Best Shacks Poems

Within the frame a sepia scene
a dusty porch   a rickety chair   
the fabric of your dusky face creased
with ceaseless sunbaked woes
your old pair of getaway feet gives 
a different walk of life 
to an old pair of thrown-away shoes
two sizes too...

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William Bonny AKA Billy The Kid
A Tale Of Billy The Kid
By Robert Gorelick

“Quien esta?”

Bang!  It’s over, 
you’re a legend now, 
Billy.

Born in Hell’s Kitchen in
ramshackle consumptive squalor,
New York’s crammed gang infected
rat-infested shacks 
and alleys.

Amid the iniquitous stench
of rot and the soul’s decay,
in a nation...

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There is a place where the land bows down to kiss the misty tide,
Where rolling waves bring memories of the place my heart resides.
There among the old fishing shacks that stretch along the shore,
I find the thing I’m longing for, in your sweet embrace once...

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Flings and wings and rings rejected…
 Cupid’s arrows fly deflected…
“It clearly is too late” she signed, “to love, adore or pay me mind”

Penciled lines drew cruel conclusions
mocking mirror’s cracked illusions…
Sometimes, in time, I hang awhile, reflected in her parting smile

Drifting wan, below unheeding
worried, wounded suns...

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Fragrance from your flute
Wafting in the air
Powder of morning in your hair
Robins in their throat
In your smile clouds float
Here and there
Golden alphabets stare

The river flows on
Sprinkled sun melts in water
Inflammation grows in laughter
Rush roar race reel recur
Empty boats wait for life
Stories seek a soft chapter

Your...

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Winds
raged as 
fires glowed in
small frowzy shacks
that strange Georgia eve an angel was born.

The sky proclaimed that lives would re-arrange;
with Joy’s first cry,
the tempest
changed to
calm.

Warm 
Zephyr -
spring magic -
arrived with Joy.
Her laughter was kindling for hearth and home.

No galas in her future ; she was...

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The eyes behind a head inclined reflect a universe

   Of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
   Of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
   Of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of...

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If I could be a cartoon character
Which one would I be
I thought about being Fred Flinstone
But he's too old-fashioned for me

And then there's maybe George Jetson
A man who knew electronics
Nothing like Yosemite Sam
Who needed to be hooked on phonics

And what about Shaggy and Scooby
You gotta...

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KEEPING UP WITH THE DOW JONESES 

These here are the indisputable facts
I was born on the right side of the tracks
WITH People who only smiled if their stocks or equity increased
If not they wouldn’t have minded becoming deceased

They had big cars, big bucks and big...

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Nation’s Damnable Blight

Black slender man, bent twig on the branch of a slave’s family tree,  
Planted in white culture during infamous time of our history, 
From seed transported in the belly of those infernal slave ships.
Bitter tears flowing from his eyes; angry words pouring...

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How fast time has fled in limitless wingspan
How months and years have merged into eons
Bringing such changes, so awesome and spectacular

I have come swinging open the iron gates
Of the Netherworld where I have been asleep
For over the last four centuries from now

From my prolonged slumber,...

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Leading his horse in the heat of the day
Been gone a long time but he still knows the way
Just a few shacks when he went for the gold
He’d found a few nuggets but now he’s too old

So, home to the town that he’s heard has...

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Drive across the country
Let imagination flow
Tumbleweed and flat lands
Reveal a western show

Mile markers pave the way
Across this land sublime
Wind blows through the car
On my arm sunshine

Generations of people
Spirits across the land
Occupy a history
Of faces in the sand

Deep inside our spirit
Adheres to our respect
This peaceful land...

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Palm trees and ocean breeze heavenly received by this pasty white 
northern teen. On the drive to grandma's snowbird roost she points 
out a black family; "they must be renters, blacks are only here during
the week to work".


       ...

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Anchored in the solid granite cliffs
On either side of the tree-lined gorge,
Above the C&O tracks and rickety shacks
Of farmers and miners and naked children
Playing in the dirt ‘neath the front porch,
Who stop to watch the coal train passing
Underneath the arching silver steel girders
Wondering wide-eyed how...

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