Best Riffling Poems

Introduction: one of the nice aspects of having an oeuvre as a poet is the ability to see where you have changed over the years. this is such a poem where i can see the step from the eristic with a quiver full of quodlibets...

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Lost sounds that call a memory to life

Loose change jingling in the pockets of children.

Baseball cards riffling in the spokes of a bicycle.

The clack-clack of roller skates over sidewalk cracks.

The clickety-click of a stick dragging along a picket fence.

The baying of backyard dogs seeking freedom.

The...

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Autumn leaves
And on its heels
A savage wind
Hunts its offspring
Pursuing their faint scent
Riffling the golden fields
The curtain falls
A slow darkness ensues
The lights dim
In stillness
...

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gilded hours’
           intense writing,
     sunrise
through twilight years.

fine riffling through strange*
            fodder, of
      poets,
i call friends.

...

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I am the breath of teardrops drying
A whisper coaxed awak’ning on rippled pond
Shadows creeping amid the grey stones
Concealing both prey and predator

A faint kiss to lift the butterflies aloft
Caress the wafting scent of budding roses
A shiver on the sweaty back of toil
A riffling of leaves...

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Riffling book pages, as faces pass by
She finds answers in silence
and understands
All is well.

Sad for leaves getting out of sight
yet still
happy for the humor she found within
She smiles...



This is for all those who've wondered about that silence,
of the what-ifs...but also learned to read in between...

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Ripples flow across the lake
A profusion of serpents swimming
Wriggling from shore to shore

Skimming stone takes four hops
causing rings to widen
Circles created by the hand of man
kerplunk, splish and splash 

Dragonfly perched on a cattail
flitting its wings in the air
making shadows that look like lace
Sunlight highlights...

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Poem revised Memorial Day May 30th, 2022 at 1500 hours

Flagrante delict adulterous sordid behavior 
automatically linkedin with Lothario;
an unscrupulous seducer of women, 
based upon a character 
in The Impertinent Curious Man, 
a story within a story 
in Miguel de Cervantes' 
1605 novel, Don Quixote. 

Hard...

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…and so I pictured peace


…and so I pictured peace.
the lea of the meadow at sunset
meadowlarks chasing invisible bugs,
unfelt breeze riffling the tall grass,
the halo of summer warmth.

unknown to me a battle raged
within the gentle stillness,
a struggle for balance, for survival,
for continuation of the species,
the struggle...

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My mind wanders to the stillness of a field
 where wild asters used to stud the grass with blue
 I seem to hear the echo of a voice
 Lamenting over the vast stretches where my thoughts cling

 Here, children ran and played and called each...

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the swans hiss
parental obligation
                       …warn the intruder

sunning turtles roll
drunks falling off of bar stools
         ...

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garage sale
placed junk from the past self 
upon the driveway for 
the passers by to come and 
rummage through
riffling amongst the used goods 
that are no longer wanted by the new self
spring cleaning of the garage of the subconscious 
have begun...

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Radiant crystals illuminate thee, nocturnal mistress
in the wan dawn light where darkness drapes skies
Requiem aeternam bright halo, lies heaven’s portal 
Winters wispy cirrus refracting ring circling 
Mohawkin bespeaks of a Christmas cold moon

…December’s icy grip          ...

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Now the chattering guns have ceased
Now the battlefields are bared
Now we walk where history teased
The convictions of those who stared
I climb the hill to see again
The land that yields its children who toil
For fruit where no father remain;
I climb to see ploughs ripping the soil
Of...

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An Incomplete Love Story

Too fast the pages riffled
through dreary decades
innocence confronted
loves lusty laughter
growing faint
in darkened corridors.

Forever’s love
hesitant in a hazy
distant stare,
longing
for a return
of its longing,
passion adrift
on a fleeing vision.

An incomplete love story
written in blank pages
riffling too slowly
too sadly,
too soon,
to end.


John G. Lawless
©7/10/2018...

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