Long Backwater Poems

Neigh say being  corralled & cult shod 

"Sic semper evello mortem tyrannis"
translation = thus always I 
bring death to tyrants.”

Above the fray of twittering, 
squabbling, and madding crowds,
an arrogantly belligerent creature deified, 
yet vilified...

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“Pictures could not be accessories to the story – evidence – they had to contain the story within the frame; the best picture contained a whole war within one frame”. Tatjana Soli, The Lotus Eaters

“There...

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When Miss Lily Jane Bobbit arrived in that Alabama town,
jaws dropped; all eyes were riveted on her.
The ordinary street on which she lived would be no longer common,
for Lily Jane now graced it with her...

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Now I know you’ve heard the story
of how I all was way back when,
when cowboys rode with Indians
near our small town of Buzzard’s Bend.

Not long after the Civil War,
when it was a hot mining claim,
the...

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I was born in far Morsania,
a small, backwater Eurasian state,
known to most folk in this wide world
for my grandfather’s prodigious hate.

My given name is Jocefeus,
but I mostly go by Joe these days,
because that tyrant grandpa...

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"50 Words for Poe: Witch"




She liked driving fast
The number plate in the dust
Read DOT.OZ.LimaLimaBrava 
Their destination was Wichita

Foot to the Floor 
Off Route 66 Silver Lady purred
Some Kansas backwater 
Galena sped by in a blur

He...

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“You've probably figured it out by now,
I am not really a human being,
my home is three whole galaxies away,
and the form that you now are seeing

“is due to the fact that my species can
sample and...

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...The devil didn’t hide, he strutted right out,
a smile painted on his red face.
“Why my dear sheriff, how in the world
Did you ever find my new place?”
Abner stared on, seething with hate.

“An old friend told...

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SONG TO THE RUINS OF AMERICA
With the Glyn Ford’ eyes:
"Fascist Europe-The Rise of Racism and Xenophobia"
I see with horror how from an american country to another
Racism and Xenophobia are cultivated in ist fields
Inspecting the growth...

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The universal worm has got some competition now,
since ‘Sandy’ took me out to Bateson’s dam.
This don’t include the ‘whitchys’ we get in a broken bough,
nor ‘scrubbies’ on the hooks we have to cram
to hide the...

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for Alan Painter

I have put into many ports
                           ...

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A lifeless corps dragging his feet through the dirt, 
the wet sludge sloshing through his toe’s,
He lifts his head and looks to the people running past in a blur,
As the sweat drips from his forehead,...

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survivors

The captain called up the harbor authorities needed a birth a ship no one had heard of, but its manifest stated Sydney-bound 
They let the ship birth on a disused pier far from the city...

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Way down south at the edge of the swamp,
Was a little town known as Backwater.
A peaceful town that most folks found,
Was a good place to raise sons and daughters.

A plague hit the town and people...

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The witches of Backwater were two sisters who,
Never caused harm or concern.
One lived in the swamp well away from the town,
The other chose wages to earn.

She taught the town's children as local school marm,
Reading and...

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Yes, it’s you God's favorite daughter
Just my luck, you're out of luck, I see 
Prowling the human backwater
You sure don’t need no luck with me
Luck with me
Luck with me

Love’s fertile water purifies
Your paper thin charade,...

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I believe my words meets you in good  state of mind
 and health
Do you believe africa can become a better continent?
 If so,how?
Young pepole must change their attitude__any part
 of their mindset holding them...

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I was born in 1943
in a rural backwater safe from the bombs
also a safety net still akin to the 19th century.
Neither electricity nor gas
only an old oil lamp and candles for comfort.
The luxury of the...

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Boated through the tantalizing Kerala backwater
                      in a pleasant summer morning;
   ...

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There’s a time-honoured stretch of a river
that’s a cog in the natural wheel
flowing longer than mans’…
time upon earth
and home for the blackfish and eel.

They say that the time of the crayfish
goes back to the dinosaurs’...

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He was always dressed in fashion
And as he walked down the street
Not many people noticed 
That he’d got both left feet
He wore wide flared long trousers
Boots with very square toed ends
They caught on in clubs
The...

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Just Before Curtain Up

Oh Yes! My career!.. It's behind me.
And the bright lights I’d worked so hard for
Now they’ve airbrushed my face
That looks so out of place
On that poster they’ve stuck to my door.

My name...

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It was a long lonely night at the lumber mill
Just listening to a whippoorwill 
In the dark beside a logging road.
I’ve got fifteen cars of timber on my load.
The yard stinks of bleeding sap and...

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She sits perched, like a gorgeous gargoyle, upon the boulder
splotched with spots of mint chocolate ice cream moss - the wind tasting
her lovely locks as if it were spicy cinnamon straight off the tree.
It excites...

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I dream of magic lines but they  elude me.
Chapbook on acrylic tube  palette, janus-faced cave in 
at the crack of dawn,
crescent moonlight awnings turn to  circus of the  soul, 
images that...

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