Best Heaped Up Poems

Rodents can be loquacious
That includes your average gerbil
They love to prattle, chat and blather
They really are quite verbal

Hamsters are talkative too
Just as garrulous as can be
With running mouth and wheel to match
They are a sight to see

But I am loath to squander words
Sparing usage is...

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No Bread.  Why?
     By Dane Smith-Johnsen

Big round dark eyes staring at forgetfulness.
Eating nothingness, feeling helplessness.
Scavenging the streets for morsels finding hopelessness.
Foraging to fill a swollen abdomen full of emptiness.
Holding death securely within mothers’ bleakness.
Too hungry to show love and too...

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Sweet potatoes, special cuts,
 Grandma's spices, nuts,
Raisins cooked in every bite.
Flaky crust baked light,
Cool whip heaped up high.
Thanksgiving –
Pie!...

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BROKEN FLOWERS
i.m. Ann, my sister 1947 – 1997)

Heads of fine purple strewn across cement
And yellowness heaped up in an airless room –
Travesties to which your heart’s golden fire-dust
Is an increment on pain.  You asked
If the pretence of caring had now vanished,
Was it real now,...

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THIRUK-KURAL on not offending the Great*: Periyaaraip Pilaiyaamai - Canto 90 K895 and K897

[* The "Great" here are indifferently the King or other learned and wise people whom the King ought to respect and fear. In this canto, Thiru-Valluvar repeats himself (though elegantly, cf. K897...

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My Grandmother’s Kaleidoscope    

The stones and the planks of her heart
resonate with the pick-axes and the
hammers. My grandma’s mansion
loses its head, arms and trunk.


His hidden life in the Malaysian
woods during an old war, usual 
silence of the empty nights near
her granary, which...

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A canticle I think I'll be, 
A rimed thought, hoary and ancient, 
Stinking as the dust heaped up empyreal on the hills of 
The Judean sands;
And as dulled and dimmed as an archaic coin tarnish'd.
This is what I think I might be.
I'd as lief be...

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at the tavern in the darkening hours 
a drunkard swallows the small world reflected in his glass 
at one gulp, emboldened, he dances with inflamed eyes 
brandishing the ornamental sword taken down from the wall 
and yells “I conquered the world, I unified the country”

“wow,...

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Let's do dinner tonight at the Covid 19, the hottest new restaurant in town.
We won't need a face mask, we'll sit with a crowd and dine on Pandemic Stew.
We'll start with a creamy White Supremacist Broth served with Storm Trooper 
Croutons
And then there's a cocktail...

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We've heard all about the stockpiling,
the toilet rolls, lettuce and beans,
but secretly more of this is going on
unnoticed, and behind the scenes.
The Government, in our best interests,
(which translates they take us for mugs)
have warehouses scattered all over the place
in which they are stockpiling hugs.
They've seen...

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Fascinated by a word ‘lofty solitude’
I, as a tall and dignified pine tree,
once stood high on a mountaintop
that stands there from a time remote in antiquity
the unfathomable height.
However, I have burned the pride of the pine tree
to ashes in the sunset glow
because no one ever...

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And how the wind howled around
  the old container,
    wheezed through the cracks,
      laughed devilishly, 
        fed demonically on our emaciated
        ...

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the leaves fall not from the tree
because of their own weight
but the weight of anxiety 
heaped up like unpredictable tomorrows 
and days after days of dismal weather 
compel the leaves to leave the tree 

pretending to be feelingless
without leaving any sort of emotional reflection 
the...

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It is as if I strangely sit between unfoldment and the
pit turn the heart and bend the lip of ageless silent
sun and trees of passing pageants aimed to please
the garish and the blinded throng from heaven sent in
hellish garb of bodies blown from end to...

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Now see a fine display in market hall 
Where fishmonger's stalls sell the freshest catch. 
A world of wet white tiles and melting ice. 
Seafood displayed, arranged in rank and file.
One Scottish salmon commands centre stage
Stretched out upon its own tray of crushed ice
And next...

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