Long Skiff Poems

“He fought often and once bled in the cause of freedom, but his habits of War did not lessen in him the peaceful virtues which adorn his private life.”  Doctor Benjamin Rush, signer of...

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As promised to Sara Baker... here is the Night Before Christmas, 
Cajun style ~ by James Rice
                  ...

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It was a sight that I could not forsee
Ambushed by my own men at morning hour
Hands tight with cord and naked from the waist
A mean air on the Bounty blew unkind
It was the troubled wind...

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Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung...

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As the odyssey in the skiff continued a more sentient being begun to appear,
At times feeling as a eunuch who was unable to change anything,
In zenith of toxicity as miasma on a cold misty morning.
What...

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Nature made convenient sluice, 
when pool water did wend
     down the gentle slope 
     describing gargantuan wetsuit vend
 
er steadily chugging, chiseling, 
    ...

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Herons fragment the mist,
appear and disappear while remaining motionless.
The skiff rocks as a coal barge trundles past.
A dewy sky shivers.

Nowadays he just sits in a boat looking at Ohio.
This morning the sun reached the top...

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a tsunami catapulted cruising skiff
skyward landing with quiet thud
across undulating infinite granular waves
formerly solid state rocks and minerals

optimism vibrant upon initial unforeseen
crash asper for test dummies
foundered as undertow fostered diminishing hope
initial faith for survival quickly...

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upon waking from a splendid plunge 
   into the depths of deep dreamy restful sleep
anchors away set adrift this body electric, 
   which succombed instantaneously 
   (without counting sheep)
nor...

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10/17/19
"Brand New"


I'd be damned to quit
Putting out some brand new s***
With a brand new drip
In my a step a brand new skip

Brand new tint
Steering wheel with a brand new grip
In a brand new whip
With a...

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The Princess of Shalott               
Inspired by The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse

Tucked in the overgrown forest
Deep in the woods...

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As I watch the rain coming down in measured bursts onto the dark waters of the vast bayou.
My mind notes the watery circles and bubbles that trace alligators asleep in the slough.

I check my lines...

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It stood on the top of the hill
dominating all of its surrounds.
Its drawbridge these days lay open
spanning with ease the now dry moat.
Like a fairy tale fortress it had turrets
that soared up high brushing the...

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The memory of your warm kisses embraces my fear
As I lay in this huge bed, in the middle of nowhere
Crashing surf calms me as I try to close my eyes to sleep
But anxiety grips me,...

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Blindingly bright: flames devour rocky: 
                             ...

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William walks the Thameside path 
to skirt the Whitecross public house
beside the bankside boats
some covered by their winter canvas coats 
and strewn with planks and dollies
some sitting on their two-wheel trolleys 
waiting for the spring...

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you got a brain in there you're reading this
when's the last time you found yourself using it
 to continue assembling the puzzle pieces
in the proximity of an existential grievance
minus the usual cheap suit wonderment
in agitated...

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spoke kin like 
a true non establishmentarian.

Wily wordsmith wields wisdom and wit
renders requiem welcoming thee to visit,
no matter foisting poetic riffraff (mine)
necessitates applying figurative tourniquet
to staunch potential
life threatening hemorrhage
oozing out fifty shades of
your gray cerebral...

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Discombobulation hammers (sic) kills, lacerates, peppers... 
tuckered wayfarer

Blitzkrieg cacophony debilitates Earthling
spiritually, mentally, emotionally... castrates
analogous post traumatic stress disorder
status simulating shell shocked warrior
dizzily descending darkening dimension
aghast - weakly ejaculate wherefore art thou
Elysian Fields?

Mine skeletal atrophied, diseased,...

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Fading rays of day were giving way to twilight as I stood on the precipice overlooking the ocean. Minutes earlier, I was in the arms of the only man I'd ever loved... Sean. We'd said...

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I can sense your impatience...

While yours truly (me)
doth strives to maintain
comfortably seated
closed eye meditative pose
mine skinny sea thru legs
(mere fo' shaw
by George spindleshanks) outstretched,
(cuz Lotus position impossible mission -
would warrant emergency circumstance
leaving stalwart fellow
as permanent...

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Wily wordsmith wields wisdom and wit
renders requiem welcoming thee to visit,
no matter foisting poetic riffraff (mine)
necessitates applying figurative tourniquet
to staunch potential

life threatening hemorrhage
oozing out fifty shades of
your gray cerebral moon unit,
thus best be extremely cautious
heed...

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Our nephew and his lovely wife invited us for an afternoon on their boat
and I immediately thought of The Old Man And The Sea…you know the book that Hemingway wrote.

As I lounged in the softness...

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You Dream
You dream me a dream.
You and I careen,
wide-eyed and screaming 
wild cries, clutching the sides
of our Thunder Mountain cart
on its rickety wooden rails
that fail
and we swoosh--like a flume
into a silent lagoon of silver water,
our...

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Somewhere between Easter Island and 
Santiago skims an ocean skiff loaded with
slumped islanders bound within the teetering
cargo hold. In the distance can be seen the
eyes of seven monolithic faces defending
islanders from the fury of volcanoes.

One...

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