Long Playhouse Poems

THIS ALL BEGAN 1994 MY FOUR TEAR OLD DAUGHTER HAD SLEEPS OVERS WITH CIRO GARGANO STEP DAUGHTERS EVERYTHING SEEMED FINE ONLY I WAS NOT AWARE OF THE STRIP CLUB MY ABUSIVE EX ATTENDING FREQUENTLY WITH...

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Note to Readers of Previous Versions:
There are so many new vignettes scattered throughout the poem that I hope you will reread the whole thing! There are new GEMS, improvements to previous verses and improved footnotes...

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Was it a cruel twist of fate?
Sneering, laughing chance?
Perhaps something I ate?
A bad bout of happenstance?

It wrenched and tore at my gut,
A sickening, sober, foreboding sign.
Wretched chance it was not,
This time was by insidious design.

The...

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April 9th, 2024 would be ninety fifth birthday poem for dearly departed papa

The following words crafted soon after the soul of me daddy set adrift into the empyrean realm joining the rank and file of...

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Unafraid of talisa shaw 
fraud in Tampa 8 22 1972 
back off did you forget 
you cashed a check on 
my behalf for 49thousand 
dollars then withdrew the 
funds to deposit into a 
chase bank...

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April 9th, 2023 birthday poem for dearly departed papa

Borne aloft into the netherland
the body bearing thee soul   
of Boyce Brandon Harris
birth name given to my late father
buoyed aloft united with spirit
of mine late...

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Rewind
By Julia Shaw

At seventy-two my life has been so very fine,
That I'd like to push a button and just rewind.
I'd go back to my wedding day so exciting
And marry again the man I found so...

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April 9th, 2025 birthday poem for dearly departed papa

Elysian fields long since embraced dada's soul
which rocketed into aerospace
(courtesy General Electric satellite)
just a tad shy of 
fifty four plus months ago,
nevertheless melancholia
still plucks mine heart strings.

Mine...

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April 9th, 2021 birthday poem for dearly departed papa

Elysian fields embraced dada's soul
which rocketed into aerospace
(courtesy General Electric satellite)
just a tad more'n six months ago,
nevertheless melancholy
still plucks mine heart strings.

Mine psyche still situated awry
placid countenance...

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The Mask of Fate
(This poem deals with the Corona Virus. 
It is very intense.)

My kid's school called.  
The college. 
They said that there had been...
a national concern; regarding the Sun. 
No... 
That was not...

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Do plans take stock of what you’d give to be a better man,
and somehow you have trust it’s true that human dream’s a gift,
that life’s a blessing on bad days? The world sees Grace (or...

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I feel invisible. And Christmas feels like another terror crisis for families. I design 
every city, feel no pity for this except, and  can't travel and have romantic sex in the 
cities with my...

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Upon exiting side door nearest
to our single bedroom
(few dozen strides to access way
out apartment - complex edifice),
I unexpectedly encountered
(on August 30th, 2021 ~10:15 pm -
née namely heard but did not see),
a small screeching creature
whose anatomical...

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I

how could i know him his eyes say
but my eyes reply which of us may speak to that
be busy in the house that needs fixing
despite histories in three
and homes as safe as the clicking of...

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I am a puzzle
made of pieces.
One for the girl who woke my heart,
one for the girl who broke it,
one for the man who shook it,
one for the man who took it
(when it wasn’t his to...

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Years ago at our cabin, when our grandchildren Damien and Taylor were young…
(Why does time so often seems so short)
the four of us with lumber from Lowes decided to build a fort.

The exact date of...

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Elysian fields long since embraced dada's soul
which rocketed into aerospace
(courtesy General Electric satellite)
just a tad more'n eighteen plus months ago,
nevertheless melancholy
still plucks mine heart strings.

Mine psyche still situated awry
placid countenance of yours truly doth belie
residual...

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Snapping fingers, a low hum in the microphone)
 Hey, It's Café Jazz/ But we ain't just sipping black coffee and snapping our fingers in polite applause/
 Talkin' Bop/ first idiom where being white wasn't the...

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My first girlfriend was Verda Lee (who I still miss),
feels OK, though I'm sad now, we never did kiss,
her folks left town, no notice, could not stay in touch!
Both too young to write letters, and...

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October’s Finale

October sets the stage for ghostly goblins – frost on pumpkins; 
 Black cats yowl on top of fences arching, upstage the moonlight;
 Floating apparitions of wraiths soliloquies in mid-flight fright;
Full moons cast eerie...

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I


Won’t You come imbibe golden
icicle Satori with Me?


You say it’s my decision
 to make
              With softly chosen plans, 

You say it’s up...

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After sixty-six years, what remains of first love
Is just your name really, but still it lingers,
Like the fragrance of a rose petal kept in a diary.
It may seem strange to some, but I do call...

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I dig into the open wounds of self preservation,

and hear

                   ...from way over there,

my love jingling in...

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A State Called Regardless

There had been no births in the family
for 30 years
no one knew how to put on a diaper
with two pins
old relatives marveled at the baby
heaven sent wonder to be loved
simply because, it...

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If you don’t like intensity
Then you better listen to me
Go back to your playhouse, boy
And kindly just let me be.

I’m past the little sweet talk
And I’m past the flirting stage
If you’re unused to passion
Then don’t...

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