Best Hardscrabble Poems

Granny, hunched over the woodstove –
I smell fatback frying in cast iron,
Scents of morning in the Blue Ridge Mountains
Along with hazy mists hanging across them,
Parting...

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Poetry is the power of defining the indefinable
             in terms of the unforgettable...

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I Wonder if He Wore a Fedora

He passed a few months ago.
I looked through a few pics
of him when he was young.

He grew up in...

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It was here,
On the heart of Appalachia
Where the moon and stars shimmer
Across the blue gray ridges,
Where the sunlight reflects the whisper
Echoing through the pines and...

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2 
Grandma's old corn sheller 
rests upstairs in an attic in Portland, 
Oregon; 
Mother got it before 
the sisters, cousins and aunts 
(who got the...

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a walker, I.


A walker fancying himself
a hiker, on a walk, self-narrated as
an expedition.

The incline is gentle, consistent,
insistent and yet i insist,
as i am inclined to...

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gone are the days
when frail old men appeared in the looking glass
to be full of song and wine
they sit back now and spin their tales
on...

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By George (burning hard), I Shaw tried to playwright

offers his unsolicited tidbits 
as scene courtesy 
the following virtually 
staged philosophical insight.

Arch back like 
a professional...

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Happy 68th birthday MaryAnn Sage - revisited January 12th, 2021

Wherever you might be holed up
within this whirled wide web wassup?

Mein kampf still equals board
hardscrabble existence...

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Across figurative and literal blackened white board...

Where death of democracy writ large,
nevertheless psychological strength predominates
unlike earlier chapters of mein kampf.

Mine hardscrabble existential debacle 
spelled losing...

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Across figurative and literal board... 
mine hardscrabble existential debacle spelled losing game of trouble

Oft times, I experience wretchedness being alive
spurring wonderment whereby thoughts
of my demise...

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He knew how to slaughter and dress a chicken
  She baked bread every Friday in the tiny kitchen
He built their one-car garage from lumberyard...

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A Soldier That Lost His All

Despite his means, despite his plight
He rendered help to those in need,
No place he had fixed for each night
His life...

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I spent too long away from her driving that rig,
So I gave up the freight line and learned how to dig,
‘cause I knew I could...

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Paternal grandmother's headstone - Beth David, Elmont, Long Island

Shaindel (Sadie), variant of Shana Harris
died May 13th, 1959 exquisitely chiseled
alphanumeric characters legibly engraved
sepulchral casket entombing lovely...

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