Best Cut Your Teeth Poems

Must you mileage chalk up in free verse speed way

   For Kim Patrice Nunez*, with hope

Must you mileage chalk up in free verse speed way
Let your wheels skid by letting loose grip on wheel
Free verse range’s for marksmen trained on rondolet*
Dipodic foot pantun...

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I creep in at night,
     When all lights are out.
While you peacefully sleep,
     When no-one’s about.
No stars in the sky,
     No fresh baked bread.

Only you,
     Me,
   ...

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True noises from outside 
deep in the night of winter,
snow geese cadence call too
shake some sense of me.
Summon me to remember who I am, 
Bid me to evoke who I was.
 
I see fire in the valley through the rain
and I stumble through the mist
too...

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Cut your teeth on a sure thing and they’ll all fall out, too soon.

The gambler loses a lifetime, while the diligent will succeed.

The only certainty; the sure thing, in this life, si death.
...

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You’ve got a key in your pocket, black salt in your hair. Smoke in your whispers, and rust in your stare.  Tears run down your cheeks and your gaze goes cold. Face facts lil’ mama, we’re all ganna’ grow old. Left hands’ reaching for...

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Man's last leg is hue and cry!
When baby he is man is the honey pot;
His forebears love him for what he will be.
When man is man he is a toast of all;
The World craves for him for what he can do.

But man's last leg stinks...

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BITTER    LEMON.


I want to cut my teeth
On the rind of a bitter lemon
And feel the veins of wintry night
Caught in eddies on the frozen lips.

To follow the paths of the sea
Or to the creatures of sultry nights
Places where agonies kept vigils
In tear...

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BROTHER I HEARD YOUR WAR CRY

Yes my old friend I had your challenge
I couldn’t help but laugh it off….
You who just cut your teeth yesterday
You I saw soil your under gametes
You I saw take your first steps…
Now you have the guts…

To think you have wit...

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Shobana sings at the Mandapam in Chennai ... which I did not see
After all, my pilgrimage was only once, in 2003
He had cut his teeth in 1893 with apartheid & segregation
In Africa, where today it is a fad to find fault that he was but...

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And Throughout Vast Purple Range, Visions Cascade Down

No fictive dream deludes for now, so her heart bleeds
And weeping spirit no comfort dares to arrive
She that loved him took care of his earthly needs
Now hides in darken forest, just barely alive
And would hope to her ever...

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Wander and meet in wicked wind
They cut their teeth on broken nails
Walk across golden pond in sin
Trail of tears on glacial lake pales
In comparison to his frozen heart 

The heart of the damned chained forever
The heart of the damned pained forever

Pains me to think of...

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It was an island of piety
out of place in Port Adelaide’s 
working class sea of pubs.
Off the main road,
St Mary’s was a refuge
for the Catholic faithful
and a few wino’s 
pretending a prayer
for an hour of sheltered warmth.

Three masses on a Sunday
drew a dwindling crowd.
My grandmother,...

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Cut your teeth at first

On fruit and salad

Don't try begin with red meat

Take baby steps

Walk before you can run

Don't pretend or feign to know

You have any idea what other people think

Because you ain't them 

Haven't lived or experienced their life

No 2 people are the same...

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My dreams are cutting into my fun time
Fiddle faddle, diddle diddle
Should have something worthwhile
But eyes just ache
And my heart pounds like a thing that pounds
I wish I was dead
Or high and dry
But I was born to beside the point

She shot me up then left me...

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I came from the cracked earth,
where sirens sang lullabies
and gunshots kept rhythm
like a mother’s heart—
fast, then gone.

We ate what we stole,
slept where we fell,
and called rusted chain-link fences
the edge of the world.

The old man left,
the old lady broke,
and love was a rumor
we didn’t believe in.

I...

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