Long Humped Poems

Due to some rare, genetic disorder, Cliff was born with physical features that made him different from everyone else.  Although, most people would say “different” was a kind term to use to describe Cliff....

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Fires at a blue pills lab threw up a cloud
Settling over the town like a great shroud
And this gigantic mushroom 
Created a baby boom
Because all of the men were very proud...

Tom Cunningham 

It’s no wonder...

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I recall a card game
probably extending back past the 1950s
called Old Maid.

There was also Authors
and a few other choices
less popular with me.
But Old Maid sticks in mind
as blatantly sexist
and ageist
and, for a country kid
in redneck...

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The problem is her lips.
They don't form smiles any more than waves decide of their own accord 
to lift themselves up off of the ocean's surface.
And if lips are meant to be drowsy shutters
then hers...

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From time to time, people ask me
About my education.
Only then, I remember
I have no degrees or diplomas.
I attended no university either.
I hated textbooks and exams.
I still do.
That's bad education, they say.

But they don't know
I was...

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The grey mists of a sleeping dawn, cosetting birds still
wrapped up warm in bed, watch a stoat emerge from
its burrow and sprint across his meadow, like a caterpillar
making humped back bridges in Concertina motion

The stoat...

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It is not as simple as merely changing one's name
You must understand the cauldron before that came
And the hustler's hair caught fire burning into red anguish
And the water is disconnected to out the wish
Something about...

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no one saw it coming they never do
the phone poles were giving off sparks
dogs began to howl birds flocked to the sky
A Plymouth hubcap of immense proportions
quivered and droned in the air over the capitol
television...

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Two wraiths in a gust in-between frames with a Third

...was it when i bumped into you last
           a little put out by the awkwardness
 ...

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October 30th, 1863 

Halloween eve, before the clock turned the day- almost midnight. 
The moon just right, full, and nearly hidden behind a thin layer of dark grey cloud. A perfect day for a walk...

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Bewailed an ostrich tirelessly:
Two wings I have but still can’t fly.
Daily I stare dumbly at the sky,
asking What’s it doing there and Why?

Even the lion, king of beasts,
growls bitterly that it was born
a lion and...

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Darkest night and longest hours:
Hours to labor and
Hours to trip in the primitive ooze of repetition
Hours to catch up or trade for spare minutes,
Hours with eyes only half aware
Of life and its warnings,
Lifeless and blissless...

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A faint outline appeared in the early morn 
a full moon still shed its light, dark shadows 
spread across the land casting an eerie 
shadow over the far distant hills. 
An old buckboard clattered along...

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Wake up grumpy
tired
much older than yesterday.

Day fifty-seven,
an irrationally
not nice
non-round number,
since defiantly challenging daughter,
with the contextual right-brain unhealthy intelligence
of a sociopathic alligator,
last came home from school
or anywhere without me.

Remembering her school's response
when I suggested her six-hours-per-day...

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Limerick crochetes : Once a Bull-Frog of a French Syndic

Part One 

Once a Bull-Frog of a French Syndic
Croaked Janitress Porc-U-Pine music
She found much in common
With Janitress-Husband
They sucked Co-Proprietors' Council sick

Now Janitress had much lard to...

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now the sun made love to the moon
in a transgender afternoon 
will be like you, will be like me 
blame fimininty, blame under Y trinity 
for the crescent got pregnant by a star 
how Islamic...

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The Best Possible Candidate for President

By Elton Camp

The Democrats know exactly who their man will be
Although what the Republicans will do remains to see

But a simple fact that both them may well need to face
Neither...

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A long sleeved sweater is far more applicable than a cardigan in a heat wave located in the bathroom. But falling snowflakes from showerheads is an uneven crust upon tiles. See now the little flea...

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On a nice warm winter afternoon,
we took our granddaughter to visit the zoo.

She was all strapped in the stroller,
wondered why she is not riding single or double humped camel,
Instead of throwing her hands in the...

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Oh my, seems I’ve lost my height!
Doc, please tell me, “What is the source of my plight?”

“Tis true, you’ve lost three inches,” she said to me.
But doc, “How could this be?” 

“It happens after menopause,...

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Standing hoeing garden stones
Eyes awash with tears
As memories flood back from
More than sixty years,
To the little village churchyard
For which my dad cared
And which duty I, as a child,
So very unwillingly shared.

He dug the graves, cut...

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I feel him close around me
his warmth penetrates 
melts my fears and stirs
we lift slowly quietly into the east 
flame greets us
fire the first of the five

air the second 
pushes against me
seeking entrance into my...

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Villanelle: O! What a wonderful world this sordid life could be

O! What a wonderful world this sordid life could verily be
If only humans were not subject to envy nor jealousy
Worse than that pride of place...

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Nudnick
By Sy Roth

Self, I say
Self,
Wake up.
Your ganglions 
Are asleep again.  
Wakey, wakey…
Those around you, nudnick,
Are whirling dervishes
Those who come and go 
In the Speakeasys of their lives
And I am a silent partner. 
Wake up...

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A pair of new shoes in the thrift store,
the old shoes would shuffle away
from them if they could.

A ragged man struggles 
carrying a large plasma screen
in outstretched arms.
He is walking it home
but he has no...

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