Best Tight Lipped Poems

They’re drawing the curtains in Dorking,
Lighting the candles and pouring the lotions.
Switching off TV’s and shelving resentments,
Checking on children asleep in the darkness,
Creeping  ...

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Hall of Silent Women

in valhala
in a far corner
of this martial paradise
is one small unobtrusive hall
above the heavy iron door
these words are faintly inscribed

“ the war...

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Staring in the mirror when I'm down with these scissors I found. 
With my wrists out and prescription lids littered around. 
I've scribbled out a...

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The base camp was my youth
I stood alone, ill-equipped, looking up.
The challenge before me, gullies filled with tangled unknowns
and sharp lessons.
My guides had abandoned me,...

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The children that played
On the stairwell that night
Were giggling and laughing
At their little friend’s fright
For while they were jumping
And playing on beds
She walked down the...

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Grandpa was a Bowie.
A tight-lipped protestant Ulsterman
who drifted into the Poblacht na hÉireann
in search of a cure for his cold heart.

His thin lips wed a...

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Steely-eyed
tight-lipped
she mouthed the words
'It's over'
twice,
so they'd sink in all the way
no tear in her eye
nor gulp in her throat
guarding her pounding heart
as she cleaved his
in...

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Walking on eggshells
Tight lipped
Uncertain of every word spoken
Least the tempest
Will be released  

Roaring
Waves splashing
Wind storm blowing
Boat rocking
Turquoise water falling

Aimed for shore
Making no headway
Two feet...

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I flung my bloodied bathrobe onto a dusty mahogany bureau and roared: “Did we frighten
the scarecrows tonight, my love? Whose catch was it anyway? Yours...

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Near Sainthood
by Mirza Ghalib
translation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

On the subject of mystic philosophy, Ghalib,
your words might have seemed deeply profound
and we...

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Through tinted glass, I see cars have lined up outside, like a java-thirsty snake who waits to strike at the employee working the drive-through window.
I...

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Night!
Midnight!
Dark midnight!
My world, tight-lipped,
awed by your tightness;
stars, blind in the clouds, 
creatures crept, no footfalls.
Hushed, I craned: will I see the
morrow? Crawl past the burrow?
Will...

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MOUNTAINSIDE
                    
Always, there would be darkness...

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One liar said to the other liar,
“That’s some shaky vanilla truth,
I heard you done cold call sold.
With these lying eyes, do I scream with glee...

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STOLEN ILLUMINATION OF THE STAR

This journey has not been a fanciful adventure, 
we're all settlers in  these dynasty of neo-colonialism 
united only by what...

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