Long Sallow Poems

I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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Good boy gone bad enters the stage with a spotlight overhead, despite being misunderstood in my ghetto neighborhood

The lonely applause celebrates in my cracked, corrupted, and crazed cranium
I exaggerate too much and so too much,...

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The Killing Field”

Ariana nodded, tremolo fingers,
and they ran across the killing field,
watching the steel-toed kite ascend—
a fleeting instant of triumph in the vacuum.
Josh scoffed as it dipped,
both caught in the pull of the abyss,
falling but...

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The Killing Field”

Ariana nodded, tremolo fingers,
and they ran across the killing field,
watching the steel-toed kite ascend—
a fleeting instant of triumph in the vacuum.
Josh scoffed as it dipped,
both caught in the pull of the abyss,
falling but...

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My wife and I are members of - religious stamps association -
that was formed some years ago from our church’s congregation.
We don’t drink and never smoke; and drugs leave us in despair,
but recently one Sunday...

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Cry Wolf

Searchingly,
I peered into your sky painted eyes
without fully understanding what I might find,
but finding that which I might never fully understand.
And now,
My heart is adrift,
like flotsam ,hopelessly adrift.
And the wind that blows is cold,
and...

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The moon has groaned home;

And soon the shadow’s drum,

Resonates the rhythmic silhouette,

To the ferocious pains of the spine;

Hear the heavy throbs of the drum,

The panting steps of the trumpet,

And the singing sage of the flute.

See...

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Be not complacent 'bout dire global warming...

Thus spake Zarathustra 
necessitating donning layered clothing
in tandem, especially trumpeting   
being with wise mind and economical
exercising usage of fossil fuel 
completing most tasks 
involving driving automobile
courtesy designing...

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Please get me something special to eat, I have just recovered from an unusual heartbeat, please give me something special to eat; I just want to stand up on my feet. 

My heart is racing,...

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Paying The Bill
 
You may come to this some day
It may issue from nowhere
A moment un-strident
A loose flagging half remembrance
Something which neither carries
Nor contains
But a fickle shadow 
Thin and as meaningless with an empty whimper
Not...

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What merriment is there in friends? They come and go always.
Who will stay here until the end? Somebody leaves always.
What will be there throughout it all? It will break always.
Something has to be done; they’re...

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My bare feet rest gently on the stones at the bottom of a shallow, rushing stream.  Through the clear water, I see the meandering veins beneath the skin.  I feel a brisk shiver...

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What the ****,
I'll break your neck if you get at me,
tell me now,
that I can't paint pictures,
when I clearly see that 
old man,
walking like a broken triangle
making a vertex on the ground with his cane,
his...

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I stand on top of the big board chair looking at you muttering something privately to yourself over there.

 I couldn’t figure out what you were saying, I could only read the message on your...

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The first time I saw Vera...

I saw: A scrawny, wrinkled, little thing with sallow wrinkled skin, a head of fine white hair that looked like a dandelion gone to seed and a pair of faded...

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The Wanderer, Part II

Awakening, the friendless man confronts the murky waves,
the seabirds bathing, broadening out their feathers,
the hoar-frost, harrowing hail & snow eternally falling…

Then his heart’s wounds seem all the heavier for the loss of...

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Written: February 08, 2024
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Scarlet lips susurrous softly,
amid quiescence of dusk
bequeath beamily beguin beats 
within our sumptuous souls.
As grace echoes in crimson,
tears trickle...

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The Wind to the Wayside

     There’s an old man sleeping on the bank of a river, and he’s flying his dreams in an indigo sky. If you listen so softly, there’s...

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late …

summer eventide ...
I lay on the rug,
head by the window,
feet tended in the direction away
from your house ...
deliberately ... designedly ...
full moon drizzling its
cornflower bloom thru venetians,
dividing into soft, dripping
strips of liquid sapphire
that slather...

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WHITE ROSES

Red horizon, sunset beach
Cranes fly over the moon
Artificial reality removes
time, condenses motion;
Sounds collide ghostly echoes 
Adhere to the walls;

Institutional humanity
Created and fortified
By judgments, opinions
And medical melancholy

un scripted performances, 
rages in a cage,
humanity undervalued,
brains unplugged,...

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THE SILENT SPECTER
 By Roy Merritt

He knew not when it arrived and trespassed upon his door
And though it never spoke to him he knew what it came for
He knew why that callous countenance came upon...

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Written: March 31st, 2025, for contest, Sponsored by: Kai Michael Neumann

             ************

After basking in yesterday's afterglow, 
I divested my vestments
to shift in cognitive...

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when she met the homely older man with the big nose,
shoulders hunched about his ears as if to ward off further blows,
she married him and moved far away
and at first it was okay
grateful for every...

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They Caught Me Young


The first cut is a cut so deep-
Internalising this impression
Has made me stir and creep
With invariable precision!

Great Writers caught me young
Whilst an exploring youth.
Leaning on the sublimely tongue
Exorcised my being uncouth!

Teachers, too,...

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