Long Retentive Poems

Once a pawn a time within castellated bishopric

We purchased 2020 Hyundai Elantra
at Enterprise Car Rental
1207 West Ridge Pike
Conshohocken, Pennsylvania 19428
April thirteenth two thousand twenty three
witnessed greatest amount of money
I spent at one time.

The following day...

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I was in the shotgun seat
in 1960 Lansing Michigan
headed straight as a harddrive
through ghettoizing "Negra Section"
hunting down our commercial whitebread 
heavenly ThriftyAcres

Wanna be a WalMart ImPlantation
but not Southern enough,
somehow,
to withstand straight-male competition
in fluent White Privileged...

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What to gladly sing
about our global economic politics
and socially inept monoculturing predation?
divinely self-righteous 
missionary terrorist zeal
also known as religious
colonization.

Such global
and national
and local PatriarchalCapitalist
RightWing unhealthy issues

Seem to have started
sometime after we stopped
singing and dancing 
together

And before...

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                               Etched in Stone

In the...

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change is the object and lesson of life
answer to unhappiness, and purpose of strife
moments come and confront my expectations
people move through my life in tenuous relations
distant though near, self enwrapped individuals
including others to share theior...

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Back in the day
of exclusively straight white male
anal-retentive missionaries,
the Church

Whether monoculturally Catholic
(which may become an oxymoron
one enlightened day)
or Protestant,

But certainly not polytheistically ecstatic,
like a perfect Thanksgiving meal
shared with EarthMother's sacred
deeply co-passionate
mutually resonant
and co-invested
convivial people

Proclaimed religious...

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I have a lot of questions
questions
questions
he repeats
slowly swinging
and dancing
on our creaky screened porch swing.

Radiant
in fiery ginger godliness,
mind centering omnipotence

He is so far ahead
of answers,
I feel embarrassed
to share them.

But, in not sharing
I become lost in caring
what...

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Written: October 16, 2023
Changed past Poetry Contest               Sponsored by: Fire Bird
          ...

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la 
                                 ...

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In a world where uncertainty rules the day, 
A man unique and blessed once dwelled. 
In a faceless country, with a faceless future, 
Full of faceless people with faceless ambitions, 
He was made to rule....

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AT NOUGHT—

Under feet covered with my bad choices
I’m uncaring and I don’t care how it’s going
All caught up, unwavering, demining, stop judging the brethren
Unrestricted
I have a following
Mind’s encased in babblings, stop judging the populace
To dance...

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Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
Julius Caesar...

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Value of kindness and compassion towards other beings,                           ...

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On my bed is a colorful quilt,
Not hand-made – it came from the store.
Each morning I lay it out, always the same;
It’s so simple, it’s not like a chore.

It has to be facing the way...

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If displaced, found nowhere, but in water
     of the retention pond,
no longer in V-formation, nowhere
     in the bluest sky,
however, beneath and at the behest
   ...

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Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
A dame that knows the ropes isn't likely to get tied up.
Every woman knows, an ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises. 
When...

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anal retentive is so inventive
it thinks up things it hadn't oughter
equating intrusion with goaled incentive
requiring minutia without giving quarter

so processes demand greater complexity
measuring quantitative numbers and sets
procedures create a mess in front of me
with analysis...

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My mind is a plain white cloth 
On which the memory needle often pricks 
Sharp, bright, retentive and so forth 
Occasionally it will also plays tricks 
With its unlimited gigabytes 
It can store a lifetime...

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If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, ask someone to press 2 for you please.
Press 3, 4, 5, and 6 if you have multiple personalities.
If you happen to struggle with ADHD
just...

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I'm as un-anal retentive as one can be
My wife's at the other end of the dial
Makes for interesting discussions at times
They sometimes last quite a while

Opposites attract, they say it's true
In our case it surely...

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As I lie here on my death bed
Feeling the last beats of my heart
My only regret is, I didn't close
The lid on the apricot tarts

Sounds like a kind of trivial thing
But to some, it's a...

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The August Lion

By: J. Philip Harris

In the area of the afternoon, right before the stars
Where the little gray strands spread out among the coffee roots
Through the looking glass 
Beyond the esotropic eyes 
In the land...

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As I lie here on my death bed
Feeling the last beats of my heart
My only regret is, I didn't close
The lid on the apricot tarts

Sounds like a kind of trivial thing
But to some, it's a...

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The depths of their hearts
a storm that never quits.
its lamentation…pausing
between flashes of lightning,
lighting up the frozen stage
of irreconcilable grief…
the breakpoint - unexpected,
gushing forth the consummate love
for a life well-lived, a soul
in perpetual peace - a...

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eighty eight 
keys with only
eight fingers and
two thumbs to plunk

away at what
ever i want to say
expressively or 
depressively or

possably atonally
not anally retentive
that i need every
note rote

but i need
to finish this
and submit this
poem in less than

three...

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