Best Checkpoint Poems

Gulls circled above, spiralling through car exhaust
Kids fidgeted in the backseats of chaos

Eerie silence, interrupted by overheated transmissions
Someone blasting The Doors...theme music

Stern, heavily armored Homeland...

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You had to pass through security
and insisted you could stand 
on your own two feet
and progress of your own volition.

Though your wheelchair
and diagnosed dementia
evidence to...

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I was wiping the dust off an old snow globe in the upstairs attic, when a mop of honey-blonde hair suddenly appeared through the wooden...

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" Like a fish caught in a cruel net; 
or a bird caught in a trap,  
in the same way a person can...

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Death stood by the road side 
and swung his hand to get a ride 
Many stopped by, but was never favored 
And some came, but...

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Head bowed
Another lost
Only nineteen
Life exhaust

Suicide bomber
Checkpoint aimed
Distant detonation
Bloodthirsty reign

Flown home
Last journey
Sombre flight
Deceased early

Airport met
Coffin carried
Mourning wife
Newly married

Another hero
Theatre down
Another funeral
Tearful town

Families gather
Friends unite
Stars n Stripes
Mournful...

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the serene people whose ease of manner
once made him yearn and confabulate
are laughable cartoonish and piteous now
could have been much worse he said
as his last...

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Leader Of The Pack
Impossible to lead if you weren't born within a seed.
Some structural integrity, maybe a position indeed?
Did anyone say you were in line?
This...

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I had been studying to make Sergeant,
And was scheduled for the afternoon promotion board.
To get some practice and test the waters,
I volunteered for the morning's...

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We are all distant travellers
In this world full of strangers,
Journeying through valleys and plains
Nor taking path on tops  or sides of mountains.

Each one of...

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Walk with me through a world of beauty
A gift from God
Walk with me where the Vikings once roamed
Through the magnificence of her mountains
Into the fjords...

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At a glance (glimpse) 

To the average tourist
the wall is (was) the divide
between east and west
Checkpoint Charlie
the obvious choice
point of reference
almost irreverent
in its poignancy

To see...

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Growing Patience
 
So close, yet so far away so many times.
Stop and go, stop and go, stop and go…
that’s what I see all the time.
My engine...

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In 1989 I rode the duty train with covered windows across the East German countryside, forewarned not to look outside.  I arrived in that...

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Abraham wrapped his robe about him,
Laced his sandals upon his feet,
Took his staff in his hand,
And started off down the path
To the place of which...

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