Best Pinions Poems

Cypress trees like evergreen steeples
rise above rows of gravestone woes,
their shadows lie side by side like railroad ties 
across writhing paths banded like snakes;
the gravel...

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Through shadowed trails, beneath the moon’s cold stare, 
     Its Amber gaze: a burden hard to bear.
This feathered prize found peace...

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I rise from deep within the earth
out of pressured lavas

I rise above the level into
breathable realms

I rise following the risen
He who set my path and
monitors...

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from the forest, deep, she came
      like a jaguar, quietly prowling
         drawn...

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I thought the landscape burst in sudden flame
with embers wild cavorting in the glare
of dawning sun, but boundless sparks became
a throng of monarchs flitting through...

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THE INNER CHAMBER

Please.  Stop holding back on me.

Like a child standing at the neighborhood ice cream truck, arm outstretched, eyes huge, mouth watering.

I stand...

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My Crumpled Wings

My crumpled wings 
Quiver as pinions tremble
Bandaged by your balm
Brokenness shed to soar at dawn

5-10-22
Contest: Naani Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Joseph May
Four lines/14-25 total syllables
Syllables...

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Where in silence heaves the evening breeze
A lissome heather ceaselessly droops low
Through graveyard fields, I collect my tears
Against the swagger of iridescent leaves,
And golden, ...

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it is my lady
it is my love
and so the story unfolds
of the passions fervor holds deep
where the heartbreaks searching
for a modicum more time
between the decision...

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Sixty thousand pounds
One hundred sixty horses
Snorting like leviathan
On uncharted courses

Eleven feet of width
Thirty-two of reach
Tank-like tracks that crush the rock
With a metallic screech

Carving up the...

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I always said that when I die,
I would love to return as a butterfly.
One with yellow, velvet dominions,
Fragile and lofty pinions.

I confused freedom of flight,
With...

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Sappho, fragment 58
loose translation by Michael R. Burch 
 
Pain
drains
me
to
the
last
drop
.



Sappho, fragment 130 (Lobel-Page 130 / Voigt 130)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an...

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As it all once again repeats,
Retreating my soul
Into my reminiscences;
Back into my echoing laments,

I once again try to avoid it all,
I try to elude myself,
But...

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‘Sankofa’ In 'Safranbolu'

This bird from Ghana’s legends flies forward looking backward
              ...

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Wave a sea softened
                  and a pain and...

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