Long Halts Poems

[First posted in 3 parts. Intended novel: time never allowed]

Prologue
This,  Sir, is the prologue from before our tale begins
About the day our father did succumb to mortal sins
And left behind a man who would...

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Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
written August 30, 1944
translated by Michael R. Burch
 
Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (III)

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot...

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#1
"It is a sin to kill a Mockingbird.
While playing games with rocks or guns, defray,
them, please, ...shoot old tin cans.  Each whispered song 
from Mockingbirds, can heal the wounds  of the day"

Virtues are...

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Notes: I am putting the notes upfront, suicide is no laughing matter, however, anything that makes it something that can be discussed I think is a good thing. Humor really is an aid to many...

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Written 23 November 2023
Placed 1st in :
Stoicism as  Way of Life Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Sotto Poet

                  ...

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Endless sunflower field 
Rhythmically swaying in the wind
Like lazy ocean wave stretches 
To the distant line of horizon
Touching the edge of the sky
Melting into hot noon brilliance
Boiling all shades of yellow into
One burning brightness of...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - III - Miklos Radnoti

Miklos Radnoti was one of the greatest of the Jewish Holocaust poets. He died on a Nazi death march, shot to death in cold...

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VERNANS PAIN              
 
                  ...

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This has been a hot minute to say the cold hard truth. I second that! Glasses full of hours turn hands into long time. Darkness saves the day. Light work is easy. Take care; bear...

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Like every divorced couple, we were transitioning into a platonic relationship as friends full of understanding. My former husband seems entirely decided to give life a fresh try. He is thinking of another girl. He...

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We knew more about our mother. While, father was a revered persona , a bit distant.
Our mother was always an undertone in front of father, an unrecognized delicate privacy, worn out
Her lingering incomplete silences used...

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Often, through this clouded day, she steps into my thoughts
A cold , foggy breeze runs through the meadow, and chills
Often, through this clouded day, she steps into my thoughts
A Cold , foggy breeze runs through...

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Emerging from a doorway shadow 
   Through thick air - sweet with incense - 
Comes a dark figure dressed in a robe 
   To be near the altar in silence. 

The...

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WHEN TEARS TOUCH II

Sitting lax,
Speakers on ears:

"(You should know better)
Dream of better lives the kind which never hate
(You should see why)
Dropped in the state of imaginary grace
(You should know better)...

...I'll stop the world and melt...

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Wheels turning, churning, fighting for a grip
mud oozing, clinging, sucking  for purchase
rivers flooding their banks, water everywhere
trucks fighting trying to get through and deliver 
their precious cargos that are desperately awaited
sometimes gasoline or much...

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Each time has a special place
And every such place has its time.
When nature seethes with strangeness
Where the mind in exquisite isolation halts itself and listens
For the rumblings of a something large and not easily defined...

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Sitting lax,
Speakers on ears:

"(You should know better)
Dream of better lives the kind which never hate
(You should see why)
Dropped in the state of imaginary grace
(You should know better)...

...I'll stop the world and melt with you
You've seen...

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Music is an undying 
art of soul ~ 
an abstract eden, where, 
euphonious unicorns 
glide in strawberry sonatas, 
amplifying rhapsody in
ballads of flight, 
when fuchsia feathers
tease those 
jingling breezes, 
infusing breaths
in every lifeless aroma;
where I...

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She’s walking past the tombstones,
Just came from her mothers grave. 
As she passes the last stone, 
her hand graces the top,
A chill shoots down her spine.
The wind is blowing her hair in every direction,
While the...

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A hiding place, a warm and darkened room,
A lit doorway, bright against the dark,
Cold against the warmth, a frame for odd
Assorted stranger-forms whose faces loom

As quarrels over (what?) convulse and rend them,
Leering laughter giving in...

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My Painful Disguise

Every other night,
  When I look into my eyes,
I see a sad sight,
  Cause my heart is in a screaming plight.
All my life,
  I’ve walked a thin line,
I wish it...

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Yet again the door is being knocked
For ages it’s been closed

Who's there? 
The Sun looks down
The Breeze Halts!
Tulips raise their heads in delight.. 
But the Cascade continue to flow__ like an indifferent Bee

Knock___ knock___ Knock!...

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It was Pentacost Sunday when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus' men
all gathered together in one place cloven tongues bestowed to them
it was a glorious sight to see everyone on one accord
now under the influence...

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Ama you are a father 
Father my father
Whose basket of fishes
Sweetened my mother’s dishes
Whose naked feet danced
The jungle drum you drummed.

I remember
Father I still remember
Those joyous days
When like brooding hens
You employed your hands
To shield the...

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