Best Eligibility Poems

it can be a market crash 
a global outbreak 
it can be a Mount Saint Helen
for me it was Northridge, California 
January 17th, 1994
I saw myself in the eyes of children
hungry, shocked, confused
clinging to mothers 
their reality and the earth 
both trembling underfoot
I was given...

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Caseworker Determining Eligibility 

		Cabrini-Green Projects
		Chicago

The child, age two, hammocked in the half
moon of his mother’s arms, is locked
in palsy, yet moves an eyelid as I ask, 
moves the other as his mother answers,
application form interrogation.
The father was a white policeman.
“Curiosity,” the mother says. “No more.
I...

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The day my life went ape ‘chit’ in no more than three-hundred words

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch counts

And pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis works wonders

When I am asked to write a poem that is either precise or reductionist


Thus I report from my personal lock down epicentre of home isolation

With free advice to conquer...

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In every generation
In every genre
People look to the
Absolute greatness
Of course those
In the circle of concern
Time to time
Tested to see
Who's best
Tested and essayed
To recognize prestige
and greatness
Sifting through the ages
In the now
Of
Tommorrow!


They sought fortune and fame
They danced in celebration
And cried in defeat
Hour after hour they labored
To be...

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