Long Scummy Poems

(after Edgar Allan Poe's "The Angel of the Odd")

It was a tidy day and I sat, replete, under vellux blankets.
Sadly, my tea was weak, the bottle of cinnamon whiskey
tantalizingly low, and my feet swelling above...

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I didn't know him as a serial not exactly 
at least not at first even though I'd overheard 
the plotting of arson from a dim lit restroom
searching for tissue only to find several guns 
rifles...

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Where are you going when the sun is shining? Where are you going when the tempest is raging? The shadows are burnt out of the sky; and the clouds are rolling by with a strange...

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"Every time, countless stares, they try to peer into my mind.
Every single time, I am so tense, I cannot relax and unwind.
The painful judgment unleashed down upon my own flesh and blood,
Who is right, who...

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There didn’t have to
be a reason
no one thing
no trigger
it was always boiling
just beneath the surface
always.

It could have been
the number of soldiers
lying empty on the desk
next to the ashtray.
You know the one
the one that left
the two...

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I bent down to pick up a penny from the frozen ground.
I could smell myself, the acrid stench of sweat and soot,
the taint of vapored vagrancy
that marked my movements, masking me from the reality that...

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Bath streets have sights on show
and houses sitting by the row
there’s not a place you cannot go
our crime level's always low

packed all year round with global tourists 
city centre market stools fruit veg florists 
nothing...

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Somewhere soft and padded....

Today her hands are free to explore.
Her throat burns with acid from a heave of fresh gore.
She grunts and reaches for a blood-dripping meat.
With the bones of our children she picks her...

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‘Do you like Pigeons Dad’

“Oh No”

‘But Why?’

“They’re scummy things
They’re Rats with wings
They’re vermin of the sky”

‘That can’t be right Dad’

“It is”

‘How So?’

“They pilfer seed
They breed at speed
And harbour disease you know”

‘Are you sure dad’

“Oh Yes”

‘Since...

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Zesty zippy zombie sat checking out the Yummy yuppie Yankee that was wiggly 
wishy washy but wealthy as he could be. And even so vary vainly vaguely unfree. 
Till one day, a Tuesday I believe,...

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Kelso has a boat
smeared to the gunnels,
with cawk and greasy weeds.
Kelso is old enough
to be free of care,

his dog don't care neither.

At the prow of dawn
he hauls dripping lobsters
in their pots
up the scummy steps
of the...

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say what you will about mr. hope & change
as far as him being a politician & doing the
shady, scummy, dirty & bloody things that
politicians do,
say what you will about him doing all the dastardly deeds...

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in the near distance he heard the truck peel out and make its way down the same

street that he had just sprinted down---

the headlights zoomed past him,

and with that it was all over.

 

he waited...

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(This is a parody of "Frankie and Johnny")

Charlie and Molly were playmates.
Golly, how they could play.
Mornings they'd meet at a corner
to plan how they'd spend summer days.
He was her pal, and she was his gal!

Molly...

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A skinny black girl, her torso submerged,
long neck holding her head up like a swimming Anhinga.

I should not know what a ‘snakebird’ is --- I am eleven years old
and have lived in the same dirty...

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Opus Mysticus


Let us enter... and be silent.
My insanity hangs on the wall with all the other Van Goghs.
Sleeping snugly between semen stained sheets
and saliva creased pillow cases.
Inundations and vivid remembrances
of days dead and hours traumatized.
You...

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EBB    TIDE


We’d had an angry tearful spat
Don’t remember over what:
Stormed out of house down to beach.                ...

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The money they get
for a ball in the net
more than you I bet
Oh, to be a footballer
Not ronaldo though, cheatin' faller
maybe Peter Crouch, but much much taller
Or Robin Van Persie
whose now greedy, little sign of...

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A heart so tender left to its own demise

Only to be picked up by the devils creations

Tortured, angry, greedy and unkind souls

Play games, misleading and untrusting

The trickery, the unforgiving hurt and lies

The false love and...

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it was a beautiful scene
her loyal imperfect heart
her spirit and soul was filled
with the love of God


it was a beautiful, smelly, scummy scene

it was a beautiful, super, stunning scene

it was a beautiful, spiffing, smooth scene


it...

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the toads do not dive
they plop into the scummy pond
pale green bellies floating beneath them
like airbags
they paddle and back-stroke
through the weedy water
as slow as inflatable boats

when i visit them
i turn into a kid
lobbing pebbles into...

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the toads do not dive
they plop into the scummy pond
pale green bellies floating beneath them
like airbags
they paddle and back-stroke
through the weedy water
as slow as inflatable boats

when i visit them
i turn into a kid
lobbing pebbles into...

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Theater 

Shivering in dark’s gloomy grip, inky waters at my feet;
The show must start! I take my seat. 
Shadows from the scummy pond summon the sleepy cast.
Reluctant, the veil rises.
Dawn shyly offers her lines as...

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VOICES ECHO THROUGHOUT THE AREA
THE SOUNDS OF LOVERS PAST
FROM PERSON TO PERSON
SHE SPEAK OF THEIR NAMES
SMILES ABOUT THE MEN IN HER PAST
SHE SPEAKS OF HER INTERVENTIONS
WHERE SHE OFFERED ADVICE TO UNDERMINE
SHE SPEAKS OF BEING UNTRUSTING...

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Kids of different
nationalities gather
every day to play 
in the streets of Chicago 
once their daily chores are done.

They play with marbles,
scummy top, pitching pennies,
or a rambunctious 
game of stickball in the old 
neighborhood cobblestone streets.

Children...

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