Timethrift

How do we squander our breath
by counting to ten
or three?

I noticed a boys crown
his head was down
facing his lap, holding a short pencil.
Clearly, he was not writing,
By the way the pencil moved
in random places across the page;
middle, top right, bottom center.

Of course, everyone wanted to see,
even the old lady sitting next to him
who kept adjusting her hair,
her blouse, her scarf
acting uninterested.
He could smell her short
breath, I could see
her check the time.

A waste of time.
Drawing straws.
I was reading,
there was nothing to show
not a figure or shape to be seen
from the words I inhaled,
no crumbs from my feast,
no incensed smoke crept out
of sealed chambers.

I was high-hovering, as clouds do.
I never noticed
how many pages had turned,
how close I was to the end
nor had I kept record
of the miles traveled along
the lines it took
to get in between
here and now.

Painting by Charles Joseph Grips, 'Waiting for a Loved One' c. 1894 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Want not, waste not

 We have all wasted our time here. 
Let us be brutal and honest, each and every one of us
has wasted
Time; as in
away, 
effort, electricity,
money, opportunities
and all of these were Ours to squander, 
to squat and wanting what nots.
What is more seems to 
overspend on idle luxuries,
counting pennies and pebbles 
you say are lucky asteroids.

We should be Thankful.

We could be too coddled to recognize
all this preoccupation with preparations 
and knowing ahead
it was all superfluous.
But we are busy making;
deals, wishes, messes and mayhem,
money, babies, titles, costumes, trinkets, headway 
and art, a start at something real...Really?
We could do more to untangle our neural nets 
stuck up in sticky anxieties, worries
or not...some like it wound up that way.
And nouns hold more weight than necessary. 

As a rule, nothing is certain
to be 
Good
except
Art, really. 

Painting by Pieter Symonsz Potter (circa 1597/1600–1652) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.