Long Extrication Poems

In Shaker Heights, Ohio,
founding fathers co-invested in:

Change doesn't happen
without planning

This, despite
unstraight
unwhite
unmale volatile experiences
feeling sometimes victimized
and sometimes blessed
by unexpected weather transitions,
despite feeling like vulnerable chameleons
on a highly complex day,
despite feeble farming
in narrowing spaces
between floods and famine,

Despite...

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You give me the desire
a love for composing 
word symphonies
yet you give me
the cross of mediocrity
to bear
day by day to know
there are others 
who are prodigies
and I must hear 
the thunderous applause
while at best
I get...

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Pecking Sounds
For several days, I was both annoyed and worried.  Annoyed by the pecking sounds; worried over possible damage to my house by something that I could not readily figure out. I suspected it...

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He was caught in a mine of a mind in reprisals admonitions and self-reproach 

Had been looking for diamonds and gold but then the escape shaft caved in

Gotten shafted and the stake stuck like an...

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A plush monk’s life was my designation
Before the process of dissolution
Then back to now, fast extrication
From enforced seizure and desecration

A simple life it was for me
Amid fertile land, its fruits aplenty
The chapter house was full...

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Two Poems



Avariciously she wanted to be a poetess

Cryptic colloquial eloquent words possessed

Often elusive eschewed from the theme

Limericks and rhymes avoiding etymology means

She an emissary of exonerated poetry banned

Refused extrication to facilitate an easy read

Hoped the...

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Our Revolution sought limitations
On imposition of regulations,
But supplications met deprecation
And castigations not reformation.

Such condescension sparked protestation
And contemplation of separation;
This supposition stirred apprehension -
A premonition of confrontation.

But, declamations and remonstrations
Spurred agitation toward Declaration,
While provocations and deprivations
Steeled...

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Self-Interrogation 
           by Odin Roark

How carefree the traipsing inward
Responsibly free
Charging capsules
Poured golden or clear liquid
As acceptable excuse

Yet once inside
Accountability rears its head
Or heads
Never doubt guilt’s...

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An attic full holding me earthbound
thunderous applause without virtue of sound

looming overhead no room left for expansion
Wall to wall misery held without ransom

Offering no absolution a glut of misspent thought
Imaginary treasure that offered truely naught

Unsentimental...

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i don't write poems like poets
or rap like rappers
i flow boats like rowers
talk what matters
wasn't raised on council estates
still a victim to down force weight
gravity pulls seeds from trees
it's a vertical growth without no treats
see...

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Kitty In A Soup

Our town has its usual vertical ups and downs and horizontals
One day a gray kitten still finding its way 
Discovered a long cylindrical corridor
A seeming hallway or in its tiny mind
Another place...

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Ending of the thought
does not bring a lull.
It is a sequel beyond 
my reach. An old extrication,
I dig for my roots. 
The forgotten names, 
the unhealing wounds of a doctrine,
a tiny memory of pulsating embryo,
not...

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i’m talkin’ to you through a screen, it hurts that i can’t touch you, 
too much space in between, i wish i had a time machine, 
not to pick **** up where we left off,...

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Now comes the day when thou art no more here
To prattle with me rend’ring soft delight
As thy heart knew that mellow joy, clear,
Untainted free from world’s many a plight.

Transcending din of town, thy musical charm
Reached...

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Like marionettes 
fixed expressions once carved
in virgin wood
always to smile or frown... or
a "Mona Lisa" grin
always to be wondered upon.

Have our strings grown
from a simple few
to too many,
always tangled with another;
tripping on thoughts and steps
that...

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Today is the day.
The day to put in records.
The day of extrication.
The day of riddance.

My albums are clean.
Swept them before dawn.
My archives are clean.
I reviewed it down.

The photos she left with me.
My ex girlfriend.
All down...

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