editor@haikujournal.org  ·  Celebrating 18 years of haiku — publishing since 2008
← All poem themes Published Haiku Collection

Life & Time Haiku Poems

Reflective haiku about change, age, mortality, time passing, and being alive.

418 published haiku
The boys of summer,
playing in a young sand lot,
fighting to be men.
Andrew Scott Read poem →
never turn your back
on the ocean, mother warned,
the dead come in waves
Rita Brady Kiefer Read poem →
a homeless man knows
more than preachers with bibles
messages of life
Daniel Lassell Read poem →
Smoke streams from age-old
chimneys of trembling nostrils:
The winter of life.
Irena Pasvinter Read poem →
Heat envelopes me,
The clock ticks, the curtain's still,
Salty sweat trickles.
April Ordonez Read poem →
Awkward note quivers
Calling over pain's retreat
The sweetness of life
Aaron Poller Read poem →
Rich man wanting more,
a pauper needing nothing,
which life would you choose?
Thomas Hayes Read poem →
hear birds spreading joy
music waking dawn today
around their feeder
Richard Weed Read poem →
drunk man stumbles home
beats his wife for the last time
she leaves while he sleeps
Daniel Lassell Read poem →
the twilight of youth
too quick childhood fades away
bitter is wisdom
Jennifer Schmitt Read poem →
Leaves changing colour.
Lives changing like the season.
We no longer talk.
Edward Bowman Read poem →
Twenty-five, she lives
wholesome in a halfway house
learning how to be.
Marsha Mathews Read poem →
Rose hues on gray sky
Earth blue islands faraway
Worlds where no one dies.
L.b. Williams Read poem →
A handful of books
Sown into the desk's hard wood:
Harvest of the dead.
Maria Cohut Read poem →
faces float on past
greyhound stations, trains and tracks
returns air grayscale
Paul Piatkowski Read poem →
Small moments convey
Larger truths unobvious
Much like stones upturned
John Tustin Read poem →
The sand strewn with souls
Sitting on the beach of Death
The tide rushes in
Sassysue King Read poem →
What a life to live
Meaning, purpose, passion yes
So go ahead live
Nathan Hoffman Read poem →
Creation stories
have been lost, so let's create
our own by living
Matt Howard Read poem →
Young man wanting new
erases his pencil sketch:
clean sheet once again.
Erick Mertz Read poem →
Stopped at the train tracks,
graffiti tagged boxcars pass,
five minute art break.
Nyla Alisia Read poem →
Flutter butterfly,
beat the tiny wings of time
before the Earthquake.
Stephanie Harper Read poem →