Long Carmen Poems

This happened last Fall, during Thanksgiving break.

Lisa and I were at the MET (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), with her family, at an exhibit of Art Deco sculpture. Lisa and I came out of a...

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New Year's Eve 2022

Yours truly riddled with social anxiety,
hence (billy me) he will idle away
December 31st, 2022 
sequestered (with the missus) 
hunkered down in his mancave
while madding crowd  
entertains reckons partition of time 
into...

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New Year's Eve 2021

December thirty first
two thousand twenty one countdown
will transparently and seamlessly stream into
simultaneously linkedin January first
two thousand and twenty two,
whereby the Ball a geodesic sphere,
12 feet in diameter,
and weighing 11,875 pounds.

The aforementioned Ball...

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The first time I saw my father I was a year and 8 months old. He had returned home for a short respite  before shipping out to England to prepare for the invasion. It...

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--"These words this message I address to all those who has became widow  in recent months years or have been separated from their loved one for a long time, God loan them to you...

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Everybody got a Hollywood life story
to tell
More meat on the bone
give juicier bites 
to sell
Nobody ever turns in a tarnished silver screenplay
Those warts and mistakes
get Photoshop casting couch edited away
Baby Jane rude attitude don’t make...

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Crackling tension filled the community hall in Abergavenny 

‘We are in this together dear folks for a pound or a penny’

Speaking of which the loos were situated right behind the bar

To ensure that urinal relief...

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Everything is selected carefully for the making of the queen. Everything is selected carefully before the queen gets married to the deal. The temperament of the mother and the father was tested in the matrimony...

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I.
Carmen Hastings had lived with her father
ever since she was just two months old,
they resided outside Nashville, where her dad
made a living with used cars, bought and sold.

Carmen did not look much like her dad,...

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If you were my bride you'd be by myside until the passing
until the passing
If you were my bride you'd be by myside until the darkest hour
My God would shower you with dreams and vision
Awaken you,...

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I watched as the dark grew around his eyes.
He came through the window,
Stepping like a shadow.
He was the night, he was the ghost, he was the 
Unaided fighter as he reached for my side.
And I...

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      Amethyst shades dazzle her mysteriousness
        hiding black secrets in vulnerable mellows
          though recognized...

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"The Hummingbird Cake"




The day started bright -

Bright Eggshell Blue
and ended in percussion
dark and cloudy stormed in
thunder pummelled drums
against a backdrop of 
bruised eggshell dijon yellow
sweating heavy sage green
spitting spoilt the swollen pride of purple,
a wet...

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III.
The following day Carmen sat with her mom,
learning how to cook the books and more,
when suddenly there came a thundering {smash,
that ripped right through the main office door.

In came a SWAT team, four dozen-large,
fanning out...

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II.
Carmen had no other family left,
and said,”I guess I can give it a try.”
Her mother beamed. “I live in Miami,
I’ll pay for some movers to come by!”

That was how Carmen found herself living
in the guest...

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I am running this race
This race in my life  (trying to save my life...)
I am running being too being in to much denial about all this tension
And did I mention, did I mention
The pains...

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I rode a quddrillon. You know what a quddrillon is? No? I don’t know it either. But I rode a quddrillon, that’s it. I rode a quddrillon and crossed seven seas, seven islands, seven worlds,...

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Layered Cake pt 2

Further afield I met a gangster in Liverpool who was alrite
He liked a right tear up and had a job to appear legit
But his real work was in various things like drugs,...

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I was standing alone
Just above to the side of the grave where she lay 
Thinking thought so no mercy abundance
Children we raised
It was a glimmer of hope 
That all our memories that I have of...

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I was standing alone
Just above to the side of the grave where she lay 
Thinking thought so no mercy abundance
Children we raised
It was a glimmer of hope 
That all our memories that I have of...

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Authentic

An American hero
that's all you have to be

An Italian restaurant ad in pink Miami
and the bright pleas of a broken black poet

and her crooked shoes
in a bedroom corner left

forgotten

A mother dies
and nothing remains

the same

except us
her...

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In regnis verborum, ubi somnia avolant,
Versum componam virtute purissima.
Calamo in manu, cor meum flagrat,
Narrabo fabulam, notissimam unquam.

Super tabula caelesti gratiae,
Colores amplexus amoris exprimam.
A primo mane ad crepusculi fulgorem,
Tapestry conficiam, poetae somnium.

In pratis aureis, ubi flores...

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 Her smiles of valor encase her agony--
   her fiery scars pound against her sanity
    struggling in twisted ropes of silent screams.
     A wounded Athena, she...

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Best to get there early and don’t forget some food and drink.
It’s Friday again and time to celebrate.
It’s hat week, Carmen Miranda’s birthday, toga, toga, toga.
We all had another week taking care of 80 children...

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Shannon watched a royal wedding
one afternoon on the TV,
the flowers, coaches, and garlands,
all the pomp and majesty,
the fancy gowns and ornate hats,
black-tie suits that fit handsomely,
noble steeds pulling carriages,
in her minds arose fantasies…

She saw herself...

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