Long Footlights Poems

Dream-worker 
delves deeply into my dream;

vibrations fondle anticipation
foreplay wakes wide-eyed 
swells of liquid libido quake the rendezvous edge -
a primordial being in his prime
a masculine ego quest for affaire d’amour;
her night-loving body 
c h a...

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Ah Consuela! Invoking vast vistas for visions of green Spanish eyes,
I discern them again where she left me back then,
                 as we kissed when she parted, my friend.
Through those ruins I tread towards the footlights,...

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I need you to sing
the straight white male lead
in Phantom of Our Opera
as a Catch-22 steed.

I don't sing with wit
and I won't dance without it.

If that's a no,
but hard for you to show,
you clearly have...

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There’s emptiness this night;
Good-byes are everywhere.
Life is such a hard thing;
Sometimes it’s too hard for me.
    Those with initials preceding their name;
    They might conclude I suffer.
  ...

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Crumpled Thoughts 

They wait – in hues of vibrating silence -
Like leftover orts of rumpled paper wimples 
On creased clandestine journal pages –
Bent scraps of wrinkled inspiration
Smudged moments held in their one moment of time
Musings...

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My jaunt through over crowded hallways
       past bodies grouped like gulls gathering
       a grey murmuring

       patients on...

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Footlights:The Joy of Being a Stand Up Comedian
         
The audience is getting their drinks,
And a silent hush falls, like a wave,on the crowd.
I know it's my moment to rise and shine,
Standing alone,...

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O'er the years my spouse and I have enjoyed Broadway Revues,
And the stars of song and dance on an occasional ocean cruise.
But none will compare to the shows we love the best of all,
Those priceless...

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When standing alone on a dark stage
   of the unknown
where eyes read the scribbled script
   of life's lonely pages
internal tears endlessly fall
creating pools of painful regrets
   that discolored the...

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Actors All
            by Odin Roark

To fool
Or be fooled
Innate competition for
Life’s continuance sweepstakes

Real life’s honesty
Knows survival of the fittest
Relies on impression’s armament
One’s tightly woven costume...

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Curtain Time
           by Odin Roark


The warnings
The preparation
The moment

Such expectancy
Be it plebeian
Or royal instinct
Openings' glitter
Brings incessant challenges
Making hoary one's existence

So functions the undertow
The inward monitor
Yours
Mine
Those backstage
Probity...

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The aroma of mellow gardenias, the dance of a ballerina, 
the sound of an Italian concertina

Purple, shaded, toe shoes that glide across a stage with 
footlights and an applause of praise.

Tender thoughts to remember, in...

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Leaves of burnished gold take flight
                          Whirling spirals, with childish...

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"Proper Pam im-promiscuity carries a
tepid torch against the blank footlights
of a dimlit digital marital marquee---last on the 
billing of a car-null double featurette like
a black and white bijou plotless rerun
hand cranked by an arthritic arm;
pit...

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There's nothing left of Autumn but the leaves
They swirl and scatter, meet then disengage
The moon shines silver footlights in the sheaves
and turns the marble court into a stage

She draws the curtains when she starts to...

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Is standing at the footlights, with
        a crowd, unknown and that you
        cannot see!
       ...

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          Heart Sutra

The moonlight, the firelight,
the scent of your cologne.
Enchanting, oh!
Our toes in amorous games 
do play, shadow dancing.
The flames act as our footlights 
and so......

As...

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the ice grows thin on this pond where I skate
I listen to the music of the blades as they scrape
without a jacket...my scarf blows from the breeze
night starts to settle as the moon breaks the...

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He saw the world in burlesque,
light dancing upon the stage
The great blue fanning ocean
and rainbow colored pastie orbs
Caught between the music and the
shadow of the extreme
The curtain falling deftly marking
the beginning and the end

His dreams...

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