Long Quartet Poems

Merov’s Ghost (1) and Other Shots Across My Bow!

In mid-November of Fourteen, I published my first web verse here, (2)
the earliest spanned sixty years, composed for Senior English class
one night in Nineteen Sixty-One. Assigned just...

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Eric Mottram on the American literary and cultural scene during 1965-66 while he was the recipient of the American Learned Societies’ award for a year. (begun in the last post and to be continued)

January 2,...

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Spring's Excitement
There are rhythms of Nature that no one controls
that farms use to advantage! Time's fishermen sailed
both with tides and fair breezes offshore in their boats
at each dawn and dusk's onshore brought home each day's...

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The Story of History  

Beyond those beaten days’ depleted daylight
Beyond the bathos of a pandemic bondage
With  the resurrected  sashay’s charmed night
Down in the dumps   at the pretentious  proscenium
A ...

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(Sam Trio stands at the mic, snaps fingers lightly, takes a drag on a Marlboro, and smiles to the crowd) Dig this, we’re going back in time, way back to the smokey jazz clubs and...

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Leonardo more than a Renaissance man
artist? yes but - 
sculptor? yes but - 
musician? yes but - 
anatomist? yes but - 
cartographer? yes but - 
scientist? yes but - 
engineer? yes but - 
inventor? yes...

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Moe
Larry
Curly

Shep 
Joe

This Three-Fifth Stooges moron quartet
are brain-slow slugs you don’t wanna IQ know

Just sitting on a milk crate,
waiting outside of the MGM studio gate
Moe, Larry and Curly passed my way

They were yukking it up,
talking clown...

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I saw a cat quartet within my dodgy dream,
Sorta started worryin' that I'd gone off the beam,
Really began to wonder if my mind was gettin' weak,
They had their own language that only they could speak.

While...

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Tonight the act of naming fell through the floor.
We speak permeable solids inflect’d by light.
Things move indistinctly: a pine palette floats
momentarily from semi truck’s bed, crosses
its body with windshield; ovidian shift from a
Forest to an...

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(A lone voice whispers)


Within this deep clearing, a mystical sanctuary surrounded by the long trees of Time's perpetual symphonies, we meet.



Within this clearing, sheltered from Storms



Inside this sacred sanctuary, within this journey



A place beyond the...

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Like an allspice incensed quartet chorus,
the spirit of the living Word unveils before us.
Holy foundational page corners turn
in cardinal winds as red letters churn,

proclaiming the Gospel to each earthly corner,
through bolted borders, even reaching the...

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I was driving home late one cold Winters night
It was minus ten and the moon shone bright
Then in my car headlights a young girl I did see
I swerved hard to avoid her and hit a...

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Microtonal mayhem
Triple concerto for sirens, drones & bullets
groaning ghosts pluck piano strings
extramusical praise: present (& past/future)
we're going around & round (sings the flute)
0:00 constant vivace
Alcotts double IV. played
corrupt chaotic fourth (9?)
Ives=crusty old coot
percussive violence
stimulus: introductory...

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The waters trickling under the
crossing bridge grows ever dormant

And on the one and only discernable
route into this village languishing beneath
there is a old rickety swinging sign that says

" Welcome to Eden "

We trust you enjoy...

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It is generally thought of to be one of the myriad,
Guiding, governing, binding principles and precepts of all 
Mature civilized countries that what horrors that they unleashed in
Vilest, bloodiest, convulsive conflictual combative martial 
Confrontation, on their fellow...

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Spartan are the white walls were once hung draperies
And things papered, paneled, plastered...
Yet, 'tis so no more. 
Now all is white and wan and sickly, 
And the ghostly shadows of the accoutrements and impedimenta that...

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...“ ‘There’s this Hitler guy who’s trying to kill
every fallen Jew that happens my way,
you think six million would’ve slaked his thirst,
but he still rants and raves, seeking to slay.

“ ‘And there is this Stalin...

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There upon the blasphemous 
grassy knoll, a maiden, 
her lovers' temptations
of the past.  
Amidst a silky
silhouette, a dainty stroll
flaunting a crimson masquerade.

"Your invitations of subtle romance,
be they adventurous, unfulfilled,
shall we not exchange vespers?" 

The...

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I stand inside a ballroom that stretches long before me,
it is a sitting room right now, formal chairs and setees,
tall windows stretch ceiling to floor, twice as tall as a man,
with velvet drapes sent from...

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O glorious dear sun, sovereign of the day, in the sky above
you’re one whose radiance resembles a little of God’s love;
by nurturing all creatures in the world with your unique rays
and setting such a high...

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STROKIN’ – A QUARTET ABOUT AGING GRACEFULLY(?)
Strokin’: Hauling ass and working at it!

STROKIN’: PART ONE
THE SPRINTER

The aging Olympian ran a swift anchor leg
burning the first turn, striding the backstretch
like a big cat on the chase,...

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Spoken Word Poetry: A Groove Through Time
 Man, you’re just a real gone cat/breaking the habit and diggin’  something new/
 Your world spins fast with the beat/ your music collection—a limited edition on the...

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Business is booming and there's no end in sight, Death came to a huge 
decision tonight.

He called in his partners Pain and Sorrow and said "we're holding auditions 
tomorrow."

"Auditions, Pain asked, what are you looking...

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Spoken Word Poetry: JAZZ ALIVE

Man alive, and this ain’t no jive, I’m diggin’ on jazz to stay alive/
East Coast rhythms from the 50’s and 60’s, in the heart of the city, where the music breaths/
Up...

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i treated your loss just like death
grieving for you as i did my mother
i still wonder if the universe
wasn't teaching me a lesson in karma
for you were a personification of heaven
which surely meant there would...

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