Long Kernels Poems

I walk o u t...

I am lost in unapproachable light—a spectral broth
I am tasting the screaming silence—the archetypal observer
dissects my essence-fossil Passion
a seismic rupture between life/death/rebirth
gnaws at my marrow This dilemma-kudzu
coils tight, constricting tomorrow's breath

Death...

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“I apologize for any offense I have given to your wife,” DynDoeth.
DynDoeth just smiled.  Joulupukki, after listening quietly since the meal began, spoke up.
     “Seileach, Ceridfen has a wicked sense...

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Moods oscillate in cadences of peaks and valleys
Music to fractious emotions on greasy dance floors
Mistimed cues of flares smouldering relationships

Angst of redundancy seethes from within as lava
Anger is camouflaged with the cloak of reticence
Ardour suffocated...

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Trifolium pollinated courtesy bombus

Before landscapers mow swaths
across undulating waves of clover
(the father/daughter team
usually cut grass every Tuesday)
bumblebees alight from one to another flower.

Meanwhile, I lie splayed
mid morning June 28th, 2022
with stomach upon natural carpeting
quietly basking...

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We all have roots from seeds
In and on the fertile soil of our lives
Where we are planted to need
The place we know as home to thrive
Shaped and harvested we live to die
As the grains of...

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When death had nestled, a lady overwhelmed by sleep,  
Between the chasms of my being, like a butterfly in a cocoon,  
I embraced her to my chest that whispered seraphic tales,  
And...

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I was only allowed to go, after much whining 
     begging, promises of unlikely saint-hood
     if my brother, (much to his displeasure) made a pledge
  ...

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CHAPTER 6 b (continued...)


Glowing insects and night-crawlers
Shuffling on the ground below them
Moments later they were sleeping 
Near their hominid companions 
 
In our present day, gorillas
Tend to sleep near to ground level
But their Pleistocene forefathers
Nested...

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Written: January 26, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Sara Jama
Quote by Geoffrey Chaucer "Time and tide wait for no man,"
               ...

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The human body was built with a stretching ability. Skin and muscles are very elastic and prepared for adversities. Bones can be fractured and broken, but mends back in time. Ache me; bend me; mend...

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Telling "White Lies"

My mother got born November
thirteenth, nineteen hundred thirty five
within poverty stricken household
of Canarsie, Brooklyn, the youngest
(most mollycoddled) of four siblings,
experienced grinding poverty, no
matter maternal grandfather (Moishe
Kuritsky), a tailor he lacked drive
(and felt neutral...

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War World II was raging over this
southern Italian town* spared by a miracle...
a deluge that suddenly occurred: 
a night of blasting sounds, of rising flames 
as American planes bombarded its buildings;
the Nazis fled to occupied...

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The rain---sounds like catapults fired on our roof 
drops like palm kernels---splash on the back cover
 of our black pots, Stamping the roof like horse 
galloping on a...

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It started with an apple in paradise or was it a date they consumed

Had they kept their clothes off laundry day would have been easier

	The smell of seduction and no fake news

Honestly who cares whether...

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Telling "White Lies"

My mother got born November
thirteenth, nineteen hundred thirty five
within poverty stricken household
of Canarsie, Brooklyn, the youngest
(most mollycoddled) of four siblings,

experienced grinding poverty, no
matter maternal grandfather (Moishe
Kuritsky), a tailor he lacked drive
to support his...

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Allow the mind
Afford its need to conjure
Profound:
If exaltation and majesty
Require a bit of provocation and amnesty today
Humor:
As remedy and coagulation
From the bleeding of
Pain, stress and anger
Affection:
To reach out from solitary
Disconnectedness and remind
Ourselves that human beings...

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............. 
                                 ...

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Here on poetrysoup, the newest poem,
 pops up on-screen
like the latest off-shoot, or newborn babe
or like a newest floral bud,
in the orchards of poetry.
Or like a fresh wave of words
crashing and cresting upon the turf
For...

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cat, dog, food, humor, mom, pain, summer,


I tripped over  feet
My shoe laces both came undone
Slid in my 'spilled' milk
Cut my finger on broke glass
My blood now was mixed in milk!

I sat on a chair
It...

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Clutching
The end of my Zebco rod and reel
As the cast of tackle is flung
Like a small knot of costume jewelry
Skimming atop the caramel-colored Grand River
Dragonfly rattling awry

The vibration tingling in the palm of my hand
As...

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Dare Listen
            by Odin Roark

Time chooses to whisper,
Having endured shouting decades,
A species’ feigned listening,
Maelstrom's obsessive noise-making.

Still persistent
Is but a parade,
A just married tin can...

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The seed falls silent in the yielding ground,
A promise whispered barely to be found.
No trumpet fanfare hails its humble plight,
Just earth's dark embrace and the fading light.

We watch it vanish seemingly in vain,
No instant blossom...

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Butters Drippin’ From My Ears

Summer’s mostly over
I’ve not once mentioned Iowa corn.
It’s the symbol of the state
In which this rhymer’s born.

There are other places
That grows passable “sweet” corn.
I’ve eaten several others
But my druthers always torn.

In...

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The hunger

Horrendous afternoon, breeze chose to be still
Dilapidated hut in the midst of the hill
Frail and fragile sat she at the threshold
Crying baby in lap about an year old
Both wrapped in rags covering their bony...

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On the window feeder,
Gray and black birds, feathered families,
Playful and perky, frolicking
Like the music beneath their down,
Plumes rich as a caress, stirring joy,
Wonders, shadowed by the pastel noon,
Dreamy hearted wings, graceful
As the moment before lips...

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