Long Insubstantial Poems

"The Returning" 

Inside us all 
a strange forest

where light and dark 
are fed to us by 
curious creatures,
their unexpected gods 

in thoughts and deeds
joy and fear 
hate and love 
belief and disbelief

inwards
our dreams 
turn to
The...

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I love spending nights on the lake.
Once the oven-like sun disappears,
things get suddenly quiet, except for
the occasional hoot of an owl, crickets, frogs
and the soft lapping of the lake on the boat.
When the moon rises...

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Memories felt after so long repressed
Now burn like a fire inside of my chest 
They flow now as ink from the tip of my tongue 
For the father I lost when I was too young...

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Enough Angelina, drop the bouquet of harebells.  
The flowers wilt as your graying hands stiffen. See, how grave
is our newborn son. We gift him a black crêpe layette.
Say Darling Edward, say, Golubushka, make me...

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Everything Is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all...

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These are English translations of Spanish poems by Pablo Neruda. 

Religión en el Este (“Religion in the East”)
by Pablo Neruda
translation by Michael R. Burch

for Tom Merrill

I realized in Rangoon:
the gods were our enemies
as much as...

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Did you ever think what you’d give up to be a better man,
If you somehow could know this was true,
That your life was of value, your dreams were a gift,
The world a better place because...

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1.

A red helium balloon
                               ...

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Travelling upon the dusty roads of finite unwinding existence,
Grit seconds embed in the treads of ragged unstitched shoes,
The day turns to night with resigned, mute inevitability
And night turns to day in return with no other...

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Days pass into the weakest of loveless nights. The moon blinks.
The stars swirl beneath the colored brush of Van Gogh. He links.
Comets trail snowfields of light pass agonized cypresses, schizophrenic concussion.
On and on, the wind...

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Let's wax poetic - wax on..

We’re in for it
When we enter
the insubstantial country of love

That secret theater, in an invisible mansion of moods

it’s a resort that houses its share of speechless monologues and sore disappointments,...

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A bright star shimmers over once still seas:
                           ...

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9.1
“Opposing forces,
duties done and left undone—
when does it end
and for whom?
Considering this, be ever desireless,
let go of all things,
and to the world turn an indifferent eye”

9.3
“Seeing all things as threefold suffering, 
the sage becomes still
Insubstantial,...

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"and don't forget the pretention"

###########
everyone nodded along as 
the first line Hit 
 cut w-/ Posh .. chugging 
stars , throats end to end slit.

	Schemes o'er everything 
I realise now that you need 
these 'things'...

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"Doughnut Man Seeks Insubstantial Woman of Substance"



Doughnut Man 
seeks ghost whole 
to fit his missing peace

Chimeric Dream Girl
seeks holesome man
who has her back


(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)





“Perfect” (12” … Remix)/ The The
https://youtu.be/ttKdwTDtifU







"People turn around with unseeing eyes
They're...

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The black hole was enticing me, 
The mysteries lying past, its sensuous obscurity,
All the lights behind me were waning,
And the gloom spreading all around me,
I saw a few reasons to turn back and seek the...

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The autumn sky attunes itself to hearts,
a sour grey murky wash where lost eyes tire.
with insubstantial dust it affects so,
that vision blurs and minds retreat to when
those aged weary organs last supped hope;
and still they...

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Time Barriers

How can this be
Where did we begin
Not in any kiss
Has passed this secret
Onto the present

Did we miss
Separated in timelessness
Undefined memories
Shimmer in fields
Where your bare feet
Pressed to yellow flowers

I heard you laughing
Dancing will-o-the wisp
Leaned in...

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Matthew Scott Harris, whar art thou spunk?

The following admission
honest to dogness haint no bunk
nobody, but yours truly
bore deeply and countersunk
his spontaneity satisfactorily
lightweight corporeal mein kampf,
didst more than baptise or dunk
cuff, which admirably aided to flunk,
(whereat...

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I love your gentleness,
How your hands
Move like early Spring...

When you kiss me,
It is as if I am a dandelion;
All delicate spider-web
Gossamer threads and 
Finespun silk fragility-
Your fingers on my cheek
Feel like the spring thaw,
As if...

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Upon our stage we romp and rage
in Goldilocks’s golden cage
amongst colossal cosmic crowd
with spark of liveliness endowed
of pomp and circumstantial fate,
whose worth we underestimate,

in constant discontentment caught
‘and sicklied o’er in cast of thought
so enterprises turn...

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Matthew Scott, Whar Art Thou Spunk?

Nobody, but yours truly
bore deeply and countersunk
his spontaneity satisfactorily
lightweight corporeal mein kampf,
didst more than baptize or dunk

cuff, which admirably aided to flunk,
(whereat no universal solvent,
could (kant) kelp dissolve barnacles
of sea...

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SAVIOUR CHURCH,  GRIBOYEDOVA  CANAL,  ST.  PETERSBURG

In defiance of its Soviet museum-death
Reflected in water moved by God’s breath
The five-domed Saviour church gives
Hope, for its bulbous gold dome yet lives


Silent spheres sing of...

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Beautiful is the poet's carriage, my love,
That can be heard passing among us.
But, Lord, what a long journey it has made,
How pale and weary the poet seems to be!
And what happens, poet, in heaven and...

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No Recommendation


Unreadable ideograms
Beaten thin leaf to tenuous holds
Of failing parchments
Brittle in their folds of tears

Remember, they struggle for survival
In clasps ever present
Reverberate continual back down 
The long lost corridors
Searching for the regurgitation of their meaning
Black...

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