"fretting" poems
CATERPILLAR recognize me
BUTTERFLY (turning away glances over shoulder) excuse me
CATERPILLAR i’m you before you transformed
BUTTERFLY get away you ****** worm
CATERPILLAR you can’t be serious look at me i’m you
BUTTERFLY look at you? euwwwh you’re a sticky slug with too many legs (pause) i’m exquisite fluttering colorful poetry a celebrity with huge fan base wherever i fly people recognize admire me
CATERPILLAR (creases brow) what happened to you did you forget your past where you come from
BUTTERFLY my past is fiction i’ve always been this lovely luminary (turns profile to audience in exaggerated manner) can’t you see i’m busy go away please leave
CATERPILLAR (bluntly) you’re consumed in vanity drunk on yourself spectacle without substance you make me question my own growing will i become like you
BUTTERFLY stop talking i’m calling 911
CATERPILLAR (sharply) you’re a sickening disappointment another Paris Hilton spin-off i hope to die in the cocoon and be spared the sham of you
BUTTERFLY (speaking into cell phone) yes operator i’m being accosted violated attack in progress please dispatch police immediately
CATERPILLAR you’re pitiful over-reactionary spineless decadent
BUTTERFLY i have nothing more to say law enforcement will be here soon
CATERPILLAR quit fretting i’m out of here i need to find and warn other caterpillars this meeting is a bleak awakening
BUTTERFLY think what you like greasy maggot i’m late for a performance and need to skirt paparazzi
caterpillar trudges off stage left as butterfly ascends over audience
Aug 16, 2010
Aug 16, 2010 at 8:07 AM UTC
You’re lost
I can’t find you anywhere
I listen for the sound of your foot steps
Your breath
Silence
Silence
Its getting late
I'm perspiring
I'm hoping you’ll be strong
Strong like how I am
Or maybe how I want to be
But you’re not
You know you’re not
You probably wouldn’t stand a chance
I run
Hiding in the bushes as the bright lights shine
I’m a crminal, I’m a criminal, I’m a criminal
I hear a rustle
Flinch
I hear a squeel
Frozen muscles
Is it you?
.
.
.
Im sprinting now
Home, home were you’ll be I know it
It has to be
I’m not worried everything’s fine
I don’t care who sees me now
I'll **** them up
I'm on a mission
I've gotta save her
I've gotta prove I'm fretting over nothing
Which is worse than fretting over something
Stomp stomp creek
Warm air
Familiar smell
No sound
I walk to the bathroom
It's nothing
To her
Slap
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 3:37 AM UTC
Come! Supper is ready
Come! Boys and girls now,
For her is fresh milk
From the good molly cow.
Have done with your fife
And your row de dow dow,
And taste this sweet milk
From the good Molly cow
Whoever is fretting
Must clear up his brow,
Or he'll have no milk
From the good molly cow
And here is Miss *****
She means by mee ow,
Give me too some milk
From the good Molly cow
When children are hungry,
Oh who can tell how
They love the fresh milk
From the good Molly cow
So when you meet Molly
Please say, with a bow,
"Thank you for your milk,
Mrs.good Molly cow."
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 9:45 AM UTC
Oh how I yearn for Serendipity-by-the-Sea,
Pristine sands aglow under a deep blue sky,
Crabbing and kite flying, every day a perpetual cream tea,
Never mind the bites and stings, the sunburn and occasional tears, the hours flew deliciously by,
Oh how I yearn for Serendipity-by-the-Sea, in sweet memory of a lost childhood
Oh how I yearn for Serendipity-by-the-Sea,
Endless games and innocent playful frolics,
Hide and seek in the dunes, eyes barely covered and a speedy count to twenty,
Mum and Dad fussing and fretting, always late for the midday picnics,
Oh how I yearn for Serendipity-by-the-Sea, in sweet memory of a lost childhood
Oh how I yearn for Serendipity-by-the-Sea,
Rainy days didn’t stop the fun, funfairs and arcades beckoned,
Never managed to hook those ****** cuddly toys, made Dad so angry!
Waste of time and money Mum always reckoned,
Oh how I yearn for Serendipity-by-the-Sea, in sweet memory of a lost childhood
Oh how I yearn for Serendipity-by-the-Sea,
Harmless nostalgia or dangerous reverie?
Perhaps things were never as I imagined them to be,
But I ache for those happier days, and ease this endlessly painful adult misery,
Oh how I yearn for Serendipity-by-the-Sea, in sweet memory of a lost childhood
© Robert Porteus
Sep 8, 2020
Sep 8, 2020 at 8:39 AM UTC
The mannequin faceless,
Clothed in gold
With hands pandering svelte,
Remains an admired inanimate,
Albeit, atop whispers to a girl,
A 4-foot flower 3-feet my right,
Fretting and stumped;
Extrinsic a label – “undesirable.”
The mannequin faceless,
Her and hollow –
A towering nose above, stands
Opaque ivory, scarred come
Synonymous eyes with a symmetrical
Soul, assumed plastic perfection
And more importantly,
Soon to be sale.
The mannequin faceless
Convinced her new friend,
Her lesser, lopsided,
And natural not-so counterpart
To consume,
“Eat me, “eat me,” “eat it all,”
And then, “binge some more.”
The mannequin faceless
SCREAMS,
“BUY!” Amongst the other torments –
Born both fingers that can’t move and
The thumbs that shuffle, “One’s,”
To the girl that was never,
“Good enough;” so shared the
Tabloid’s mouth.
The mannequin faceless demands
And DEMANDS nothing less than to
Buy, starve, suffer and sacrifice
So that every “broken body,”
May embody polymer, and for a price,
A not so fair trade whilst
Considering old man gold,
The curator of conundrum
And the plastic he’s created.
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 8:59 AM UTC
trapped in a ribcage
frail and fretting and fettered
hummingbird heart beats harder and harder
your skeleton fingertips tilling the ground
combing for the catacombs
of all your past lives
look what i have done for you
teeth marks to chart your growth
black red purple sky no stars no light no
for thine is the kingdom, the dead leaf diadem
battle-ready raccoon eyes, scored and scowling
if you do not run you will be left behind.
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 2:49 AM UTC
My Heart is a drunken bipolar maniac with masochistic tendencies .
My Heart does not care about your feelings,
or the fretting of my apologetic Mind.
It is ravenous and deranged;
it will devour your succulent hopes and spit out the bones.
My Heart is one mean ************
it is a rabid wolverine with a hangover who ate razor-blades for breakfast,
and no, it does not want to go steady
or hold hands.
It wants to rip the soft white throat of your infatuation
and watch your eloquent offerings pool around your feet.
Unless, of course, you do not want me.
For met with that alluring indifference,
my unhinged pit-bull of a Heart will curl at your feet with doe-eyed meekness
and follow you from room to room in an agony of adoration
while Self-Respect and Dignity sulk in some dusty corner, thinking
"Please God, won't somebody muzzle that crazy *****
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 7:45 AM UTC
**November 5, 2010 at 2:59 am
{Inspired by Dr. Boshra 3agban, Nizzar Qabani}
You're a woman;
created from the Greek myths,
wrapped in the veil of my fantasies,
Reborn from all the phoenix ashes,
You're the history of my life, miss;
it bounds u not..no years no seas,
you grant the moon those glaring flashes,
So I never sleep at nights to see thy gypsy eyes,
It's enough to write your name,
Just to be the perfect poet,
It's enough to be loved by thee,
It is so enough for me,
& I'll be mentioned in the history;
As the man & the angel that met,
At the horizon's end,
On the edge of the dreams,
You're a woman;
Carved by an angel's hands,
& made from the diamonds of verse,
Veiled in the golden cloak of my dreams,
A deity from some mystic lands,
Glowing through my murky universe,
Born from heaven's springs & streams,
Your tidal dormant waves through me they arise,
You're a woman;
Greater than Aphrodite & Athena,
You're the endless music of the lyre of pan,
You're the gauzy clouds that may make spring a winter eve,
Picturing you ..Tottering...is the ****** of me,
Thy swift stalk...gazing at you; forever I span,
arrayed in thy mantle of every hyacinth's leaf,
That sings the odes of love in me heart they incise,
You're a woman;
Caring not for time or years,
Neither aging nor death can touch thee,
You're the eternal rose of all the nerieds,
Knowing not no pains or fears,
Thy treads' rhythm lurks through me,
Your love's a religion, belief & a creed,
& my prayers from now forth art thy drowsy sighs,
It's enough to write your name,
Just to be the perfect poet,
It's enough to be loved by thee,
It is so enough for me,
& I'll be mentioned in the history;
As the man & the angel that met,
At the horizon's end,
On the edge of the dreams,
You're a woman;
Drest in the Elysium stars,
With pinions of an angel of life,
Fretting on waters of rivers of Eden,
Healing my feeble searing scars,
Heaping my ardent fires that thrive,
With dewy kisses That're unforgotten,
I've never lived before...now I realize,
You're a woman;
Of wavy hair & wavy weather,
Of blushy cheeks, like of the primrose,
Nestling these lips gushing with love,
I pledge my heart & soul for a feather,
Of thy wing that flips & shows,
Sublimity with that dimpled smile of a dove,
That holds all the answers & whys...
It's enough to write your name,
Just to be the perfect poet,
It's enough to be loved by thee,
It is so enough for me,
& I'll be mentioned in the history;
As the man & the angel that met,
At the horizon's end,
On the edge of the dreams....
******
Jul 18, 2012
Jul 18, 2012 at 2:53 AM UTC
Bear came to do my garden today
It had got into rather a mess,
Sticky Jenny and dandelions,
Rotten roots and garlic shoots
Got poor Bear betwixed;
Hot and sweating, really fretting
Bear began to cry,
Why was it that I thought gardening
From painting let me hide.
But off he went along the fence
Pulling out the weeds
Found some bulbs that did not smell
Dug them up, as fast, as well
Now they're back in a different spot
Three short stems in an empty plot;
Made me laugh just to see
How silly that Woolly Bear can be.
Love Mary
Thank you to Ian my Gardener
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 9:27 AM UTC
it was like waking up to all white fume
or a long washline — masturbatory, feeling something stiff like a hand gliding
over a monsoon of emotions, the affect
jazz and the crunch of fragrance
forever like sandalwood;
on my way to Dumandan, i conjure an inward miasma of thrill, unfurled yesterday, today, or was it before when our eyes were fixated on the passing of things in myriad ways without any relevance to what has died, say wilted,
like a flower going away in closing seasons,
children in hurtling speeds at twilight,
gates welcoming a resounding sound of
rusting hinges,
slow rise of night, its vertical climb,
shadows collapsing on the Hibiscus
and the Poinsettia from the Cordillera,
dreary men taking out ******* throwing
them into metalloid beasts, verdigris
painted, grisly caravan of steel and
worthless scraps —
past neighborhoods thinking about
the simmer of onion and the hustle of
the feral over rooftops, clinking wine bottles undulating full to empty — both
unaware of acumen and only dizzying
ourselves mirroring each other eye
to eye and bridging this unclose-enough
a gap in between,
because you need it,
and i want it, or simply in reverse,
a sidewinding thought through dunes
of afterthought.
because you have to walk my side
of the Earth and I have to meet you
somewhere halfway where we can both
lounge at each other's steady presence
while the flyblown dry air ravishes
the piquant morning, all-telling what
this distance meant from its
peak up to the very last
traceable steps where i found you
and you found me, trilling in the neighborhood like how void
stills itself into all the mood of the Earth:
all moony and
fretting in the disquiet.
Nov 15, 2015
Nov 15, 2015 at 2:38 PM UTC
Nothing compares
To shaking on top of an old
Broken down windmill
With you.
Nothing compares
To silent summers
Sweating in the sweltering heat
Of love.
Nothing compares
To bright blue brick walls
Bringing about a brightening of bleary bland feelings.
Nothing compares
To dark auburn dreams
Drifting down my darling's cheek.
Nothing compares
To radical rants
On ruined romances
raining rivulets of righteousness
Upon those rotten adolescents.
Nothing compares
To myriads of murals
Of most moved men
Materializing
Meandering
In the fields below.
Nothing compares
To falling flat to fear
Fretting and fanning
To finish off
This fantasy.
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 9:27 AM UTC
perplexity and confusion
through deep chasms of self-deprecation
we trudge world weary and troubled
furthermore we play philosopher (of dim shadows)
or worse fortune-teller (of self) creating self-fulfilling prophecies
that tell of tears and framed laughter (within society’s embrace)
turmoil coupled with turbulence (what if? what if not? why me? why not me?
wreaking havoc in the present clouding all sense of joy and peace)
not realizing that the past is dead and gone
in future times - que sera sera, there is no point
fretting and fuming
worrying and burying happiness six feet under ghostly nonexistence
***that is why I choose to **** all negative thought***
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 5:27 AM UTC
The frog half fearful jumps across the path,
And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath;
My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,
Till past, and then the cricket sings more strong,
And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with their fretting song.
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare,
Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank
The yellowhammer flutters in short fears
From off its nest hid in the grasses rank,
And drops again when no more noise it hears.
Thus nature’s human link and endless thrall,
Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.
2.3k
Busy without end,
Needless activity that
Has no bounds.
False actions
So incapsalated with.
Fretting about my life--
An unanimated robot.
Chained to the illusion
Of fervid productivity.
Things to do, things to do
Never a minute, never an hour.
Constant motion--
Only smoke and mirrors.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 2:13 PM UTC
Feelings subside when ****** from a straw.
Worn down and white until left with no more.
"Fill me with sweets, and your honey kissed vernacular tonight."
but to me, I find that those who need ego-stroking will run me out of my high.
They tell me that my thoughts and actions will leave my young mind contrite and fretting.
Yet curiosity survives formal education,
so even with this piece of coded information
i still wanted to commit the crime and enter a realm of affirmation
The one that only you emulate
one of strong will
hope
and pretty flowered daisy chains
But in all reality , i am to stay here.
holding my own hand side by side,
watching stranger's fingers intertwine along side in syncopated time
during what, though divergent in style,was promised to be my 'glory days'...
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 11:23 PM UTC
Contradicted
Don't live today thinking tomorrow will come
Don't live today thinking a change will come
Don't live today fretting for tomorrow
Don't live today expecting joy in the morning
Don't live today expecting sorrow in the morning
Don't live today thinking I'll be here tomorrow
Don't live today thinking I won't be here tomorrow
Contradicted
Corroboration
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 6:33 PM UTC
(Inspired by St. Matthew 6:33)
Seek first the Kingdom of God,
and His righteousness, and all
good things shall come to you.
Too much time fretting over
the affairs of the world can
take away our peace inside.
Drifting foolishly in the stream
of the material world leads
us only set on folly to folly.
It's a constant struggle to
find the peace within when
we look for it without God.
Every leaf on every tree
grows to glorify Christ.
Through His blessed love
all the earth revolves in
a perfect circle of harmony.
Focus on the happy things
that calms the bitterly bad.
Blessings stem from what
we surrender to the Lord.
His ways can be our ways
if we abandon our pride.
Nothing else means a thing
when we lose sight of God.
He promises perfect union
with the promise of life.
With opened eyes we see
the illusions fall away.
Praise be always to the
happy lives to be ours.
Seek first the Kingdom of God,
and His righteousness, and all
good things shall come to you.
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 8:21 AM UTC
I miss the look in your eyes,
The excitement in your smile,
And the touch of your hand,
I miss the sweet smell of your morning breath,
The way your hair sticks out in every which way, it possibly can,
And you twirling your leg hair into tiny little pine trees,
While passing the time away.
I miss your two front teeth,
And being calmed down by your voice,
I miss your billions of self-pics,
Let’s not forget you leaving your stuff everywhere,
Yeah, I can’t believe I miss it either,
And the ridiculousness of your lovely, barely noticed Canadian accent
I miss you fretting over balding,
I miss hearing about the way you love your family
And our awesome God talks, I miss listening to you pray,
Hearing you practice guitar,
I miss seeing you every freakin’ day!
I miss our weirdness,
I miss you knowing exactly what I’m trying to say,
Filling in my broken sentences,
Filling in the gaps to my half-sung songs, singing the parts I don’t know, loud and clear,
And agreeing with my odd observations, as if it was a great one,
I miss you giving me the benefit of the doubt, just being so sweet and polite, listening,
You were always good at listening,
I miss watching funny movies with you, and telling you you’re wrong, when you knew you were right all along, and then me coming back to you and telling you how right you are!
I miss being near you, and laughing with you,
I miss the way you half laugh at something silly or dumb I say
And half-rolling your eyes, the way you do, when I am ludicrous!
I miss the way you are, on your good days, on your reserved days,
On your sad days, on those awkward days, on the days I couldn’t be near you,
On every single day I ever had with you, I miss those days…
And I miss your face, and I miss your heart, and I miss you more,
Every day and every second, I am missing you, when we are apart.
…even if you never know, if you never care, if it doesn’t matter, if it never will, I still, am madly in love with you and am missing you like Jesus misses those lost souls.
I miss you, here, now, forever, and I will always love you, and be fighting to forget you, always…always, my dear.
Feb 12, 2010
Feb 12, 2010 at 8:38 PM UTC
Hath thou seen Queen Mab to-day?
in that bitter carriage, with her dreams
Forwarding to the cursèd fray
with unhallowed thoughts, or so ’twould seem
And creeping under willow’s bough
’pon rotting leaves and sick’ning scents
Of fretting unborn babes and now
she peddles with a marred intent
With foreign faeries in the leaves
who show broken wares and scattered souls
They hide amongst the dripping reeds
while dying rays reflect on shoals
And here, on the last hour of light
mab cursed the world into the night.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 5:07 AM UTC
Coffee. Desk. Ringing phone. Clacking keys.
This same pen. This same ******* pen,
that writes the same way—there is a thinning of the ink
in the curve of the E’s and the stroke of the Y’s
Endless stapling. I find myself gritting my teeth every time
as if I’m stapling my skin—or my hand. To my face.
The window behind me offers the same view
of the same skyline of the same ****** buildings!
Overcast, sunny, slight drizzle or deluge—
Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the rhythm of my heart
That is no different from the rhythm of my day.
I can’t even remember what happened yesterday. I just remember
The coffee. The desk. The ringing phone. The clacking keys.
At least this way, there’s no use fretting about tomorrow.
Because tomorrow—it’ll be that same pen. That same pathetic pen.
Sometimes, I want to cry. Cry for my wasted hours—days—life.
Cry for those clouds in the horizon that looked no different
from the same clouds in the same horizon yesterday.
Cry for the slowly dulling reds and greens and purples
in the canvas of this miserable life.
Howl for the Wonders of the World,
the Must Watch Movies Before You Die,
the 1001 Books You Have to Read Before You’re Dead,
that I will never get to savor.
Grays and Blacks and Whites.
So monochromatic.
So very monotonous.
At least, in the few nights that I dream…
I dream in color.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 1:59 AM UTC
Men and women for election,
Listen to the crowds,
Reflect desires to perfection,
Echo murmurs loud.
Elected, the voters exult
If their candidates win,
Curse under losing result...
Plot to get themselves in.
Either way, time isn't long,
Voters lose first love;
Officials begin to look wrong,
And politics gives 'em a shove.
We never quite see
We're electing ourselves;
Candidates riding on mirrors;
Shiny reflections scream while we yell
Our demands or feed on our fears.
Soon plans we've made turn to dust;
Politicos fail us;
The system breaks down;
The party clogs with inertia and rust,
Until the next campaign comes 'round.
Want to see what we'll get?
Take a look in the mirror...
What we see gives us reason
For fretting and fear.
True mirrors, our best politicians;
Can only reflect what they see...
If we kneel to offer petitions,
Ourselves will pay for our pleas.
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 8:41 AM UTC
as the coffee cup is rinsed,
the filthy little ******* lands
on the counter to my right.
immediately,
seeking a bludgeon,
his demise is envisioned.
however,
this housefly stays in
my periphery
for just a moment
longer
and
I cannot help but notice
his tiny little mitts, working
and fretting.
imagining the tiniest string
of rosary beads wrapped
around his housefly fists,
it occurs to me that he
might be making his peace
with God.
offering up his little housefly
benedictions, contritions;
apologies for all the sugar bowls,
he’s puked in during his
miniscule little life,
all the little maggots that
he might have fathered
and subsequently abandoned.
I think, without thinking really,
to chide my little countertop
cohort, saying:
“Ah, give it up little one, He isn’t there, He never was,
and if He is, He doesn’t give a second’s thought to the
likes of us.”
the housefly looks at me;
still furiously working his
unseen beads.
“You fool.” he says.
“God has obviously heard my contrition, my apologies,
and has granted me a reprieve, however brief.”
interrupting his novenas,
the housefly continues:
“You, my friend, are so great,
and I am so small,
yet you’ve heard my voice,
seen my beads,
given me reprieve, however brief.
I had asked God to give to you,
just one golden moment of
true, honest belief.
And, so He has, and now
you understand that
the prayers of a housefly
have stayed your hand.
So, it doesn’t matter how
great or how small,
God listens to each of us,
one and all.”
***
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications; 2016
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 10:38 AM UTC
I suppose we’ll get drunk
Maybe that’ll drag me out of this funk
Of television screens and cheap food
An oh, so unforgiving mood
Fretting about the smallest things
Of raw chicken & bankrupt kings
Avoiding sentimental ties
I’ll settle with the unkempt lies
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 1:30 AM UTC
*grew my hair too long, watched it get cut and
all the snippets
fell to the floor,
decided my hair had not been
long enough
started all over again,
longer longer deeper longer,
pasting the snippets together
hoping the parts are greater than the
hole I am forever filling with
Haagen Daz vanilla buttermilk,
wise choices of words,
the satisfactory completion
of finishing and the joyous anticipatory
of starting all over again
undecided if today will be
a day where I tend my love, or,
need more being attended to
every poem I every writ
is just a
snip snip snip
of instant instances seconds capsulated
that run on into one long sentence my
gorgeous blonde 5th grade teacher, who had a crush on me,
(and vice versa)
would red ink wink critique as a
run on sentence and I could not agree more
snip snip snip
becomes a life
of one run on sentence to living larger and longer,
want a becoming life,
life becoming comely,
only commas and no periods,
period
exhausting the indecision of living
so pasting snippets seems more manageable
but not so much fun, indeed, in deed,
too much **** work, this cutting and pasting,
so gonna give you the rough and tumble of my words
as they pour out and as long as they keep coming back,
I'll keep on pouring and ******* and godpraise
this word well that runs dry never
my poems are not too long -
if you have learned to taste wisely -
how to taste gloriously languorously language
my poems are not too long,
life is too short to leave all these
demoted spaces of empty,
in between the raging and the loving,
the aching, fretting and the heaven sending thrills
of thanking the powers to be for everything
I got blessed with,
even my curses are just the flip side of*
***snip snip snip
so much from just one cup of coffee***
<>
six minutes of Aug 13, 2016 life, something you might call a
snip snip snip
SIP
Aug 13, 2016
Aug 13, 2016 at 6:43 AM UTC