Long Cumberland Poems

The Spirits of Culloden. 
This is like a pilgrimage, a try tae come every year,
Gather at the cairn, meet old friends, wipe away a tear.
Standin on that moor, that once with blood was sodden,
Paying respects...

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An anticlimactic sexual event...

with Barb Black née Beebee
to help set the ghost
of little Willy Brandt free
(a non German, but germane fellow  
courtesy Craigslist classified
personals of mine invitee
she replied, I took liberty
to Google her first...

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Resting In These Tennessee Hills

Lazy mornings in these Tennessee hills
Horned owl in tree behind house hoots all night
Sometimes annoys but often gifts a thrill
As country-fired moon sends us brighter light!

Mellow breeze, waltz morn rays with...

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Lovely enchantress of cyberspace

Betwixt and between us
lies an immense untraversable realm
of never knowable forbidding possibilities
quixotic, rhapsodic, sympathetic, telepathic...,
where tantalizing, scandalizing, and revolting, 
nevertheless promising fantasies beckons
buzzfeeding, crowdsourcing, dovetailing,
earthshaking, foo fighting, hashtagging,
jump/kick starting, twittering
uber whatsapp pining

toward...

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In the 1600's, Europeans lived on the eastern shore
Their numbers grew, they wanted more.
Iroquios, Sauk, Ottawa, and Mohawk were tribes they met
Too many and more, paid our forefathers' debt.
Men moved west thru the Cumberland gap
Daniel...

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A profession that's not the norm.
It borders on the absurd.
In the mountains and down the hollers,
powerful engines could be heard.

I decided to try something new.
Put my driving skills to the test.
Driving from Harlan County to...

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AN INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND? (Or, Beware The English)
by Damian on June 15, 2014. © Damian Cranney, All rights reserved

An independent Scotland,
That will do just fine,
We no longer have to listen
To the Scots familiar line.

Whatever woe that...

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Racism,
and sexism
and violent capitalism
are as American
and as bad for you
and your kids
as pre-millennial rotten and burned-out apple pie-sellers

And ProMatriotic learning 
and living 
and health loving 
post-millennial WinWin co-operators
against LoseLose
racism
and sexism
and violent capitalism
as AntiAmerican
as burning-out 
and...

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When taking a stroll on a path filled with weeds the force fields are often not symmetrical nor are they aligned. But the shining synchronization of a sky lit sun cap can capsulize even the...

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"Gonna shoot a little dice
Play a little cards
Drink a little beer
and shoot out the stars
Gonna dance with the girl in calico dress
Live to raise hell, ain't no time to rest"

Sittin' at a table playing five...

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I know you're up there somewhere
Watching over me
But I'd give anything
If you were here for me to see
I know this isn't possible
And there's no way this could be
But this aching in my heart
Just gets the...

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A Top A Highland Hill

A top a windswept highland hill above Locheil land
Clansmen gathered roun and shook the princes haun
They raised the standard high cheered till they were hoarse
Followed the flying heron across the highland...

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On the Isle of Skye and Raasay
In eighteen fifty one,
The English Government army
Cleared Scotland's daughters and sons,
Cumberland burned their villages
To ensure cultural disappearance,
Was this Highland subjugation ?
Or Was this a human clearance ?.

There was a...

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What does it mean to me
New Jersey
It means smell and warmth
iI…….  oops wrong sort of Jersey
Here we go start again …….

Was the home of the Lenape Indians
Till the Dutch and Swedes came their way
Followed...

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Whee am i, eh?
A'm Cumbrian thats whee, like eh.

Red, Green, Yellow

Once a year ower the Cumberland show,
Livestock, ter an' fro, ter an' fro.

Yan, Tan, Tether

Gypsies, jockeys, towns’ folk alike,
Appleby 'orse-fair awwer the dyke.

Red, Green, Yellow

Scotland...

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.

                             i were
    ...

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Deep in the land of the Cumberland
Where the moonbow blushes the sky
The tulip fairies were dancing
As the tune of the loon filled the sky

Dearest Nell Louise looked especially gay
In her skirt of dogwood blossom
So light...

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Oh the daily news got to her
But; she couldn't turn away
It was like watching a train wreck
Though it made her nerves so frayed

Each night she turned the tv on
And her head began to pound
Politics, crime,...

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Scots-Irish borderers, devout, austere—
With Anglo-Saxons—made their rugged route
West from Watauga, in the chilliest year
Marked in history. Five hundred miles out
Across Kentucky , down to “Tanase”
They trekked with horses, cattle, sheep.
James Robertson led forth this odyssey
That...

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when winter woke and dealt its hand
it froze the heart of cumberland
as icy air dispersed in spades
to twist and cut like razor blades.

small pools of water turned to glass
to shine like diamonds in the grass
while...

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