Long Handrails Poems

The Whiskey Bottle Wish

 	One late summer night outside a saloon in the mid-west, an intoxicated Dusty Rogers, stumbles out of the Bar nearly taking one of the revolving doors with him. As he flutters...

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The barrister had always been a liberal thinker

An uprising star with roaming genes of a tinker

In the court-room she never took of her guard

But in real life she had become a nude poet and bard


When...

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Crackling tension filled the community hall in Abergavenny 

‘We are in this together dear folks for a pound or a penny’

Speaking of which the loos were situated right behind the bar

To ensure that urinal relief...

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Come Walk With Me

In my mind
tendrils of memories past
insinuate and insert themselves
in the corners
to root out and cast light upon
them
as my hand presses, whiteknuckled
 
Bent into the bitter wind
here, alone
against the cold hard
brick, mortar and...

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I wonder if looking up and into eyes gives away my meaning,
As if I can be defined by the window of my gaze,
Or if it is mere reflections of others that crafts assumptions,
The fact that...

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Jumping over many a Social Security gate,
For the mighty and generous New York State,
So by now, my knees are shot,
And their help, of course, I see not
So my dire circumstances grow hot,
Cause needed medicines I...

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the ladder is metallic 
a shiny gun metal blue
light weight and telescopic

14ft tall or nearest the sod
as high or as low as i like it
i will displace myself upon it

i can lean it where and...

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1. Why are there so many of you? I get it, repetition is for emphasis but repetition also annoys me.

2. Why up? Why not another direction that may be more attractive to people like me...

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Railroad Lullaby  


I would rock myself gently
just enough to simulate
the rolling motion of the train,
imagining the click-clack of
weary iron wheels carrying me
off to some distant place,
someplace other than here.

Whistles from the distant switchyard
taunted me,...

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This wooden bridge
Is photographed in black and white.
There are some such not so rotted down,
Barely wide enough for passersby
Or boys to ride their bikes upon.

Serenely seen in gentle arcs
From landscape photos from one side,
This point...

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We start out taking baby ones when we are little

Some are on the left and right of the house and some are in the middle

We walk up them and down them to the other side

Some...

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visitors arrive
during Chicago’s snow storm—
warm fire inside

the Florida-boy 
wearing short sleeves and jeans—
snow angels

mother and father 
shouting, “Wear your jacket”—
pneumonia

ice on the front steps
beneath foot long icicles—
handrails

the oldest son
cooking jambalaya—
guests inhale deeply

the step-mother
staring outside from...

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Our B&B room, 2 flights up,
Was fine for us at first,
Until the freeze arrived and then
Those feelings were reversed.

For when we left our room to get
Some early exercise,
The stairs and handrails wore a coat
Of ice,...

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A runaway growth of weeds alongside the road,
greenery gone wild,
a stagnant wilderness unwinding,
seedy leaves scatter
but cannot flee. Dust bowl squalor
chokes down scrawny roots.
A gray sugar rush from speedy cube trucks sprinkles
what wiggle room is left...

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