Best Idleness Poems
In a wintry-like night,
When I go beyond my life
And moments of being motionless,
I lie down beside,
Drinking tea with my wife,
Just to get rid of Idleness!
Smiling, it squirts its juices,
delighting in matchmaking,
just like Cupid, whose misaimed arrow,
it recalls, once struck it.
Lucentio and Bianca:
a happy match;
they owe much to it, it knows.
Lysander and Hermia;
Demetrius and Helena…
well, they eventually thanked it too.
But Queen Titania and Bottom…
Love-in-Idleness giggles
…A flower has to have its fun.
Its scans the sleeping eyes
wondering who is next
for its powerful love potion.
I’ve personified the flower, Love-in-Idleness (it mostly appears in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but is also briefly mentioned in The Taming of the Shrew)
for Deb’s contest
summer idleness --
once again finding
shapes in clouds
6th Place , Indian Kukai, #6 (Clouds)
What hardship
Is joblessness?
Soul searching endlessly
Roving depth in height
Beasting and feasting
On treacherous quagmire
The Sweltering heat exhibits me to lethargy
Lying under cooler I sup juice for energy
Without going out to play:
I feel like dipping in bay
Wish to swim along with my lover in synergy.
3-6-2020
~DEEPA~
4th place in the Contest.
Note: The Summer laziness poetry Contest
Sponsored by Mohan Chutani
It's the time
when the pen
doesn't move,
it just
stays stagnent.
You have
no inspiration,
no Muse
& you
wonder if
this is it,
is the joy
ride over?
Will you
have to return
to a lackluster existence
where you
don't compose,
just go about
your functions
with no
life at all.
How long have you been in me ?
You who loiter and linger
Shattering all my dreams
Awating all the ordeals
Turning my bones weak
Making my spirit bleak
For iam growing lazy
And admiring a life; cozy
Forcing my forfeit to flourish
And my serendipity to vanish
They said idleness is destructive
Want to undo my follies and be constructive
Alas! Never too late
To change my fate
A glorious dawn it was that once gleamed with
The radiance of hope from the yonder
Although, you think to yourself
How pleasant would it have been, if only
It wasn't the hope that appears falsely
The kind of hope
That puts despair in disguise
To prey on victims left nothing to expect
You channel all your blame to the other
Unaware that it is you, the self
Who had summoned it clean
And you, the self
Made it vile from not making
Now all that is left
Are forsakened remains
Of that which hope
Has brutally clawed out of you
Nonetheless
As your insides feed the swarming vultures
Conviction heeds to your desperate call
And foolishly, you begin
Hoping
That you will soon rise again!
He slept under the moon
He basked under the sun
He lived a life of going to-do
And died with nothing done
The spring well and root of all vice
The canker of the mind
An appendix to nobility
The only refuge of weak minds
Discontinued labour is dangerous
They labour to kill time
And labour dire it is, and weary wore
The worst of all unrealities, an idle man
Man, the only being that can properly be called idle
But woe to the shepherd that left the flock
Go to the ant, thou sluggard
Consider her way and be wise
To do nothing makes one nothing
For an idle brain is the devil’s workshop
Life is full of care
We have no time to stand and stare
To do something- man’s inherit power
Absence of occupation is not rest
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed
Why is man idle who can do something better
I am happiest when I am idle though
For it is well to lie fallow for a while
The lazy man gets round the sun
As quickly as the busy one
Eschew the idle life
Flee, flee from doing nought
For never was there idle brain
But breeds an idle thought
'dolce far niente', is an Italian idiom means 'sweetness of doing nothing
It's humdrum of work twenty four seven
thrumming a suffocated heart to burnout
too many tabs open in frantic switching
moments of leisure in despair and doubt.
Can't I pause a while to look around nature?
a peacock dancing to tunes of a cuckoo,
when worries vanish in a world of euphoria
lying on a hammock, there's nothing to do.
A simple miracle, the two little sparrows,
captivated I ask, what are your names?
they flit around, twitching with a squirrel
finding hidden nuts, adventure fun games.
Mr Time is no warden...dolce far niente
in shade of siesta, there's no feeling of guilt
no gems sparkle, only with uncut diamonds,
precious spare moments, a Heaven is built
My lost tender heart broken, overwhelming.
What will I do now?
How will I go on?
Did she ever really love me?
Why do these same questions keep coming back?
Destiny enfolds as remorseful memories abound,
Taking me deeper into myself,
Until I cannot be touched,
Until I cannot be hurt any longer.
The pain, the pain, so much pain.
When will it end,
When will it go away?
More questions waiting to be answered.
But answers naught console.
There are no answers,
There are no questions,
Life succeeds to internal bliss.
No more pain, no more hurt,
No more life as once known,
Harmony within dwells,
Ecstasy pays homage to my soul,
At last I cannot be hurt,
No one can touch me, not even her.
I am safe, but I am no longer,
For she has taken the very life from me,
Crushed it without touching it,
As if by silken foot, upon muses of my life.
Never to be reborn, dissolved in a sea of despair.
Sinking into depths of the ocean,
Where naught may tread.
Too much to ask for words that would free mine spirit,
Words she had spoke many times before,
Simple words that would set me free, to be reborn.
Alas, further into eternal darkness, whence I came,
For I am nothing without her,
potent idleness abounds.
Nothing found
Nothing gained
Nothing verntured
Nothing sane
Nothing more
Nothing less
Nothing forming
Nothing Bess
sunlight pours
through the trees -
I stand to watch
as light kaleidoscopes
through branches,
filtered through leaves
a cloudless sky
mirrors
my unfogged mind
I see -
one of those rare days
where I glide
through life’s medium,
inured to the passing of time
Warm in winter art thou like clothes woollen,
No fun if enforced-- fruit as if fallen,
If shirking work be crime,
Hard work, what waste of time!
Like kiss, sweet if idleness is stolen.
_________________________
Limerick | 07.10.2025 | work, idleness, kiss
Note: O to steal a few minutes of sleep when getting late; to waste time when a lot of work awaits; to twiddle when a deadline stares at you; to procrastinate and pinch a few minutes of pretty naught… ah sweet only when stolen like a kiss.
futility
mere breath
ephemeral
short-lived
for a moment
a
rhetorical gesture
faltering vapour
palmfuls of mist
in
pointless folly
literally deluded
a silent
stillness
yielding daydreams
illusions delusions
around &upward
deliberations
utterances
of what might have been
mishaps
moods
tedium
sloth idleness
watching the wind