"fretted" poems
The little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday,
Among the fields, above the sea,
Among the winds at play;
Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees;
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming of the bees.
The foolish fears of what may happen,
I cast them all away
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new-mown hay;
Among the rustling of the corn,
Where drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born
Out in the fields with God.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 3:57 PM UTC
Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or
some northerly harbor of Labrador,
before he became a schoolteacher
a great-uncle painted a big picture.
Receding for miles on either side
into a flushed, still sky
are overhanging pale blue cliffs
hundreds of feet high,
their bases fretted by little arches,
the entrances to caves
running in along the level of a bay
masked by perfect waves.
On the middle of that quiet floor
sits a fleet of small black ships,
square-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
their spars like burnt match-sticks.
And high above them, over the tall cliffs'
semi-translucent ranks,
are scribbled hundreds of fine black birds
hanging in n's in banks.
One can hear their crying, crying,
the only sound there is
except for occasional sizhine
as a large aquatic animal breathes.
In the pink light
the small red sun goes rolling, rolling,
round and round and round at the same height
in perpetual sunset, comprehensive, consoling,
while the ships consider it.
Apparently they have reached their destination.
It would be hard to say what brought them there,
commerce or contemplation.
3.7k
The forgotten umbrella
Fretted
Did he get wet?
Cry because it was missing?
Would his mother have given him a beating?
Benches and desks
Are cozing
The board still retains
The day’s remnants
Night came,
The umbrella was in tears
Rain rain
Umbrella umbrella
Said the rain outside
Only the umbrella heard
His voice was raining over the shower
“my darling umbrella”
Crying itself to sleep,
Headmaster’s room
Came in a dream
Question papers, canes
Maps, globe, skeleton,
Chalk power,
Fat lady teachers,
Farts and baloney
Startled itself awake
No, it is not light yet
Through the darkness
Nothing other than his embroidered name
Still you forgot me!
Other umbrellas came
And sat on either sides
Didn’t you get wet yesterday?
Didn’t you go home?
How can it be said that he forgot me?
There he is!
Umbrella closed its eyes
Let him come running
Give a hundred kisses
He didn’t come even after the bell rang
On opening the eyes, saw
His new darling umbrella
Hasn’t put it down..
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 8:13 AM UTC
Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen,
And sair wi’ his love he did deave me;
I said there was naething I hated like men:
The deuce *** wi ‘m to believe me, believe me,
The deuce *** wi ‘m to believe me.
He spak o’ the darts in my bonie black een,
And vow’d for my love he was diein;
I said he might die when he liked for Jean:
The Lord forgie me for liein, for liein,
The Lord forgie me for liein!
A weel-stocked mailen, himsel for the laird,
And marriage aff-hand, were his proffers:
I never loot on that I ken’d it, or car’d,
But thought I might hae waur offers, waur offers,
But thought I might hae waur offers.
But what *** ye think? in a fortnight or less,
(The deil tak his taste to *** near her!)
He up the lang loan to my black cousin Bess,
Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her, could bear her
Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her.
But a’ the niest week I fretted wi’ care,
I gaed to the tryste o’ Dalgarnock,
And wha but my fine fickle lover was there,
I glowr’d as I’d seen a warlock, a warlock.
I glowr’d as I’d seen a warlock.
But owre my left shoulder I *** him a blink,
Lest neibors might say I was saucy;
My wooer he caper’d as he’d been in drink,
And vow’d I was his dear lassie, dear lassie,
And vow’d I was his dear lassie.
I spier’d for my cousin fu’ couthy and sweet,
Gin she had recover’d her hearin,
And how her new shoon fit her auld shachl’t feet—
But, heavens! how he fell a swearin, a swearin,
But, heavens! how he fell a swearin.
He begg’d, for gudesake, I *** be his wife,
Or else I *** **** him wi’ sorrow:
So e’en to preserve the poor body in life,
I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow,
I think I maun wed him to-morrow.
3k
It may indeed be fantasy when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
Lessons of love and earnest piety.
So let it be; and if the wide world rings
In mock of this belief, it brings
Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.
2.7k
Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' teeth wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain, - but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and through their hands' palms
Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?
- These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lings that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
Carnage incomparable, and human squander
Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
Back into their brains, because on their sense
Sunlight seems a blood-smear; night comes blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh.
- Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
- Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.
2.2k
Plotted, charted according to popular theorem,
meticulously fretted over,
worked and reworked--confirmed.
Follow the order and find the balance.
But, variables.
Solve for x where x is an unknown.
The question may yet have an answer--
a suitable conclusion to prove the proof,
but has the problem a solution?
At rest, we are simple equations,
rounding ourselves to the nearest whole,
adding fractions of a percentage,
drawing a line and calling the bottom number
-------------------------
TOTAL
But, variables.
1(x), where x is an unknown.
And all the fractions we add
leave us fractured,
divided from the solution, the end sum.
remainders to be rounded off,
estimates of ourselves.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 12:29 PM UTC
She's lost in wilds unexplored
Far from dreamers' shining lands
In misty moors where even Sleep
Lets fall his useless magic sands
There is no rest for mortals here
For fools who play where Faeries tread
On Faerie roads, in Faerie lands
The world is turned upon its head
Her stride is sure, yet she is not
Perception is the Faeries' game
Sending visions, glamours, ghosts
Illusions wailing out her name
A fearful girl along the roads
Will bargain for most anything
And here, the threshold of Lost Hope
Is purview of the Raven King
The Raven King! The Raven King!
She fell in wonder at the sight
As castles grew before her eyes
And wild dark turned blinding bright
He led her to the winding halls
She rushed down cobbles Faeries tread
She gulped the dizzying Faerie wine
And took the proffered Faerie bread
They swept her up in swirling dance
For frenzied days, she whirled along
In drunken time, she stumbled to
The beat of Faerie's wild song
And, wilder still, her heart would drum
Excited in the glittered haze
As Fae lay stardust in her eyes
And drew her with their feral gaze
But wait--why did her weary bones
Resist the Fae's beguiling thrall?
Even as her mind was pulled to
Pirouette the Endless Ball
Dissonance--a spell had snapped
She scrabbled at the gilded walls
"Is this to be my cage?" she called
Across the King's ethereal halls
She couldn't sleep; she couldn't rest
Paced and fretted, cried aloud
But she had bargained, drunk the wine
And for the Raven King now bowed
"You made the bargain, mortal girl
You said the words and you were bound
You called out for the Raven King
When you were lost on Faerie ground."
She'd never known the ancient laws
The tricky ways of binding rites
The way the Fae could draw you in
With silvered tongue and phantom sights
The Faeries laughed; the Faeries danced
They brought her back under their spell
She didn't fight--their dazzling daze
Was better than a living hell
So there she stays, a wayward girl
Heartsick, lost, and trapped in Fae
A fearful girl along the roads
Who bargained her whole life away
Sep 14, 2022
Sep 14, 2022 at 12:08 PM UTC
The splendor of the kindling day,
The splendor of the setting sun,
These move my soul to wend its way,
And have done
With all we grasp and toil amongst and say.
The paling roses of a cloud,
The fading bow that arches space,
These woo my fancy toward my shroud;
Toward the place
Of faces veiled, and heads discrowned and bowed.
The nation of the awful stars,
The wandering star whose blaze is brief,
These make me beat against the bars
Of my grief;
My tedious grief, twin to the life it mars.
O fretted heart tossed to and fro,
So fain to flee, so fain to rest!
All glories that are high or low,
East or west,
Grow dim to thee who art so fain to go.
1.7k
The western wind is blowing fair
Across the dark AEgean sea,
And at the secret marble stair
My Tyrian galley waits for thee.
Come down! the purple sail is spread,
The watchman sleeps within the town,
O leave thy lily-flowered bed,
O Lady mine come down, come down!
She will not come, I know her well,
Of lover’s vows she hath no care,
And little good a man can tell
Of one so cruel and so fair.
True love is but a woman’s toy,
They never know the lover’s pain,
And I who loved as loves a boy
Must love in vain, must love in vain.
O noble pilot, tell me true,
Is that the sheen of golden hair?
Or is it but the tangled dew
That binds the passion-flowers there?
Good sailor come and tell me now
Is that my Lady’s lily hand?
Or is it but the gleaming prow,
Or is it but the silver sand?
No! no! ’tis not the tangled dew,
’Tis not the silver-fretted sand,
It is my own dear Lady true
With golden hair and lily hand!
O noble pilot, steer for Troy,
Good sailor, ply the labouring oar,
This is the Queen of life and joy
Whom we must bear from Grecian shore!
The waning sky grows faint and blue,
It wants an hour still of day,
Aboard! aboard! my gallant crew,
O Lady mine, away! away!
O noble pilot, steer for Troy,
Good sailor, ply the labouring oar,
O loved as only loves a boy!
O loved for ever evermore!
1.7k
*nothing like unsmoothed-potential
handed out
by
the dense-influence
of
libraries*
1.
symbiosis personified within
the heart of libraries
where tomes could be spilt
in split-seconds
2.
staked into the other
like a dove-tail joint
yeah, I'll smoke you yet
on a day beneath a sun-trilled tree
*peanut-butter sandwish on a windy-day
hm.. ain't nada like libraries
as fine-shelter
for fretted-shoulders*
S T - 14 novice 13
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 3:38 AM UTC
Can you tell when the magic is about to happen.
When the hook is taking hold.
Do you get a funny feeling when it comes together
When the reason finds a rhyme
The feeling fits the word.
The senses click when the tumblers fall in line.
The phrases hover then flutter.
A drifting mist takes flight. It soars defiantly.
A fleeting thought turns slowly round and round.
A drop of rain falls slowly then swiftly then ripples on shimmering pond.
Ripple, ripple wider still running free to bank.
The lapping sound I hear in deep. Indeed the simple echo.
My mind asks how this came to be. In truth it even puzzles me .
Call it what you will my friends. I call it poetry.
I now careess my blue guitar. It takes me on the journey
The instrument it masters me as I have learned the rote.
A dewdrop trembles on the E string then echoes and cries softly. Fretted gently it
whines and squeals in sad ecstasy. The blues in my hand.
The motion in my mind.
The ripple of the pond.
The union. Nubile and free.
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 10:19 PM UTC
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;
Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
Cast up thy Life’s foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
Which had Life’s form and Love’s, but by my spell
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.
Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart
One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,
Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.
1.4k
Caught in the realm of a far greater society,
she would never taste true love on earth,
so she would have to travel.
Samsungs sorrow was held somewhere deep
within her forgotten past.
She fretted over the little things
she never got to do
and lost herself in replaying
every single angle.
Endless nights of tossing and turning
and revisiting feelings
through her subconscious left her lost to panic,
alone and in the dark.
She could hardly ever make out a discernable song
but none the less it was played,
by a man four billion light years away,
who she would never actually know.
From head to toe electrified,
and sanctified by reason
the ever knowing thought bot senses
wrinkles in that fabric that we knitted.
Call the tailor and get him sewing
for mans to good to be ****
And there we leave the nameless patterns
of neural activity sufficiently spoken for.
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 5:57 AM UTC
She threw the ball,
The tiny creature brought it back,
She stood tall,
In her mind she fretted over how she lacked,
She threw the ball,
The tiny creature brought it back,
She couldn't stop playing with it,
No matter how much it bled,
She would still throw it,
She threw the ball,
This time she was dead.
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 9:27 AM UTC
589
The Night was wide, and furnished scant
With but a single Star—
That often as a Cloud it met—
Blew out itself—for fear—
The Wind pursued the little Bush—
And drove away the Leaves
November left—then clambered up
And fretted in the Eaves—
No Squirrel went abroad—
A Dog’s belated feet
Like intermittent Plush, he heard
Adown the empty Street—
To feel if Blinds be fast—
And closer to the fire—
Her little Rocking Chair to draw—
And shiver for the Poor—
The Housewife’s gentle Task—
How pleasanter—said she
Unto the Sofa opposite—
The Sleet—than May, no Thee—
1.4k
Before I come and wake you
With hot tea and kisses
I will say some quiet words
In the dark
where you cannot hear them
I founder sometimes in your beauty
As if the side or depth of it are out of reach
I sink beneath its density
How your body shudders
With unwinding joy
When everything and breathing stops
In one intense point of space and time
Resounding and fading
A sheer pulsing drift of wonder
Then I feel your flesh vibrating
Like strings beneath my fretted fingers
Like an ocean of dazed and dazzled being
Exploding beyond your senses
And flooding your soul with holy vespers
And I am blessed to be in your body at such a time
And I am further blessed
By the intimacy of your secrets
Those fears and hopes
Your most precious self that no one sees
Beyond the energies of life and death
Beyond healing and forgiveness
You let me touch your prayers
In grace and bright dawning
When being is done and the universe explodes
Will the murmurs of our love
taste like Sanctus on the lips of angels
And I will be blessed to be in you at such a time
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 9:03 AM UTC
as you woke walking and the path
wound up ahead where pearly snails trailed
moon-shine and the trees like tall elegant
women high over fretted twinkle stars
what had it meant, the day? The wind
was a silken scarf that wrapped your eyes
so you tottered on the cobbles, laughed.
A friend waved across the town square
somewhere, a child's toy in the gutter
as the sweet rain sprinkled your face
and hair fanned out in an ocean of breath
but the dark gathers and the trees give wild
voice, your toiling feet groan for rest, refuge
of starlight cottage
Is the lover there? Will the tall trees shelter
you, star gems gleam in safe seclusion
on the mantel spread scarf
and your eyes dream the warm night?
Jun 19, 2011
Jun 19, 2011 at 7:18 AM UTC
Wastes of space, we the scapegrace, blank expressions, poker face.
You're my ace, ahead in the race, they're second place, a futile chase.
Stakes growing higher like an untamed fire, their inevitable pyre, situations dire.
Those who were bold, i watched their hands fold, those who seemed braver, i watched as they waivered, as they fretted and regretted, i watched their faces fall, like a delicate house of cards, gingerly balanced, standing tall.
But i have nout to fear, for my secret ace is here, hidden up my sleeve, to which i dearly cleave, they all want to believe, as losing's what they fear, but losing's all they'll get, while my secret ace is near.
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 3:44 PM UTC
Maximum hot silence,
As neutrinos finger-out,
Playful harmonies,
on this fretted frown,
Nano-seconds before light overwhelms,
And billionths become measured,
Strutting and strumming and fingerings found,
Playfully erupt,
Like sound interrupted,
And staccato resounds,
Expanse and corruption,
Bringing me down,
Creating life glimpses,
Often unfound,
This mere direction,
Taking lifestyle mirth,
Unknowing and knowing,
For whatever its worth.
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 5:12 AM UTC
Blazing summer sun,
fuming in the sky for long
had a secret desire to sneak out
and cool off a bit, in private.
Pretending that he is still up there
hiding behind a cloud umbrella,
he sneaked out, holding on to it
jumped in to a lake
waveless and placid, in a quiet siesta.
Swimming around
within the safety net of
floating fluffy clouds,
he thought none did notice,
his new secret predilection
to go for a cold dip, against his grain.
A little fish on her midday practice swim
saw the cold sun, close by
fretted at the strange sight,
(for her, it was the first time)
raised an alarm, that brought all fish along
the profusion of fins and tails and
pecking mouths, all of a sudden made sun
spring back in a moment,
without a second thought.
Bleeding from the wounds
angry pecking fish gifted in anger.
He was hot and furious more than ever,
will he venture out again?
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 10:51 PM UTC
We're two Halley's comets collided;
Awesome burst created our own universe,
Together across this great expanse we traverse;
Finally real after all that we've pretended,
Not just dreamers; we take action
Seize the moment; never caught in inaction,
God made the stars; but we make them shine,
We've hooked the bait line after line
And now after weathering the storm
We're always catching the worm,
We've been shunned;
We've been gunned-
Down by the jealous and the lost;
Who know not their purpose only can accost-
Us wanting to know where we're headed,
And to think once we fretted dreaded
Their accusing eyes,
But they live only lies
Wanting our secrets; envy our success
Always wonder how we excel under duress,
But they'll never know how we trump-
All their expectations; how no speed bump-
Can slow us down; nothing can hold us,
In a magnificent clusterfuck they all lay
Debris caught trailing our orbit; all ruckus,
We're headed warp speed dead ahead; come what may...
© okpoet
Jan 9, 2013
Jan 9, 2013 at 5:54 PM UTC
I used to bang on fretted strings
frilled out chords and pretty things
I closed my eyes and let it flow
no boundaries did imagination know
I still can feel the rising rush
of blood electric through my veins
reminisce of all the chains
I've busted through
me and my crew
we did the do and so much more....
out of this world we did explore
through the sound, through the music, through the sound, into the mystic, so profound, to feel the music...
in our blood, hearts of lust
a musician's kind of kindred trust
i miss those days...
I sometimes weep inside
I hear a verse and groove the vibe
but something inside me knows it died
...
A life once lived, so true...
so true
That life I lived is through...
so through
But still I keep an acoustic propped against my wall
in case that the muse of music does call...
please call
Feb 7, 2015
Feb 7, 2015 at 8:12 PM UTC