Best Closely Held Poems

When moonbeams dance upon the placid sea;
When billowing waves seethe endlessly;
I ponder what secrets the sea might yield,
Should its ageless mysteries be revealed!

Are there unknown monsters lurking in the deep?
Might it divulge where ancient mariners sleep?
Where rest fleets of sailing ships with holds of gold?
Are...

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Why do poets take such pains to 
create something so hard to understand?
Do they purposely try to cover deep truths
with big words and fancy phrases?
Why not just say what they want us to know
and be done with it?

But wait, you say? 
Take some time 
to...

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Upon his favored pillow, curled up tight
he sleeps through happy hours without a stir,
tail wrapped around and paws tucked out of sight,
beneath his purring ball of gray-striped fur.
Awake, he fills my hours with happiness—
he pats my cheek with his soft gentle paw
when closely held and...

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I've slurped chili from border-to-border and betwixt the roilin' seas,
In fancy five-star establishments and greasy spoon eateries.
I've sampled some that has caused anxious gastrointestinal uproar,
But I'm a glutton for the stuff and always go back for more!

I'll eat chili with or without beans, it really...

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Depression is like dying
without hope this process will end well,
without remediation
at least not for my closely held ego-identity,
and despair 
this turning inward
creates a cocoon by avoiding outward.

Focal awareness of ego mortality, 
immanent and emanant,
eminent,
turns inward,
returns inward
in despairing response against outward;
the whats and whos of external...

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I Refusing To Cry, You To Ever Yield

 I never went into your dark room
 never saw your silent rage
 In my mind your cannons never boom
 nor does your face ever age

 I never felt your lonely trance
 never saw you naked in a...

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As day falls into dusk I sit alone,                                 
Among the unloved stragglers, waiting...

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How do I measure my yesterday's spent?
As only my mind holds them ever close.
Like buds from a rose, in silent descent,
They crumble in time, evoking pathos.

Dare visit these shadows where once I dwelled,
And open their door seeking refuge.
Only to see failures, still closely held,
Clinging to...

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The fading colours in a trembling leaf,
Perhaps a portent of the coming cold,
When the heavy hand of an icy winter
Will press hard upon gully, flat and fold.

The rose’s vicious stems will be laid bare
Making way for the jonquils proud display.
Their sweet perfume partial compensation
For the...

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Time was, when I had far less miles and fewer oil changes, I had a mindset that there was a right and wrong to everything.  No gray, no pink, no whatever.  Serious thought about most anything resulted in a firm resolution, one way...

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She plays with her tiny fingers, closely held on the rough walls of there small little mud thatched house, her deep brown angelic eyes gazed into mine, an innocent smile, happy, blissful unaware of the ghetto mayhem, with no shoes she walks by and says...

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"Amid the jagged shadows of mossy leafless boughs"- 
             Samuel Taylor Coleridge


Amid the jagged shadows of mossy leafless boughs
   that dance upon this grassy shawl which covers you,
   ...

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We measure our life by years,
but years are made of moments dear.
To make each moment meaningful,
we must from history lessons glean.

When we look back over the past,
Few moments do an imprint cast.
But they’re the ones that shape our lives,
and in dark times our soul revives.

The...

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Last Trains at the End of an Echo
by Sy Roth

The Conestoga wagons littered the wasteland with their spiny bones
            in search of the comfort of others 
clattering, grinding wheels singing an unmelodic song 
...

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Defense of freedom
takes a courage
rare and dearly won

Through wars endured
with tyrants scourged
and despots on the run

The words in place
by Founders Ink
on parchment
closely held

As children roam
the halls of light
with precepts
— deeply felt

(The New Room: February, 2025) 
...

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