Best Craning Poems

And the music began,
And with power so strong, I nearly fell back from the force
Snarling, smiling, demons held me upright,
As the Precarious Prince began,

“Dare you in silence come to me, Daughter of Eve,
To challenge my wisdom with your lust to sing,
A child of God—you provoke...

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Not Ready Yet

Give me just one more day of Christmas jubilee
 Not ready to let go of Christmas, yet
Or stop gathering flecks of stardust
 Scattered from the Heavens
Still reveling in the sweet aroma of frankincense
 Or bovine straw
  Lingering on evening's breath
To walk by...

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Adrift upon the ocean  
bob a bunch of resting birds.
What is it that they call themselves?
A flock or school or herd?

Could it be this feathered colony  
is a band or horde at best
No screeches, calls or gaggling,
they don’t brood or crowd or nest

Spread...

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“Don’t turn your back on the water...” my grandmother told me as I
skimmed stones across the tiny ripples of rock pools. 
Small scaly creatures and stones sliced toes like knives but
we were full of excitement then,
craning necks and nets at the alien life under water...

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the art of poetry isn’t hard to master
make the syntax good and  entertaining
the  gruesome heart of poetry   brings disaster

 
a meter errant makes  the lines come faster
an oxford  thesaurus   gets the listeners   waning
the art of...

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I let my dogs out at midnight,
And sat down to write.

There was an explosion outside,
And my dogs tried to hide.

They hit the back door raising a fuss.
"Mom! Let us in! They're shooting at us!"

I opened the door, saw their reason for fear.
The town shot off...

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already naked
estimating time
of arrival suggest
coordinates for my
backyard positioning of
my uncoordinated body
leaving a bit of flexibility
in case of a need for any
slight rearrangements i
might need to make in
deed because this is
poetics not rocket
science and in 
fact it's a 
landing 
not a

launch


i see her
here she
comes

right 

there yet
they...

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She jolted when she heard the forceful knocking at the door
not sure if when it opened who she'd find,
the same reaction to a knock came several times before
much more and she would go out of her mind.
Peeking from upstairs window through a curtain just to...

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We are one. We are the same. We are I.
We move with the same ligaments, the same joints, the same muscle strings.
We ooze of acid. We erode. We exude a putrid odour.
We are a walking culmination of demons. 

Barbatos’ head, sticking out of our body’s...

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A damp, dank odour pervades the saturated forest; pungent. acrid;
The stench an assault on the human senses:
Working subtly, slowly permeating every pore until it compromises the very heart of the forest.

Seeping easily between the debris; the residue of countless winters past; 
adhering each to the...

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Congratulations our pageant queen:
Days and nights you nurtured nicety
Like florist watching bud to petal;
You starved yourself amidst abundance
Nursing the shape , keeping the fitness;
Today all eyes are forgotten on you,
King and Queen’s mouths in agape;
All craning out necks on their toes
To have a glimpse of...

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In numerous locales countrywide, they hold sway
Pirouetting at intervals like ballerinas from Bolshoi
Beauteous, feline and very feminine
Slender to the point of emaciation, not quite
Cultivating the undernourished look on a frugal diet
Decidedly austere for a longer tenure in the limelight
Basking in the fleeting warmth of an...

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still the climbing green lianoid lass


her tender tendrils torn  


massive metal lying like a cutlass


in her lap forlorn


                       finger on trigger ...

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"...Maybe they would allow me to dance,
perhaps they would leave me to dance;
let me ask the landlords,
If they would permit me to dance.."

Forty horsepower!
Sixty horsepower!!
The horses can keep their power;
Yeye Asiwaju's power is sufficient.

Who would not be amazed?
Half a century of cultural dance:
Dangling head like...

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Part One

                 Still the din dashes about in his dreams
now louder in the spacedout quiet:
an occasional auto-rickshaw backfiring revving
spluttering too close for chancy comfort
some blaring tv hoisted above craning...

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