Idle Time

[groberts01]

I think there are many good things to say about this write. The meaning of the poem is not one I come across too often, so that's nice. It contains metaphors I find lovely: "television shrines", compass nicknacks... I'd say some of them, however, could do with being made a bit clearer e.g. are the "television shrines": shrines that happen to be TVs, or shrines built to celebrate tellys?

The occasional rhyming doesn't help me, instead it interrupts the poem.

Why do we wait?
navigate shiny nicknacks that compass no future, This line might have a grammar problem: should the beginning of the line be capitalised, would it not make more sense to write "We navigate shiny..."?
Also, I've just looked it up and compass when used as a verb means either; to go round, to contrive or to comprehend. When I first read this line it seemed to me that you were suggesting that the nicknacks were rubbish metaphorical compasses for making your way through time. If that was your intention, perhaps rewrite the line to make compass a noun e.g. We navigate using shiny nicknacks as meagre compasses.
gnaw time through television shrines with
temporary faces in vogue a decade
(ere retirement for next) in
perpetual social myopia. I remember
Julian the Apostate had a beard when it wasn't O.K,
and didn't care but he was Emperor. Is there a grammar problem here? Should there be a comma before "but"?

Why don't I call my mother, tell her I love her?
Why didn't I tell my father?
Why don't I write that novel? (Hemingway wrote his at 26).
My arms, like Atlas, quiver
while I ponder perfect
sentences. Why the choice of line lengths here?
Meanwhile my blood shambles
through skin tunnels,
my wrinkles pool like treebark Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with this line - does tree bark pool? I know what you mean. The skin of the voice is wrinkling in old age. Perhaps the wrinkles crease, or fold, or are waved...
while I aspire to be verdigris. I think you were right to end on this line, I found the idea the strongest of the bunch.