Long Customary Poems

Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

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~ Have   Faith  ~
( Egg  Timer )


~O~


Lord wants you live right
Have Love Faith Hope
Enjoy Peace
Always
Too
Too
Always
Enjoy Peace
Have Love Faith Hope
Lord wants you live right


Just Believe in God
Love with all heart
Worship Pray
To Him
Too
Too
To...

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Life is like that extent 
     Live that moment 
                   to full extent...

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It spread its grizzly legs on the whitewashed wall
Firmly baked in the early summer heat 
Spitting perspiration dripping from the white crisps ceiling
While I cling onto a sensational feelings
Night has casted shadows upon night
With images...

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 POTD 25 Nov 2020

Manage your Stress … a peeling faded poster boldly declares 
I do get it about advertising campaigns. 
Enough to know that,
‘strategically placed ads’ catching the eye, is huge. 
But this poster...

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I've been watching the people across the street for about a year now. We wave at each other every once in a while, not really much more than seeing a familiar face without a name....

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Betty was bonafide crazy. She had shot her husband after a night of drunken quarreling, and was in the state mental hospital instead of being in the slammer. She'd shot the louse in the stomach...

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Captain kuni-lemel graduate strikes again - updated

Steely Dan sing queen (me)
outdid himself on sixtieth anniversary 
after Grahame Wood 
determined to meet 
the evolving needs of the community 
opened the first Wawa Food Market 
in Folsom,...

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Unquotable quotes: Paris, the last week of the August reprieve – XXXV
 Part One                     ...

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Early one morning, as fresh springtime was just ending,
I was hiking in the woods, and overhearing the birds sing.

And with a tranquil heart, and lost in a deep green world,
I was reveling in the gaiety,...

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Unquotable quotes: The Janitor, Gardienne, Landlady, Housekeeper, Portero, Sereno and the Hausgast –XXXii Part Two

The duties of the Housekeeper in the U.K. par rapport au Portero in Spain or the Gardienne in France is that...

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Two old friends
(who haven’t seen each other
in quite some time)
running into each other on the 
corner of Linwood and Clairmount
— A Detroit westside encounter


Man, it’s good seeing you Joe,
how is ...

Aw, Moms doing just fine....

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Call it what you may
But I will not go back the other way
Call it what you may
I did not come here to dance or play
I have the keys to the golden box
And I would like...

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Captain kuni-lemel graduate strikes again

Even when iron not red hot, 
I implement non customary quarks 
regarding foreigner rather cold as ice
namely delinquent outsize credit card debt 
mandates yours truly, 
a cheesy survivor who rem: members...

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get back to the basics busting fat laces running the bases
it used to be cool to obey the golden rule yet that went out the door in 64
open the door for your neighbor then you...

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Is it Hanukkah 
Or Chanukah 
Both are correct
It depends if you use the Latin or Hebrew dialect 

Regardless of what you say
The meaning is the same both here and far away 
It is an eight...

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Part Two

           a hardly flickering oilwick open trough lamp lighting
limply other framed coloured pictures of Ganapati
two half-empty troughs of kunkunum and vibhuti
on the half-opened cicatrised...

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…And the obscurity ever so profound…
Stuffing a new-born with apprehension…
Nebulous prophecies it recites…
As my prospect begins to diminish…

The ravens soaring high above…
As fatality becomes the conqueror…
And he dwells in the deep murk…
When the wolves discard...

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The train, halted under the shade of sacred hill
They flowed out, and, wandered here and there 
holding big, small, colorful, old and new packs of belongings 
To, find comfortable chests and knees
some carelessly slept on...

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It was the kind of day you step in front of traffic, then dare fate to fold you up in newspaper headlines.  

Oh dreams came true alright, but you should have dreamed about not...

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The Magical Epiphany of an Old Rusted Can

whilst out hiking one day in a countryside area
that was quite desolate and remote from any nearby
city, I discovered, amazingly, an Old Rusted Can
that was at least two-liter-sized...

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There's some urge in me that makes me want to dance. Dance the dizzying spin
of childhood again until I fall still, mimicking the lifeless on the grass and laugh
with the scent of dirt and air...

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"Lord if it is you will, I will do as you ask of me.  But I wonder why you ask me, the weaker gender of your servants?" Deborah said to the Lord her God....

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we met at a dance from the back of the auditorium alone you were there
caressed your hand with my glove as a maiden flower that you were
crisp clear day until the rain came then she...

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Before the whirlwind steam blurred into scoping.
Before scarcely the morning smooth gathering.
We were nervous until trustworthiness was revealed.
Amidst the adjunct's misfortune by blaze wield.
They were heedless to our flaws due to their sway.
As we overruled,...

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