Best Injunctions Poems

You had that future retro look:  two thousand seventeen,
There was a slow and sultry permanence, a little slouchy lean
As you eased out of the taxi before it shot off to the right,
Who could have predicted what was goin' down that night.

Your totemic injunctions had...

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Hi.
We don't have a lot of time,
or, well, I guess you do,
but I don't,
so let's plunge right into the first big question:
Which came first, form or function?

False dichotomy. No such thing as a totally dysfunctional form,
and no such thing as changing function without some form
distinguished...

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Forgive all my attempts
To make you a magician
Coming to you in dozens of time 
Like a musician and an artisan
At times like a comedian.
A true art of chameleon in religion clothing
Approaching you only for assistance
Never making a remittance but
always giving you the remnant
Even on that...

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(In a 19th-century legal judgment studied by all who 
learn the English common law, Sturges v. Bridgeman,
the court found in favour of a "nice" doctor over a
"common" manufacturer, for reasons of pure snobbery.)

The Candyman Can’t

Some legal battles have the power to thrill,
while others never have,...

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tens of thousands years ago
     (a figurative out in left field ball park figure)
     *****Sapiens (or the forebears of said species),
     deliberately sought sensate satisfaction

     with deliberate zeal
shucking...

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Crank up the innuendo spindle machine,
I predict an uptick 
in textile conjectural manufacturing
Tabloid logs of disparaging hardcore data
come rolling on a gossip conveyor belt 
Lies and self-promotion gets shaped
into a loose fitting, fabricated article
Woven for profit,
using speculative material 
cheap as they come
The rumor mill is...

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The resources of India were medley,
the areas were uncoiled from her posture.
We were indifference,
we homage to the dictators.

But they ne'er venerable those words
those were hard vintage for us,
they set about the verb 
we started to loose our nerve.

As they recovered their senses, 
the life of...

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DAGGER IN THE HEARTH
Each time I try to say, “The country isn’t good”
Even as a secondary school pupil
I can’t remember the last I obeyed the iota rule
Even dough I know my parents builds castles in the air
Yet I can’t redirect the wrong footsteps
And I have...

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City and county judges have ruled against you.
Despite the court injunctions, you still feed the birds.
There you are again, up at five-thirty in the morning.
You have thousands of seagulls and pigeons flocking to the street.
The noise they make can wake anybody up out of their...

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You warn me that our bond won’t last,
That time and space will drive away
Our love, whose passions cannot stay
Our lives’ injunctions once they’re cast. 

I lend compassion to your doubt,
Though I already know full well
That heartfelt ardor cannot dwell
For long where wisdom’s yet to sprout....

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(this is another throw-back - a piece of writing, from high school, used in my Yale applications)

I pound the pillow, curse the clock and mock injunctions to rest.

The sun finally rises and its rays slantwise fall through the curtains as I dry my hair.

A meal,...

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as if drawn by an invisible jury

the mood inched closer

to adjunction

incrementally and with

unbearable slowness of progress

it nibbled away at sizeable apathy

pinched a tiny chard of gloom

until the clouds burst into silent tears


not without questioning the sanity

of its success neurons returned

to previous still rusty function

redefined normality...

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I pound the pillow, curse the clock and mock injunctions to rest.

The sun finally rises and its rays slantwise fall through the curtains as I dry my hair.

A meal, like a forced dose, we soak ourselves in wasted, nervous time.

Finally! We arrive at the competition...

Tension...

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I recall similar signs and notices
of ironic appeal:

"We have a zero-tolerance policy against bullying"
ripped and torn,
and is that a dried yellow yolk stain?

"This is a NO GUNS neighborhood"
surrounded by a lot
vacant except for weeds
mulched in broken shards of glass.

ZERO CRIME AREA notices
as prolific as NO...

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The world is not driven by greed
it’s driven by envy …
Commandment 10 is carved in stone
positioned at the end
Where old injunctions miss their mark
a covetous reminder
Desirous of another’s place
—the devil painted green

(Dreamsleep: March, 2023)...

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