"fretful" poems
ever since i was young,
my gaze was drawn skyward.
i could tell you the story of orion,
and how to brush bernice's hair,
before i could tell you that two plus two equals four.
i know more about our vast universe,
than i know about many of my friends.
if you are not well acquainted with a pisces,
let me give you a bit of an introduction:
we are compassionate, imaginative,
we adapt to whatever is thrown at us,
and my personal favourite,
we are unfalteringly loyal.
however...
we are full of self-hate,
prone to laziness,
we are escapists
and horrendously easy to manipulate.
i believe my horoscope today is complete ********
i do not feel utterly lovely,
i know i will not score a date
because no one feels for me romantically.
i've nothing to flaunt.
the horoscopes are saccharine lies,
but, those traits? those are me.
my soul is ancient,
i feel the pain of struggles i have not faced,
or rather, have not YET faced;
i will split my soul in two
i will break my bones
i will give every drop of my blood
i will breathe my last breath
for those that i love.
i spent two years of my life giving my heart and soul to a sagittarius.
philosophical, adventurous.
i admired him so.
but his negatives--
inconsistent. overconfident.
careless.
he was a burning house.
my mother, also a pisces, when all was said and done,
told me to stay away from those sagittarius boys.
they're dangerous for wary, fretful fish like us,
who ask 'from what bridge?' when we are told to jump.
Aug 17, 2014
Aug 17, 2014 at 11:02 PM UTC
a body filled with familiar dread
you might say my body is already dead
my head is said to be quite fretful
took moments of quietude for granted;
and now i’m constantly regretful
the restlessness of my emotions
address my state of mind
and the distressed thoughts run around my head like guerrilas
they know they are running out of time
my jittery heart runs rampant
like a broken clock
and my only wish is for all of this to stop
the apprehension creates a detonation
a complete eradication of my elation
because my body is filled with familiar dread
and my body feels like it’s already dead
Jun 15, 2018
Jun 15, 2018 at 9:04 PM UTC
you and i are fretful, wary fish--
old souls. anxious beings.
sometimes i think that you and i are part of a whole--
the two fish tied together by the rope.
as the song says,
*"i wanna ruin our friendship,
we should be lovers instead;
i don't know how to say this,
'cause you're really my dearest friend."*
but honestly,
i crave you in the most innocent of ways.
if i could kiss you just once,
simply sleep next to you and be at peace,
that would be more than enough for me.
we made a pact -- at thirty we will get married
just because we can.
but it hurts --
i know it doesn't mean the same to you
as it does to me
i just want to marry you someday
live in a house near the Atlantic
and the rooms will be full of cacti and succulents
the scent of baked goods will waft out from the kitchen
where we will be battling the cats
for space on the table to let the macarons cool --
vanilla bean, rose raspberry, chocolate peppermint
some days, this is all i can think about
and i could never admit that to you
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 11:36 PM UTC
Standing outside the coliseum
He wipes his tattered brow
As he waits in chains
And what remains
Of a worn and used nightgown
The oak doors creak as they slowly bow
He walks the axis road
The dogs at his heels, he knows, he feels
Pains that have been bestowed
A table is set upon which blades rest
The choice of which he makes
He reaches forward, picks up the sword
No room here for mistakes
The helmet is hot, he feels his breath
As he walks upon the field
He is a trapped snake inside a crate
He raises up his shield
His adversary stood there watching
With a shaking fretful eye
They prepared to fight until deaths bite
Took and run them dry
With one fell swing of the sword
He brings his foe down
The steel glistens in the sunlight
Enhanced with the smell of blood
The crowd cheers and roars
What do they know of it?
The life he has taken
It cannot be replaced
He is trapped inside
He cries for freedom inside
Slowly he dies inside
Inside himself.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 6:40 PM UTC
On rising heat, killdeer flush
to decoy enemy--
threat to its young that roams too close
They rush to skim on hayish blur
wailing over wildflowers drying
Fretful twitter in perpetual flight
swifts-- twirl and hurl their bits of bodies--
debris
from a cumulonimbus of a late-day sky
toward a ridge of stag horn sumac
presuming horizon primordial
behind which time and city-- drift and wobble
on rising heat-- after rush hour
Rising Heat
Rising--
to meet my mind
on its way down
from my post behind
the laundromat
where I view it all--
rising--
where I usually go in search of quiet
to almost hear the ocean
two hundred miles away
to strain words from wind
in careless conversation
to wonder over
missed whispers....
But not today
In rising heat, I went down
in search of something better--
your eyes again
solvent for my presence of mind
dissolvers of hours and the order of things
But I need an excuse!
To turn, to trespass, to disturb the peace!
For your eyes again!
And still I need more-- being feverish, weak
Or?
Or... should I take the cure?
To deny ...To deny
To deny what?
Overtones from a sea of years?
I don't know! Whatever it was!
Nothing explain it...
I melt... I'm gone....
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 12:51 PM UTC
it's all occupied with dark fumes of flatulence
the bus hanger
it's teething and earning a low ceilinged thrive
regularly cleaned the roof portal
with a large drooping eye
brags of blue sky
the coaches are idling
fretful to be burdened and go
elsewhere
the public urinals
there's a strong smell of iron
are the morning users dehydrated
malnourished or ill ?
i feel a little flated
elsewhere
in the waiting area
a neatly turned out teen
wants to give their seat to the infirm
does not and hurts inside averting
(a public act of courtesy
would after all be an embarrassing one)
attention back to the importance
my friend has ungreeted me
i have wished him ease
and he has passed between the cordons
amongst amiable cattle
he pauses at the authorities verification
who in turn
tails them to load up their luggage
and become their driver
- goodbye my friend
Feb 7, 2024
Feb 7, 2024 at 5:57 PM UTC
The dichotomy of purgatory is sprinkled with the delights and disciplines of a fretful uncertainty and steam locomotives can sound menacing when their pistons seek to establish torque on those rails of pursued destination with mesmerizing force.
I know that time is like a fondling excitement, where constellations of perceived energy fields become intellectually categorized into mechanical parts of a metaphysical ******
Universal parameters of death may generate mischievous laughter, which resound throughout the silent galaxies of cosmological meadows.
I have to say that geometrical co-ordinates automatically invoke thoughts of plain paper and hot chocolate – small figments of homosapien pastures where grazing is not a realistic occurrence.
As we perceive the eternal impressions of epistemological nihilism, let us play the game of religious patience on this checkered board of architectural bliss.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 10:46 PM UTC
In my shattered garden
I lie and cry.
Why?
I could scrub floors
And get a sense
Of something done
A neat
Achievement
But
I get up
And stumble on
And get slapped back.
I count my blessings
Many, many.
It is no use.
Back and forth
I pace
Carrying a deep despair
Like a fretful child.
There there, despair,
There there.
3.1k
When words fail and the song dies in your soul
The soft cushion weighs heavy, threadbare, when
Dust invites the attic attack to the last memory stroll
A fretful protest march accompanying the wood grained heart
You noticed the space in short supply, with tight breath, the
Expert bargaining skills have begun, bypassing
The weak hearts, those that are still journeying
Their healing held up in tight palms of moistoned skin
And the slide into another day begins, dreadfully
With arched pain barriers drumming their morning
Beat. Occupational hazard was on the rampage
Cracking skull caps from their skinned residence
I shone a light into the acute grey tone of those
Hearts, those whose shapes lost conviction as the light
Shot arrowed tongues from the deaf interiors of wise men
Out on the town of feeble failings, they held nothing as their companion
Mar 2, 2013
Mar 2, 2013 at 7:15 AM UTC
I am two fools, I know—
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry;
But where’s that wiseman that would not be I,
If she would not deny?
Then, as th’ earths inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge sea waters fretful salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my pains
Through rhymes vexation, I should them allay.
Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For he tames it that fetters it in verse.
But when I have done so,
Some man, his art and voice to show,
Doth set and sing my pain,
And, by delighting many, frees again
Grief, which verse did restrain.
To Love and Grief tribute of verse belongs,
But not of such as pleases when ’tis read;
Both are increased by such songs,
For both their triumphs so are published;
And I, which was two fooles, do so grow three;
Who are a little wise, the best fools be.
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Here, passing lonely down this quiet lane,
Before a mud-splashed window long I pause
To gaze and gaze, while through my active brain
Still thoughts are stirred to wakefulness; because
Long, long ago in a dim unknown land,
A massive forest-tree, ax-felled, adze-hewn,
Was deftly done by cunning mortal hand
Into a symbol of the tender moon.
Why does it thrill more than the handsome boat
That bore me o'er the wild Atlantic ways,
And fill me with rare sense of things remote
From this harsh land of fretful nights and days?
I cannot answer but, whate'er it be,
An old wine has intoxicated me.
2.8k
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
Today will die tomorrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Weeps that no love endures.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever God may see,
That no man lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers
Desires and dreams, and powers
And everything but sleep.
A.C. Swinburne
(with slight alterations)
Jun 10, 2013
Jun 10, 2013 at 3:08 PM UTC
Its hardest every night,
When The absence of you
Is as clear
And noticeable
As The emptiness i see
On The pillow next to mine.
When i roll over, and only feel
Cold sheets
Where your lips should be.
Oh, My darling, i remember
When you promised me
Every day
For The rest of our lives
and every day
After that.
Oh, My Love, warm My bed again
Kiss these lips again
Hold me close again
And dont ever
Ever
Dont ever let go again.
dry My tears by being near
Fill My head with your voice
And My heart with your Love.
Baby all i need is you.
I meant what i said
When i said
"until The day i die"
And i know you did too.
Im preparing myself
For The worst possible outcome
But hoping against hope
For The best.
Hope guides me.
A hope that at The end of The day
and The games that we play
You will see what is already
So clear to me.
Hope is all ive had
These last several weeks
That ive been battling,
And usually succumbing to
The bitter tears of loss,
And pain,
Heartache,
Love.
I pray these weeks dont turn
To months
God forbid you take months
Because even for months,
I will be here waiting,
faithfully,
Lovingly,
Probably not patiently,
But wait, i will.
Because Love makes you forgive,
And look past faults,
And mistakes,
To The beauty of The soul
You want forever intertwined
With yours
Oh and i want it..
Want it so badly
That it consumes every thought
And action
In My wakeful hours.
And even when i sleep,
My dreams are haunted
by your absence.
Visions of Love and lust
And The sweet carresses
Of The young in Love.
Each night, when My eyes finally dry
And i fall prey to sleep,
What a fretful sleep it is.
All The things i yearn for
In The daylight hours
Come to me
In My deepest dreams.
I dream of your kiss,
Your laugh,
The way you hold My hand,
And tell me you Love me..
All The things im denied in The day,
My mind gives me at night
Hoping to ease The pain
Of The heart beneath it. But truly,
It only makes it harder
When i wake,
Not in your arms,
But tangled in blankets,
With The ghost of a dreams kiss
Still warming My lips.
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 12:31 PM UTC
It is nothing hard to reach, looking outward
countless distractions, how they move me about
I play a game, circling moon-blue rings of sky
see a rivulet of stars quiver by.
It is nothing easy, fretful, I tremble with night
dark unnerving path, I run and hide
amble, fumble my way to reach inside.
It is something worthwhile at times to swallow a river
dredge miles of soul, to crumble stony towers
reconstruct this apprenticeship
slipping back into softness.
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 8:30 PM UTC
THE woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers? -- By the Rood,
Where are now the watring kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.
Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor seek, for this is also sooth,
To hunger fiercely after truth,
Lest all thy toiling only breeds
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass --
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs -- the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.
Go gather by the humming sea
Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell.
And to its lips thy story tell,
And they thy comforters will be.
Rewording in melodious guile
Thy fretful words a little while,
Till they shall singing fade in ruth
And die a pearly brotherhood;
For words alone are certain good:
Sing, then, for this is also sooth.
I must be gone: there is a grave
Where daffodil and lily wave,
And I would please the hapless faun,
Buried under the sleepy ground,
With mirthful songs before the dawn.
His shouting days with mirth were crowned;
And still I dream he treads the lawn,
Walking ghostly in the dew,
Pierced by my glad singing through,
My songs of old earth's dreamy youth:
But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!
For fair are poppies on the brow:
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
2.1k
On rising heat, killdeer flush
to decoy the enemy--
threat to its young that roams too close
They rush to skim on hayish blur
wailing over wildflowers drying
Fretful twitter in perpetual flight
swifts-- twirl and hurl their bits of bodies--
debris
from a cumulonimbus of a late-day sky
toward a ridge of stag horn sumac
presuming horizon primordial
behind which time and city-- drift and wobble
on rising heat-- after rush hour
*Rising Heat
Rising--
to meet my mind
on its way down
from my post behind
the laundromat
where I view it all--
rising--
where I usually go in search of quiet
to almost hear the ocean
two hundred miles away
to strain words from wind
in careless conversation
to wonder over
missed whispers....
But not today
In rising heat, I went down
in search of something better--
your eyes again
solvent for my presence of mind
dissolvers of hours and the order of things
But I need an excuse!
To turn, to trespass, to disturb the peace!
For your eyes again!
And still I need more-- being feverish, weak
Or?
Or... should I take the cure?
To deny ...To deny
To deny what?
Overtones from a sea of years?
I don't know! Whatever it was!
Nothing explain it...
I melt... I'm gone....*
Sep 8, 2017
Sep 8, 2017 at 10:51 AM UTC
I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!
There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
2k
Oh you fretful bee!
All Heaven and earth are yours
God never runs empty
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 3:32 PM UTC
It all began as an observation,
a mere innocent study,
to watch people in cars,
from cars.
First, the tired workers,
who glared and stared in the road in front,
who slumped in their seats,
who held the steering wheels in a glum manner,
who had dark circles under their eyes,
who had cans of beers at the back seat,
tired, weary, drained, exhausted,spent.
The cheeky children,
who yelled at their siblings,
who wrestled with siblings,
who sat listening to lectures,
who texted with their phones,
who went tippy tappy with their laptops,
who ignored the world; reading,
innocent, busy adolescents.
Of course, there are mothers,
who glance at their sleepy children every few minutes,
who smile at their babies dotingly,
who gave loud lectures to kids,
who smoked cigars,
who was on the phone,or was just driving ahead,
loving, fussy, unleisured.
There were the out-going,
who head-banged furiously to booming music,
who sang aloud to radio,
who chatted enthusiasticly with passengers,
who smiled the whole way through the journey,
who stuck their hands out to feel the wind,
who had nothing to worry about,
free, wonderful, liberated, loose.
Also, some were fretful,
who needed to visit hospitals,
who had their heart broken,
who got rejected at interviews,
who lost someone,
who is obviously in anxiety, who were simply drunk,
worrysome, tired, sad.
And then there's me,
who had nothing better to do,
than to watch and observe,
and felt many things should be changed,
eccentric, weird.
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 3:37 AM UTC
Fallen leaves, mud and trees
roots, willowy dark and deep
tangled and moving through the water
legs and feet, the moon-green heat
August's fiery stars, the red blood of mars
fretful season of fires and floods.
Sep 3, 2017
Sep 3, 2017 at 7:45 PM UTC
I don't live within the walls,
I don't live between parentheses,
I don't grow towards the light,
I live underground,
Overwhelmed and dissatisfied,
Detached and fretful,
Still thinking my life is my own and my choices have meaning.
Jul 3, 2019
Jul 3, 2019 at 1:06 PM UTC
This world has a lot to take in.
It turns and turns stopping for no one
While I just sit and take it all in,
Take turns, take turns. Waiting for the next one.
No, this first-grade paradigm
That controls how I think and see what's fair
Doesn't really apply this time.
Cause first-grade knowledge isn't for just anywhere.
It's for the classroom,
The safe room.
The place where I sit and wait room.
I'm dying just to break through.
But I can't. See they hate you.
They take what they think is theirs.
Never waiting for the rule of turns.
Never thinking how the world fares.
When every bridge they cross burns.
What about the rest of us?
How are we supposed to move forward?
When none but the "very best" of us
Move on past our story's fore-word?
It's horrible and grueling.
Cause the "special ones" are ruling.
They ask, "Who you fooling?"
You'll always be a normal.
Why can't we all be special ones?
Why can't we all have that privilege?
Why must we all be the fretful ones,
Always worried about our image?
Worried that we won't look right.
Or that we won't be up to *****
Cause when we take off our makeup each night
We no longer feel like enough.
No, it's too much.
Our minds are filled with thus and such.
But thus and such are just a crutch.
When we aren't enough.
At least, that's what they tell us.
Make us think we have to be gods.
Cause honestly that's the best way to sell us.
It doesn't matter if they're frauds.
See Humanity longs to be sufficient.
Able to satisfy itself.
So we do what we can with vision.
But leave our skills up on the shelf.
It doesn't matter or make sense.
To make some sort of recompense
When we never lost our innocence
Except by failing ourselves.
See, we fail to see our potential.
That special thing that makes us us.
But in the end it's the most essential.
It's the only thing we can trust.
Whether it's our brain, or our brawn,
Our very will to survive.
It's the very thing that let's us press on
The only think that makes us alive.
We have talents, our gifts.
But our spirits they need lifts
That come through paradigm shifts
From what's fair to what's real.
It's a hard disparity to master.
But in the end it's always alright.
Cause it's only part of growing up.
Seeing the changes that came overnight.
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 9:57 AM UTC
3am - fretful,
too quiet... turn the rain on;
lull me back to sleep.
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 1:35 PM UTC
Far off in the distance
I hear her fretful wail
No purpose in resistance
it would be to no avail
Like Sirens from an ancient ode
she heralds my demise
Inviting me to her abode
and all that it implies
As a lamb unto the slaughter
in innocence I go
A manipulated plotter
of a life I could not know
Thus my friend I go to her
and freely seal my fate
I ask that you do not demur
for the hour is getting late
And so I bid the world adieu
and leave this disarray
As for the likes of me and you
there can be no other way
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 10:24 AM UTC