Long Menthol Poems

please tell me ...

what happened?
what dire damage have i wrought?
what did i do to ruin it, that friendship, rare?
you once knew me better than most ...

my darkness didn't frighten you, didn't rattle,
you sighted those demons...

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The THIRUK-KURAL on Women who know no bounds : Canto 92 – K913, K919 and K920

(Thiru-Valluvar comes down heavily on women of the « oldest profession in the world » in this Canto 92 consigned...

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She looked peaceful in her lavender dress-
as I suppose she was. Eyes closed as if lost
in childhood dreams, small hands folded across her chest.
Her glasses resting beside her auburn strands,
lips pleading for color, her face...

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Have You Tried My Slushie?             By 
Briar Rabbit
 
 
 
I don’t know if it brings the boys to the 
yard
I’d want some time to myself
 
I  think..
 
I think of angel dust
while
liberty belles call my name
 
 
cement and concrete as...

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Often after the fallen snow is swept, glory
Is found when the treading surface is clear.
A light dusting is a breeze to remove. For heavy slush I trade
My broom for a shovel. It is foolhardy to...

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Warlords love the crack cackling sound ...
faint vapors smelled worldwide, 
when twine toking on the choking peace pipe

Lying lips huffing and puffing,
blowing smoke out the barrel rear end

Frontal sphincter holes
open and close ... 
Pre-negotiated spoils...

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He thought that he had lost all his marbles on the crossing

The autumn tides had been huge and the currents strong


Mostly the aquamarine ones off track and abandoned

A bit like blue smarties excluded from the...

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hypothetically I know the reason you telling me that I'm the reason... the real reason you
telling me that your sick of straight missing me it’s just a season,

Like every time I foul up, make up,...

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Football, volleyball, baseball, softball, 
Racquetball, handball, basketball, hardball. . . . 
There're lots of sports in the world you play with a ball, 
And you can't play any of them if you're an oddball. 

If...

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Her name was Ethel....(yes, like the gasoline)
She smelled of menthol...(much like Vick's Vaseline)
A long time neighbor, from down the lane
She was married twice...(or was it thrice?)...
A widowed lady, we knew her well

A bit disgruntled, and...

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Zooming around the room in wheel chair-moves
our child greets us by his beeping toy’s cheer
allowing pets to bark and meow freely.

Gesturing to hush us midst vibrant shhh
our son mumbles his morning prayer list
murmuring our names,...

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He sat in an old wooden porch swing,
Elbows on knees; Salem Menthol burning down.
Thinking, smoking, Salems his favorite thing.
Fingers colored over time a deep tar brown.

Veteran of a war long ago won,
Toured Europe in a...

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Puff ...
The smoke coming from the chimney stack
is not the kind of smoke you like
Puff ...
The smoke coming from the chimney stack
is gonna second hand you a heart attack

She's a two pack-a-day woman,
she smoke two...

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This in reference to the famous poem of William Davies ,"Leisure ": What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare...




Endless wait, a lonely window pane 
in a...

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Freedom to display one’s unwashed teeth
Exhibiting the whole thirty-two,
Even as others with anger seethe 
And the keenest insults on one rain, too.
	
Voice to broadcast one’s HIV-Status
Before it’s public discovery
Or befriending some consoling circus
And waiting for...

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Jamie decides today will be the day 
we take off to Kansas. 
We've both dreamt of it, 
driving off to flat lands 
where we would be swept off, 
cackling, 
on our brooms to Oz. 

I...

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I

School bag, blue shirt, hair parted on the right,
Dal-rice, clock ticking away in delight;
Cycles stop, wagons with seasonal crop, 
Get to her class before the gates shut tight.

II

The obsession froths beyond the eavesdrop,
Secrecy brews a...

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Pour the drips and drops from an iambic alembic,
Evaporations of rosy prose and rhyming thyme,
To concoct within 'ye cauldron what the polemic
Spoons from this soup of poetic slime.

Add a measly mint of menthol wash,
And soul...

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THE GENESIS OF GENIUS

Someone's in the room drinking stale beer and smoking menthol cigarettes
someone's in the parlor playing poker while making foolish bets
someone's having her seventh baby this earth needs like it needs more pollution
and...

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THE GENESIS OF GENIUS

Someone's in the room drinking stale beer and smoking menthol cigarettes
someone's in the parlor playing poker while making foolish bets
someone's having her seventh baby this earth needs like it needs more pollution
and...

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" I'm a bum,"  he said
on a hazy evening.
Standing on the corner
of East Carson Street,
South Side of Pittsburgh.

" Everyone has the potential
for genius!"

His words echo of the cracked
conglomerate of sidewalks
bearing the daily burden of...

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Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry."
— Mary...

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Hey you! 
Yeah, you. 
Know what I plan to do?  
I’ll spread Vaseline all over your windshield 
And Krazy Glue your wipers in place.  
I’ll insert sewing needles, point up, 
Into your driver’s...

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Love is an invigorating journey.To rehabilitate what is submerged beneath. A way of healing or simply reducing the pain. The rescue team to all the questions of the world. So rare, what rich blood we...

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menthol cigarettes / messy journals / propane torches / unfinished poems / 
                 broken promises / black bandana /...

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