Best Tamp Poems

From 2010. Narrator is Robert Gibbs, snooty White House Press Secretary.

Lay, O Lord, a curse on press men, rude and churlish, sad, obsessed men 
Who persist to query me on matters they know I must ignore. 
As I parry, neatly jinking, Tapper stares at me,...

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The cool tamp of rain drops extract their toll
with sweet scents pervading summer's warm voice.
Life bids refreshment to its aired soul
as Heaven's passion gives cause to rejoice.
No words can be heard o'er the mist or squall
the earth falls silent in tribute by choice.
Such softness that...

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Streaking skyward the tracers rip
Into hanging soldiers
Falling about into mayhem
Pulsing through blood-filled ears
Hearing comrades scream
Understanding nothing
This is the war I found…

Hatred filled hardened hunter
Into smashed building
Homes pulverized rubble
Strewn about the decaying mass
The scorched metal burning
Bodies of the fallen men
The miasma of war I forever inhale…

Tigers...

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Chateau Charlene pulled out all the pins today
Trying to watch Cheeky Wall fall.
Cheeky Wall has had too much experience
Showing the world her sassy, funny, hilarious side
Keeping our true feelings inside 
As deep down as possible

Emotions are seething from Cheeky Wall 
Into the grounds of Chateau...

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We had saved our precious stock of grandpa’s grape
prepared the ground and amended the soil.
After laying out the orchard, we planted cuttings with our own hands.
Fed the young vines with love and creek water
and waited for the work of the rain and sun
before giving birth...

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Tantamount Andrea,
Your beauty crumbles my veins and compels me to whisper to desire.
My heart blossoms as the fantasizes stir to my brains,
Call it desire, bonny or may be, mirage.
You’re a princess I think of during the sunrise,
And then dreams accrue at night.
Ranee, I want to...

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In the green Adirondack foothills lies
the haven of our old summer camp,
once a place of adventure and outdoor joy,
and the loud cries of precocious scamps,
their energy you never could tamp,
scurrying ’round on small, rapid feet,
leaping into the pond without a beat.

I remember coming here myself,
gazing...

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I am Flight Sgt Ramsay Roe, and my memories have faded,  
Of my experiences in Burma, and their chronological order, 
But into my memory’s deep recesses i have dug and waded, 
Although the exact sequence of events may be in disorder. 

When i was...

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Today's closing hangs lower than it did yesterday, 
trying to mess with tomorrow's dreams. 

Sitting here, dressed in a wry smile, my heart 
whispers to a sky, tie-dyed with the jewel 
of Navaho stone and the salmon pinks 
of Tsimshian legend. 

I feed myself with...

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A Thousand Points of Light! ! ! ! !

Once a beacon of democracy
A shining light on the hill
The ‘American Dream’
	Anyone can ‘make it’  
Never more than aspirational
Structurally delusional

Always susceptible to its 
	Achilles heel of secessionism
Some of its best assassinated  
	Or by monied politics...

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Each year when the summer is nigh
I drag out my planters and buy
     Some flowers to plant
     But somehow I can't
Make them grow, though I really do try.

I gently tamp down all the soil.
With watering, I am...

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Quotes from the 1960 movie, Pollyanna:

Pollyanna: Why don't you come out of the front door like normal people?
Jimmy: They won't let us. I can come out anytime I want with my tree.
Pollyanna: You could also fall and hurt yourself badly. You shouldn't play in trees.
Jimmy:...

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Ah, to reminisce,
to peer through rose colored glasses
smooth the edges of
pointed encounters
tamp down the burning
embers of memory
smoldering in silent seclusion.
To change the tone
texture and import
of echoed retorts
polish the participation trophy
sitting alone on the shelf
knowing that time
does not heal
nor dreams dissipate
those moments
and yet….yes yet…
I question the...

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THE FIRE INSIDE

I have to tamp down
the fire inside
for not all are stoked
with flaming eyes
my cheeriness
might be their demise

the fire inside
explosive it drives
the quiet insane
so i try extra hard
to contain myself

the gypsy dance
leaps and thrives
with clanging bells
a crimson skirt
circumnavigating
the darkest night

the fire it burns
in rhythmic...

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This teetotaler turns to tea
torquing temptation
towards tippling
thankfully, though
that tremendous tugging

teasing tendency thirst trumped,
thru teaching this totally tubular
toothless titular Texan thuggish tyrant
(titled Tsar Terry Troutman)
transcendental theology

tenets taught transferring
torpedoing, taming threatening
titanic tsunami tempest
tastefully tickling temperance
testing trying taut tenacity

together teaming (troika)
triumvirate torchbearers
transsexual therapist
(Tony the tiger)
tough trailblazer theoretician

toady treacly...

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