Long By and large Poems

No, Freddie can’t say he mourned when his father died and his father’s third wife found Freddie's number and gave him a call to give him the news. His father had been responsible, worked hard,...

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In most of my verse, my simple aim
is just sorta to enter tame.
Then, once inside ~
go completely hog wild ~
showing no reserve,
showing absolutely no shame.

For example:

"What do you think of my pup?",
I asked a cop...

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Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out a small national magazine....

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Steven is a retired teacher disturbed by the problems he sees in education. Schools weren’t perfect when he was teaching but they were better than they are today. He has ideas for improvements. 

Some of...

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“On the Sonnet”
by John Keats

If by dull rhymes our English must be chained,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fettered, in spite of painéd loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrained,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To...

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He/I/they/all/we/none knowing sit/sats he/she thoughts he/she witnessed he/she held a behold as to what the hell a corporeal ring of things once unbeknowinest to him/her was about,: thought provoking, yet undeterminate in any reason with...

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"To My Dear and Loving Husband"
by Anne Bradstreet


If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare me with ye women if...

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You were an Afghan, Farid Khan by name,
A name less known to the world today.
You ran away from home,
Because your own step-mother plotted against you.
Now you were runaway-Khan!

You chose to be a knight-errant,
Soon became a...

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We’re coming up on the spooky pumpkin-latte season, when days suddenly end, while I’m busy in some sterile, fluorescent chemistry-lab and there’s nothing to do but walk down dark science-hill to the dorm.

Is that rustling...

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I'm named Delysia (sic) Patricia. This poem was 
inspired by Chris De Burgh's "Stripper" song.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABwDWwYX0Q4.

A buxom beaut
ill of repute
amply endowed with bits to spare
undoubtedly cute
without dispute
had a penchant her wares to lay bare
...

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[This excerpt from a memoir I wrote 20 years ago seems sadly apropos given the recent mass murders and bombings]

This then is where my faith lies:that it will all work out in the long run,...

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In numerous locales countrywide, they hold sway
Pirouetting at intervals like ballerinas from Bolshoi
Beauteous, feline and very feminine
Slender to the point of emaciation, not quite
Cultivating the undernourished look on a frugal diet
Decidedly austere for a longer...

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On my side of the hemisphere, Old Man Winter begins in December
and meanders through the earth with cold, ice, and snow. With ice-
laced winds, he lashes against my skin, and no one calls it a...

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A weary way-fairer all lost in wood 
One dark night fending for food fell in well— 
Unused and dry— it left him fate to brood, 
But clutched on still to Banyan roots that fell 
Into...

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. Mouser.

The distillery cat was flat on his back
He’d had too much to drink.
The silly moggy his mind was foggy
He could hardly think.

It was thee day he was on his way
His time was really up.
The...

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We were armed at fourteen with BB guns
and reckless abandon.
So started many of our cousinly adventures.

Central Utah has hot, hot summers
and little else going for it.
We took to the sage in shorts and t-shirts
begging the...

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O to live life in relentless outreach
And still stay put, stagnant, nowhere to reach,
To struggle hard, getting not so in hand,
To feign busy as if a butterfly,
Or a productive bee nevertheless,
O to say thoughtless yes...

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I was in my sins being seemingly without hope and saving
But God the Father granted me His son Jesus endless mercies grace
Now I am clean completely copiously more or less
quite perfectly wholly repented, renewed heavenly...

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They're known by many names - taters, potatos, pertaters and spuds.
As a Hoosier lad I toiled hoein' taters and flickin' bugs off their buds!
So I was very well qualified when I entered the service, by...

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The museum is full of gangs,
child gangs that roam sneering at the 70’s people.
The 70’s people live now in a diorama.
For the most part they are cheerful,
they cut grass with push mowers,
swim in above ground...

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(A Native American Story)


Iktomi is a spider fairy, 
though in truth he is related to mankind.
Like most of mankind
Iktomi is vain, shallow, and mischievous 
yet he alone, is the master 
of greedy craftiness.

He has long...

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A light summer rain falls across distant blue mountains.  
I have a pretty cottage by a winding stream. 
This evening I recline in a garden chair
on a sloping lawn.  
I merely need to...

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The Jihadi’s got an entire hour to kill
Hundreds of helpless patrons shocked and awed
An eon of murderous rage until
The long awaited reward from his “god”

Like schools, this Orlando bar predictably
Missing the one thing mass shootings...

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The eastern countries got their problems  
In massive poverty and in huge ignorance 
By and large yet they live in relative peace 
The west has many triumphant points 
In their achievements to show the...

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San Gabriel Refrain

Take honesty because that's what matters; 
evasion is the truth - suppressed. 
Lies thrive on corrupt laws, noisome splatters
that cannot get past the smell test.
What happens when guilt, gut feelings ensue?
If it serves...

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