"frittered" poems
The complexity of coupling is an exponential increase.
No matter how perturbed life may be, we strive to linearize it,
thank you Laplace. You transform us.
It is integral to simplify life.
Like Da Vinci, Like Thoreau:
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”
“Our life is frittered away by detail…simplify, simplify”
Let us not differentiate between the good or the bad
the high or the low.
Life is too brief to quantify, qualify, and compare it to others.
It is yours alone. Embrace the change over time.
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 1:01 PM UTC
*if only I knew how to love...
for my Victoria
winces-grimaces, that these words even leave my fingertips,
reminiscences, a chrome bookmark tab full of decades of near misses,
instances, subway sideway stolen daily glances of she who would be the only, the one, but one day failed to appear, left to dream peer,
and/or
decades long of romanced lasses, flying spectacular super crashes, when my heart-blanched, lanced, and the lawyers danced, poems shriveled as dried ink crack'd and words rusted shut,
cut by so many p'raps, and ugly motives, beautiful covered up, disguised as synapses of sin and insincerity, and I,
the sad man,
both the sinner and the sinned against,
totalities, of shoulda-woulda-asked/kissed-her-gallantly,
activities, when kisses were doorways to trap door rooms
and an over decorated monte cristo prison cell
ah well
the 'and yet,' the 'but for,' a single finger, sealing silenced lips,
passions mourned and irrevocable sensations, frittered, fractured,
all that I calmly called love was sprigs and broken branches,
cut flowers destined to shrivel,
not of what I believed in, something akin to a tree rooted, an oaken strong unbreakable love
of this certain, all approximations, all failed incantations,
for surely, if but only one escaped, could have been saved,
and if truthful love it was,
I would have known it,
for would I have dared to let slip away?
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 6:05 PM UTC
As the ages of my life pass by
Like bits of burnt sages
I look back at what elapsed
Like withered pages of rusty verses
Frittered yet sapient in phases
And I fondly wonder
Of the moments of quandary
Whether I flourish or mold blunder
Heedless to the end that I shall attend
Nov 25, 2022
Nov 25, 2022 at 6:50 PM UTC
Two shades of blue, Two shades of blue
The endless Sky, a canvas painted with molten sapphire
He frittered those diamonds with no trace of frugality
The never-ending cerulean Ocean, big as your heart's desire
She undulated life, corals and sea shells, with a trace of salinity
Two shades of blue, Two shades of blue.
Two shades of blue, Two shades of blue
She is his diurnal curtain, as he opens his eye from his sleep
He is her coiffeur, as he colors her entwined hair in a shade of serenity
She is his narcissistic cheval glass, reassuring him every moment
That his swaying eyes and his murky silver mane are intact.
He is her tepid blanket, gifting her his warmth and millions of lives.
She is his lullaby, swinging him to sleep, wobbling him into a trance.
Two shades of blue, two shades of blue.
Two shades of blue, Two shades of blue
He is her, and she is him
He collects her brimming elation and gifts it to the world
She takes his sorrow, swallows his tears, until he returns to normalcy
Two shades of blue, two shades of blue
A pair of hues that will always remain estranged,
Arising to vehement debates on his excessive height versus her unfathomable depth.
They aren't parallel lines which never touch each other,
They are converging lines that will always strive to meet,
Stretching each other with all its might,
Illimitable and endless they may be, but without each other
They will remain infinite fractions forever
Two shades of blue, two shades of blue.
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 12:32 PM UTC
A very firm intention
To tell it as it is
Has the audience attention
On its toes and all afizz,
Though channelled to the circumspect,
With a patterned thought awry
It chaotically cascades
Across the prism of the eye.
It chaotically discharges
In a scattergun array
Of verbal innuendoes
Through a thin, saliva spray,
And all the passion spent in telling,
All the effort of the tale,
Sends a barrage of confusion
To occipital portrayal.
Where the tiny bones of balance
All atremble with the sound
Have discharged interpretation
Through a penny to a pound.
There’s a lost extrapolation,
There’s a blank look on the face
Where the balance of exchange
Has frittered nimbly from this place.
A calmness in both parties
As a sad pretence prevails,
Where communication nexus
Is ignored to save the whales.
Marshalg
Incommunicado
30 May 2012
© 2012 Marshal Gebbie
May 30, 2012
May 30, 2012 at 1:46 AM UTC
Lord Henry Dickenbottem
Lived among his peers
A mind of deepest arrogance
Concealed between his ears
He spent his nights in gross misconduct
Lounging in his secret quarters
Mistress, maid and washerwoman
Ousted mothers, secret daughters
Hiding sordid love affairs
His endless line of ******* heirs
***** Henry Dickenbottem
Stalked above the stairs
Lady Mary Dickenbottem
Did her wifely duty
The slenderest of all her kin
Considered quite the beauty
Though in the dusk the candle burned
Alone, she stitched a pallid face
And in the dark she sought its words
To gain her shallow masters grace
Guiding will and fooling eyes
Beseeching of the dead to rise
Demon Mary Dickenbottem
She the pure despise
Master Neville Dickenbottem
Best of all his class
Beaten all the school boys
And bedded every lass
Allies of the strongest kind
And making merry of the weak
The liberties were his to take
And never one he wouldn’t seek
His gaze surveyed that which he ruled
All logical and water cooled
Nasty Neville Dickenbottem
Devil-fire fuelled
Young Jemmima Dickenbottem
Innocent and slight
Playing on the borderline
And darting out of sight
Only ever at her ease
When no one else was close about
And etched upon her baby face
The guilty shadow of a doubt
Always blamed if something broke
And speaking just above a croak
Shy Jemmima Dickenbottem
Tangible as smoke
Old Mother Dickenbottem
Lounging in her chair
Lavender and nicotine
Are fighting for her hair
Beware, at night she ventures forth
So best keep safe your tiny tots
She’ll creep up to the windowpane
And ****** them, sleeping, from their cots
Humming in discordant tones
Nimble fingers, cold as stones
Hungry Mother Dickenbottem
Gnawing on the bones
Dear Major Dickenbottem
Five years in the ground
Hoarded every ha’penny
But frittered every pound
Long he served his king and queen
A gentlemanly thing to do
He left the port with many men
And brought back homeward very few
He died away in foreign lands
Of syphilis and swollen glands
Dead Major Dickenbottem
Killed by wandering hands
Feb 8, 2013
Feb 8, 2013 at 2:03 PM UTC
*When I find a seat in the bus
thoughts throng me words rush
when I stand in the jostle I regret
how rhymes are frittered go a-waste!
But in standing there's a silver lining
I care to see the visages around me
darkly grim or happily shining
the many faces of moving poetry!*
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 3:02 AM UTC
There's a hole in my wall which the wind whistles through
And the wallpaper's mouldy and calamine blue
The carpet besmirched with a decade of grime
And the pattern is lost to a happier time
The journals and books where my memories stay
Have mixed and submerged in a fearful array
The curtains hang tattered in woeful neglect
Where the mildew and fungus and beetles collect
There's a hole in the floor where the mice have a nest
Where the walls creak and groan like a cancerous chest
And a puddle emerges from under the door
Like a serpent, it winds on the laminate floor
Underfoot, fragments of crockery crunch
Still stained with the leavings of long ago lunch
There's a rattle and scratching of verminous claws
The spoon never stirs so the *** never pours
There's a crack in the window that lets in the rain
Where it runs in a rivulet right down the pane
The mattress is rotten and rusted inside
Bacteria thrive and amoeba divide
The ceiling is sagging from waterlogged beams
And catches the sunlight with putrefied gleams
Like powder, the plaster is fast in retreat
With it's choking secretions, the air is replete
There's a trace of a life that was never fulfilled
Like a drink only sipped and then carelessly spilled
There's hope of a future and trinkets amassed
But frittered away and consigned to the past
The wires are old but the bulbs are still new
And pictures of vigor are hanging askew
As if from existence, vitality blinked
A carcass remaining though life is extinct
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 11:10 AM UTC
They came for a half-term party
swarmed around me like instant charisma
wearing face-masks of Mourinho
I couldn't move - there was no place to go
I was taken back to when I was eighteen
misspent youth frittered away so they say
wished I was back there with them all
but it was gone - I couldn't any more
I couldn't be in love every other day
make outrageous comments, buy things on e-bay
not so many spots to pick at present
however, no jealousy, nothing to resent
I soaked up their bonhomie once more
gave a faint smile when I walked out the door
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 4:27 PM UTC
anamelesspoet · 16 hours ago
The Weary World Traveler
Byron did blush at the faceless one's amour
Strange feeling he'd never experienced before
On the cloud blackened night by the shore
Continue reading...
Lonely and Naked · 20 hours ago
The Light Sings A Name Majestic
You're The Light,A Name Sang Majestic
I Was The Life That You Had Ingested
This Was A Love Never To Be Tested
Continue reading...
sweet princess · 9 hours ago
love and other hugs
i am so alone my bed misses you tonight
oh sweetie i love you - do you love me tonight
i want to look into your blue ocean eyes again tonight
Continue reading...
Daniel.M.Molasses · 19 hours ago
A story as old as thyme
A Kid signing language to his mother's despair
the way moonlight frittered throughout the air
A lost cat prowling to and fro by the gas lamp
Continue reading...
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 12:42 PM UTC
It takes some courage to eat a legume's fruit
knowing what is known of each poisonous part
of the locust (although the flowers may be frittered).
What's pushing up through the leaf litter
before the canopy is out, past the stone fence?
Wild lily-of-the-valley is my guess.
Of 140,000 soldiers, less than 1% have considered
the fruit of the desert surprisingly good and varied.
They have stayed and married women who are crows
and will, circumstances dictating, fight for you.
We have waited and waited for this election
and now we're divided into just two factions.
If everyone votes and every vote's counted there will be
nothing for either faction to crow about. All will be
well with the republic and in the world what will be will be.
What responsibility does a citizen bear
for participating in a war, blowing the roofs
off houses, exposing the beds and clean-swept floors?
Warriors at the gate, you will not run,
you will not bargain. Dig in deep, feet
overhanging the abyss, protect your children.
I poured water into the dry vase of garden cultivars -
snapdragon, phlox, bigonia, bluebell, mint -
and have they not rewarded me with their collective scent?
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 8:37 AM UTC
*Heavy Rain,
Under the umbrella in vain,
Exigent and ostentatious,
An egotistic hostility,
Filling the purge atmosphere,
Rain drops ebbing,
Conceiving an enchanted assault.
Fenced with free fall,
Falling into zero,
A faith so sick,
Ready to twitch.
Sanctified reminiscence of a remorseful purge,
Hateful conscience of a disgusted now.
Don’t know how,
A will to amend,
A limitless descent,
Wandering in extent,
Chaos down the ascent.
Extremity too proximal,
Grey beyond despair,
A reverence so brisk,
I’m frittered and devoid of retention.*
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 2:55 AM UTC
Will they say I lived all my life
On suburban roads
Not of the city or of the country
But a place in between
Will they say I never took any risks,
Never had to hack my arm off in extremis
Never eating anybody's cousin in desperate straits?
Like millions I struggled from one pay day to another,
Trying to stop the haemorrhage of money through the bars and pubs of the town...
Trying to keep up, to keep the income over the outgoings.
I don't care what the Joneses do.
I long for the wild places without fences or walls,
Where the birds wheel and the wind blows lustily,
Where the sound of the sea is never far away
Where the shores rustle their greeting to the waves
And the driftwood tumbles up and down the beach.
I long to run without worrying I am going to break a knee or hip,
Long for those days when I didn't know what I had, who I was, what I was going to be.
"Youth is wasted on the young," said my grandmother, and I protested, but I didn't understand
Until now
How little I appreciated my youth while I had it.
Will they say I had talent but I
Frittered it away on unfinished projects
Neither brilliant nor awful, but somewhere
in between?
Will they say I never took any risks,
Never embroidered all my lovers or
Revealed my innermost self?
Like millions, I was always writing my book, a novel or
a handbook or an autobiography.
The truth is, I started too many times, and finished
Never.
I long for a place of my own, a library
A place to keep everything that means anything
A place to watch my family on the wall, laughing and smiling
While I write or sew or research or simply read
A place for being and a place for remembering and everything in its place.
I long to write without worrying about the consequences,
Long to say what I think
A place to scour the corners of my memory, to see the pattern of my life.
Will they say, they hadn't realized I was still alive?
Will they say, I never kept in contact, which is true
I have tested my ability to live without them all
And I can.
What will they say about the person I have become?
What can I say? I tolerated difference and saw none.
I loved the people I loved
Did the things that I did
And I am not sure what sort of future I made for myself, or what past.
May 15, 2012
May 15, 2012 at 7:10 AM UTC
If I had back every dime I've ever frittered away foolishly,
I'd be rich
for a day.
Aug 30, 2015
Aug 30, 2015 at 1:29 AM UTC
A web of terror would know quaintness
in their crêpe variety where a spider grew angrier
only silk woven blouse blest bats
why darts inside heads if their tough regimen were slime
and never really frittered away an hour at bay.
Nov 27, 2016
Nov 27, 2016 at 5:04 AM UTC
Our time here is so very short -
We only realise this when we're getting old.
If only our young self were more mindful of this
And treated time more like gold:
Valuable and beautiful and something to be savoured,
Like someone you love, whom you always favour.
Never waver the flavour
Of that favour we've been given
Of Time, more elusive than rhyme!
From the ridiculous to the sublime -
One piece of time can feel like yesterday or yesteryear.
But it's always going away - never fear
Actually, do fear - that something so dear is frittered aloft,
Disregarding the cost of every day bought for us
For us to use, and choose to be useful
Each day that is new, to be used to be fruitful -
Beautiful fruit like beautiful gold
Valuable, glittering
Let's be bold - and let our Story be told!
Jan 17, 2018
Jan 17, 2018 at 9:10 AM UTC
Dug deep into desire,
Of passion and lust,
With me.
Spark the joy,
Of mementos and dramas,
With me.
Resonate in tad dramatic,
Of fashion and style,
With me.
Be yourself and with me,
But not frittered away,
By details of my life,
Or yours.
So hold tight,
Walk with me,
through this life,
And the next,
Because I love you.
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 11:32 PM UTC
i.
The rich man.
Somewhere where the shingle slopes up to the shore and the sun scattered
patternlike diamonds on our skins and the costumes we wore were too tight to fit in
we frittered away the beach and the day in soft talk.
Sweet words once were spoken but now they lay broken between the sea and the tide line,
somewhere in time.
ii.
The beggarman.
Unshaven,
who will spare me
the price of a tea and would
that save me from drowning
in the depths that we
used to be?
Now behind me, the diamond patterns still blind me and bring tears to the jewels in my eyes,
if I could unsign the times which time lent me, which ultimately aged and then bent me, would it set me as free as the shore and the sea?
iii.
The thief.
But each ocean goes on until it is gone
and when the sun drinks it dry at the
edge of the sky,
we are gone too.
Mar 12, 2015
Mar 12, 2015 at 9:53 PM UTC
Turn it on
Switch it over
Where is all the effort?
Expended
Frittered into dark corners of the glowing light
The imperative is stolen
Thought yielding to entertainment
Our abilities squandered
Reason hammered and hampered
by our addiction to mindlessness
The warm blanket of comfort
Safety
Turn it on
Switch it over
I can’t be bothered
I don’t want to think
I just like the noise.
Is it different
From finding others who make noises like you
and mooing together?
Lifting your tongue, raising your voice
As you join the cacophony of the voiceless
Chattering their way
Through the daylit midnight hours.
In the crowded room no one is listening
Except those who want to hear.
Turn it on
Switch it over
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 2:34 AM UTC
Tilly was making a *** of tea
in the kitchen,
her mother sat opposite me
in an armchair.
How is your work?
She said, gazing at me
with her stern eyes.
Fine mostly,
I said.
Her face showed no emotion;
Tilly has a good job,
and if she makes her way,
she could be shop manager,
Tilly's mother said.
That's good,
I said,
looking past her
towards the kitchen door,
hoping Tilly would soon return,
and save me
from this interrogation.
Girls these days
do not seem to value virginity
as they did when I was young,
the mother said,
they wear clothes too short,
and reveal too much.
(I wondered if she knew
about Tilly and me
or was she just fishing).
I guess so,
I said,
looking back at her
sitting there,
knees tight together,
and face like granite.
A girl's virginity is her prize
to take to her wedding night,
and her husband,
not to be frittered away
at the first opportunity,
the mother said.
I looked at her features,
and wondered how
she managed to lose
hers at all.
Does your mother
trust you while you
are out with young girls?
She added,
looking at me sternly.
Of course she does;
she knows I would treat
a girl with respect.
(If the girl wanted it
however I would oblige.)
That is good to know,
the mother said,
raising an eyebrow,
knitting her fingers together
on her knees,
forming a finger church.
Tilly came into the lounge,
and set the tray of teapot,
cups, sugar bowl, milk jug,
and spoons on a small table,
and sat next to me.
Have I missed anything?
Tilly said.
I hope not,
her mother said,
I was talking to Benedict
about virginity,
and how girls
should treasure it,
and not squander it.
Tilly went red,
and looked at the tray.
I hoped that would not
give the game away.
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 2:17 AM UTC
Heeramon, stop for me a while
For one lost word one smile
Long brewing in deep
For long caged in lip.
It’s time we made a start
Rein rush and speak our heart
In moments precious holding hands
Pick pieces of that lost word’s strands.
For long we have lived in thrift
Two islands remote adrift
In coldness distant aloof
In silence under mortuary’s roof!
Heeramon, it’s time for rewind
Walk back the times left behind
On the stretch of frittered away mile
Where we left one word one smile!
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 2:38 AM UTC
‘Why’ yawps and whines in the corridor, dim
lights paving ceilings to greater unkindnesses;
Greater unknowns fester in cigarette smoke,
And always in dwindling moonlight . What do you
Suppose of yourself? Is it to be, or not
Until men in hats set your sad sky aflame?
The sunset stains you, you’re frittered and worn,
Deluged in the spirits of seventeen.
The night unties the laces of school kids
And you lie in your idle sheets of euphoria
To ignore, or simply not to know.
Where did you go
When you said you don’t know, in sheets shrouding school kids
and their shoelaces all soaked with the sap
Of seventeen, sunset coloured in daylight
Beckoned by men in hats asking rudely of
Scathed suppositions and how they might sound
When the moon is seen blushing in thieving late hours
Catching cigarettes with fading lungs in its glow,
And the greater unknowns which prey on us all;
At the end of poorly lit corridors, asking why.
Apr 2, 2018
Apr 2, 2018 at 7:26 PM UTC
One day
You'll meet the person you were meant to become
But didn't
Maybe because of bad decisions
Wrong life choices
Poor impulse control
Sheer laziness
Selfishness
Crippling addiction
You'll meet that person
And flounder in the tearful aftermath
That quiet devastation
Of the could-have-beens and what-ifs
Wither in the fallout of regret and remorse
They don't tell you these things in school
That if you'd just reined in your temper a bit
Had been more generous
Overlooked life's little injuries
And spread goodwill instead of vitriol
What a difference it would have made
You realize these things just a little too late
When your life is half-spent
Frittered away
On petty squabbles and noxious grudges
Like cresting a hill
Only to see your path end at a sheer drop
If you're lucky
You'll be too far gone
Drowning in your pit
To even realize
The incarnation of foregone potential
Staring at you in the face
And so
Pass the rest of your days
In blissful ignorance
They don't tell you these things
Or how to at least maintain composure
When you get waylaid
By these belated revelations
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 4:22 AM UTC
At the zenith
of sartorial sloppiness,
frittered loosely in my scruff,
I clobber,
combats, sneakers,
faux-fur coats and baggy t shirts
stuff that wraps me up,
and I'm OK..
You can keep
your first- world
judgement
see
I've always
been this way
part scarecrow, hermit,
vermin, pirate,
all at sea with
modern stylists.
And by the circle of our
strange unwritten rules
for a season, once in twenty years,
I, somehow, become cool.
Oct 7, 2021
Oct 7, 2021 at 12:08 PM UTC