Long Ripest Poems

I grew up and out on a four family-owned,
and cooperatively-organized,
extended matriarchal farm.

Four interdependent 1940s through 1970s patriarchally managed businesses,
without substantial questions about who should wear pants,
yet with a surprising matriarchal cooperative understory.

The boxers outnumbered the...

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Remembered In Thy Full Bloom 
A Collaboration By,
Robert Lindley, Teppo Gren
and  Michael P Clarke.


Thou art remembered in thy full bloom,
a rose grown within my garden of life.
Thou art lost to me and this my...

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(I.)
Within Golden Walls, Love's Gardens Await

Ripe are swelled grapes upon glowing vine
my darling on love's bounty we shall dine
in our paradise rests more than a dream
there flows truest joy from Heaven's first stream.

Within golden walls,...

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If it were all a dream
water would flow through from the sea to the earth
And where earth meets the waters mighty crest a shore would stand

If it were all a dream
time would move unaccountably
Like wind...

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Morountodun,
this is the place you'll find me
like the prey of a shrike
choked through by your thorny words
When the chase after Omo Ogun with your heart
Failed to be anything worthy to steal the cheapest glance from...

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Sally was playing in her backyard…chasing butterflies and bees
when she decided to rest a while in the shade of her mango tree.

“Thank you for the shade.” She said. “It’s nice to get out of the...

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Like a penny, lost and worthless, woman
mother, and buried within the origin pit, dark
she brought me like a Jezebel into her life of mourning
mistress of the stage and child to horror
born, and off he ran,...

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Shamefully dull, life would be,
Without seasons to nourish me.
Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall,
Nature’s blessings the nourish us all

Apathetic and harsh, winter is,
With arctic gales that pierce 
Every linen shielding my frame.
Anomalous flakes of snow drift...

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You're like a ray of sunshine that creases my skin,
A whisper of sweet nothings, pulling me in.
My heart beats a rhythm, an echo, a call,
Bang! Bang! on the chamber walls.
A symphony of longing, a melody...

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This was the year for an abundance of plums,
the fruitlets spared by the absence of frost.
  The tree was leaning, the branches drooping
  with a curtain of fruit downward plunging.
Such was the challenge...

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Mother's love grew into a sour myth.
I spewed out her milk
into the stygian sea
that brought the merchants
whose merchandise were deep, immortal musings
on a new-found love.

Solitude was there
filled with eros that left
every monk defiled.
Unclad she was...

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God has graced Nature with beauty and utmost esteem.

A crown has rested upon her head all her life long.

In my youth, a flower bud made my eyes gleam;

Its radiant loveliness being praised by the birds’...

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Raspberry Kisses


Silent kisses throughout the air.
Just like the wild raspberry affair. 


Nowhere to know how,
Can they be found!
Now they are here,
Only to me you appear, 
Fragrantly simple and sweet,
From your head to your feet,

Melts-in-your-mouth, easy...

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Welcome to this "risk"-taking game of "life."
Choose a blue companion peg, or snag a pink wife,
or ride "solitaire" through this "scrabble"d "mousetrap,"
or add so many kids that they stack on your lap.

Enjoy the terrible twos...

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A secret world of mystical wonder
In solitude, she will sit and ponder
    Beneath a rainbow.  Behind a golden gate
No track of time or clocks to run you late
   Honest...

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I skip, 
like stones skimming on a lake-
The song that awakens
the ripest memories; 
how your eyes 
widen 
whilst your thumbs 
outline me.

The way your face falls,
huddled 
between my arms...
Or how you let your 
fingers blanket...

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My simple thoughts compounded leaves
The fruit of my labour I bear to thieves
The concentric circles in my bark at every stage
Hold me steady, firm as a rock of all ages

I’m a seed for juicy thoughts...

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Tumbleweed

	I'm so tired of tumbling down that highway
	Like a tumbleweed in the wind
	I'm so tired of drifting away
	Without the blessings of the canyon sun

	A ship upon that desert sea
	Sunlight so far away from me
	Back where...

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VIE SHE COULD BE IN VIENNA

When a stranger calls through the mystery of tomorrow
and swears an allegence to hold your hand
when a stranger says they'd shed blood to silence your sorrow
when a stranger whispers in...

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My beloved,
Wherever i maybe,swinging in my front porch,reading a book,
walking on the sand,picking pebbles on the beach,looking at the 
vast ocean,I shall remember you!a soft whisper in the sweet wind breeze.
My beloved,
Wherever you maybe,scenting the...

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In a lattice-lit dorm room sits a writer.
A discarded chemistry book lies beside her.
because ideas are hitting off her, like a collider.

Why does writing make her feel alive-er?
Cause it helps sort out the feelings inside...

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night market! a juggle of flavors
succulent and citrusy with
pears  pumpkins  peaches inflamed
and clothed in sweetened rinds like
watercolors of  tangerine and mauve...
stems dipped in waters of tender sun
     ...

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Summertime, 
in the hot valley, 
I shimmied  up the first few corky feet of the trunk 
and climbed into the high canopy of the 
colossal cherry tree.


Perched, but cautiously,
on the roof
of Uncle Freddy's garage,
gorging...

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Years go by like a purple blur of time,
As when the ripest grapes are turned,
Into the most luscious and aged wine!
Then memory itself often comes calling,
In sweltering sunshine and in the rain,
Like roaming bluebirds' memories...

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Eden , a mindful thought to pacify one’s contemplation of
the perfect life with all of the ribbons and bows to achieve the feeling
of blissfulness.

With that in mind one’s perception of the other side of our...

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