Long Skitter Poems

The Christmas Mouse
T'was the night before Christmas
And with everything done
The kids were all dreaming
Of Christmas Day fun
The tree was completed
We had wrapped all the toys
When from the basement below
We heard a faint noise
I sprung from...

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twelve miles of useless... road 
if you want to call it that
so washed out, rutted, and rocky that
usually you drive around it
three beers to go such a tiny distance
hay meadows across the creek 
always teaming...

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You throw a rock into a pool.

Watch the concentric ring slowly expand
from its point of origin.
Its curvature infinite. Shape pristine.
And yet... there it dissipates
at the subtle sternness of the wind.
To blend with all the other...

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Thru an opened bedroom (albeit screened) window...

Accessible twenty four hours a day
seven days a week,
fifty two weeks a year.

Spring 2022 Curtain call at
Highland Manor Apartments unit b44
framing Mother Nature nook
ever changing scene unfolds
analogous to storybook.

I...

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Friend: He says I am a bad mother.
Me: What a mess.
Outcome: She feels broken, she’s falling down.
Hope: But she’s clenching her fists together now.

Friend (quiet and fearful): But what if he’s right?
Me: Tell him to...

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Dark matter seems to be
What isn’t there to be seen
In between
What we see.

They dub it dark since you cannot detect it
Nor can they inspect it
With telescopy.

Yet, while it can’t be descried
It cannot be denied
For equations...

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Embarkation upon meditation...

Believe me you upon manifestation
regarding Das godaddy bing linkedin
with avast cosmic consciousness
self induced light hypnotic trance
I become enthralled

unless wife disrupts intent concentration
calling out "Matt...Matt...Matt"
bajillion times Googleplex
(slight hyperbole for literary effect),
subsequently courtesy

disembodied voices
deliver poetic...

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Alternately titled: Get out of my head mister chatterbox!

While inside me noggin legions
of monstrous demons abhor
protest being force fed
arcane and obscure
assaying into religious dogma
hence mind chatter goes full bore
thus crafting poem quite a difficult chore,
one...

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Eamon heard the rocks skitter away,
scree tumbling down with his every step,
descending from towering Mount Gilborne,
to a lake below where he could rest.

He knew a spot to set up his new tent,
where the conifers came...

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Get out of my head mister chatterbox!

Ransacking treasure trove 
of maximum headroom.

To remedy a fate worse than death
or orange hair oaf becoming 
forty seventh president
or contracting one
of several viral diseases named pox
permeate heavy shut tight...

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Behind forest there is beautiful meadow
Upon it trees cast shadow
The extensive boughs of oak tree
Give it primordial majesty

Beneath the forest a stream
In which all kinds of fish swim
Small lake nourishes the stream
It is wonderful like...

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This August day is like an unwritten poem
and if I could I’d write it for you.

I would tell you how tiny bits
Of puffy white clouds skitter along the 
Open expanse of the azure sky.
They sail...

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a cold bitter wind
	with stinging drops of rain
bits of bitter cold
	blowing into my frozen face

slowly my steps go
	up the hill of man-made stone
my warmth is torn from me
	by the coldness of the world

steel gray clouds...

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Kitty, Kitty 
          where is my sweet snugly Kitty? 
               You're full...

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(alter knit lee titled: vita in oculis nudato)

goo goo gaga I wanna yell
cuz, synonymous 
     with other wordsmiths, 
     or...well
whatever will eire'n burr, 

   ...

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We are one. We are the same. We are I.
We move with the same ligaments, the same joints, the same muscle strings.
We ooze of acid. We erode. We exude a putrid odour.
We are a walking...

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Get Out Of My Head Mister Chatterbox!

Upon prima facie first blush
me mind's eye all atwitter,
sans long forgotten
"FAKE" sexual exploits
set mum (chrysos anthem) all aglitter,

boot like short order cook I hapt tubby
quickly realized trumpeting collusion,
a near...

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cravings, like niggling whispers,
flit on covered tables
skitter on the floorboards
shiver nerves like humming cables

racing up my backbone
trembling spinal pathways
as I dive for pantry's knob
in a glucose fired craze

tearing through the shelving
jumping for the flour
cracking eggs...

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I sit and watch. 

Changes come so slowly. 
So, vigilance is required,
an attentiveness to minutia.
There are layers of wardings 
erected        between
the watch 	and I. 

Thoughts, which flit and...

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I skitter cross time's restless bones in search of sleep's access,
Discomfiture not fate or man but "restless legs" (1) confess.
An accidental drug (2) does treat if I do not forget,
It calms legs down that trouble...

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Spiraling into misty dark
twisting invitation to rise above
what awaits at the top of the stairs
wispy sighs slinky down on steps
one . . .
     and more

confining moldy walls press
closer
little explosions of panic
skitter...

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Santa Barbara, Summer 2017

Monday
I walked on the bluffs above the sea.
Orange poppies bloom in the dunes.
I discovered
the labyrinth:
smooth stones spell the path.
Peaceful pilgrimage.

Tuesday
Walked on the beach and smelled:
Tar from the oil seeps,
fennel,
coastal sage,
eucalyptus.
And, of course,...

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Eerie parlor music squeaks out over the musty floral rug
No human people have been in here for a long time
The organ has lost some keys; which gives a weird sound
The ghosts in the attic cringe,...

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When the snout of lush abundance is full and flowing,
when all prey and creature-kind spill upon the verdant swards,
then it is that I worry night and day,
for the stoat, fox and hawk are at work,
they...

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Cry Mercy

Her pack of pain upon her back, old mother
struggles to make her way uphill on the street.
Sometimes when the pain is an exquisite knife,
she cannot feel her scabbed and swollen feet.

The burden of her...

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