Long Barrel Poems

I woke up in the middle of the night with tears running from my eyes. I woke up in the middle of the night because my spirit cries
It is not the tear that falls when...

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I see people moving, but going nowhere
I see people moving with their hands thrown in the air
I see people moving but they have nothing to share
Bags and pans, old kettle, and old man
The scavenger, the...

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Zen Death Haiku

Brittle cicada shell,
little did I know
you were my life!
—Shuho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Returning
as it came,
this naked worm.
—Shidoken, translation by Michael R. Burch

As dew glistens
on a lotus leaf,
so too I soon must vanish.
—Shinsui,...

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The emotional, mental and spiritual fallout courtesy Colt Gray

Apalachee High School,
located in Winder, Georgia
witnessed an active shooter,
whereby the alleged lone gunman
(actually just a teenager of fourteen years)
killed four people and injured nine more
the latter hospitalized with...

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Today, catching sight of the mallards
crying over Lake Iware:
Must I too vanish into the clouds?
—Prince Otsu translation by Michael R. Burch  

This world—
to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields
lying darkening at dusk
illuminated by...

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THE INNER CHAMBER

Please.  Stop holding back on me.

Like a child standing at the neighborhood ice cream truck, arm outstretched, eyes huge, mouth watering.

I stand here longing to slip underneath your decades of cold-rolled steel...

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My eyes stare straight,
fixated on something in the distance, 
humming a song that would send chills,
if you ever got the chance to listen.

A padded cell and a straitjacket,
the doctor giving one of his ‘visits,’
his moans...

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justice 

What does this vastly misunderstood word mean to you? 

Too what ends? 

May we seek? 

Who(m) may guide us? 

Endless deliberation (spiss spiss spiss)

Debated and glorified by us all 

Beloved; instilled among (a) core...

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February 29th, 2024

Alternately titled: 111th leap year since 1582
the year Pope Gregory XIII world leader
(i.e. essentially paterfamilias among
Roman Catholic flock)
timely maneuvered around calendrical rock
and hard space implementing
viable system tracking years ad hoc
out of sync and...

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UNCLE ELDON 


Now that I am old,  I see more clearly through my mind's eye, than I did in my youth, all those special people who played such a wonderful part in my life....

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"The Precipice"



In the Autumn 
she wore a wedding veil
A cold winter would lift it
Kiss her lips passionately to 
speak words of 
LOVE
on a 
late roll call

“Well, that’s insanity for you” 
some snakes would hiss
others rapture-faced
on...

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Dot dot dot, and in other news devil's advocate claims Teflon Trump

courtesy the comfort of his mancave, 
I (a mutated batman wannabe) 
doth prattle and stump
and display wide whirled webbed 
and variegated tail feathers 
(also...

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WINTER, 1948 [40 Saxton Street]

for W.W

The winter nights that pass now
are so unlike the winter nights
that passed before, that I often
struggle back in those suspended moments
when sleep grapples for a hold,
to once again hear the...

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Raid versus woe

Black flag(s) show up
on social media platforms
when potential homicidal maniac(s)
communicate(s) intent to strike
with ambush and ready
read - able, eager, and willing
to embark upon murderous rampage.

Prospective killer armed to the teeth
usually a young bucking...

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And still his death haunts webbed wide world post American Civil War

Preface: On the evening of April 14, 1865, while attending a special performance of the comedy, "Our American Cousin," President Abraham Lincoln was shot.

President...

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Doing absolute zero endeavors

Earlier today March 28th, 2025
(thee hour now fifteen minutes
after eight o'clock at night, cuz
yours truly & wife paced back
and forth from one room to the
other wearing out rugged groovy
Tuesday (three day) experienced...

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Pardon any absent adulation, bequeathed capitulation, devoted dedication, indiscretion, blabbering peroration, improper salutation or any unintended vexation if this unknown earthling sent a nearly identical message. He over-looked a small number of errors and hoped...

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After drenching biblical rainfall...
verdant green acres covered the planet of the apes
like a petticoat junction
donning barrel of skinny dipping monkeys.

Once drought stricken vast landscape
far as the eye could see
suddenly flush with promise
of budding new shoots
and...

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I blame me brother for the likes of this predicament,
when we pub crawled up to Bunyip, and where our night was spent.
Thank God I wasn’t in the driver’s seat, ‘cause we wouldn’t be alive, 
but...

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Self help addict needles unsuspecting reader 

Expounded late today April 27th, 2023
since being written
countless years ago
maybe a baker's dozen
as thee doodling cock doth crow 
scouting about for carrion 
scavenging for dead animals 
and rooting about...

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The next day. It was iffy everybody 
Was tense. The Hakim family was
Distrustful of The Black China Men. 
Early morning 8 am Friday. 
Damali rose from his slumber 
First followed by DJ Desharah
And Amadeus. 
They...

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The world that unfolds before me is unknown, but for some reason it is mine. Yes.
Anyone could say that my life is monotonous. But not. I protest. This is not true. Only mine.
No one just...

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Every January first of the new year...

finds me (a doggone muttering Homo sapien)
to give pause for reminiscences
and to take stock (sh lock and barrel)
about mein kampf in general
and previous three hundred
and sixty five days in...

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Fixated on the chemistry of it the human brain 
the sudden chemical imbalances that surge a 
sudden quickening of memories stored forgotten 
carefully store in an attic between boxes of brain 
matter manifested over time...

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Mine courtship and marriage with deadly obsession...

As September daze will soon arrive
recollections from a 
psychologically checkered  past
loom large recalling  
tragic storied days of mein kampf.

Circa early nineteen seventies:
As a mere slip of a...

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