time is important
because it reminds me of my life.
It reminds me that I love a boy
and also that I am young.
For me time passes too quickly
and this frightens me sometimes.
Maybe when I learn to love my life the way it is
I will not be worried about it anylonger.
Nicoletta Pagura
What about you, Time?
People think you're bad
but in my opinion they're mad
because you are a friend of mine.
Weakness is not your potential,
your virtue is Force.
I think you are the course
to achieve growth,
experience,
the pleasure of finding
wrinkles of old age on her face.
And even if she's not beautiful any more
she's wonderful inwardly
because you, Time,
enhanced her wisdom.
Eroina Giada