Long Gapes Poems

"The Payload" 

The payload 
came crashing down
like rain expelled
from the fat belly 
of a ruinous pregnant cloud 
bilious with buxom promise

it came crashing down 
like school fish released 
from the tight confines
of a course rope...

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When at five-thirty
In the rubbed-eye haziness
Of ferreting lonesome night walks
The camera-eye refugee
Asleep in the half wakefulness
Of the hour
Peers out of his high turbanned sockets:
Hyde Park's through road links
London's diurnally estranged couple -
The Arch and Gate.

...

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I
went
about
to pray
one day
to Jesus,
and as I
looked around
I gazed in my way
upon a place a ways,
afar, and so I could see
the generous gapes of
the giving trees, as so they 
are. Nestled down between the
broken valley (of...

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Exciting walk; barefoot on warm rock while cold spring water
burbles past me. “Hey! over here.” she calls. 
A puppet, my instinct guides me there again;
Creek ends in dark green pond. “Hi” I answer.

My body tingles...

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 Part 2
4th Delirium: Lost Souls
Sunken cities , pilgrims peering.. gawking,
squinting eyeballs, blazing sun
Janus facing, shepherds chasing.. stalking,
friends embrace before they shun
Tearooms steaming, tumult teeming.. talking,
lovers listen, poets pun
Broken stones unanchored, quaking.. rocking,
slipping, falling, one...

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Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk. George MacDonald
 
_____________________________________________________________

In a world where decay is dominant,
Arctic tundra is melting, and...

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Open like a door before me
Be it sun or rain or stormy
          Each new year gapes like yawning chasms, dark
     And for...

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The world flaunts her stunning self,
gorgeous curves and all,
and the wide-eyed onlooker gapes at her,
drooling, intoxicated with love,
nose upturned slightly, drinking in
the fragrant smells emanating from 
her direction,
roses and flowers, a blend,
sweet, with a slight...

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She’s crying
With indignant eyes 
And a tumultuous heart
He’s sighing
With restrained thighs
And a perplexed start
It slams
With a thunderous noise
And a conspiring choice
Do I end this mess? – 
Or give it a Holy redress?

She seems not to...

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~ 
Went-about to-
pray-one-Christmas-morning-
to-Jesus, and-as I looked around 
and gazed in my way upon-a place a 
ways, afar. I could-see-the generous gapes-
of the giving-trees, as-so-they are. Nestled 
down between the broken valley-of Gods-open-will. 
As they were-that...

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The warden’s bewildered, the keeper’s amazed
as the gate gapes behind us, a hole in the haze.
Our steps seem uncertain, the cobblestones crazed,
pearly stars burn above us like pinwheels ablaze.
Though lanterns hang vacant in streets staring...

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This night, I am trapped behind a face. 
My eyes are barred with tears that blur 
the look in them I would like so much for you to see.
I try a different face, one that...

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The cracker crisp Maine air 
rang with the rooster’s revel.
Moving day, time to clean the hens shed.
Monstrous three story hatchery,
thousands of burnt umber; beauties a laying.

Lace edged bobby socks, red Keds, barrettes, T-shirt and short;
and...

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Catcalls and rapes
Molesting all sizes and shapes
Broadcasted on TV, the recorded tapes
But blame is on the victim howsoever she drapes
Cause that’s how this society gapes
 
A man lies on the street, blood spilled all over
They...

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My mother made a dress for me it was beautiful and bright.
 She told me to wear it well and rather ladylike. 
 Little did mamma know the weak seam could pull though, 
sometimes threadbare...

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As 
when to 
pray I looked 
one day and gazed in 
way, upon a place a ways, afar, and 
so I could see the generous gapes 
of the giving trees, as so they are, so...

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The shaggy prophet scrambles up his pine soapbox
with purpose of penitence direct in words, begging
the Christmas crowd to open their glassy eyeballs
     away from the dance and clamor of control
sweeping the light away from every human...

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Ghazal : Now she’s left and gone to be herself again

Now she’s left and gone away, my clothes hang dry
On the line for all to see – what a crying shame !

The lone cuckoo calls...

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Come, raging fire, and cleanse from my soul that
 “Greatest” of all words … HOPE.
 I have seen the detritus of this life and have known
 The grandest of songs and still  
I am...

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Behold, how horribly the hungry Fire gapes at us
like a python, like a ravenous whale
and like the Bermuda Triangle.
How terribly the maddened Fire devours bricks and stones,
and drinks all the snow-hills like a tasty wine!
Like...

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and for our fifth anniversary, wood;
at that age love’s roots are hopeful, flexible,
damp: feeling fresh earth with fingers 
stretching and toes padding. A landscape found.

My memories are rings of bark in rotation,
aging and looping nostalgic...

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Written: October 29, 2023
                 _______________________________________

Truth aspires in amorphous silence.
Upset, drowned men's bodies rise in impatience.
Man squandered affection through his...

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It's a cold dark objective fear. 

His face loose folds of jowls,
a sagging half squinted eyelid
and a lopsided woeful expression,
that hides cunning manipulation and brutality.
It's a rancid stench of flies
and faecal matter and musty mothballs,
that...

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Another day is about to die, 
And another tear in my eye 
Just blazes and sparkles. 
We are simply standing in the darkness 
Feeling the sadness that kills other emotions 
And makes our bodies with...

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You look at me and see a northeast highway after winter
Cracked, worn, roughened by conditions not meant to be endured.
I was once the most beautiful cobblestone pathway through a garden of ripe, unpicked fruit.
I was...

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