Long Portico Poems

The Sandless Sand Castle

Let me tell you about my eldest brother.

I am: the "Scram!", the "Beat it!", the "What you looking at?!", and the "Turn around and watch the movie!", younger brother. As you can...

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Diary Notes: Lamentable laissez-faire

                     …the lêche cul is
back
       ...

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We ponder Pandora as the person preordained
to unleash a plethora of plagues upon our persons.

But here's what I heard:
Pandora had two sisters,
Persephone and Proserpina.
Pandora perused poetry 
while Persephone practiced petite-point.
But Proserpina possessed the predilection
for picking...

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He walks, rosary in hand, up the steps. 
His tread is broken, fragile, and the joggers 
Might hear his breath, each sharp inhalation, 
Each hissing exhalation, were it not for their 
Own breathless haste, their...

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Termites at Christmas

They’re just little insects,
they were swarming by the hundreds one day,
through the backyard, as we sat in lawn chairs,
through the portico and on past our faces they flew,
the sunlight behind their soft bodies...

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Like Moses fleeing Egypt 
and finding refuge in Midian
I was a stranger in a strange land.
Having fled Chicago in ‘84
I journeyed east to the
unpromised land of Detroit.

8 Mile Road.
“I'm a man
I'm a make a new...

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Dream Weaver

The weaver sits before the threshold of the daystar  
Upon a carpet dyed in ebony spread across an alabaster porch, 
Hidden by a cape of ivory shimmers,
In between twilight’s caress and the palest...

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A place of sorrow that brings such comfort,
One of death yet cherished by the living,
The lines of tombs and ancient burials mean naught,
Compared to the hidden glories beneath the covering,
Tree of stately age and unerring...

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In Jordan’s desert, a building façade 
has been carved into the face of a vertical cliff.
Stairs leading to the structure are lined with lanterns.
Looking up, a view standing right of center, 
stone appears orange near...

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The  woman,my aunt 
(She got little education)
married at young age
to  the  eldest  son  of  the parents
of  a big  family.

She woke up early in the morning
at the crow...

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I watched happily as he stepped foot on my terrace,
All night we talked and he made my heart race.
But every time the night ends we had to part,
Bid our goodbyes, as the day will now...

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Invited into Her circle
of five points,one for each
of the qualities She crystallizes,
truth as fire, earth as nourishment,
body in water, lights in air, and ether as love,
in Her center a sacred thought having origin in primal...

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The Ruba’iyat of Créteil Lake – Part Twenty-Eight

Other media meanwhile busy with who’s sleeping with whom
Relying on New-Sweep and Thyme to make loud front-page zoom
Mainly of those who leapfrog into top power palaces
On whether de...

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My park to me was not see-saws nor swings
instead, a treasure chest of stranger things.
A marble grave, 1891, well kept
where 'Tiny', estate owner's dog now slept.
The long gone Manor House front Portico
and where the star...

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Where silhouetted sentinels silently stand in vain
bleeding shades of layered shame on blight-lined highways below, 
their ghostly shadows remind us of dreams we dared to drain.   
  
Interred on unkempt plots, crumbling...

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ROSES AND CARNATIONS

Roses and carnations, a lively
Imitation, of life’s full-bodied wine.
Different, yet parallel.
The embodiment of Cupid’s strike.

~

Riveting roses, sensual & aromatic.
Hourglass form, like lover’s hips
And crimson lips. She’s introverted,
Felicitous and faithful.

A dozen in her dainty...

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The holy city prized for ancient fame
With silent walls she wails in agony
For centuries ungodly conflicts reign
Her priests and prophets mourn captivity

Unqueened, for her ravished sanctuary
Political pawn is what she became
Religious and unfeigned hypocrisy
Heads bow...

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Can you bring me the moon
          No no not the plumper one
            But the fingernail...

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A couple of ruins leave the cathedrals
nave and portico;
it is always molting season,
mice and beetles help
they nibble and gnaw,
wind-laborer’s, labor,
their whiplash backs bent,
to lever slates and all things loosened.

The sanctified, they guard their stony hearts
but...

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The skies turned dark, the thunder boomed
And lightning zagged above, 
A prelude to a celebration
Of two souls in love.

The hail poured down and bounced around
And sparkled on the grass.
We huddled in the portico
In hopes that...

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She daintly lifted the brush,
And applied the last finishing blush,
She had already shimmering attire on,
Now she slunged carousingly the costly fur also on,
The gong rang for her,
And she alerted her steps to stage,
The moment she...

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A black cat with long hairy curved tail,
an old lady brought me to her home,
not a long time ago though, instantly
overwhelmed me by her love and care.

She pampered me as if I was her child,
wanted...

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  A red-throated hummingbird, betrayed,
begins the annual rite of packing up his nest, 
in response to the mercurial spinning of winds, 
and the twisted temperaments of weather. 

  Distant friends once conspired together,...

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Cascades of stretching autumn ivy
snuggle close to the verdigris hardware
of an intricately carved, but sun-bleached
walnut door under a collapsing portico.

Droplets of sweat trace jigsaw trails
through the clinging film of dirt, revealing 
the white of fluted...

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A scarlet-throated hummingbird, betrayed,
commences the annual rite of packing his nest,
in response to whimsical winds' pirouette
and the capricious moods of weather's ballet.

Distant friends once conspired in sunbeam pursuits,
beak-dipping in nectar teased from blossoms' allure,
whispers of...

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