Long Ladled Poems

They are conflicted haunted images from black and white photos of America 1933, when there was no place left to run. 

It was the hunger of people lined up, scraps of food ladled out, the...

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A field day shoe fit for Mother Goose
  
Fruitless effort squeezing figurative juice
Pandora called triggering 
helter skelter to get loose
necessitating Bullwinkle J. Moose
to usher at yours truly 
(an aspiring wordsmith) vamoose!

Hey diddle diddle the...

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Mother Goose would find her tail feathers ruffled 

Hey diddle diddle 
the cat and the fiddle
when off to see 
a crooked man and woman,
whilst cowards jumped 
over moo ving little
pair of mismatched muggles,
who both walked...

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 If I went barefoot for a lifetime,  
shoes would be pointless.  
Toes ate board, concrete, grassland, shoreline.  
Me, Tarzan to pedicurist! 
~
 was poor but didn’t own it.   
~
Text-book...

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Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle
   when off to see a crooked man and woman
whilst cowards jumped over moo ving little
   pair of mismatched muggles, 
   who...

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Now, unlike my usually trenchant literary librettos, i regale the unknown (tum me) reader for savoir faire articulation, elocution, and indomitable tour de force proffered by spectrum of bounteous expropriated hegemony rightful to Mother Nature....

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A farmer's son was once tending to his mother's hens,
Collecting their eggs to sell,
At his family's road-side market stand when,
He found a purple egg with a rotten smell. 

The boy looked around at all the...

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Moonstruck

Many moons and seasons ago my five children
inquired where I was heading to on my journey

I replied ‘to the moon’ and to how to get there
‘with a ladder’ to astonished faithful suspense

Turned downsize up and...

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Faraway Footsteps

How present
This past
Called memory

Hollow sole dragging
Hobnail boots
Caked with crud
Mud
And oil
Atop the landing
"Drop them greasy clothes"
Came the sometimes loving voice
The sometimes malevolent voice
But always his wife's warning
My mother's caring way

So many years past
When linoleum's impoverished...

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Dan was such an ardent fan of schwab and scoros
With such evil plans, he toadied up this man from
Wang' As we call Wangeratta.) for he didn't give a damn' his pebble specs were
Focused on, the...

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The Soup Kitchen 
She made soup that kept the whole town warm
One by one they’d line up and request their usual
The soup experience was mid-way 
Between pleasure and torture
As the limits of the taste-buds and...

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Last Laugh 
© Ben Burton

Petrified slaves
Worshiping stars
Nobles and knaves
Uncaged in the dark

Gallantly fought
Gamely defended
Quietly wrought
Uproaringly rendered

Hearken to clues
Enriddled in rhyme
Ladled from pews
Instinctively mimed

Fault the accursed
Who spun the foul thread
When empty the purse
Faith's soothsayers fled

Displaying naught
But...

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the headiness of now
swirl of keystroke and ideal
new pages
new thoughts
flying on ether
buoyed by excited neutrons
flared by the plasma
of a thousand faceless pens
type it
spill it
splash it on out with a careless eye
falling slow on burning diodes
bundled...

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P,


A little wine and a curious mind 
go a long long way
the words can take you only so far
dig deep, deep, deep, deep

into the wishing wells
and the reflections in the bathroom mirrors
in the kindling next...

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Are you the one that blocked the sun?
That fired the bullet from the gun
That laughed aloud at what you’d done
To this fair land that cash built

That sat on high upon your throne
Surveying what you bought...

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Drifting aimlessly 

I have sipped the ladled blades 
in this cold chicken soup 
Set upon a table of just deserts
on the far end of the horizon
Spoon fed disappointments 
staining a multi-colored tie,
hated for what it’s...

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In a moment of juvenile jealousy 
he envies his red rival

with its intimate and greedy embrace of her angels’ share
of honey and vanilla spice
as wet stretchy hands of fervent fabric
possessively cup 
her brandied beauty 

amidst...

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It was two ways to go
And two ways we went
The tears they wrung from us
Until gape the cracked faith wide
The blood we surrenderd to the dust
War is a battle between opposing sides
A contention of beliefs
A...

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Oh so found; here I am two centuries into this recipe; within ironic caldron
The finest ingredients have been bestowed; in every friend found beyond
Based this broth on the deepest marrow of their love; careful memories...

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youth, where imperfections trip upon each other
and opportunistic peers joyfully celebrate the folly
 - glass tree houses be damned...

and - a spun bottle breaks blood brotherhoods
where fragile crevices expose truths and
welcome untested kinships to fill...

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Jostled from slumber
in delicate mind
forces my padding
to probe and inquire

until startled smiles
appear behind clouds
busy in duty
to nourish with play

while I ample up
the perilous chair
to teeter clumsy
without studied grace.

Eggs split vital gel
on cushions of paste
gilded in...

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Christ the center of our Christian joy inspire
Holy understanding of glory from dust to man
Reconsecrate us to your will while dust desire
Immortal tangibilities the finite can understand
Savior what can transcend this purpose willing
Tender expressions of...

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I’m glad that you did not forget the date,
My friend. Pull shut the wooden garden gate
And walk along the pathway paved with slate
Up to the house now, it is getting late.

I lit a crackling fire...

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The Old Ship-Wright


I’ve held the stars in the palm of my hand
And ladled the sunrise where no man has been

I’ve forged my anchors from hellish fires
And planed fine teakwood that served the Queen’s tea

But now...

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Mashed potatoes are a drug
each bite tastes better than than the first
ladled in hot pork gravy 
puddled in the middle of the dollop
and dripping slowly down the sides

soft and warm they slide down my throat
a...

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