Long Hovels Poems

The reading of Villon poems at West Berlin’s Free University, Winter Semester 1957-58
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           Your past, your romantic past, is a shadow. Like all towns, Port Angeles was a combination of rain and clouds, sun and mist, with a chamber of commerce, barrooms and boards of directors, the known...

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"Aliens!" I shouted above the roar of the blaze.

Please rescue us from this godforsaken place
veritable hellscape, where angels fear ingress.

Just then an unexpected pleasant distraction
woke me from induced stupor linkedin to Los
Angeles fires jump/kick starting...

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- and, anyway, who breaks wind over double-M, a. k. a. Manson,

Marilyn?

I'll give a ride on my razor any day to

The-Second-Prime-of-Nine-to-the-Sixth,

who was around long before CD's, DVD's, MTV, and YOU / MYtube,

spitting out the healing...

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14: If the soul meets death when Sattva prevails, then it goes to the pure regions of those who are seeking truth.
15: If a man meets death in a state of Rajas, he is reborn...

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The story begins when I was a young man,
personal chirurgeon for Prince Malistare,
when the Kingdom of Blenum faced rebellion
in the west, among the peasants out there.

The king sent an army, led by his first-born,
I was...

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OF THE COMMON SEAS
  "We must come down from our heights, and leave our straight paths, for the byways and low places of life, if we would learn truths by strong contrasts; and in...

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Rationalisation of Explanation


Do not question
The almighty plan
For such are the reprisals of fear
That turn blind despair into adulation 

The evident proof
Existent in raped women and children
Irrefutable in famished stomachs
Undisguised in all the suffering

Hangs stark and...

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My days in the streets of despair took me from scanty shanties
Intermittent through dreams drinking the syllables of books
Cast before my eyes, I was at the bottom of nooks and crannies
Hiding in barren valleys of...

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I, who now sit alone by this barren shore
Looking vainly out to sea as if 
I thought I could espy distant Crete,
Have become a source of ridicule 
Among these lesser men,
Who strut and title themselves...

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I DREAM OF LIGHTING DANCING IN A RED SKY.
BLACK CLOUDS
ACID RAIN
THE EARTH SWEEPS BEFORE ME
HORIZONS OF SILENT DESOLATIONS
A CHASM OF GREAT VOLUME BREAKS 
BEFORE MY VISION LIKE A WAVE
OF DRY SAND DIVIDING
GREAT LANDS ONCE RULED
AEONS...

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Cowboys in the Badlands


The horses need be reined tightly
lest they show better judgment
and head back to the barn.  The
cowboys, driven by the dust cloud
of following hoof beats, were less smart.
A Gila monster smirks as...

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Hey!  you over there in Texas in good old America

        ask your peoples to shed a tear or two over there

      ...

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Born into a life of poverty crime and squalor
where hunger and cold winds bite
and disease is rife
and it was a daily battle to stay alive
and find some food to stay alive.

Uneducated illiterate caught in the...

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 I set out on a long journey by train 
That spans from end to end
Out through the window flashed past 
Assorted scenes one by one
Sky scrapers and mud hovels, 
Steaming cities and peaceful hamlets,

Row...

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In sepia shadows where my soul drowns,
In the depths of misery, where silence reigns,
Yet, there blooms a serenity, a pure harmony found,
A whispered symphony, where silent dreams are bound.
In the poorest cottages, amidst dirt and...

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On sandy beaches and along fertile riverbanks,
In fecund soil and in lush green plantations,
Coconut trees stand tall towering into the sky.
They are benevolent palms at the service of generations.

A coconut tree is a marvel of...

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A candle burns its life away; 
sacrifice to it, is sweet; 
it is a candle’s lot in life.

Candles gift, a light dark cloaked; 
beacon burning bright; 
candles warmth and charm are unmatched by 
anything else,...

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A Gardener with saintly vision, 
Planted a garden making its division, 
Into the zones two.

Fed he each plant and tree, 
With the pure blood of his hopes; 
And soon each nook and corner, 
Began to...

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For Tolulope Arotile

Men that choose to be warriors do not die
Women who earn warrior badges live forever 
And death, though dreadful and inescapable 
Cannot wipe names of she-warriors from tablets
Where even brave soldiers feared to...

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I know the sky is beautiful, I told her
who seemed delighted with everything on the road
I'm focused on driving, I grumbled
palaces and hovels
heavens or hells,
I don't care anymore, I said
be quiet and let me drive...

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based on Elihu Burritt’s “Christmas in Germany” (c. 1850)

You find a hand-built chapel among small homes
constructed by children. But what children – 
vicious young ne’er-do-wells from a Dickens novel, 
pickpockets and worse; if not murderers,...

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While reading the ADMIRABLE novels of *Maugham
My mind drifted to the enchanting streets of Paris.
Teaching the plays of Moliere, my roamings started
Over CAVING *National theatre of Paris, or the Globe.  
Next day reading aloud...

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Each Twin Tower encased in steel bower
Billowing masts did to horizon crest, as the fibrous 
sunflower
Wrought to withstand the shearing winds and the 
mightiest shower
A symbol of America's limitless capital and economic 
power
Perched on the...

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The pedestrian kettle steams on to the Capitol pyre
With a weight watcher tonic; more lean legislators to sire
The Grand Old Party a taste of the aromatic brew doth require
Medicinal tonic blended to alleviate bloating gout...

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