"dithering" poems
Breeze bellows,
leaves echo in
quivering psithurism,
dithering like
unbroken smoke,
this approaching omen goads.
Dozing crows
slumbering in rows,
droves of locusts'
silenced drone,
almost comatose in repose;
nighttime overtones
choir of toads'
raspy croaks
answered by alto
of crickets' orchestral strokes.
Gust encroaches;
robed boughs
cloven open,
bring into
scope and focus
me juxtaposed,
suspended apropos.
Although motionless
and petrified in stone,
provoked by zephyr
coaxing to and fro;
swaying pendulous
and no longer frozen,
locus gently thrown.
Death rattle moan
evoked from throat,
reflex can't say no
to rigor rigidly posed,
final sigh in silence,
awoken vocal,
expelled and disposed.
Smote by
morose emotion,
gun loaded then exploded
by neurosis,
now bloated
necrosis decomposes
into gross ochre.
This trophy
and this ode
both an opus to
my inability to cope;
romanced i proposed,
eloped and betrothed to
my own
inappropriate composure.
Pocket full of posies
plucked when luck bestowed
and tears in a cup, a toast;
crying copiously,
tempest runneth overflowed,
eyes swollen and soaked.
Dipped my toes
in the coast
of this ocean's
amorphous folds,
gripped by undertow
holding control of my soul;
swiftly shipwrecked in
shallow shoal,
an old atoll.
On sandy floor,
water burrows roads;
digging, carving, roams
through unmarrowed
silica and sandstone
eroding into a cove.
A host for
opal geode trove,
enclosing a
technicolor rose,
from the depths
a glowing mosaic shone
Unopened lotus floats
on foam
of lapping waves,
a boat;
prone to no
grandiose notion
or motive,
adrift as wind stokes.
I suppose
this only shows
the total corrosion
into which I dove,
the only foes to oppose
are those of burdens, so
only weightless can I atone-
I must let go.
Mar 11, 2024
Mar 11, 2024 at 11:02 AM UTC
Not against the peaks of protest, these aurulent banners and jasperated jaspe so so jargoon! It's like I was suddenly alive, beat-stretched out of winter neige and into the pancosmic blisses of bright and ebullient spring, plugged with an agromania to abide this new formidable friend in the aeviternal beauty of she and I togetherness. Never to spill a morsel of a minute away from us again, upon the newly conjured spirits unto us both. To be amidst a cynosure of such affiation, to be in the temperate or tropical gardens whispering about our mutual love for flowers nad lists. This that precedes us, bright colliding auras in this newfound numinous kindling of us two. Watching it, making it happen- it unfolding before me made me naseaus with excitement, dithering what our next move out to be. I just wanted to kiss her face, her cheeks, put our hands together so quickly, just to let our amorous fug fill the room with silver albuminious smoke from our breaths. Miles below this, round the Earth to other places, there are the fixtures of bright and corybantic life commoved by other nations and other poised people of the light, that I should not be idle in my desires to usher myself into this grand and briguing introduction. So she said, we will play the question game, the inquiry game, we will state the mark, draw upon deep and fantastical recall, bring from our minds the most immense truths and share them, no matter now feral, or caustic, or melancholy- they will be shared until we explode with each other, our intrigues wrapped in our perfervid and amatory excitedness for one another. Too vast with wonder to be afraid of- am I such a fiend for such resplendence. That we could be vitrified in eternity in a veil of fulgurite. So at this nightfall, this acronychal of bloviating bliss, to write and wonder, incessantly in the finest of provincial matters to settle this garden where Thetis lives to be of her, two philocalists in verdant pasture, heaped with matters of the pen and the palm, in the droves of this beautiful advesperating eve- where first I wrote to you, and then I wrote you back.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:15 AM UTC
recurrent moonlit distractions
captured by words
tied down into morsels;
separated and concealed,
contiguous yet sheer greetings
of each other’s skin
had left wanton burns
and gushing streams
of a brooding lover’s propensity
for unsusceptible matters of the heart.
there, he stood,
on the precipice of tomorrows;
ruminating and scrupulous,
forlorn yet never dithering
over mundane and quintessential quandaries
of the tepid gloss of incertitude
dangling off syllables
dictated by sordid agony.
there, he stood,
in the midst of everything;
from the otiose adoration
poured out of empty caskets
to the lenitive shades of his eyes.
with the ripples of moonlight,
the gestalt of doleful flower-like hearts,
there, she stood,
and waited.
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 10:15 AM UTC
We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world,
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.
W.B. YEATS
* * * * * *
My soul looked down from a vague height, with Death,
As unremembering how I rose or why,
And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,
Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe,
And pitted with great pocks and scabs of plagues.
Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire,
There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled.
It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs
Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.
By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped
Round myriad warts that might be little hills.
From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept,
And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.
(And smell came up from those foul openings
As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)
On dithering feet upgathered, more and more,
Brown strings, towards strings of gray, with bristling spines,
All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.
Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns,
Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.
I saw their bitten backs curve, loop and straighten.
I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.
Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean,
I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.
And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, bur crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head
2.1k
behind my eye twitches) not a whisker
stirring from immense sleep leaps arcuately
determined of slim air to meander in precise
dithering cuteness (a fat and orange ellipsis
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 3:08 AM UTC
Everyone is odium to empty space
Because,
It doesn't have anything to convoy!
Everyone is disgust about empty space
Because,
It doesn't have anything to perturb!
Everyone have repulsion to empty space
Because,
Everyone is dithering to talk with self!
But I am searching for that,
But
Incapable to mark out
The empty space
To talk with self!
Searching for empty space
For
Departing from everything
Searching for empty space
To
Verify my sin and accomplishment!
If you have any information
Please intimate me
With its boundary information and
Milestone of air, water, soil and life!
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 5:25 PM UTC
This pond is where I will die,
Squandering in owl hours to ****
Still, the Ducks swim by.
The blue moon is a Julia Dragonfly
Haunted by a lethal, green dream thrill.
This pond is where I will die.
Threadbare Marauder Rooks squawk a cry,
The stickleback flakes its dithering gill.
Still, the Ducks swim by.
Importunate possums chase ducks to comply,
How could my moon mother be so ill?
This pond is where I will die.
Bluebirds deflate their keels with a sigh,
I gravitate towards their beauty, I am still.
Still, the Ducks swim by.
Aureole Sirius tip toes the sky,
Nimbus withers, Kamikaze men shrill.
This pond is where I will die.
Still, the Ducks swim by.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 8:51 PM UTC
She’s mad, my bad
She’s shouting, I’m silent
She’s sweating, I’m dithering
She’s all over the place
I’m all over her body
It’s cold. She’s hot
Life is hard. I’m hard. She’s thick
Stop talking. I can’t concentrate
Face back. I don’t wanna fight
Bend over. I don’t wanna argue
Stretch Back. I wanna sip
Push Back. I wanna pump
Ride on. I wanna come
Get off. I wanna go
“I love you”….. I hear you
“I said I love you”…. I hear you
Sep 4, 2025
Sep 4, 2025 at 2:49 AM UTC
Whenever people criticise me
They usually don’t know that
I am my Biggest Critic,
Beating myself up
Like Tyson Fury.
It’s how I spur myself on,
Hopefully to better things.
But what things?
I still don’t know.
Oh to have blind faith
And sense of Vocation
As many others do.
A solid set of Values.
A script to follow
Opinions to declare.
Instead I dither
Undecided
Lost in an ocean of ifs and buts.
Too bright and open-minded
For my own good.
Worse still, I’m oh so eager to please.
I think myself incorruptibly honest,
Yet the truth is,
I only tell people what I think
They want to know.
It’s how I was brought up.
But then again
Am I willing to fight
For what I stand for?
Should I really be Devil’s Advocate
Just to “stick up” for my views?
Better methinks to hold my counsel
Or be diplomatic
Which may be okay
So long as I actually decide
What I think and feel
Within myself.
And there’s the rub.
What do I stand for?
Do I really think for myself?
Like so many others,
Am I dragged along:
Brainwashed by Media hoo ha
And hype?
Superficial sound bytes
And rallying calls.
I need to search my soul
And find my true feelings
And beliefs.
I know that I Love Life
In most of its forms.
I’m all for Wellbeing
And The Common Good.
I need to focus
On these things:
On making the most of
This Paradise World
We seem bent on ruining.
In short
I must stoke those fires of Love
And enlighten others
To do the same.
Paul Butters
© PB 13\12\2021.
Dec 13, 2021
Dec 13, 2021 at 6:21 AM UTC
It was intensity in the eyes of the beast
With his romanticisms and optimism ceased
Gashes, cut bottomless within his soul
Who, would possibly aid him as a whole?
The king who had executed blasphemous quantities of sins
And pride fully worn, his foe's skins.
Could not be comprehended and eased after all
He lived to stalk, persecute and brawl
For behind all the masquerades and shells he wore
It was against himself, that he always swore
At the break of dawn, he held a face
In the midst of darkness, he could not sense, embrace
A battle came forging against him, he felt grim
Though it was not his form which was to be dithering, limb by limb
It was his trepidation, his need to stop his despair
Oh, how he craved to vanish into thin air
For he realized that the only thing meaningful to him now
Was for his annihilating words, to be a vow
A vow to soon meet, the eternal light alas
For his heart had become, into brittle glass
The light was his way out
To permit him, of his emotive drought
And so, as the stars blazed up in the sky’s high
So did the tears, imploring, to be let out in both his eye
How far more, would he suffer?
How much longer, did he have to be a bluffer?
The possibility of freedom, is all that made him wait
Little did he distinguish he was just another prisoner in the chambers, of fate.
Mar 12, 2019
Mar 12, 2019 at 8:07 AM UTC
He’s a squirrel,
dashing and dithering
here, there, *******
everywhere
At near six feet,
he towers, but
at 120 he’s not
much more than
a cat-tail.
(yet, so very much more)
At the end of the day
he rattles; bits of this
and that in his pockets,
I’m waiting for the day
when he palms a Marlboro
and one of my lighters.
Having a thing for fire,
I know it’ll be soon;
we already hide the
matches.
But, it’ll happen.
Will I make him smoke
a whole pack? Nah.
Where’s the lesson there?
He’s nicotine ****** or puking,
while I’m out a pack of smokes.
It’ll watch him cough, hack, spit;
realizing the error made.
Same one I made,
‘cept I kept at it.
***
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 12:04 PM UTC
whisking yesterday’s
chipped and shattered dreams
into you is
not a problem
the broom is there
my hands yet comply
with requests
from the command center
I see you, flat
on the floor
waiting, patiently
your tin blue stillness no threat
to me, or the dust
I watch you, I rummage through
the day's dull duties
and other dithering distractions
that wash over me,
more each menacing minute,
but
can
not
think
of your
name,
“it…”
rests on my tongue tip
weightless and wicked
my eyes and hands grip you,
with ease, but
what art thou???
what simple sound will summon you?
I am alone,
though if another were here
with me, you,
and your "itness"
the question would remain,
unspoken
with other nameless sorrows
for who would not be terrified to admit
that more and more tomorrows
will be without the august appellation,
“dustpan”
and whatever other words
time
blithely chooses to
permanently purloin
Dec 14, 2012
Dec 14, 2012 at 4:10 PM UTC
7:00am
Shelter Island,
Sat Sep10
on the south west edge of the isle,
the slowrise sunrise just behind the trees,
so early day yet, no full frontal of a sun
bathing to wake up woman, babes asleeping, but the
animals know exactly this hours early
perfection.
indeed, the crazy squirrels are random
hither and dithering in spurts of energy,
only stopping to observe a viewing of the humans
nest~resting through the glass doors with their
inquisitive, self-possessed, bedside reckless manner,
perfected.
the suns pealing gleaming gleanings picks
out any shiny reflective surface that enhances
its low-rise greeting, with a chorale of living objects
singing “Hallelujah orb, what’s in store for us today,”
river~bay, wake-less, its becalming, marbling surface, again,
perfected.
me?
I’m mugged by the perfection intersection of
my eyes-scape, first coffee, the holy quietude, only
the regular soft breaths beside, lend a counterpoint
to these thoughts and the litany of chores the iCal happily, annoyingly, prematurely but with certainty lists, resistance (Walk!)
perfectly ok.
ok not to move an inch, watching this daily movie rerun,
that energizes hope, a contemporary localized contented without the
humdrum of blaring headlines, talking heads, and the
infiltration of the guilty unfulfilled responsibilities demanding a due,
then heavens signal me, Donovan, earbud singing Colors, confirmed
perfectly ok!
“*Yellow is the color of my true love's hair
In the mornin', when we rise
In the mornin', when we rise
That's the time, that's the time
I love the best*”
Sep 10, 2022
Sep 10, 2022 at 8:21 AM UTC
a good thing is a Unicorn. but one that bleeds.
in the Harlem of our garden, a Cyclops plots
against our flock of sheep.
we are teetering on the brink of an awkward laughter
reverberating off of false Gods.
we are dithering the quince and the steam
from our dull kitchens, casting pots,
against the harangue of bleached dreams -
and the nethers of our sworn clot
virtuous notions
and dim
thought.
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 4:07 PM UTC
How was it for you?
Uncle asked, lying
Slumped across Auntie,
Some small-beached
Whale, his voice escaping
His lungs as would air
From a punctured tyre.
Fine, it was fine, Auntie
Sighed, her soprano
Voice easing beneath
His sweaty soft bulk,
Unaware their young
Niece was standing silent
By the half open door,
Capturing them in the
Semi light, waiting small
And innocent to ask for
Water, dithering, unsure
Whether to ask and stay
Or simply to close the
Door and walk away.
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 3:26 AM UTC
The all faith popes were flaming atheists,
all two thousand leagues of stacked sea,
sending out their **** hole flotillas
on carillon arks stacked ten tiers deep with homing doves,
tithe teething continents of dithering dullards,
the poor mouthed succulent souls
that have so, so
over crowded a once peaceful heaven
to render this one blue ball a hell on earth.
Jan 10, 2011
Jan 10, 2011 at 10:23 PM UTC
I've seen changing people for money,
I've seen dithering people for money,
Its not god but,
I've seen dying people for it,
I've seen burning people in sunlight for money,
I've seen trembling people in cold for money,
It's not homer but,
I've seen destroying home for it,
I've seen changing relation for money,
I've seen surrendering people for money,
Its not diet but,
I have seen sleeping people without meal due to no money,
I've seen ashamed people for money,
I've seen running people on fire for money,
Its not food but ,
I've seen dying people form hunger due to no money,
I've seen ********** woman for money,
I've seen burning daughter-in-law for money(dowry),
Its not cloth but,
I've seen walking people without cloth due to no money,
I've seen quarreling brethren each other for money,
I've seen dancing girl on the road for money,
Its not luck. But,
I've seen changing luck from money..
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 4:56 AM UTC
lachrymose: suggestive of or tending to cause tears; mournful....given to shedding tears readily; tearful.
make no dithering,
wily excusing or explaining,
among this band,
I count myself
a brother and a man
eons ago shed the
reptilian skin masculine,
my six-shooter now a manly
cheap Bic ballpoint blue-eyed pen,
used to fell forests of egos,
mine, first foremost and ever last
every write that sore tries my heart,
lives hard by a stream replenished,
by freshly born, yet stale, recirculated
salt-mine tears, salt, mine, tears,
that include those storing and storied,
some preceding and some succeeding,
and some spilling
even as
this story told,
here and now,
is in the hearth,
forming and fulfilling
if man enough that you can cry openly,
then man enough to write good poetry,
this then, this be the simple and finest
line I ever wrote,
line I ever cried
5:20pm April 20th,
The Year of the Tear
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 7:15 PM UTC
Trying to fill the days and forcing them to go.
Finding there are too many in a never ending flow.
What to do with time that never seems to end.
Seemingly more hours than with which I can contend.
Playing games and dithering just to pass the time away.
Sleeping endless moments and still finding its today.
Why do all the days seem so very long?
What choice did I make to make time ebb so wrong?
I know it hasn't always passed or seemed to happen in this way.
But oh so long ago since they were all a twenty four hour day.
No rhythm or regularity in times pattern anymore.
Why so many hours and what are the days all for?
I used to measure days by the passing of the sun.
But many times I sleep and of daylight I see none.
You may think I have control of all rhythms in these things.
But why control the repetition tomorrow always brings?
If I sleep eight times and I eat just only three.
Is that not a measure of how long my week should be?
Must I sleep just seven and eat per some schedule too?
Will I then contend with time as I am meant to do?
Will days take new meaning and my hours hold more reward?
Or will the extra hours awake just make me much more bored?
If I sleep twelve times and I eat when I have need to.
Aren't the days still the same length both for me and you?
Do we really share the same cycle if I view it on my own?
Or does time really move much slower for those who are alone?
Mar 11, 2019
Mar 11, 2019 at 9:59 AM UTC
Amber conduit seeps through the glaring abysm in haste,
smothered by tar-pulp of the midnight wound,
disheveled corona; bled into contrast,
dithering; thrusting scoria into the eve,
intoxicated by gasoline vapour; obsidian-wretch,
night crime pining of cheap indulgence; bottle-cap snare,
miasma fleet whining - lament,
pavement tessellation; cosmopolitan unrest
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 4:18 AM UTC
Crouching beggar upturned cup
Singing children hunger sup
Mongrel bounds on a short chain
We are all caught in the rain
Policeman standing proud
Busking waifs are singing loud
******* lies where it was lain
We are all caught in the rain
Pigeons bobbing strut right by
Seagulls scream with glinting eye
Old man mutters 'not insane'
We are all caught in the rain
Babies hold up their palms
Mothers push them in their prams
Babies google their necks crane
We are all caught in the rain.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 3:45 PM UTC
In the beginning there was procrastination,
and I can't wait to start putting that off.
To begin or not to begin that divides us all.
Deferring action never increases entropy,
and lengthens the life of the universe.
Completion happens once, but delay has no limit.
I'm not dithering, just exploring all the options.
This "beginning" poem has just been hijacked by hesitation,
and dragged down the rat hole of reluctance.
Oh well, there is always tomorrow.
One can always say, my muse took a snooze.
Feb 20, 2021
Feb 20, 2021 at 10:22 AM UTC
A crushed Shah Jahan said:
When you behold the memorial,
a sight so masterly, yet sorrowful;
you will inevitably admit
an aching little bisecting wish
that adorns your yearning lips....
parched,
barren,
effete......
And from the world's lid,
the luminaries too
would sob and drip.
#
He could well have been talking
about my beloved's words ;
......so utterly breathtaking
that a sigh poignantly quivers
in my dithering being.
Her words meander.
It is no wonder:
for all of us saunter
in thought and speech
one time or the other.
At times her words are poised and easy.....,
wonderfully jolly, sensationally starry:
They shimmer like the four minarets (1)
on the full moon night;
....brilliant......resplendent.
Then they taper from the dome
and stop halfway between the tomb
and the solemn reflecting pool:
They are calmer, sober,
and you know,
a little factual;
...what they call discriminating
intellectual, rational......
Soon the words leave charbagh (2)
and hit the red sandstone walls (3)
crenellated with flawless wisdom;
spotlessly beautiful
like the lifeless marble
that proudly commemorates
Mr. Shah Jahan's love
in grim, cold blooded grace.
We talk about
riders and scruples,
kith and kin,
restraints and constraints,
fidelity and modesty.......
....and I can not help
but to sadly agree
to the placid logic
in our impeccable scripts.
#
Logic is a wonderful remedy
for the radical and foolhardy
but for every cure,
there is a spin-off.
Deep somewhere,
a delicate,
two-cent sentiment
collapses into atrophy
and.......silently
another part of me
becomes a
meek monument
of disposable history.
----------
(1) The four minarets of the Taj Mahal
(2) The garden that starts from the end of the main gateway and ends near the squared base of the mausoleum is an integral part of the Taj Mahal structure.
(3) The building material used is brick-in-lime mortar veneered with red sandstone and marble and inlay work of precious/semi precious stones. The mosque and the guest house in the Taj Mahal complex are built of red sandstone in contrast to the marble tomb in the center.
Nov 11, 2019
Nov 11, 2019 at 10:27 PM UTC
find less than arresting: stilted musings gem-set
in ardent verbiage.
recherché semantics, florid phrases facing a withering sun
or policing of metaphor –
until handcuffed: Italic jewel thief caught on surveillance
Sudden bewildering
spaces with odd punctuation; ? &
inward dithering semi-confessions in serpentine
verse. Badder (or worse) annoying line
breaks /
cloying internal half – rhymes,
overwrought. Over-edited;
over-thought until you want to see
what’s on TV instead. As if
the poet’s every random musing was so
essential. Reverential semi-precious mythos
(Siren’s distant waves echo, shipwrecked rocks: Ossifer, ossifer –
it’s only boring poetry…
I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it)
again.
Sep 20, 2015
Sep 20, 2015 at 8:53 PM UTC
meandering paths, blind turns
unfathomable milestones, sand built inns
rarely comes across the shiny black tar
imparting hope, embracing dithering steps
yet, set aflame by desires we tread on,
hurting ourselves onto the
path vanishing into the oblivion
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 12:21 PM UTC