Long Shovels Poems

Part 1: FORE SIBERIAN FATE

silk wings wet -
angel on the lake.
starlight glitter
separates from

the golden wheat.
her docile hair,
prophecy of ice.

winter pink,
pinched cheeks.
ice skate scrapes -
flecks of flakes.

the snow queen
before her relentless
reign, a pretty thing.

her smile warms
the...

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A Night On A Wharf

The couple decide to walk. The boardwalk still lit at this late hour guides them. They walk hand in hand,..whispering softly with small talk...solemn.,. lonely , yet together. The walk is...

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UNCLE ELDON 


Now that I am old,  I see more clearly through my mind's eye, than I did in my youth, all those special people who played such a wonderful part in my life....

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Preparations for 'Luau' (LOU-ow) or a Hawaiian Party-like event, for a church Luau, would be a 'Ho'ike' (hoe-'E-kay). The hunters will tie the hind legs of whatever animal will go into an 'i'mu' (E'-moo), which...

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It is in our fragile, nearly broken, exposure
that we are most available for love
and remedial gratitude,
rather than the louder applause
of our full-blown ballistic glory.

While exercising restrained patience breeds tolerance,
giving pregnant reign to co-empathy compels timeless...

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What is wrong with deficit-growing expenditures
to continue supporting LeftBrain industrialized secular present
and past well-financed war-mongering threats
against nations
and people
and plants
and planet?

And nuclear ballistic arm-building,
and a Hummer and automatic defense rifle
for every Red, White, and TrueBlue household,

But...

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Kind Of Blue (For Miles Davis)

Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx Ny 1991


Before they could lower Miles 
into the damp, dark ground
Two of the PALL BEARERS
Thought they heard musical sounds

Before the Preacher could say
Turn your BiblesTo Acts, 
The...

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My momma was big on naps when I was a girl.
Until I was eight years old, she sent me to my room on summer afternoons.
It was probably because of the heat in the south,
The way...

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Autumn Leaves/Les feuilles mortes de Jacques PREVERT (1900-77) 
Translated by T. Wignesan 

(Note: As far as I can make out, this poem is at the heart of all versions of « The Autumn Leaves "...

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In 1920, my father, 16, was a guest of the British government. He was a prisoner of their forces occupying Ireland at the time, a group called the Black and Tans.

One day he and seven...

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If I were S/He
I would look downstream
for a power so high
this mythic enlightenment feels sacredly deep
and widely therapeutic
mystical in feeling,
practical in  application.

If I were She
I would declare a new Wisdom:
National superpowers corrupt
toward fundamentally polarizing...

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What golden fevers disease drives the madman’s insanity,
A toxic yellow shines metal, that glitter beneath the polar Aurora,
Of greed’s horded treasure of the Klondike’s curse!
By sheer brawn's heaving and hoe, did these fortune hunters so...

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I had a dream the other night
Of walking in a field of cornbread
Golden brown
Baked just right
One solid
Unbroken field

As I softly crunched my way
I looked up
Coming toward me
Was a line of tigers
With a man in the...

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I had a dream the other night
Of  walking in a field of cornbread
Golden brown
Baked just right
One solid
Unbroken field

As I softly crunched my way
I looked up
Coming toward me
Was a line of tigers
With a man in...

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These are her stories of why; the sad excuses of mother's life;
Her oft-honed chip, accented with her mother's old mink stole,
Tears most lovely in her eyes as she spoke of the beautiful farm;
Telling of the...

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Lester sat in Lisa’s café that morn,
his eyes mindlessly staring out the door,
it was July of 1889,
and new work young Lester now had to find.

He’d left Jud’s ranch when he refused to pay,
did some small...

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"The Odyssey of We are Centre"



Where does he come through 
with his fishing lines?
Casting off metaphors
worms of vitriol
hooked and dipped,
he’s so green backed  
rolling in grandiose 
self published flack
unhip and seasoned 
with his tart...

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Otto`s life is not
their British
sickular motto
Grue is his banner
left by his
blue-eyed Brit mom
left long by one of
those hated South
African Paki
His guilty pleasures
in Green Street have
no recognition like
many such Aussies in
mulberry bushes
Yet he shovels the
stake of...

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Don`t give up hope my friend
You will soon be able to smile again
Don`t  give up hope my friend
This four years battle will soon come to an end
The people are walking around the town wearing...

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Francie ran to check on Donny as soon as the shaking stopped.He was curled on his side so deep in sleep he had slept right through it all.She scooped him up resolving they would not...

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When an expanse of sands comes into view
you’ll see sparsely dotted weeds lying flat on the ground.
For soil is sterile and weather is harsh the weeds are not only unable 
to grow tall but struggle...

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This is the donkey; Alice

                 ... follows the rabbit into a hole in the ground

    ...

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There was something spectacular
about a winter, long and hard,
on the Miles River.
Some days will never be the same.

Greying skies, heavy hung
with crystal burdens
of the wind, and air. Twenty above,
after sunset, zero.

And the snow was the...

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The storm of the decade
The news declared.
Snow fall was heavy and deep.
Schools closed their doors
And the snow beckoned me. 

There is such a beauty 
When the world first turns white.
Snow on the branches 
Drifts deep...

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The Ghost Train

North Wind, it was a howling, the sky was black as guilt
Malevolent the sheen, where upon her  moonbeams spilt
Through the murky distance, her belly glowing bright
Roaring down the line, she was roaring...

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