Long Furnace Poems

Identity Apples

iam a fat skeleton, resurrecting 
from the sad memories of dada 
and dark mysteries of aminism 
iam buganda 
i bleed hope 
i drip the honey of fortune 
makerere, think tank of africa 
i dance...

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A Brief For The Defense 

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies 
are not starving someplace, they are starving 
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. 
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants....

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Now as the years passed by everyone became so tired
the heaps of things scattered around became too much to bear
some benevolence was certainly grand but this was too much
the two felt unable to undertake ...

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I remember the beach sand and swing
when you and mother were still something
I remember the ducks in the lake
you held my hand watching their wake
I remember the sheep dogs when the day was through
and the...

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Sponsor: Carol Eastman

Long before Christmas had become a jolly folklore,
I met a grandfatherly man...
He was clean shaven, tiny and crabby,
And always wore a floppy black suit, his name was Mr. Atnas.

See, I was at such...

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Thou, O king, hast made a decree, 
that every man that shall hear the
sound of the cornet, flute, harp,
sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, 
and all kinds of musick, shall fall
down and worship the golden image:
And whoso...

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A king entered in a robe,
Clothed in a raiment of
Multitudous colors:
Vast and enormous is he,
Occupying matters of matters,
Spaces of Spaces.
His presence accomodates no vacuum.
Before him was raident throne,
Swathed in light and graced
With fire of sulphur...

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I was raised in one of those white nationalist churches,
passing itself off as a Christian evangelical Bible church,
where "evangelical" meant fundamental
and "fundamental" meant we did not interpret scripture
but accepted it as God's literal trans-historical Word
of...

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In the realm of moons and breathless tides,
where promises dance with a serendipitous sonnet of sunrises,
along with morning kisses, unfolds a love story—
a poetic novel etched in the chronicles
within the hourglass of time,
a journey that...

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"The Emasculation of Man"
 


The world goes by loudly
emasculated man 
sees nothing 
for what it’s worth
ignorant and 
pumelling chests
gorilla armies 
neanderthals
small brained 
with closed fists 
power hungry 
greed-fuelled 
knowing all 
blind to the 
supernatural
natural course...

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The remnants of August 2024 Hurricane Debbie

Like a humane huntress, she
(the anthropomorphized storm)
brought a spate of cool Autumn like
temperatures and gentle soothing rain
here within my neck of the woods
for the last couple of days.

No matter...

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RESURRECTION OF A HEROE:
This is ANDERSON WALKINGSHOES... 
CHORUS:
Far from comparison, far from fear.
Failure part of the journey; shed no tears.
Man...do... the best you can do.
Talents in your hand's only for you. 
No body cares...what you...

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The flames of the furnace (well-travelled by wind
slowly glazing the rags of gray women chagrined
at the sight of a hair fleeing tresses now thinned) 
sometimes billow like waves flooding naves through the night,
when the lightning...

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This is the story of Jeni Haynes, whose father inflicted horrific physical and sexual abuse on her from the age of four years old. As a result she created over 2000 alter egos to get...

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BUSHFIRE
                                  ...

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"The Forgotten Legion of Rose Thorns"



Reversing roll calls
the Anti-Hero 
jumps through 
burning hoops
instinctively

bathed in the magnum glow
designed to fire cartridges
with a kick like a field gun
a bloody victory 
is eventually won

lacking conventionality
novel and picaresque
placing bad...

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Umpteenth heat wave since onset of summer
sizzles Delaware Valley today July 16th, 2024

Said geographical area composed of counties
located in Southeastern Pennsylvania,
South Jersey, Delaware, and
Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Sweltering temperatures
figuratively grip human zoo
bipedal hominids (yours truly,
an olive...

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Winter Weary
A rhyme that sends a winters “chill’.
With snow, not knowing where to start.
But as he’s had some time to “chill”. 
A fellow with a changing heart.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~...

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Let the drums beat until it release the number sheet
Let the drums beat until it rip out my heart's seat
Let the drums beat until blood spill in the street
Let the drums beat until justice is...

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Yuletide pageants vis a vis merry go round revisited

healthy progeny regaled being alive
analogous to children ecstatic twenty-five
on December exhaling joie de vivre at dive 
in into neat stack of wrapped gifts, when...
what! out of thin...

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~The   Book  ~
(Quatern)


 It tells the beginning of man
 How He created all from start
 He made the moon, stars, day and night
 It tells of God's great love for man

 It...

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O' Baobab! O' Baobab! O' Baobab
Ace of the furnace, finest of the dynasty 
You strut your breast high
And ply strain against the yearn, 
Against the fire, the desire for sigh 
Haughty, you stand, before the...

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Cauliflower- A translation from Ashif Entaz Robi
Men may get possessed with ghosts, mine was a scope to cope with cauliflower. For an uncertain grief, I tried to brief with a rhyme that day
On a winter...

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Similar if not identical to last year...   
umpteenth heat wave since onset of summer...
sizzles Delaware Valley today August 26th, 2022

Said geographical area composed of counties
located in Southeastern Pennsylvania,
South Jersey, Delaware, and
Eastern Shore of...

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The Sinai Rose finch, oblivious to the commotion in the nearby city, busily gathered dry grass and floral fodder to repair her nest, disturbed by a human behemoth, snatching the thorny brambles which hid the...

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