Best Felt Hat Poems

I read Darryl Ashton’s poem Called Pinocchio Rex and this brought back 
memories of a childhood incident

When I grew up we had a smallholding – the house was called ‘Longacre’ as we 
had over an acre of land.  Over the years we had chickens,...

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You came into her house through the kitchen. 
The big door in from the front porch
Hadn't been used for years;
Furniture stood hard against it.
A knock at the front door meant a stranger.

Aunt Celesta makes a tall pitcher
Of green Kool-Aid and ice cubes.
She fills two glasses...

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Phantom of the Opera

   I stand and watch  from my box five
And listen to the most beautiful Nightingale
I could stay awake till  wee hours of dawn gale
Listening to her melodic voice 
Transcendent a soul through a lovely vale
A ring upon her...

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			Naked death


…the barred and sealed cattle wagons
							disgorge
at the Konzentrazionslager
						            the faux pas relief
    from urine mud faeces sweat and tears
unkempt armpits buttocks best wear
   turned to damp rags
 ...

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City across the water, night by violet aurora
Los Angeles, we're further south than I thought (than we should be)
I take a strewn-bark trail to get a better view
Hand me the camera, Polaroids in quick succession (when is this?)
It's not quite capturing it, never the depth...

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Nightmare, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s Cauchemar

(Translation of Paul Verlaine’s quintilla : « Cauchemar ». As usual, I have tried to stick to the original’s stanzaic format and rhyme scheme. T. Wignesan)

In my unfurling dream I saw it happen
- The way the hurricane lashes the strand...

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Between 96th and 104th Street on Broadway
A mid age man holds high his bible as he shouts and struts.

From year to year he holds his route
When day is lit or turns to night
His chants I hear in words of worth
His strained voice reaches some looking...

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Sebastian said Dim Whitty,
So as to make this funny
I asked the coach and said
"Honey...Who's on First?"

Coach said eYes!
And I got that part. Write.

Costello asked for the bat
Said he loved the game so
Coach gave him That.

Confused as can be, he swung
it round almost hitting me!
But missed...

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There’s a man I’d like you all to meet whose Aussie through and through,
From his felt hat to his R.M. boots, he ridgy didge, true blue.
He was born in Roma, Queensland, back in nineteen thirty-three
And his parents were from sturdy stock, a pioneer family.
Station life...

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"I follow the Moskva
and down to Gorky Park-
listening to the winds of change" - Scorpions

All the heads of state and their spouses (or significant others) have arrived and been seated for this, my last show at Gorky Park, here in the heart of Moscow. For...

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How to describe him,
the he that was so much a part of me
but for such a short while
brawn.

The span of his shoulders 
as they stretched across his un-ironed flannel plaid.
The wedge shaped fan of his finger nails, 
always a bit black;
even though, by God, he...

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When the snow is deep and wet enough to pack
I look out my living room window to watch kids build a snowman
Wouldn't you know    that old felt hat is gone from the closet    and
My meerschaum pipe (this will never...

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Everyone has his four o’clock there is no doubt about that
Everyone has his four o’ clock even if he wears a cowboy’s hat
Everyone has his four o’ clock even if he roams around in a bureaucrat’s felt hat
Everyone has his four o’ clock so don’t...

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You remember me from my past books
I remember you from your scouring looks 
No sales were made; I landed a job that’s not obscure
selling newspapers on the corner is my entrepreneur  

Sales begin turning up and the stand had a name
“birds eye view” ...

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He was a silver tongued devil from New Orleans
Carried a new deck of cards in a locked brief case
He came up to Texas in a pair of pressed jeans
With a stiff demeanor they called a poker face

He had big brown eyes and a set of...

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