Long Inky Poems

"Open Oceans"



Kneeling on pearls
wisdom preys

praying
preying

hungry hearts
count the days 

wasting away
in all that preying 

for prayers 
to be answered

children become
strangers

reading 
strange words

finding 
themselves puzzled

genuflecting to a deity
they do not know, nor wish to

fumbling
mouths closed,

swallowed hole
in the...

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A Stolen Memory
A Mirthful Chorus
By Sy Roth 


We surrounded him 
Asked to let go.
She stared at the misshapen face,
Unshaven sandpapery skin 
Eyelids a tabula rasa
Fluttery sere skin
And we could see the humor blossoming in his...

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The Raven and the Bard
-Daniel Henry Rodgers

The Raven's quill drips shades of blackest night,
Its haunting words, a melody of fright.
The Bard's natural lines, like "Evangeline's" fair hair,
Shed history's warm light to chase away all care...

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"The Pages"

Missing all those years
like a page you could turn, 
a book you could throw casually aside, 
to be eternally forgotten in electric shady libraries;
at some point you turned around, 
and remembered, what you long...

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The inky black water sucks her in further
As she descends into the black depths of the abyss
Cloying dark swirls cover her head as soundlessly it reaches
Possessing her every inhalation – exhalation - it envelopes her...

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act i:
walk down the strip, the neon lights casting a gaudy glow on the fray. i meet my dealer, a facilitator of welcome distraction, and we exchange nods. i take a bump, and the rush...

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                                  ...

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1 Intent

Assigning no meaning to grace imbibed,
we watch how we are breath by breath transformed,
drenched in bliss mists that cannot be described,
trouncing ego, last bastions of mind stormed.

With God-search the aim, our journey began,
brought about...

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(continued)

She wanted me to re-marry, you see, but I never did.
Oh, I had a few trysts, here-and-there,
just to remind myself the plumbing still worked,
but all it REALLY did was remind me
how much more incredible making...

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In the May-time of my life
time bloomed each day a prickly boll –
but I, like the softest cotton within such a sharp seed  
swaddled in the purity of security 
for what seemed like eternity...

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“The Apocrypha of Familiars” 

Wings hover 
light luminescent
revelling sprites dark pearls
Corvidae shades
of a family 

highly functioning
dysfunctional plural
morphing unobserved
perceived non-unique 
spiralling into shape

more black and grey
than white spills 
from their eyes
light from their shining 
hidden away

intelligence...

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People often say I talk a lot, but I hardly think that is true,
Like the whispers about the bluebird, of which he never knew.

Talking helps a lot with my job, which is in public relations,
As...

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Tell her you saw me ...

Tell her I was out on the bluff at the Cape
during a gale, much too close to the rocks.
Tell her the surf was tormenting the ledges,
its roar far too loud...

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tell her you saw me ...

tell her I was out on the bluff at the Cape during a gale, much too close to the rocks … tell her the surf was tormenting the ledges, its...

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THE MAN WHO KILLED THE WORLD


It was there, then it was gone. A swirling mass of white and topaz rotating in an inky expanse    gone. Vanished, right before my eyes. 
My home
my...

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pitty-pit-pat, pitty-pit-pat ...

dark attic, echoing ... tenderly
rain on tin roof above,
her nana's voice, ages hence -
lives ago, really ... calling …

       "Little Tea Pot, Little Tea Pot -
 ...

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A typically depressing inky dark night 
He sat at the corner waiting for the light
His mind as usual not fully engaged
His pounding psyche had him enraged
As if on cue she opened the door plopping into...

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I'd been caught up in the middle, of one of those awful days,
When nothing seems to go right, with glitches and delays.

I was having a rough day at work, and the boss was now irate;
And...

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'Twas a sound I thought alarming, most assuredly disarming;
Up I rose from peaceful slumber to discern what it might be.
While my candle flickered, wavered; whilst my heartbeat halted, quavered,
At my window I was favoured by...

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Midtone grey surrounds what’s left of a man’s soul
Scenes of biblical abominations troll
Inky are the hellish horizons appalled 
An okay is needed for anything at all 
Manipulating truth determines your life
Erasing individuality is part of...

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I had never before glimpsed the sea, and I had often felt the lack,
As rainbows sense the lack of luster, so they keep on coming back.

I dwelled in a pastoral area, quite far from any...

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T Salamander enjoyed local fame
down by the creek, there with her daughter.
Prided herself on her inky black frame,
bathing each day in the cool, brackish water.
She set amphibious cold-blooded hearts
on fire, exploding, through black magic arts.
All...

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* Content Warning: this poem touches on physical/emotional abuse*

        ~

        “dabble, dabble
         roiling...

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Time 

                                 ...

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mind that thinks
heart that feels
senses five

reflect

thoughts vary
emotions differ
senses too can ebb

yet

we are alive
in the waking state
but what of dreamless sleep

where are we then
we recall it not
yet awake from it nevertheless 

so

are we not the screen...

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