"wastrel" poems
Forth flashed the serpent streak of steel,
Consummate crown of man's device;
Down crashed upon an immobile
And brainless barrier of ice.
Courage!
The grey gods shoot a laughing lip: -
Let not faith founder with the ship!
We reel before the blows of fate;
Our stout souls stagger at the shock.
Oh! there is Something ultimate
Fixed faster than the living rock.
Courage!
Catastrophe beyond belief
Harden our hearts to fear and grief!
The gods upon the Titans shower
Their high intolerable scorn;
But no god knoweth in what hour
A new Prometheus may be born.
Courage!
Man to his doom goes driving down;
A crown of thorns is still a crown!
No power of nature shall withstand
At last the spirit of mankind:
It is not built upon the sand;
It is not wastrel to the wind.
Courage!
Disaster and destruction tend
To taller triumph in the end.
5.9k
watching for air a mad thing of static to do
unwashed i hold it all foreign my perspectives clothed as the enemy
an agreed muscle of tension with pockets fracked into my hands
i look out the window wide agape guidance invasive drills of heat the giving sunlight ; punishing,
a tree, the grieving buildings
the whinging of cicadas
and here i am watching for air
one point for the weather
one point for the view
one big point for my ****** condition
one point for the passers by and their galling dramedies
and there it is ; the wiry plan that's built
from one small tickle of wild thought
formed long ago
trickling to the current day
some whipped wit of poisoned psychology
fed to the inbreed (welcome you panting imp)
decades of saved up fatty layers
a deed of habitual sediment
retching until the tide laps become still
a cured and congealed gladness
marbled, a butcher would say
i am full and hearted and heated and padded senseless
turned under a heel with my wastrel history
i’ve accomplished this a stifled condition
of poisoned obscenity
seated deep almost fully incapacitated
in my armchair on this chummy day
my leisure clothes greasy sluck against my blemished hide
a packet of cigarettes to my side
rounded upon by sounds of the neighbours affairs
with a gasp of energy i 'skin one off' vigorously
my system trembling with years of hard liquor
borderline to a state of unconscious whelm
retained final prime for ignition
i could manage a spectacle
a blinding flare
a glorious incineration
and the release
of my true oder
i light a match for my cigarette
May 29, 2023
May 29, 2023 at 6:54 PM UTC
the things physical we could not live without,
the objets d'art that decorate the tapestry of
the primary bones of our existence
each of us differing,
each of us, a different list,
utilitarian is beauty,
thus our individuation
distinguishing and distinguished
a trash can,
purposed for our wastrel wastage,
and yet, beloved by waves of utilization and
discard
only after much usage, kept nearby as a token of
our appreciation, only to be dumped unceremoniously
when the
memories grow overly fulsome
Why you think I reference the common kitchen garbage?
*No, no! why it is our brain,
that be cleansed nightly,
leaving only the wisps of life aprior,
that reruns in wisps, only sometimes,
for better or for worse*,
recycle-able
Feb 22, 2025
Feb 22, 2025 at 10:00 AM UTC
********** before the mirror of your soul
the tired throne of confusion
burns the illusion that we are all alone
what can compare to the hairs of the earth
is it a purse made from old shirts and words
as birds and feathers fled the forest's shelter
the burning embers head west
into the zone of the setting sun's dismemberment
are you perplexed or just scared sacred
death wasted on the fences
you shy away from sentences
that we both know
are just a little too close to home for comfort
i am a lonely poem portrayed
by an infinite number of frames of reference
so i claim my place in the heart of infinite wonder
as the thunder states your name
and screams your secrets into the stars
our hearts were always made from art
and we are being charged with negative ions
like the lions and dinosaurs that have come before us
our women lie freezing in the warmest of holes
so we comb the sand for diamonds
and try to make the land grow again
I am reprimanded for standing on one leg for too long
and begging you to come back home
if you glance towards me i’ll look away
as shade from a tree covers your face
was it a waste of speech
to try and crawl too deeply
into those feelings that you sought to deny
and what if we see each other again someday
will we wait for the other to acknowledge
that i was too much of a coward
to dance in the face of all that abstraction
at the edge of my comfort-zone
love falls into oblivion
a wastrel and a sparrow
as the cantankerous showers
start flowering in our folds
as growth is esteemed
so do we eventually redeem our own soul
Sep 28, 2018
Sep 28, 2018 at 8:44 PM UTC
We pass neath the arms of shadow,
and autumns gaze turned away.
With the air filled thick a promise of winter
Layed true by the albino commissaries
that float listless abroad.
Ranks in gray/blue/white.
Slow through pass they are revealed!
Marched immeasurable in form-
By pearly hand of Christmas Kings.
Whilst low round the cavern pass
Forked lightning roared all round us!
Forked lightning soared all round us!
Under heat of wastrel march.
And we all flashed out blackened blades!
flanked by ancient everglades!
Defeat! Defeat all cold and shade!
Slit and slash their marching grade!
Impossible was their victory made!
Soon we sprouted victory wreaths,
Of strange and seeming wonderwood.
For silence hath taken
winters pearly rings.
And death hath taken
their princely king.
Mar 28, 2012
Mar 28, 2012 at 3:40 AM UTC
He was born on the wrong side of the tracks
a ruffian, lowlife, wastrel
probably addicted to drugs
taking from a society
which was never there for him
"don't end up like him son,
he's on the fast track to nowhere"
born on the wrong side
the bad side
the hopeless side
sitting at the bar
he ponders life
in a glass of whiskey
"where is the right side?"
he asks
to no one in particular
he doesn't understand
why he seems to be trapped
every city it's the same story
always caught on the wrong side
but that question got to me
what's better?
to be a ruffian
lowlife
wastrel
addicted to drugs
or the other
over privileged
a smile bought
at a great bargain
wrapped in plastic
ready to be shipped off
used and used and used
worn out
but there's always a replacement
submission or punishment
these are the lives we pick
and regardless of which side of the tracks
we are born on
we've all made our beds
we're just trying to accept
that we have to sleep in them
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 7:30 PM UTC
the third mate last,
lashed to the helm,
a punishment, a lashing
for having
read and let
the taste of words unkempt,
hash my essence,
thus pelted,
excised, my flesh,
unto a wearied
death by a thousand cuts
my artistic force bleeds,
I am realistic,
there is no
superman savior,
there is only
life after death,
where dear god,
last wishing, it is a world of
silence perfected
I know I promised no more
on this shopworn, discounted topic,
but I read and I weep
my essence seeps, pores pouring,
tried the ancient cure of ignoring,
but anguished curiosity begs
for bliss
asking,
just try once more,
knowing that ignorance
can never be blissful
confounded, words indelible,
the poems tattooed trite,
with an unheard last sigh,
what makes them think
every stray dog of a thought
deserves sharing
tender each with word
with such selected caring,
arguing back and forth,
and always losing
and always winning
the argument over the
Final Selection,
the process holocausts me,
I am not a survivor anymore,
just an over killed victim
to tattered ribbons sliced,
no seamstress can resurrect what once was,
endlessly they celebrate their flesh's cutting,
they cannot know their words,
alpha beta me to where,
the ink is drained and flushed,
and withered fingers lose their moist urgent,
discomfited composure
and
all the words I know are a plague
upon my shotgun house,
I am bleeding, but that does not mean
my poetic permission lives,
it only means my blue blood
surrenders it oxygen upon contact
with an atmosphere of trite
and I swear to you it hurts to much to
write,
hurts more than breathing
do not write to me of your pain,
write instead with painstaking care
and let me read thy crafted composition
and say this,
*thus I am staked to you,
penetrated in ways ,
that each cut of thine,
ready welcomed
for it is sublime,
a human humidifier,
putting back the moisture lost
by tears shed over wastrel poems*
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 12:32 AM UTC
The solicitous Self,
with and in each exchange
of conversation's
volley of commiserating
commissary verbages
words of curbs and gutters,
owns not its guilt
knows not good will
nor for those whom shatter
in our drowning hours, unstill...
The Self is begging
for your idolatry's bastions,
wants you to find it beautiful
and superior
above any other
attention and ingestion
gorging and hoarding
the tid-bit compliments
the cloud nine glances
succulent smiles / flirtatious lick of lips
the audience pumping up
its hot air ego-balloon
to beach ball widths
a deadly kind of perdition
for you, character fool
careless and distracted
blase' as a toad on a stoop...
It is a ****
the amorous Self is
harmless, the beginning seeds
and whimsy / at flowering
in your hands:
fluff and puff intimations
child-like glee / pleasing / blowing
nonpluss dandelions
nonthreatening
in ruminations
N' stuff...
but like any ****
when it spreads and takes hold
the real estate of your time and soul
it chokes and feeds
off your serene prosperity
of peace of mind
of identity
a thief of your ideas
makes your dreams its own
It suffocates all others
behaves with dismissive airs
like you it becomes
you, who has watered
this pest and catered to its musings
like a sudden sunrise it appears
out of the blue appealing
a dandelion, quaint & demure
yet alluring
The ********** that is the selfish
solicitous thorn
knows its own nature
far too well
hides its hideous
kink so none can warn
it is a war
with Self
the attention *****
Self being compelled
as all else
a parasite to its growth
a virus and its host
what she now only has to give
in return:
assuage
her malingered spell
she breeds in you
a ghost of once you were
wastrel grime
wasted time
an empty shell
Abhorred.
Careful what the Self
is selling
the solicitudes
of obsessions
Possession
Suffocation
not much else...
No succor for the Self.
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 11:49 AM UTC
huge black hulk of sunken sagging bedding
his armchair has seen its better days
his mousy derelictions from society's dictums
have born a wastrel with feet of clay
a bookworm hiding from the birds of prey
a lover unloved except for that long ago kiss on a Paris quay
cigarette burns and sudden coffee spills
scarce paper and broken quills
tribunal assaults on ambition's embattled frays
he holds fast to this chair
through many a disorienting maze
holds fast to this comfort flop of better days
canaries mourn the demise of his old dog lassie
while johns down the street rejoice over their whores' chassis
and the ice cream man takes a breather on the Santa Monica sands
listening to the far away poet
wrap up his film in the can
for video night at the local poetry slam
milk wood meetings in slumberous afternoons
enforce the guilt of absent attractions
though grateful bon ami erases
evidence of the satisfaction
then often leans back in his chair
falling asleep on a half remembered line of Poe or John Clare
awakening wishing once for a computer
though he thinks them a crime
a luddite at heart
neighbors revile him for being an old ****
yet sometimes he sinks deeper into his chair
imagining taking the big step if he dare
burp me mrs sweeny pleads
to her lover who raps her on the back
2 or 3 times and a fourth for FOOD luck
as on the bachelor's chair they commence to ****
though after stepping into the morning's widowed wind
all seems bleak and commonly thin
but both he and she kept the loss of a sedentary promise fearfully within
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 10:20 PM UTC
Boredom settles, silence reigns.
now stubborn heart calls wastrel's name.
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 7:21 PM UTC
The family of Edgar Allan Poe must feel conflicted
"My grandfather was a great man," they'd say.
"Didn't his family disown him?" the others contradicted.
Leave him in the dust? Spit on his ashes?
The life of this poor ignorant wastrel,
Alcoholic, joining the ranks of *****
No one to help him or care for
the name who became great, under the shadow of his glasses
the invisible-giant, not recognized, "his wife was a *****
No, no, no, Edgar. Not today.
Your confused sexuality is really gay,
The cousins jeer and aunts-uncles jibe
Great poets, queens alike do cry
At the works of this man, at the end of the day,
(we don't really care if he lived or died,)
"It was the other side of the family that did it.
Not I."
Feb 17, 2014
Feb 17, 2014 at 12:49 PM UTC
The Rainbow’s charm plumed out from the shelf
Our magician enchanting—we wait.
The stillness abates past displays of sterility
Confessions of illusions, heard in deaf regard
O, can’t we but wonder the aether controlled
How does he alone know the runes and ways?
To roundly take rein of the reinless?
His knowing eyes shy away, incantations mouthed
Avert and in despair, from proud throngs
Skeptical, but feigned, in awful disbelief.
Collectively, a sharp breath drawn
We anticipated the magic belief wove in us
Awe suspended: a mystery like clouds:
The cosmic-soul, no hero afflicted by the wastrel, man.
Another time, we resolve on this
The typical coldest day in summer.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 8:32 AM UTC
Methuselah, old profligate wastrel of evergreen time,
In giant generational strides, close the striking distance,
Take my face in its failed vision and drink out the eyes,
One fang at my cheekbone, the tendril of silver music
Shown through, pull out its roots and the topsoil of skin,
Blow from your cadaverous lips to the beadhole of ear,
And whisper about the hours of my hummingbird life.
Here you sing alone with weak-winded isotopes of your half-lives.
Jun 18, 2020
Jun 18, 2020 at 5:22 PM UTC
I was born to malinger.
I plan my days carefully
to allow time for nothing.
It requires effort
to avoid work.
Hemingway said that
all stories extended
far enough in time
must end in death.
Eternity is vast
and waits patiently.
I have seen what
comes of too much hurry:
a cloud of falling debris,
a puff of pink mist
where a man used to be.
I would rather stay
a shiftless old monk
for as long as I can,
just sitting, doing nothing,
trying to be better,
content to be me.
~mce
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 8:25 AM UTC
Go door to door sleeping on different floors
Friend to friend living on friendships till they end
I'm a chore waiting outside your door
I'll leave your heart bruised and sore
And then I'll wander once more
Doors open to me before I close them behind me
Live here till they don't see a friend when they look at me
Can't stand a driftless loser whose drowning in a sea of apathy
When you remember the past I hope that I'm an absentee
I was pushed away and you deserve better than me
We used to talk at the lunch table and laugh all day
I felt joy with you when all there was, was gray
At recess, we would sit and talk and laugh all day
I felt a connection with you and had so much to say
Now we sit on the couch and talk and cry all day
Life keeps getting colder and we keep getting older
You made something of yourself moved much bolder
Every weight and sad day you would shoulder
While I sat under a tree and laughed into october
Laughed away the day until my heart froze over
Mostly I smoke **** and don't do much of anything
Something I'm interested in? no there's not a thing
Maybe I could just die if a bee would choose to sting
Relax in flower fields, watching the bees in the spring
Death fluttering over buttercups while I eat a fairy ring
"Relax", "Slow down", "What's the big deal anyway"
You really just have so much you want to be and to say
But I don't have much I want to be and really whose to say
I'll get out of your way, your right I guess I just get in the way
And its okay if we never talk there's not much to say anyway
Goodbye.
Jan 27, 2019
Jan 27, 2019 at 1:20 AM UTC
Fluid time, fluid stone, fluid light
all right, solid nothing,
nothing at all, a solid wall,
with a clustering of curious curio types,
messengers messaging between
whole and part, paid tuition
ars intuitus
rare anachronists insist, words evolve.
Words expand, as children into sage
or wastrel conformed and conditioned
expanding the idea of wedom,
breathing, statistically half in, as half out
breathe,
what manner of man am I, wombed or un?
Were there ever men such as we, who can
share context across history, at earth level.
----------------------
Considering the ant is no childish passtime,
Fulfilling aristocratic duty to learn then teach,
Considered here, linearly, on a thread
one thought wide, picked from circumstance,
to consider sidereally distant, sent from Mars,
between three and twenty minutes of time away,
on an arc affected by cohesive force, eh
grave-definite down, down, down
to the core of our communication organs,
signaling scents accepted as thought projected,
kindly lines, minds attuned as thought accepted.
--------------------
Consider ever, from your vastest sense,
of the gravity bubble we exist within,
you and I, my hearing, seeing, knowing
me and you, my guardian guiding will,
to which I choose to submit, under no threat.
General Common Sense, beauty recognition,
test to tell if the word lord means any true -ing,
Greek men, pure, indeed, wisdoming wedom
mob minds and freedom do not mix,
oil and water, sure as Hell.
Freedom from all forms of tyranny, what holds
our we shape, in our minds? Common sense,
under all the stories contained within this
Goldilocks zone of unintended circumstances,
working out, fine, just iusta think
fine…
is no real answer, it is a code, a social norm set
said, fine, I'll say it, as a code for so small
we'd need ants eyes to see it…
and, lo', we have those,
we have predictable macroscopic images,
graven deep into our idle time drifting state
watching art mock life, and learn life laughs.
--------------------
Mar 14, 2024
Mar 14, 2024 at 1:11 PM UTC
Metro’s wastrel streets,
Littered with points, blackened foil;
Excremental prey.
Jan 20, 2019
Jan 20, 2019 at 7:23 PM UTC
Caw , call , caul ,
the bird , mermaid birth ,
it reclined over the Childe's
face .
Striga and born with a shirt ,
carefully the child shifted it
to one side .
☆
An earthly lord ,
transcending a hero's
archetype .
Fly wastrel to enchanted
faerie kingdom ,
and watch a whole world
pass away .
Oct 22, 2024
Oct 22, 2024 at 7:39 AM UTC
good in all visages
the wastrel wanders a road
to his, the poet sings along his ,
rich men have a road to them.
The industrious a well trodden path
worn by every man wishing. To every man a path
which to him is given, and where he must tread,
or run or crawl or burrow into.
All this meaningless walking, or very heartfelt foot after foot trod
a meaning has. For the earth spinning and each new day's sunrise
becomes again each of our quests, whatever they are wherever they lead.
All lead to the same door.
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 2:25 AM UTC
In this city's desert morning
sinful heat of Summers
vagabond streets eating away whats left
of joyful youth's humanity
Thin and mild mannered
tattoo novice ink
inarticulate drawings of adolescent *****
gnarly scabs / a missing tooth
walking dead in flip flops
pain clawing his expression
all loss in its translation and
Need is loud - a vagrant shout
but I have no money to give...
Young man, in his wife beater tank,
smears of dirt
his wastrel work
crawling through the black
though this morning's blinding
sobriety
forces its friendship on you
find a way back...
Young man, here's some breakfast
warm and steady
in the war-time melee of your stomach
empty as the shame
that must be lingering
in your pulse,
here's some shoes and water too
keep cool in this hateful heat
keep on toward home
toward mother's arms
if that's all the choice you got
survive or not.
Here's a moment kindly passing
not a dollar or a hit,
I hope you make it to the next one
and maybe another kindness will be won
in the ripples of this pond
where loss is the stone
you are sinking
below the surface deeply hidden
it's only a matter of realizing,
we are born to swim in it
we're made of lightning
when you resurface be strong and kindly
wash away the dark nightly chiding
Young man, I see this morning crying
will wake and learn
he's the only one he's fighting
human and kind and life and time
appear to be casualties
in the mind
when we mindlessly dis' & gorge on wish
for something equal,
gold and fine...
Young man, "god bless" he says
goodbye
there's nothing left to hold on to
but your soul's worth and
hearts
of those who love you
That is what you're searching
to find
Yourself in their eyes...?
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 1:03 PM UTC
*Tendril-wafted dunes
of barren sands waffle,
swirl across mindless mile
upon mile, in every direction-
your face appears, a horizon away,
there is little comfort found
in its accompanying echoes.
Drifting sticks caterwauling,
wail on, in the pitched wind,
stretched by distant recollection-
stylus of a scribe named Regret;
each flurrying breeze shifts
turns over and over a new page,
taking with it freshly shed tears.
Foetid droppings steaming out
of some wastrel, desert vagabond
provides a vivid reminder
of how it can never be again,
to kick it away -- desolation
could only deign contaminate
these well-worn wandering shoes.
Head facing forward
wherever the nose points
except in the back of the mind
where gentle oasis burbles-
each leafy frond conceals
intimate moments now buried
within the unmindful desert's belly.*
●○
°
Oct 3, 2015
Oct 3, 2015 at 11:51 AM UTC
It’s drizzling
But it doesn’t matter.
I am running,
Around the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium
At Kochi.
The ground is wet,
There are water patches around.
So, I take careful steps.
As I go around,
I see a young man,
In a hoodie,
And track pants.
He is talking,
On the mobile phone.
Standing beneath an awning.
Must be to his girlfriend,
Because he is smiling.
I think to myself,
‘What a wastrel. Do some exercise. Get fit’.
But he is oblivious.
During my next lap,
I see,
A friend has joined him.
‘Two wastrels’, I think,
As I start panting.
My middle-age lungs,
Are aching.
But I like the suffering,
Because it makes me feel good.
When I stop.
On my third round,
They are peeling off their track pants.
I run on..
The drizzle has eased up,
A cool breeze is blowing.
My perspiration-drenched forehead
Gets some relief.
Running triggers
Something primitive in me.
This is what man did,
For thousands of years.
Before the invention
Of the wheel.
I can hear the thud of feet
Hitting the ground
Behind me.
It sounds like heartbeats.
Then these two young men,
Whom I derided,
Whizzed past me
At high speed.
Smooth electrifying movements
Of hands and feet.
‘What?’ I exclaim silently in my head
My perception was
Oh so wrong.
They are athletes,
And they are swift.
And they splash,
Through the puddles.
Fearless.
So I had simply
Misunderstood them.
That’s what happens to all of us
We misunderstand
People.
Places.
Communities.
Religions.
Spouses.
Children.
Parents.
Relatives.
Is it any surprise,
Society is so fractured.
I feel like a fool
Message to me: don’t jump to conclusions,
Ever.
Aug 11, 2020
Aug 11, 2020 at 11:47 PM UTC
Everyone said that he was a wastrel
that was because they never
knew the power of his smile
felt the touch of his hand
felt good listening to the timbre of his voice
he was never rich
never "made good"
never owned a big house
drove a fancy car
or lived the high life
in fact they said he'd wasted his life
but there was one thing he never wasted
and that
was
happiness
May 3, 2021
May 3, 2021 at 1:39 PM UTC
Prince charming
is a wastrel
living off of
bummed cigarettes
and on
borrowed couches,
forever unwanted,
terminally free
and he's searching
for his Princess
hidden under the beds
and needles
but how does one fight
a dragon when the
dragon is trapped inside your
ribs
and so
and so
and so our prince's sword
and our prince's heart meet
in an embrace that puts the
love
he has for the princess
to shame.
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 12:21 PM UTC