Long Motown Poems

Flint 
Within its brilliance gleaming
Cool black in lacquered polished silver chrome
Cranked up pistons bleached in summer’s heat
Hot steam rising as gears thundering
Beyond the crystal liquid city lights
Highways built across the land
In hearts felt pride American...

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Reaping short terms benefits...

before marital savings bond matured
as a then quinquagenarian.

Courtesy gerontologists medical practitioners
allowing, enabling, and providing
the elderly population to live
longer and healthier lives.

Linkedin with longevity loosely translates
to resurgent libido spurring
older folks predilection
to participate in...

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Two decades of music were known as the golden age.
It was all the rage, the era from the 50s through the 70s
Motown, Rock and Roll, and Blues that touched my heart.
Listening to them always start...

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I wonder if Pops will lie out in his trademark bell-bottoms—faded denim flares that split the air like his cool, bending time, making room for his strut as if the horizon would yield to his...

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Bozo the clown is ready to begin,
in Cuba, Fidel Castro starts his reign.
Buddy Holly meets a horrible end,
Charles de Gaulle is back on top again.
 
Motown now brings us a whole lotta soul,
Disney’s Sleeping Beauty...

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The Seed—a Fiction Narrative Verse by James E. Lee Sr a Alexander Chee ASSIGNMENT

The situation is a fond memory;
More precise a fallacy;
I’m always…
Wasn’t all that aware
Nor, did I care
Family members most
Saw that I was an...

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A swinging sixties chick was I dressed head to toe in Biba
Miniskirts my mother loathed and free love too, so I was told
Music of choice was Motown and Soul that played upon my radio
At weekends...

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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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----paranoid, pornographic, psychotic, pontific, politically aware, rapping, rhyming, right here, right now in River city, rock and roll up the Yazoo, sad, sadistic, sarcastic, sassy, satanic, schizoid, shitting, silly, sexy, smarmy, smelly, smooth, snarky, snarling,...

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Barbie and Ken, Barbie and Ken,
   They’ve been an item since Christ-knows-when.
He’s not Kenneth Connor, he’s not Kenneth Clarke
   Just Ken in the daylight and Ken after dark.
Ken’s a rôle-model for...

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A racist white man’s vehicle broke down
in the middle
of the blackest pride side of Motown

He scratched his red neck double chin 
in Appalachian drawl dismay;
perplexed at having a little Aryan problem
of not being “Black Tie...

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insane, lovely, loony, lonely, lonesome, malodorous mean old rotten, mothering, nasty, narcotic, never whatever, never meh, never cold, not approved by the CIA, not approved by DHS, not approved for human consumption by the FDA,...

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Michael the first time I saw you singing got to be there I wanted to be there with you
Michael as you grew a little older I never wanted to say goodbye
Michael as you became a...

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You remember me from my past books
I remember you from your scouring looks 
No sales were made; I landed a job that’s not obscure
selling newspapers on the corner is my entrepreneur  

Sales begin turning...

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we tend to forget the time when we ourselves were very young
our own parents did not understand some of the things we had done
we had our own style of music, our own dances and points...

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Dawn, Angie, Glori and Dale —
model citizens led the way
to their stage, all the rage
for seconds in time.

cool of Dawn Dolls —
icons of the seventies,
for teeny-tiny bills
a girl could own a million.

smaller in stature,
much harder...

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They were hippies 
and societal dropouts.
Scholars, poets and 
pot smoking draft dodgers.
Civil right activists,
and anti-war protesters.
Patriots and soldiers
fighting an unpopular war.

Relationships were confused
and marriage became open.
Morality lost meaning and
God  was largely forgotten
except to grape...

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I may be gormless
And it may be true
But just how many were there In the band?
I forgot
So I'm asking you?

Their beautiful music is a gift to me
And a part of my life growing up
And made...

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There are milestones I’ll never remember, and one of them may have been the first time the notes kissed my ears.
Or were they her lips?

She taught me which songs were worth it, and I know...

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Jimi Hendrix-Played electric guitar with his teeth and left hand
Ripped through scales, held notes, used flames on stage on command

Janis Joplin- Rolling Stone—Her cover enthralling ”Me And Bobby Magee”
Mezzo-soprano vocals and an "electric" stage presence...

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1/15/21


If you didn't, you better know now
Nearly always around smoke clouds

I was or I wasn't oath bound
Often telling me, I got no grounds
And that I need to slow down

I roam around
Or am homebound
With a new...

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The Angel In My Head
By Roy Merritt

I was in the clutches of misery, misery had me down
I was feeling beside myself when I heard a glorious sound
Somewhere in the distance I heard an angel croon
I...

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The jukebox glowed, the records spun..
A brand-new age had just begun.
From ‘55 to ‘75,
Music soared, it came alive.

The blues and jazz still held their ground..
But rock and roll had found its sound.
Elvis shook and stole...

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 The first K-mart 
opens its door.
   Into space we 
start to explore.

   Motown Records is born,
It's from the soul.
   We have new music, 
It's called Rock n...

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Throughout my life I’ve had the privileged of listening…
without interference of confusion
to a diverse and varied and melodic musical suffusion

From a host of animals…dogs, cats, birds and dolphins
to the subtle flutter of a butterfly’s wings...

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