Best Fistfuls Poems

There is never an ending
		to the spending
	a world of paper
and plastic to collect
and horde
	clothes
	and cars
	and homes
	and jewelry
	and fine wine
	and paintings
	stocks and bonds
	vacations 
and expectations
entire vocations 
	devoted to 
disguising the numbers
the Caribbean masquerade
to volumes of recorded
purchases and voices 
of invoices
making
	discreet
choices 
all
to extend  
the accumulation
of dates
and...

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It was a simple night,

she suppressed her own mindset

plunging self-shackled feet into their thoughts,

their eyes,

their thought processes, hoping to retain

some semblance of solace in the familiar cold.



-Reality is an infectious disease-


What she allowed herself to notice,

swimming reluctantly through the back of her mind  

made...

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Kill me if you will, Tear me apart,
Rip open the cords,
That hold closed my heart.
Grab my love by fistfuls,
Take away its air,
Drown me in the river,
If you must then it is fair. 
Stab me, twist the knife please,
Choke me, make me bleed.
You can hurt me,
You...

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Rejected
Defected
A hopeless case
Lost, drifting
Vanished without a trace
Sorrowing, woeful
Mired in despair
Anguished
Frustrated 
Tearing out fistfuls of her hair
Lonely, yearning
Trapped in solitude
Hoping for a pitying hand
To raise her up and help her stand
Desperate, on edge
Whirling this way and that
Frantic, caged
Like a hissing wild cat
Untamed, undisciplined
An unbroken horse
No kindness,...

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When I imagined what it would
be like to be a writer, 
I saw myself hunched over a 
typewriter with bourbon on the
rocks sweating a ring onto my desk. 

I could smell the ink on my fingers 
and feel the burn of alcohol in my gut
and...

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An expansive view of tumbling sand and lasting memories
make seagulls swoop in broad paintbrush strokes
over brothers bonded by baseball and a broken home.

Within a sandcastle, two boys taste salt on their tongues,
a savory blend of pinky promises, dolphin sightings
and an acute ache for adventure. ...

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"The Reptilian Anthropocene"



The Reptilians
war daily 
enrobed in their
stiff distinction suits
rainbow coloured badges 
pinned to their lapels
they beat their breasts 
and oily palms
profiting from all 
the soft-boiled 
foxes on the run
cerebral cortex bound
thinking they are free-willed
and free in the fields 
they are not
they are captured by
the...

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This is me raping the red of an apple,
the breathy sweetness of the flesh underneath,
a slab of clean, radiant cold filling my mouth. 
I can feel it under my teeth, 
your skin, 
like the calm of an apple.

This is the tip-toe edge of a knife
slipping...

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Johnny was a lover of God's country
who roamed cherished land because he was free.
A skilled outdoorsman with backcountry charms,
he donned a burlap sack with holes for arms.
To wear rugged shoes was quite a blessing,
for barefoot he'd trek, soles without dressing.
He donned a useful pot upon...

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My guitar strings in the moonlight should be something beautiful,

but the cold liquid white just makes everything harsher.

–not soft like snow, but deceptively fine –

Light is discordant 

like my clumsy fingers that keep 

mutilating the restless heavens with their attempts at mourning.


Why won’t they move...

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Let free-fall guide your vertigo
As adrenalin rushes into waterfalls

Eyes and skin tight like water up the nose
Bubbles bursting with lightning strikes then
Soggy silence in turquoise splendour

Watery eyes fade quiet lights and adrenal fatigue
Sinking depths into cooler blues, as bubbles float on silky notes

Downward spirals into...

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When you are there, 
In the mist
That salty barrier that swallows our kisses
I can only see half of your dreams
Those smiles are certainly,
memories I know I should be making
As quick as I can
Before you go. 


But like a spider, I weave only so fast… 
Only...

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(Thy lovely lasses unwittingly 
unstintingly unexpectedly 
taught me selflessness)

Every Holiday time each year, 
a rocketing increase asper
doling out Uriah Heap ping 
largesse imposed upon each
citizen banker (coerced, forced, 

induced to buy baubles,
bibelot, curios, et cetera striving 
to outspend a competing
shopper, which faux grand 
handedness, and...

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One night as we pulled into the complex
Over the bumpy Colonial Arms exit,
Taj was sitting out on the brick stoop
With a single light blinking over his serious face
His mouth encased in a smoky cloud
And a single flame at the end of his cigarette
Tapping into an...

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Lorca Translations I

Gacela of the Dark Death
by Federico Garcia Lorca
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I want to sleep the dreamless sleep of apples
far from the bustle of cemeteries.
I want to sleep the dream-filled sleep of the child
who longed to cut out his heart on the...

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