Long Great aunt Poems

PRELUDE
There has always been animosity between Greece and Turkey as far back in history as we wish to go.  Greece was occupied by the Turks during the Middle-Ages for almost 500 years.  My...

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(*The Gift)
This here is a side trip, nothing more,
To our country home far and away.
Grandparents own one by the seashore,
This a gift, gramps in-law and mentor,
They raised teen/gramps, not a runaway.

Gramps helped older sis and...

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I hope I'm wrong but I sense we may be on the verge of mass coronavirus hysteria in America: last week both my gym and church closed their doors--how do I exercise body and soul...

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[This is an email I sent to our nephews Mother's Day; it ends with a hard question all of us might want to consider asking ourselves in this epidemic.]

'W. and I went to put flowers...

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...Harold was gob-smacked by all that he heard,
he struggle hard to find something to say,
his grandfather smirked, and then clear his throat,
“Now your grandma I didn’t meet that way.

“I first learned of her from your...

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She was my father's aunt which made her my great aunt.                        ...

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WHALING SHIP CAPTAIN"S LOVER      part 3

Now Jorgie met a new love
He begged to make her wife
First, they’d fetch her small boy
 to start a fresh new life.

So East they went...

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On Memorial Day I am haunted and flooded with so much grief.
My Mother lies next to my Grandmother and they next to my Great Aunt.
My Fathers name is there, too, but blessedly he’s not there...

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Everyone has a childhood witch.  Mine was Florence.  I would run and hide when she walked past our house, stooped over, staring at the sidewalk.
Her hair was an ugly gray color, held away...

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It’s only fifteen hundred miles
From Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts,
To Omaha, Nebraska,
But it’s a lifetime away.
All those good years and bad years,
The old furniture and the new,
The thumbed wedding album, 
The baby books, class pictures,
Weddings and more...

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Release the shelter of bare feet,
     rhinestones on big toes sparkle.
The tentacle-shine of sunwheat
     on the scrapyard-swig of river.

Like a sunflower, the mudlark
    ...

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Expectantly and nervously
I sought an empty chair.
Cousins I hadn’t seen for years
Were already gathered there.

We had come to hear the reading
Of Great Aunt Katie’s final will.
She had been left a wealthy widow 
By my mama’s...

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‘ The  Baby-Talk  Song … ’


It’s Been 30 Years Ago …
But the Memories are Starting To Flow
Going Thru These Newborn Clothes …
Oh … How Fast Children Grow

You Were A Beautiful – Baby Boy...

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Your parents gave me the news at Wilton's Music Hall
a place of joy and drunkenness
Laurel and Hardy, Hetty King, Marie Lloyd and now
A Great Aunt.
A figure of jest, jeers and laughter
what fun, what fun.

A great...

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Overcrowding is like a box with too many other boxes inside it
                       ...

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I always wanted two slices of ice cube pie
“You only get one”, was the standard reply.
I don’t know why I did
But since I was a kid
It was my favorite treat on the Fourth of July.

The...

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The parking lot full
of all the familiar faces,
   we are early -
all the old people
driving carts,
at the door,
waving us in…
we are them too
the remnant
   of a relative crowd.

My oldest grandson
has experienced
...

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Mossy vines served as camouflage for a decaying headstone
This was the first time I’d laid eyes on your final resting place
In front of me stood a grey granite slab covered in emerald moss
Green ivy clung...

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We were excited by our recent inheritance and decided to move
We packed up and drove to our new home, some family disapproved
We were thrilled, the old Victorian home was everything we wanted
Ignoring the rumors, not...

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As you probably know by now, I love stories about magic mirrors.  Here's another one:


When my Great Aunt Mary looked in her new mirror that night,
       she could...

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Call it intuition…
She’s got what we need before we get to wishing…
Simmering, stewing, mixing,
molding and making;
Adding sage and wisdom, sugar and spice,
Stirring, pureeing, refining; baking.
Her recipes are full of love and devotion,
Her soul goes into...

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My best friend was on the phone,
laughing like a great aunt who had lost her mind
“Joe thought it was dead, but then he saw it making reservations with the dog,” I informed her. “We have...

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I listen to the crunch of gravel as I drive slowly down the center avenue of the cemetery.  I gaze at the headstones, clustered on either side, some showing their age, while all silently...

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Hip hip hurray it’s our Christmas soirée
With Georgia and Mark and Hugh and Ray
This is the only time we meet
To kiss and hug and meet and greet

There’s Sam and Maureen and Fred and Doreen
And not...

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just want to start off by saying, we all know the dangers of drugs and alcohol, there is this one substance though, just one that you have to be 18 or older to buy. I...

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