Long Merle Poems

This is the 2nd Half - sorry, this is the only way to get my long pieces posted - an full length audio version is also posted 


“Every single person, and the minister agreed…and just...

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If you don't love dogs, you probably won't like this poem...my wife and I DO!


Can’t believe I used to think - when I was very young - that dogs made poorer pets than cats and...

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1.    John Desmond Patrick Keegan
2.    Alfred, Lord Tennyson 
3.    Sally Aline Mae Beller
4.    Charles Edward A. Berry
5.    Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce...

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March 1985.
The God-voice had been yelling at me to go to the library since I got the third child bathed and in bed,
And I had sat down for one measly second to relax. 
Joe?
What?
Can you...

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Gordon Lightfoot was born on Nov. 17, 1938, in Orillia, Ca.
His first concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, encouraged by his parents,
He won a contest for boys with unmodified voices prior to turning 13.
In the early...

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"50 Words for Poe: Blue Skies"



She was dressed to kill
Hot like a blazing Australian Bushfire
She crackled with heat as she
sashayed through the entrance
like Summer towards him, 
Like she was painted in 
Gold Lame Mesh
Armour tight,...

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The first thing I remember hearing 
Was a car radio with a country song playing
A man singing while my mom was steering 
A song about heartache and pain
That’s the day the good boy in me...

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Celestina Prior fell in love
with a man named Melon O’Neil,
and did thank those lucky stars above
for the way that this man made her feel,
she did not first think it could be real,
she was unmarried at...

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...It was two days before she lost them,
and an arrow slashed her small finger,
a small wagon train did take her in,
but a doctor found gangrene in her,
chopped her pinkey with barely a word.
Fever set in...

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My soul understood Lynyrd Skynyrd
Like Ronnie I had monkeys to
Just simple boys chasing life’s joys
With our needles playing our blues

My soul understood Pink Floyd
For I have lived inside the wall
Comfortably numb and ignorantly dumb
Living my...

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Where is William Earl Davis?
He was one of my best friends growing up
From first grade to twelve grade
Where are you William Earl?
You whom nickname was Merle
Pray you’re alive and doing well

Where are you William Earl...

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Indestructible, for Johnny Cash
by Michael R. Burch
 
What is a mountain, but stone?
Or a spire, but a trinket of steel?
Johnny Cash is gone,
black from his hair to his bootheels.
 
Can a man out-endure mountains’ stone
if...

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Take This Stinking Keyboard And Shove It
(Tribute to Johnny Paycheck)


Take this stinking keyboard and shove it
I ain't awritin' here no damn more.
Gone is my inspiration, O' how I loved it
damn it flew right out the...

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It don't do much good lookin' back 
But maybe if we could
We'd find another way to take
That'd be for a greater good

Maybe it's worth a look
The preacher he thought we should

Nineteen seventy-nine it was 
And...

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They’ve all gone those singer songwriters of yesterday 
or are in the process of leaving 
But their songs remain in our hearts and psyches
their words forever embedded in our souls

They came like a breath of...

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In a window down on Main St.
Sits an old pawn shop guitar
Its strings are like a slinky
And its finish has been marred

But when a dreamer has a vision
They keep shooting for the stars
It's not about...

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The Red Devil, Bronco Johnson in 75

I lived in Morningside, moved in a massage parlor girl
2 kids a Kangaroo dog and a white rat called Merle (Greyhound roo catcher)
We had a druggie ambo man, so...

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I’m using memories as brushstrokes 
On a canvas of feelings each day
I wake up with a line, or a thought in my mind
Then, I put a pen to the page

Verses and rhymes, about my hard...

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Woke up this morning to dirty dishes and fly’s in the kitchen.  It was raining outside.  Raining hammers and nails.  I heard the baby crying but it didn’t mean anything to me....

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I crawled through empty spaces
                              ...

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The ground is cracked and dry, the grass has turned a rusty brown,
The dead grass makes the sound of twigs breaking or a crunching sound.
The wild animals are getting more brazen as they scavenge for...

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Villanelle: Kill not Mad Poets the Soul-Blood of Mankind
                  for Emmanuel MACRON

Kill not mad poets the soul-blood of...

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What could be better than birds, my friends,
To put our heads straight,
What could be better than listening to this melody ?
The blackbird invites us to flowery diners.

What’s better than birds, darling
To soften our immense pain,
That...

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She told it this way.....

He said...San Francisco......
Then up to Mendocino
I said...can I go
He said...I guess you can

'Cause, long since Albuquerque
That's when he first hurt me
My heart's dying to divert me
To the promised land

And...oh, the nights...

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I left her womb with so much love.
And prayed that when you, from above,
came down to fill – where I ‘fore shared.
Her secret thoughts; her silent prayers –
Would find the same sweet comfort there.
This angel’s...

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