Long Patients Poems

For ten months now I’ve brooded over coming second place
in the pickle section deeming, it no less than a disgrace.
It was written plain and simple, so there can be no excuse,
that the pickles in this...

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Disability, Illness and Fundamentalism

My brother died of Cystic Fibrosis, 
When I was twelve and he fourteen, 
It took away his ambitions, 
To study at Oxford - the pipe organ’s steam. 

I understand being born with...

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How the Nation of Islam saved my granddaughter 
from Catrina Bell queen pin gang leader it was a warm 
day i was suffering from traumatic brain injury raising 
five children including my granddaughter only four...

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One day not so long ago 
I walked
Never alone
For the world 
Is always my home

It was a late
Spring snow
Yet I felt
Invisible red roses
Offering sweetest perfume
To my nose and soul

There’s such warmth 
In snow-filled winter
No bitterness
No...

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 A French ‘Indianist’ Doctor: A Tribute to a Die-hard Humanist
                         ...

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I met a proper woman in a proper pub on a Monday in Peoria. It was noon, time for lunch, and we were sitting stool to stool over very large burgers at a long mahogany...

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Beware The Ides of March 2023
 
Ides simply referred to first new moon, 
which usually fell between 
the thirteenth and fifteenth day
of a given month.

The following events all occurred
fifteenth of March 
across span of millenniums.

One:...

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“We need to talk!    Something I perceive as being nothing short of scary’s now been going on for several years…it’s got to stop!
Insurance costs are soaring…and the cost of some prescriptions is...

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Earth's diverse Trees of Tribes
mentor ecotherapy with me,
EcoWe,
echoing sighing resonant waves of wisdom
surfing through lunar waxing-waning freedoms
of humanly divine burning nuclear bushes.

Show me,
unveil We,
boundary wu-wei issues
weaving functions with frequencies,
tipping wild-flowering forms with full-color fluencies,
soaring summer's...

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Senate legal and constitutinal affairs reference committie convened
March 2022 one Senator presiding and two witnessing'
The room echoes as the warriors enter.! Almost equivelent to
The booming endorsements of the preceeding years yet ghostly 
Sounding echies now.....

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The early hours of a Wednesday morning in a small country town.
An 18-year-old boy struggles to sleep
He had pain so bad 
all he could do was weep 
he, knee was so painful
he had to go...

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Ace colonoscopy doctor Kellen Karl Kovalovich

revisited January 23rd, 2024
on the evening before yours truly
(the one and only Matthew Scott Harris),
a stand up comic wannabe, who
historically heartily hales 
from Schwenksville, Pennsylvania
undergoes oh joy rapture colonoscopy.

Three days...

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September finally came. Dolly 
Was in Labor but she stated 
That she would deliver her
Babies at home. Damian Tried 
Gentle discouragement. "Naw,
Babe we will be patients at
Magnum Medical Hospital 
Center. We ain't gonna discuss 
This...

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I see this ulcer
Mind boggling in perception
Body arresting in phenomena
Of diverse shapes and designs
Magnificently wrought together
In one whiff of putrid scent
It is of an exotic nature
Magnanimously growing out of context
Thus ticking with apocalyptic dimensions ...

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"Don't get too close"

(Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze ...)

We are taught from day one
Not to get involved ...
"Don't get too close to your patients,
Or the emotions will get the better of you"
Don't get too close ...
Don't get...

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This piece was inspired by a similar conversation I had - only with my father - when I was in my teens, shortly before he passed away from cancer. This was tough to write -...

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In 1958 Elmer's was the only high school in his county that had been integrated. Basketball was the big sport. People in the little town filled the gym every Tuesday and Friday. They roared when...

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I I’m constantly rehearsing 
On my versing 
Never sliding or swerving
My Rhymes play
Like a wordsmith
I’m Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult
Remembering to stay humble
And claim my guilt and my fault
The Wisest Man once said what’s...

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THE THINGS THAT I DO.



JUST THINK DEEP DOWN 

IT MUST BE TRUE JUST ME AND YOU 

JUST THINK DEEP DOWN 

I DOND NOT KNOW HOW TO GET HER BACK. 

I JUST SIT DOWN AND PLAN...

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I was once something of a pessimist, and that fact did not concern me,
As violet birds are content, to spend their nights in different trees.

Still I had a happy and quiet existence, or at least...

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I was listening to a Christian theologian friend of mine
speaking about the Messiah's,
and St. Paul's,
original intention when singing praises of God's here/not-here Kingdom,
and potential as a multiculturally inclusive Church,
as a countercultural extending family,
creolizing out to...

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Public, or even familial, contracts
with predative purposes and rights given and received
move toward more transparency

So local folks
can better monitor
what's extracted from our communities
against what's coming back in
by way of re-investment
in future healthy regenerations
of active hope
and...

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Some say the scientific method
                              Is the ultimate algorithm and others
                              Prefer prayer.

For symbolists, all intelligence can be reduced to manipulating symbols, in the same way that a mathematician solves equations by replacing expressions by other expressions....

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Ace colonoscopy doctors Kellen Karl Kovalovich
and Larry Borowsky

Though necessary to down: 
four Dulcolax laxative tablets, 
quaff half 238 gram bottle of Miralax 
over span of eight hours, 
and if necessary even one Fleets Enema, 
I...

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The words are dark, sharp,vicious, viscous.
The images like bubbling, darkest jam,
With bubble like grim faces riding to the surface
Then bursting.
I am thirsting.Alternately with blood and bile,black.
I am a sad sack,
A pillow filled with rotten meat
For...

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