Best Mattresses Poems

I walk along the old familiar path in the wood of my childhood -
the place that I willingly abandoned  
for the lure of new friends and activities 
that carried me ever farther from my simple carefree days.

Nothing here is quite the same,
and all that...

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1.
they say everything here is
somewhere in the middle of the road
where names get bleached and keys forget about their doors
and there is something we should dig our coated nails into; 
the layers of regret and anger
that our mothers tell us to peel off 

2.
but the...

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This rink ranks right up there.
My power skates, slice each ring,
the scent of ice assails my nose.
Funny in the absence of air, I breathe.
It must be a dream. I don’t care.
The wind of Saturn blows through my hair.
No wind, you say, but I will believe
what...

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Unquotable Quotes VIIIL : SEXUAL HARASSMENT* - the feminist kind

(*”aggressive pressure or intimidation”: Is it really “any different” in most cases in the act, judging by Hollywood standards?)

STOP: ARREST ALL GIRLS
 - standing with legs apart on street-corners
 - sitting with knees exposed on bar...

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Spending the Night in a Temple

The ice rains hard upon the temple walls
As the fires within keep the visitors warm
The 2 brothers deep in a fever lie head to head
And hold hands
A girl raised above them on a cot reads sacred scriptures 
Only she can...

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A fragrance, the tangy dagger
of plums down a road,
sugary kisses on teeth,
juices of life, seeping through fingers,
in sweet ripening flesh,
of meadows, haystacks, the hungry
hiding places in vast houses,
of long forgotten mattresses, wild green valley
glanced from aloft, through a secret window:
all of adolescence burns and drowns,
like...

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Those who climb mountains
	live forever
	unless they fall.
They only drink icicle drip
	and chew thorns.
Their soles are like thin mattresses
	that are well used.

They breathe tinted air,
	unfiltered.
Over and over again
	the hill is calling.
No obstacle is too long.
They are blind
	except by instinct.

A raptor circles, catching a thermal.
The climber would...

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Many children are picky eaters and I confess I was one 
It's a challenge to many parents and not a battle to be won
For trying to make a child eat what they don't want to try
Can be a battle of wills and make all those...

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Moon flower

You lay on white cotton sheets with the hospital logo imprinted
on the cloth and on the fabric of your life talcum powder for
your bed sores anorexic washed out gastric spittle dribbling
from ulcerous mouth facing what had to come no more shine
no radiant beauty just...

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Our lives and our time
Fired useless
Into the air
Toy cap gun shots
Those winter palaces unstormed
No tax offices ransacked
Where is utopia I asked
And no-one knew
They looked at me with pity
As if I still talked
To an imaginary friend
At my age
I should know better
But I don´t
Instead
I dream..
II
I dream of...

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Dream Keys
      by Odin Roark

A NY mantra
Rent the rentable
Move the movable
Key the keyable

Apartments

Four-wall-guardian of yesterday’s youth
Vacuous cellmates of old age loneliness
All part of a cyclic maze
All having a key
Urban life’s Rubik’s Cube turnover

Today’s the day

“Two rooms”
“New paint”
“Clean window”
“No-squeaky floorboards”
Superintendent loves...

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OUR LIFE
The word 
That word, you know what it is. 
The word that you call us  that describes us like were a pig 

You work us from dusk to dawn, 
you know that you are healthy so pick your own lawn. 
You call us...

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It was cold in New York City. In the dark,
alley, behind the lavish buildings among the
super rich, roam the forgotten.

   Waiting in line at the redemption center,
turning in their plastic bottles, to pay for their
next meal.

  The well off in their arrogance...

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Froth
           by Odin Roark

Come
Be my operator
Me your camera

Medium shot
Lower Manhattan sidewalk café
He in Armani suit accented with Ferragamo tie
She with Jimmy Choo and Prada outfit
Both with Latté and croissant

Low angle
Bottom of refuse chute
Zooming up through...

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large yellow diesel machines coughed
coughed thick black smoke, caught their breath
struggled convulsively and after a series of loud farts
assorted groans and mechanical creaks                      ...

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