Long Charcoal Poems

"The Payload" 

The payload 
came crashing down
like rain expelled
from the fat belly 
of a ruinous pregnant cloud 
bilious with buxom promise

it came crashing down 
like school fish released 
from the tight confines
of a course rope...

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I was hungry and headed to one of the tents that had been set up as a field kitchen and noticed Tim who came over to talk to me , he said that he was...

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HEROES

Near somber guards, units of children heap 
dead leaves, naive to any else fallen.
Friend, you chuckle, but your posture speaks
of duty on this day of contradictions.

Firefighters bow heads in silent paean, 
while polished trucks stand...

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Hold the phone, hold the freakin’ phone. Lisa’s got a boyfriend!
I’ve never seen Lisa with a boyfriend. Lisa draws men like fireworks on a dark night, but I’ve never seen her keep one. I mean,...

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8.Reading

I see them all rise to an endless sky.
Tumbling burnt pages from raging fire,
To leave ash of closer, to pacify.
A single deep breath near flaming pyre.
To see destruction with a silent face.
My eyes will cry...

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Washed ashore on the lost island

Skin already peeling on the beach

Burning from the hot green summer sun

Meat melting off to become bone

Jumping back into the water

Cooling off with the clams and fish 

Washing the sand...

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"Small Mutinies"



So what if my point of view
is not that which wraps 
you in comfortably warm
fluffed-up silky 
cashmere blankets 
of insecure insincerity
simple scribbles 
bleating from the 
chirping crickets 
and frog croaking
symphonies 
muddying waters
cutting pristine lines...

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For several years I'd worked as a life coach, assisting clients day by day,
Like blazing colors in the shank of the evening, chases deep blues away.

It was an occupation that I enjoyed, as helping others...

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Take me to the tombstone 
let me touch the gray stone that stands
where life could not
I will put my face to that touchstone of deaf thunder,
What happened  to your breath baby brother,
what happened in...

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Norwegian bachelor farmer days I never lived

Woebegone and egg foo young on you
meaning me of course
sidestepping a crucial positive
electric kool aid battery acid test
prior to pledging troth,
and tying Gordian knot
to strangulation point,
never fending for myself,
nor...

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“Words We Cannot Escape”

Words we can no longer speak

we tap dance over keys 
bruised blackly numb
Winter palette in hand 
Autumn now gone 

across white-washed notes fixated on stark enclosed walls 
the scent of old Lavender...

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I learned so much last time I went too 

The shore casino near the ocean blue  

Conjuring up honesty and words that were true  

Looking for tranquil sanctuary to think and talk ...

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Yuletide pageants vis a vis merry go round revisited

healthy progeny regaled being alive
analogous to children ecstatic twenty-five
on December exhaling joie de vivre at dive 
in into neat stack of wrapped gifts, when...
what! out of thin...

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Men, do not give up your dreams for these girls, keep sleeping. 


My cousin had read this phrase to me in August, when my wife left me for a harvard graduate that moved in our...

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I'm determined to get better 
Intent on improving 
If you saw where I was
You would shriek and gasp what are you doing 
At 7 countries counseling clinic
This process 
I'm ready to begin it
Cause the longer...

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My 1st round:

I know we just met and you seem like you're cool but there's a whole bunch of s**t that I don't know about you. Now I don't care about your race, what kind...

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The Undertow


The two could feel the undertow
Pull at them both - then let them go
He wondered if she could know
Or sense it too and let it flow

The undertow in the fast-running tide
Ebbed and flowed at...

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I. The Pastor’s Hand

At dawn’s brittle cusp—
  he climbs, each step
    a nail in time’s coffin
  breath ragged
    a Psalm torn mid-hymn.

The rope tastes of incense and...

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Yuletide pageant merry go round

Panoply of mystical elements of holly day style 
breathe prez sense frostily exhaled aired
per millennia athwart 
(this terrestrial spaceship planet Earth)
two plus seventeen carousel rides resonated
veritable pantheon of pagan rituals 
and...

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Along the road called forestry, the silver ash weeps over me
as I meander 'round the dell and glade.
Pass scars of sand pits long disused, where gullies, washes speak ‘abused!’
Reclamation offers now a new facade.

Need for...

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After hiking on the trail one day, I was making my way back,
Immersed in balmy thrills of summer, and the sunshine attack!

Birdsong was in my ears, and fragrance of beauty all around;
And greenness like a...

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Timothy had always been a man of laughing joy and conversation	


               -Friendship dialogue communication -


But now there was silence but for...

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For thirty years I’ve been a truckie who has driven far and wide,
Carting goods through day and night all across the countryside…
But hours spent upon the road, do not permit a set routine,
When it comes...

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Shouting, over the sounds of rain, feelings
more commanding than the season’s pain
erasing the hope from hearts, but who’s to blame
for the night’s lure in pieces of yesterdays
wondering, unclear which prayer to plead
will the season tell...

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I lived a quiet but active life, packed with brilliant sparkle and warm shine,
Like devoted lovers strolling under the captive moon, sometime after nine.

I was the manager of a jewelry store, with a number of...

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