"frittering" poems
I can't wait till I'm awake..
Plugged into the wall.
Nothing noted until the shell of the capsule
collapses under the weight of your trembling hands.
No there is no notation for what was said between us, just figure-less voices and a strenuous pain that strained our throats for the fear of nothing being communicated between the exasperated gasps of what was less than incommunicable silence.
Ugly is not a word but a feeling applied with meaning, applied to a certain truth about that metallic taste in my mouth, that tearful pain jostled in my chest and that consuming fear.
I know little of what this ugliness could mean other than it harbors shame in my corners. This shame is not inborn in anyone, but it builds it's presence as a drunken braggart who shouts obscenities and believes he is a prince of highest regard.
His ugliness is in what he slings from his tongue and his criticisms of all who in his mind toil about. But he is simply a angry troll with no heart and delusions of grandeur, frittering away time.. for time stands as an eternal judge and measure.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 12:11 AM UTC
Lie in the bare-faced sun
savour time
under seige
frittering hours
afor breakfast and
rush ‘round
later
if necessary
under fire
moving appointments
with telephones twitching
anticipation
then forage
the howl
create havoc
hunt the giggling
play for keeps
heads roll
apart
the ultimate shudder
MChallis © 2015
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 6:44 AM UTC
the lockers rife with clowns and the frittering of time as the ***** boys got ready to work their ***** minds down at the ***** factory and boast about ***** things too often degrading and unkind.
I tried to stay out of it
until one officious co-worker
had the gall to ask,
“what’s your preference in women?”
whereby, my response was,
“I see my women like flavors;
white women are too bland,
black women are too flavorful and
Indian women are a bit over-seasoned.
you need the right amount of spice.
Latina women got it but they cheat
so, I’d have to go with Asian women.
they’re perfection is unmatched.”
laughter emerged and rumbled
down the grey factory walls
where the metal tin roof had rattled,
the ***** air pervaded with rust and tears
and a mouthful of peanuts were spat onto a grimy floor
they laughed and kept on laughing
until their bellies burst
never have they heard such
a response like that before
and I just went back to work,
treading in the depths of my own conviction,
not really seeing why I wasn’t
being taken so
seriously.
Jun 6, 2025
Jun 6, 2025 at 11:07 AM UTC
I'm tired of being sad
I'm tired of pessimistic views clouding my mind
Of dreams imploding
Of hopes simply fading
And wishes falling with their stars
I'm tired of being weighed down
Always heavy hearted
Of fake smiles
And empty echoing laughs
And tears falling in the darkness
I'm so tired of wasting life
And frittering my hours away
As though tomorrow is promised
As though I have forever
as though life is infinite
I tired of letting people go
Of endless goodbyes
Of unwelcoming hellos
And the tell tale marks beneath my eyes
Insomnia
I think it's time for a change
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 6:14 PM UTC
By Arcassin & Elizabeth Squires
AB
Cinematic dramatic troubled teen,
Love drivin,
Insane,
As far as the eye can see,
You wouldn't believe,
Hurt,
Inspired her to dream and make a mends,
But never give a **** about a single friend,
Shadows creep,
Suicidal to the core,
Whole freshman year,
Known as the *****
But in life,
You must think,
And save up for what else is in store,
ES
A career,
Something to hold onto,
Direction in life,
Not the frittering away,
Of a valuable opportunity,
Troubled teen turning around,
The ***** tag within,
Wearing the good girl chameleon skin,
Paving a diamond studded road ahead,
Getting her mindset,
Straight,
The knife which bought her pain,
Not needed,
Of its somberness,
Optimistic aims and goals,
Superseded.
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
‘Cause you never wrote any of the good parts down
You just lived ‘em
and let ‘em
s
l
i
p
a
w
a y
You knew better
than to try to capture
the silliness in its hay day
because then you’d have
to face the facts of
the very choices
that you’d made;
and there would be no question -
whether it’s was worth it -
to waste the days by trading them
for nights of frivolity and frolicking -
Of frittering away.
What should have been,
and what is so,
and where it came from,
and who’s to blame
would all be there in Black and white,
instead of vanishing in the haze.
And in your own hand, no less;
your words,
a confession dictated day by day
of what, With your own eyes,
you did see
- All the magic and the wonderment of this tragic comedy -
through foggy lenses, bottle-thick and stained:
dreary ramblings in shadows made,
and heard and said
a many things
in drunken dangling reparteé.
Oct 3, 2022
Oct 3, 2022 at 3:53 PM UTC
synagogue bells jar and outside is the
color of green, mist enshrouds moss
macadamized in young wall;
beating back to lips, a paler hue of scorched red,
a moment twists, hurries back to
the shell of a modest hour,
rearing in its tender arms, tantric ***
of rain and tendril. tenuous wind swiftly
purloins sound
submerging the world in picker-patter,
the moon fronts and the sun
behind — this is my world and within
its breast, the riverrun stride in between
stone packs its smell of mud
clotheslines full with heavy fabric
weighed down to intent and inertia,
dragged down to sleep and dream
as the hourly siren tolls somewhere that
does not have a beacon, a name
even, blaming only the shadow frittering
back to its console, pinning us
down to the calm weather we sing
about in the afternoon — reaping
in the twilight,
a cold-mouthed Hefeweizen!
Nov 15, 2015
Nov 15, 2015 at 2:50 AM UTC
A Strange Land
dropping like a feather from a building,
down down down we go.
softly fluttering like an angels wing
down down down we go
through the mystical garden,
down to the fairies we go.
a short thud with everything looking,
big eyes, small eyes, tall and low.
too and fro looming and jeering,
one with a cruel eye, another a green toe,
staring at us, as our courage hardens
‘til finally one of us goes out to meet our suspected foe
The cruel-eyed beast looks on gazing,
through us, above us, like we were aglow,
we gazed on, half worried, but not cowering.
we crept on a few steps, but ducking down low,
we stepped through the passage, into a garden
with tiny little objects frittering under toe
I saw them through my looking glass writhing,
I saw to the vegetation of twisted brush, high and low,
though in the midst of a labyrinth a tower lay looming.
but it lay on its side, as tho it were dropped to below.
the mice talked and walked together in their own jargon,
I watched them go away and down the tiny road
Winding through the labyrinth following the mice intriguingly,
they knew their way well, we can see by the way they go,
then, simply, they disappear among the vine, leaving us gazing,
with our machetes we cut through the vine,
but the mice are nowhere to be found,
oh what a predicament we are in. the maze is vast and flowing
we look up to see the tower, now upright and *****
as if a chess piece, it looms,
we make our way through the maze by cutting,
but the vine grows back thicker behind us.
we reach the gate of the tower, no turning back,
A gargoyle stands at the foot of the gate.
He glares but, knows we mean no harm,
we walk through the gate to find a winding staircase.
At the top, a vast kingdom of sand and coal,
pierce our our eyes with wisdom.
I look to peers and cannot help but to weep,
the intricacy of the life below, smothered by the bland view from above.
It is a strange land we come across.
nothing is exactly what it seems,
the cruel are the beloved,
the castles so tall above,
the the small beings below,
everything is beautifully grotesque
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 6:12 PM UTC
frying plantains in Tanzania
with rice - so much rice
ageing postmen with bus passes and metal knees
carrying keisters of it
a thousand different ways
slow walkers
married, always
frittering away chances or just
connected,
with the mortal coils of the market?
big coat on in the Kalahari
your scorpions absent from the guest list,
exiled.
the brown bears caged, but should things have
really.
come to this?
fierce heat.
fizzing geysers rumpled by grey fluorescent lights and
plagued,
by the speeding steam trains of their past that took them to
SO MANY GREAT PLACES but they only recall the
endings.
the crashing off the tracks,
the unexpected landslides
revolve
navigate the ridge and don’t funk from looking down.
it is better this way.
stamp the scorpions in.
£5 on the door.
take the free round and dance around their nimbus because even though you WILL NEVER
know them,
you would NOT
BE HERE.
without them.
your corner patch
a feral patch given over to woodworms and weeds
but a patch without chains,
shaded by roses suffering a kind of pressure you will never understand.
the naan breads arrived 40 minutes early and ruined your bath but
WHAT
A
PRIZE.
to exist in a rainforest where naan breads are possible.
and ferns unfurl,
then hang,
and rise again.
frying plantains in Tanzania
slow married women bearing grain
carry your cactuses out into the sun.
feed them.
watch them.
be naked with your scorpions and really feel the
football finals
the canal gates
the shooting stars, zooming by
through the windows of the train.
Sep 28, 2020
Sep 28, 2020 at 3:03 PM UTC
so many things wander
in the night of the world - electric
saw of the Hemiptera's wing uncertain
of its path, or a hand like a beast
in the ornate flesh, the sea of
undergarment with its saltine moistness,
limbless lips frittering onto squashed out
softnesses that remember the fervor
of grip or the pleasures of breathing after
the tempest of beings,
so many things in different placements
displacing me here,
savoring the impact just before the crunch of the bone,
down to its last ache between the
gnash of teeth and the miserly space
of cerecloth to a body—
they are many things trundling
in the moment and i am just as much,
yet a passing only, scouring the walls
of graffiti emblazoning abstract unfathomably reachable and misunderstood, lost in ineffable translation — this doting darling
contemplates death and
i understand now, going deeper
as fish sinks into further blue,
wet with something else but water.
Oct 8, 2015
Oct 8, 2015 at 4:03 PM UTC
was exhumed by stern-faced defeat
as all others revel in victories.
i only watch the limpid light
slowly frittering back to its
console as the barkeep hands me
my 7th beer of the night
as i handed them the first defense
of the inveigling tactic i have yet
to put them through and send their
young minds to equipoised trial.
i have felt ears poor without
understanding but the welcoming warmth of the light shone against
my already bleared body pierced
through the unclear of words,
as i read them littlest of
my far-slung poems, bardic
and resolute yet rogue upon sound
thinly hanging, barely on a spindle of plaudit.
the barkeep bestows me my 8th bottle and i have felt some
slow ease encroach me with lighter burnt retreat,
as i left,
unfinished.
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 11:08 PM UTC
After frittering away the remaining afternoon
I walk up to the window many times
to see if the sky holds any last surprise
As it hangs over my neighbor’s roof
the sun seems almost
immortal. Picasso died this morning
I wonder what tunes the three musicians
are going to play
which way the dove
is going to fly
Having shown us the world is still
soft and kneadable
the master hands are now withdrawing
I reach out unconsciously
but realizing how childish it must be
I turn my grasping hands to clapping
Apr 16, 2018
Apr 16, 2018 at 8:37 AM UTC
it is the dawn of this inamorata.
love is
the dew
dropping onto
the soul,
takes in it
silence would,
a cacophonous
trace of song.
love is
written,
for love is
born
to the
structure
of a
rose.
it is the dusk of this inamorata.
love is frittering
back to the inconsolable
noise, trickles
back to rivers
and onto
the unseen,
the fading out
to smallness
of which flame
lets go,
a solitary ember.
love has emerged
with hands empty,
poised to cull
this structure
of a
rose.
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 10:47 AM UTC