Long Forked Poems

"The Messenger"

Love is rich with 
venom and honey. 

there was a female ...

snake, 
it watched 
with green-eyed 
avarice, covetting
a dove’s nest

the dove, 
was white as snow, 
not young, getting on,
tiny flecks of grey

the dove 
alone,...

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Once Upon a Time Everything was Perfect in Eden, NSW, Australia

This is a story about why snakes are reluctant to leave whenever you see them. 
Why they hang about, instead of scurrying off.
A reluctant snake...

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"Backhand"



You have turned me
inside out, cut open
like a tennis ball
I used to beat backhand
along with the racket
hard against the garage wall

To make sense of it all
as a child, the grief stolen
all too swiftly and replaced...

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“Tessellate” 

on the surface
it’s easy to see
we tessellate

inadvertent 
decorative ostentatious
flirtatious lives taking risks 

with the other sides
planned strategic functional 
quantity rich quality lacking

Human

our words our ways
opposites 
like magnets attract, it all fits 

we think it...

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Incredible! Where could little girl of her age be going under this cold weather at this hour barefootedly and bareheadedly?What could have sent a poor girl she was to street with just oversized slippers she...

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Rosalia - The Evil Black Witch of the Harz

Prologue
This is a rather grim epic poetic tale of Rosalia, a 16th century German witch who terrorized villages, destroyed the lives and corrupted the souls of many...

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While returning home from my job, in bustling New York City,
The blaring horns of traffic, and the noise were getting to me.

With loud yelling on the sidewalks, and cawing crows up above,
And my poor aching...

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Ghosts of the Sun Dance

1. The Path

A quest dating back through our history
Surpassing the flesh, a spiritual path
Human endurance, road to mystery
Dark trail winding through the gardens of wrath

It echoes through me, this deep ambition
Half...

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As time passed on by, they settled and married
producing a fine brood of children
yet growing more and more unsettled
until one day they headed off again
this time going to the far north
where the lands were bound...

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“liaison dangereuse”



Tear a thin line 
along my skin
softly velvet
finger tips 
no nurses gloves

down my neck
along my throat
with something
sharp like words
on a tongue

like I’m
one of the 
gentility heard
soft as a block of butter
hard from the fridge
I'll...

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"The Monochrome Echo Chamber"




How many Roads
to "IT"
Black 
as Black & White? 
or Unicorns and Rainbows?

Unitarian 1 and only 1 
Trinitarian 3 exist in 1 
An answer 
arrives 
unheralded 

Reversed in Time
Something 
has lit the fuse
Something...

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Over yonder pastoral realms, with heaving mounds of green
Birds of variegated colors shine, where.streamlets gleam with opal sheen.
In circles round, fleetfooted Zephyr sweeps the laurelled ground
With footfalls that loom, a sweet scented voluptuous sound
Which gently strike...

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THE LONGEST DAWN PART 3 H.C.SONNETS

There is nothing, everything, pain and joy
We can’t go back, struggle on for their sakes 
A blank sheet to fill, take heed of the ploy
Think twice move once keep an...

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Trifolium pollinated courtesy bombus

Before landscapers mow swaths
across undulating waves of clover
(the father/daughter team
usually cut grass every Tuesday)
bumblebees alight from one to another flower.

Meanwhile, I lie splayed
mid morning June 28th, 2022
with stomach upon natural carpeting
quietly basking...

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A Coffee Merchant was the first man to find,
The corpse as he started off on his daily grind!
What he saw filtered through, so he had grounds
To send for the Police, to investigate what he'd found!

He’d...

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from state dinner pent-up flatulence

                              ...

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Jinxed jesting jejune junior jobber...
just jabbering gibberish (A - J)

Again, another awkward ambitious
arduous attempt at alphabetically
arranging atrociously ambiguously
absolutely asinine avoidable alliteration.

Because...? Basically bonafide belching,
bobbing, bumbling, bohemian beastie boy,
bereft bummer, bleeds blasé blues, begetting
bloviated boilerplate bildungsroman,
boasting...

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Many-colored and candle-lights; high beyond the soft trees a fresh country leans heavily toward the night, far beyond the sea’s shady shore.

Beams, o’er wide fields like a white star, \till from the earth’s crown drops...

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THE NEW HEAD MAN
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS


I’m off to bed early I’ve had a really rough day
Ramos, my boss is  difficult that’s the least I can say
He’s made a day at the office a time...

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THE NEW HEAD MAN
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS


I’m off to bed early I’ve had a really rough day
Ramos, my boss is  difficult that’s the least I can say
He’s made a day at the office a time...

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“Everybody duck, everybody run, and everybody hide. Quickly now. Hurry. IT is happening now. All run run run” In haste the message spoke. Radiating booming voice from the tissue box placed in the middle of...

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The oldest citizen of Soup Creek, Nopaul E. Ticks, posed to show his support for the town council's ban on politicians.

I hear that nasty Trump feller, wants to stump in Soup Creek.
He wrote to Mayor...

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Why does he provoke me to anger?

He stalks among us -  with his song -
a wolf's grin

His inimicality beckons 
like a hawk's talons,
luring prey to certain death

Yet he imparts wisdom 
to those who bleed

Beware!

his...

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A translucent but lucid idea is best held by a pea in a pod. A pea in a pod is protected whilst in the pod but shelling the peas means that the pea would then...

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Oh, if only ...

If only monsters ...
LOOKED like monsters.
If they lurked ONLY in the dark,
Glowing red eyes and chiseled teeth ...
Claws and horns and forked tails,

         ...

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