Long Accordion Poems

- - Chapter 2: Adult Responsibility (With Some Breaks) - -     

By ten years old, no weekends off, 
Or Saturday cartoons, 
Although I did have cash to spend, 
I felt my...

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There is something amiss with that VACUUM CLEANER.
As if it didn't know, from floor to cup, the debris and dust must go.
It's ailing from something peculiar, but I don't know exactly what.   ...

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Part 1

This is a true story about world’s end,
But don’t freak out for it was long ago
God’s message must have been garbled
That the prophet’s prophecy failed you know.

And since those days in fifty eight
Such prophecies...

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      In the purple shadows of the black's monoliths, where an ancient echo calls forth, at the blurry forge of "Ralkon Dis",
a salient dragon from mystery's petra cliffs drifts you...

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|SEVEN MINUTES UNTIL OUR DEMISE

{"Seven minutes left; the insistent buzz in my skull would never abrogate, it preserved on being continuously strenuous. 
My whacks on the veneer of the tiles went unheard of as my...

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The People's Coop
is a warm inviting place,
for some
a reading and meditation
and arts practice and performance space,
for others
a place to ride sleek bicycles
with self-and-other improvement book racks
while peddling energy into the cooperative Grid,
sheltered by solar panel...

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Zenith University   

I am a proud graduate  
of Zenith University,  
where the quality stays on  
until the little dot  
shrinks and goes away.  

I attended that fine institution  
with Tom and Jerry,  
Heckl, Jeckl, Mickey, Minnie,  
Da?y, Donald, Daisy,  
Huey, Dewey, Louie,  
Speedy, Wile E., Gumby, Pokey,  
Yogi, Boo Boo, Dino, Chucko,  
Hobo Kelley, Lassie, Bozo,  
Betty, Barney, Bam Bam Rubble, 
Wilma, Pebbles, Fred,  
Casper, Felix, Sheri? John,  
Gentle Ben, and Mr. Ed.     

Astro, Elroy,  
Judy, George, and Jane--  
Eddie Haskell, Wally Cleaver,  
Mom and Dad and Little Beaver.    

Favorite Martian--Flying Nun,  
James Arness--smoking gun, 
Spanky and Alfalfa,  
Larry, Moe, and Curly.

Tests consisted   
of posted patterns.
To see those,  
you had to get up early  
like Jack LaLanne and Buns of Steel, 
Captain Kangaroo.  

Mid-morning classes included  
Monte Hall (quite a deal), 
Bob the Barker (not the builder). 

Allen Ludden passed the words, ...

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Our older sister, Lynn Ellen Dubarry.  Has an aggressive form of Leukemia. She has been transferred to Swedish Hospital's Edmonds Washington, USA. Hospice/comfort care. She is on their 8th floor.  I have requested...

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ME AND COUNTRY’S LEGENDS OF FOREVER

Do I wake to you or the cosmos?
Do I wake to singing birds chirping as if there’s a fire?
or a chorus of you Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog
sung by...

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In the Winter of Night of Darkness -
                           ...

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~
There are legends I've heard, old songs in the dark
of the old folklore tales, and the old gypsy trails,
where traveling caravans of rugged old wagons
still echo, with longing, in valleys below...

Where each treasured belonging,
was packed...

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After the storm, my brother
(all gangly knees and elbows)
bore the brunt of its ferocious aftermath.

Every day after school
I watched his wiry biceps bulge a little
as his handsaw scritched against the tree
which had fallen diagonally across...

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In Ordinary Cups

The blades of winter grind into the ice
like blood on a bitten lip
two lovers spin and twirl
The days pass from teacup to teacup
in the peaceful silence of a solitary nest.
From gentle easy sunrise...

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Five-and-Dime Store
                    by Odin Roark

Maybe I remember ‘cause…

Everyday was a holiday
At Woolworth’s Five-and-Dime store.
Colored things were...

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You are the dusk that masquerades as first light.
In the stillness of descending twilight,
your spellbinder's expectorant 
opens the passageways of the feeble, 
weevles like...

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In Dickensian time 
Upon sunset hour
Overshadowing Thames
Is London Tower
Blackened cobble streets
Shimmer in the rain
Big Ben at Westminster
Chimes an eight bells refrain

At Euston Station
A passenger alights
On Platform 3
And enters the caff
for a nice cup of tea

At...

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Hot In Havana.
.
It was a sweltering hot sticky Havana summers
Velvet star-studded night
I was sat enjoying the scene
In a dance bar
As someone played the piano accordion
And guitar
.
Suddenly I was aware of a shapely silhouette 
Stood at...

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She reunited with her lover
He has been away from home
For millennia

She waited alone
In the isolated cold and space
But she did not want the children
To think about their father

She as both mother and father
The duties and...

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Standing up on this polished stone as
A bard once upon a time
In the utopian monarchy of my lonely thought
Sharping up the plight for its prime.
As an apostate of vice
On the face of the last dime,
Announcing...

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Moonlight tango

It was a Saturday night, in Buenos Aires, 10:30pm, to be exact. It was a hot summers night, and you could see, and feel, the steam rising from the cobblestone street, here in La...

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Especially one courteously wrapped ably
anonymously gifted to
an aspiring gourmet Chef Boyardee
i.e. not surprisingly... revealing mystery
person none other than...
yepper namely me.

Moost anyone can show
off culinary karate chop
suey, whether schooled among
fishy creatures either
from black lagoon,
or privately tutored,

(this...

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I will start with a word
Not knowing where it will take me
"inconsistencies"
No never mind
Forget that word
Oh shit I can't think of a word
What kind of a poet am I?
I'll sit here and scratch my head
Until...

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Saturday Farmers’ Market 

Here’s how it goes at our Farmers’ Market:
shoppers all ages, clothing, and races,
parents push bundled babies in strollers, 
children dash eagerly through the crowd. 
Others meander to and fro, seeking 
new food...

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chill howls 
slit needles 
from firs
and steer whimsy puffs
to shade the moon
like accordion blinds

summer's last
dying gasps
just below the treeline

snippity 
snap dragon 
spits sparks
in the dark

doesn't threaten me
but don't want to be
run down by a grizzly...

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she stood on an empty bucket with a tight noose around her neck

when doubts crept in through a hole in the bottom of the rusty vat

naked she was twisted torn with defeat tattooed into a...

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