Leftover Poems | Examples

On Returning Leftover Peppermint to My Neighbor

Digestion liquesces peppermint. I chew
the leaves for both of us, an aftertaste

when stillness is an afterthought.
Dust gleams like the raised plastic on a debit card.

Winds seem to bank and then burst through a window
in a venetian blind-slatted sunshine;
bars slit across you on the floor.

Strangers make front entrances where shoes scuff the rug.
The briefest, jagged arcs of light play off your skin,
or more likely, I've been shocked out of daydreams

to come to grips with my shaky hands
gleamed from your hair as I'm brushing
with a sense of care you'll no longer shoulder.

Your doctor rests a hand on a wingless clavicle.
You are so there, on the rug, you're here
in my ear; an undeveloped word swishes

overhead like a bird. It's time I step aside.
Your dictionary, alongside you on the floor,
I can only guess what it had meant to you,

a foundation, whispered, wind-flipped pages?
Your scars had patched
what's hatched in red.

A professional
laminates you
in one zip.

Leftover Wool

When my knitting queen aunt
Feels that needlework pull,
She starts knitting some squares
Using leftover wool.

They’re rectangles, really,
With colorful stripes,
Their patterns and stitches 
Of similar types.

Then when there are enough,
Using needle and thread,
She will sew them together 
To cover a bed.

If no blanket’s requested
By someone she knows,
To a charity’s stockpile
That handiwork goes.

Though some unattached pieces
My aunt did produce 
Found their way to my granddaughter 
For a new use.

Now her dolls all have blankets,
Two interests in sync,
Crossing ages and miles
In such a sweet link.

leftover

Peter (my bf) flew away early this morning,
like Shakespear’s eagle, “leaving no tracks.”
Now I lay here, as a leftover or Millais’ drowned ‘Ophelia.’

That’s an image ripped from adolescent, female visual culture.

Time‘s adversarial magic drags us ever future-wise,
eroding sweet moments we would cling to.

Shall we poetize?

I want a quiet afternoon,
on the bright side of the moon.

It’s an actual-factual place,
convenient, in close outer space,
like mythical Elysium, Shangri-La or Valhalla
where I’d still be intertwined with my fella,
like characters from literature or legend.

A place where “I’ll get to it tomorrow,”
is, alas, an everlasting pass,
because on the dusty, unreeling moon,
tomorrow never arrives,
our lovers never have to go,
and we can relax, scantily clothed,
simply enjoying the everlasting earthrise.
.
.
Songs for this:
To The Moon by Meghan Trainor
Moon River by Frank Ocean

Leftover

Power and its greed ...

        Often drains humanity -

                Leaving a bare seed.

Leftover Tomorrows

Leftover Tomorrows

Not just the yin and yang of life
Not just the perplexed and entangled
Not even the esoterically amplified deviations
Just the oxymoron nature of the beast 

It’s the fashion of ascending and escaping
Of falling into the voids of the heart
When love transcends into emptiness
Our minds form designs to abstract

To gain wisdom teased from agony
From wakeful weaving of earthly plights
A roller coaster of leftover tomorrows
Inverse our perception of dancing tonight

Leftover Soup

My mom had a dish she called leftover soup;
I think it arose from World War Number Two,
When nothing was wasted, when all was recouped.
Sometimes it was creamy, sometimes like a stew.

And all those jars in the back of the freezer?
Into them went all of the leftover bits!
No matter how odd or how much unrelated,
Leftover veggies, moussaka, cheese grits!

And when they were full, it was time for the soup pot,
A boiling hot cauldron of leftover hell,
I'd come home from school and open the front door
And know what was cooking from that wretched smell.

When this was for dinner, I knew that my chances
For getting dessert had now dropped below nil,
With plenty of choking and gagging and crying,
Eating that soup like a large bitter pill.

The thing I found strange as we all got much older,
When she had the money with no need to scrape,
She’d serve it to guests, and she’d do so with gusto;
From that dratted soup, there was just no escape!

Socretes Leftover Memes

counting means
...relativity...
as-
integers to
...decimals...
or-
just meme
...thoughts...
that-
mirror some
...me-me...
of-
a relative metaphoric
...observation...
theme-
comparing standards
...labelled...
individually as
...the-me...

stans sand

I Relished Being Hungry For Leftover Thanksgiving Pop Slop Gloppy Grub Second Helping

Thus, methinks himself wise
to don cooking apron
please do not ask why
trumpeting self as master chef boyardee
so move over wife and allow husband to try
his hand (using skill - let) me prepare Thai
and/or other Asian cuisine dish,
cuz when free to potschke

(To fuss or "mess around"
inefficiently and inexpertly), I haint shy
to blend (indiscriminately) ingredients
ofttimes yours truly barley able to ply
boiling water since significant other
does not give this garden variety
and generic, gimlet eyed
gourmandizing guilt free
Earth friendly gumption goaded guy.

Every so often yours truly
gets so hungry, he could eat a horse
(yours truly jest kidding hoof course)
truth be told, I only eat one meal per day
all day from son up to son down, me a force
tubby reckoned with,
who if he gives way to vice
event chew wooly experiences remorse.

Hum glad to share mine reasonably rhyming hook
twenty six letters linkedin amidst
various combinations, formations, permutations,...
allows, enables, and provides a look
into the mindscape of Matthew Scott Harris
doth show himself with steely dangling
nonsense with sense and sensibility he forsook.

Leftover

Always the plastic containers,
leftovers maturing stacked in gelid wastes
where pork slumbers among the peppers,
chicken spooning with onions and cabbage.

The polar remains of once tropical meals
transformed into undocumented containers
to be opened far too late.

A curried hash so ad hoc that it could be
the flotsam of a ravenous hurricane.
Zipper bags squelch under groping hands,
carefully wrapped comestible debris
speaks to the eyes more clearly
than any warning sign could.

Dinners and snacks survive
as half-eaten life-forms
buried behind a white doored crypt.

Some, a few only
may be resurrected, only to be boiled
into innominate concoctions
by a cook who once loved them
way too much.

Leftover Lines of Poems Undone

Love avenue shuffle
spirits fandango through
grave eyes of doubt on
delusions of disorder
when we kiss do 
dreamy clouds cuddle?
Photonic warped thoughts
feed on disdained
mecurial clot eclipses tick tocking
against organic time thieves, there's
cerebral fury on medication row as
rival consuls consort on 
succulent erotic painules--huddling
under jagged mistletoe as bellicose vision
fugitives plan placid avant garde getaways
of broken glass and bloodless lips
under hexagon suns and sharp quark 
triangles. 
Neptune Clubs open their pores to 
Blue Plate liquid aura traders----
reveling in the street life hubris.
And so it goes.

Leftover Willpower

Leftover Willpower
David J Walker

I know
	I know
What I said last night 
After the last bite of 
Turkey and dressing and 
Cranberry sauce and 
Pumpkin pie	
That I
Would never eat again
At least, not this much
	So much
That it stretched my belly to
New dimensions forcing me to 
Unbutton the waistband of my
Khaki dress slacks
I know
	I know
How good it all was
 and yet how
Bad for me at the same time
And how I fell asleep in the
Recliner watching reruns of
“It’s a Wonderful Life”
And the morning after 
When I cannot think of putting
Any more food in my mouth
Somewhere in the back of my head
Hatches a plan for later
Sliders 
Maybe one 
Reheated roll with
Turkey and dressing and 
Cranberry sauce 
	Small Sliders
Maybe two
	Just two
No more
But surely not three
Would you think it profane to
Curse the names of every Pilgrim 
Who landed on Plymouth Rock?
The bane of my weakening 
Leftover willpower
IT’s ALL THEIR FAULT!

Angels, Demons and a Leftover

The door closed behind me
With a sharp, curious noise
I was looking bluntly….
Actually, looking for nothing.

Conversations, simple, formal
Some cliched paperwork…
I was feeling sleepy, kind of numb
Racing thoughts, awkward silence.

Window glasses, scattered raindrops,
An epic view of an off-peak outside world….
Where, at night, the street lights create an illusion,
A very mystic dream of life.

Beautiful faces, smiling, inspiring…
Through a gradual sense of solitude, loneliness.
In poems and prayers; in pieces of personal notes…
In songs of angels, demons and a leftover.

A Leftover Poem

I'm going to make it my goal
to write a poem
Of all my leftovers
I have laying around
Take out my pen
like a butter knife
Spread it as thin
or as thick as I like

I'll take a tad bit from here 
a tid bit from there
Something new I might add 
to give it some flair
I have more than enough 
to fill up a page
What I don't rhyme out in time
I'll end up giving away

Cause leftovers don't last
too long by themselves
If they don't soon go to poem
then they sit and get stale
So I'll do what I can
to give them a home
And place them all in 
a leftover poem

Leftover Pizza

Want some pizza? Get a pie
And freeze it when you finish.
Wrapped in foil and baggied,
All that taste will not diminish.

Then when hunger strikes, you're set;
Just snatch a slice and heat it.
In ten minutes, grab a beer
And sit right down to eat it.

In New York, the pizza's great
So do yourself a favor - 
Freeze it when it's fresh. You'll always
Have a meal to savor.

Plight of the Leftover Christmas Cookies

Cookies must not go to waste
Specially those of great taste
So right passed my lips
And straight to my hips
I WILL let them go to WAIST

I so love to munch and munch
They’re brittle now with a crunch
The flavors- still great
But don’t satiate
They’re great with my office lunch

My body keeps them in store
Why can’t I get through the door?
Should have thrown them out
Now I am more “stout”
Ok, perhaps just one more?

Eileen Manassian Ghali

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