Tottering Poems | Examples

And then?

Then? What then?

What about the 
Bare legs 
Seeking address 

Wait. Be a snail.
Then the hours 
Began undressing 

And then?

Wait.
No unleashed 
Impulses.

The earth tilts 
Towards the sun 
Here in India

Dusk thickens 
In California 
Legs in line 
Mostly bare
For the dancing hall 
Sea and seagulls
Some vultures too
Mingled with the 
Moneylenders 
Waves and wavelets 
Tipsy and tottering 
Hard orange pieces 
In pursuit of 
soft ones 
Twilight in the bottle 
Exuberance in deluge 

Here the legs
And hands 
Raise the curtain 
Bread and butter 
Poetry and Mathematics 
Computers and 
Greenfields 
Fish and mutton 

Then? And then?
Then? What then?

Heart And Sole Complaint

Tho' they may display legs to best advantage,
observing the constraints, begs the question, 'What's afoot?'

Seems to me I had a bee in my bonnet
about women's proclivities and passion
when compelled to write this pseudo-sonnet
about their footwear fashion.
Some are bonkers barmy as bedbugs, daft, dippy, daffy,
(with) bats in the belfry too,
it's far beyond my reckoning, as I can't fathom,
why they choose to wear the pairs of shoes they do.
And as for a clue, I haven't any, why they own so very many.
With their platforms, pumps, stilettos, wedges, they're tottering on
the edges of insanity, an exercise in futility,
an accident about to happen, one stumble, a tumble then... a calamity.
Seeing them hobble, while their dogs are barking,
these are the words they'd speak, if their feet could talk,
'Cinderella had the right idea, losing her glass slipper,
as oh the pains you put us through when you are wont to walk.
It's no more than torture, a total imposition,
somewhat akin to boots of the Spanish Inquisition.'

Decrepit

Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge,
and the longer you are on earth the more experience
you are to get. --L. Frank Baum The Wizard of Oz

Designed to stain the credibility of soul.
Eager to kick down the road, the sage.
Conclusion, that wrinkles and scents,
Regardless of impact, don’t matter.
Eager to pretend that youthfulness won’t fade.
Progeny was in those creaky bones.
Icy, the feelings of the crowd; God sees
Tottering old fools as roots, not weeds.

Another's of One's Own

Reflected grief spat back at me to bear 
Another load, the double of my own 
To take and carry, this unholy pair 
Then tripled, multiplied, beneath I groan.

A beast of burden hauling my bloated
Carriage, cut into with refracted shards.
Whipped for my pain, heavier I’m loaded
Pile after pile, the crown a house of cards. 

I tread with caution over broken ground,
The tottering deck threatening to fall,
Step after step and though my wounds are bound
The load cuts deeper, I stumble and fall.

Impaled on broken ground, I’m laid in state.
Now. Did I this predicament create?

Confident Cocky Treepie

The treepie was confident and cocky, walking my fence
Tottering and tittering to himself, in a bravado-like manner
He was a handsome bird, his colors painted in compartments
Yellows, blacks, whites; he looked distinguished like a penguin
They both wear a tuxedo-like feather pattern

Parallel Universes

crisscrossing parallel universes
by some freak of nature
teeter tottering tumbling 
to one side then to the other

in one world her home
Julia is unbearably lonely
a devastated grieving widow
inconsolable since her tragic loss

one day she crosses over to the other side
walking into a parallel world where 
all is the same but for the accident
and her marriage never cut short

like a curious puzzle she puts pieces together
understanding that in this new world
she is squandering her treasure
taking for granted the man of her life

throwing away in one world the same prize 
desperately grieved in the other

how will she balance the two worlds ~


AP: Honorable Mention 2025

(inspired by 1988 movie 'Julia and Julia' starring Kathleen Turner)

Clad in Winter

Whirling flakes of fantasy softly tango,
cheek to cheek, or modestly waltzing strangers.
Blizzard whiteout buffaloes moon and starlight,
   cloaking the lovers.

Frozen fountain, brazenly fetching, catching
coins of ice, those stupefied flattened pennies.
Queen of snow and fairies do bluster shavings.
   Breathless the statue.

Snowmen slurry tottering, wayward listing.
Melting, baring, chattering cherub crystals.
Water flowing merrily whistles sport at
   winter’s undressing.

musings on religious conversion

the well intended but deluded soul 
took on itself to spread God’s word
the fixation soon became its mission
to rescue those deemed wayward

the vulnerable who suffer on earth
tottering on the very edge of despair 
clutch at wisps of straw so proffered
but of absolute truth remain unaware

there is no solace in words and symbols
scriptures merely point out direction
we each need to walk on the path alone
paving way for our soul’s resurrection 

the entity who seeks must drop away
God cannot be caged in conditioned belief
the light eternal is loftier than mind thinks
in vibrancy of staid stillness turn a new leaf

Bennu

                                                 Bennu, 
                                            Old and regal
                                   From a thousand lifetimes
                                     A go of tottering ashes, 
                                  To upwards toward the sky
                                         Rebirthed and new, 
                                                 Fly high

Old Whine

I was 86 two weeks ago
It's no wonder that I move slowly.

My brain is racing down a track,
Looking for lost bits that won't come back.

My spelling is getting worse,
Which upsets me and makes me feel terse

Terse and frustrated, old and grey
Few can understand the things I say.

I do not know myself,
I could be a dusty vase perched on a shelf.

A vase that once was admired,
Now out of fashion, no longer desired.

A relic of another age
Tottering on the last page

Of an 86-year-old book
That is nearing its end,

But are there other chapters?
For me and others to look at

Before I go around the bend
I have much to comprehend.

Fifth Avenue

From steppes remote
    luxurious mink coats
  Fine leather boots
    tailored suits

  Fancy shoppes
    five-star hotels
  Back of splashy nightclubs
    exclusive brothels

  Rolls-Royces
    and Bentleys
  S-t-r-e-t-c-h ... L-i-m-o-u-s-i-n-e-s
    cafes serving the finest cuisine

  Wide-eyed with wonder
    passersby gape
  Dreams of Fifth Avenue 
    from tottering fire escapes

Ear To Ear

.

            Rickety
          Tottering
            Clatter
  Mine knees and hips
as hern in slow motion
       tramped front
         Mine lone
            bare

           Locked
         (grinning)
            hern
              to 
            mine

Darkness

Unheralded purple on wings of hush
Stretching to infinity
A rebel erasing lines of sight
On a lark 
Of inevitability

What forces have combined
To set this immutable wheel in play?
No haste it knows
Yet its advance is constant
As the day and evening goes

It measures progress in shades of gray
‘Til one last gasp
And we are plunged to sightless depths
Tottering, blind, and dumb
While the madman laughs

Leaving Your Last Breath

Like those last
luscious faintly
enfeebled breaths
bitterly breaking
through my
limply lifting lungs .
Fervently flooding
my tear filled
eyes. Tenderly
tottering into
those timidly
tight-lipped times .
Who wistfully
whispers
their coolly
cut cards of
kindred conversations.
Carefully kindling
their heart-crossed
corners of compassion.

To Be As He

It is a night of sorrow, 
a song of darkness,
As the hounds of hell cry out with madness.
I become petrified and begin tottering.
A Ominous shadow fast before me posturing.
The immortal one has awakened.

Evil shrouds his pale form, his raven
 hair, And his full red lips.
They part slightly,
To taste the vital essence streaming from my weakened flesh.
With cold hands I'm held beneath him.
Now has become a night of shared vitality.
I'm unable to move, frozen in a trance.
I rise in a new life, for now I thirst.

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