Long Slinger Poems

*** Classified Ad — “Position Wanted” ***

  ((The following is from ad details written on the ad draft form submitted by the ad’s purchaser, who, while here was briefly helped by clerk ES Slinger,...

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Whistle does the lone desert winds, flowing downwards from
Boot hill cemetery, in icy chilling breeze full of echoing voices,
From the past, begging for redemptions last chance of salvation.
Roll does the crimson tumbleweed, towards the ghost...

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city limits;on 2nd street and elizabeth avenue,near a tire shop,and its where billy 
the kid the out law lived and died;as brushy bill,so sad,yet here stood by those 
very same street names in real life,his...

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I walked the lonely path the color of                           ...

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This is the closest that I have ever been to  a funeral for more than forty years, a young boy just eighteen was shot dead for stealing
I sat quietly on the school veranda and...

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October had now come again just like it did back since,
The gunfighter Sam Holt had shot the kid named Benny Pence.

It was on All Hallows’ night with the moon high and blood red—
When Benny came...

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Wanted: Slinger of Mirrors,

Tessellating lungs of fulcrum
Wading into scorn’s yellow Spring pond
We are flying to the airway Of. I hunger for our old hunger. 
We dealt our Hand and every Star
Only one pond my reflection’s...

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Slinger
Waiting on the day
for the Swallow to transmute the air
between this ether and yours 
patterned after an annual bedsheet 
and full of a chest
swelling with blood
and a face 
as forgotten as chests 
buried beneath sea...

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He did his hash slinger training
Then with a couple of his mates
Set up this high class restaurant 
Where they didn’t bother with plates,
Just bits of brickkies rubble,
Guttering and such,
Jam jars and slabs of wood
Stuff not...

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The Bony Finger

Investigator Carla received a bony finger
Tossed through her window by a mystery slinger 
With it came a note that vexed her curious mind
“This finger’s all I took, the rest I left behind”

The note...

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Simple Pleasures
© Ben Burton 4-7-2015

Remember when
In the heat of summer
Daddy would come home
And bark the delightful order
"Put on your bathing suits"
While he hooked up the hose pipe
To the front yard spigot
Streaking into your bedroom
Getting naked,...

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He was young,
Had his guns on his hip.
Walkin the streets,
With a cigar on his lip.
The town folk were scared,
They knew what he could do.
They have seen what he done,
To a chosen few.
The leather he wore,
Was...

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She drives a friend to the airport
Hug and say their goodbyes
She stops and adjusts the rear mirror
Because the sun was in her eyes

She puts on some bob Marley
As she drive and sing along
 Her mom...

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Here’s a short story of a cowboy I knew
Whose name was Beg Your Pardon.
He wasn’t a gun slinger in the usual way,
Though his hands were fast
And his foots were faster.
But when Beg started shootin’
There was...

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With the challenge of writing a poem in the now
I reach for my pen, a lightning quick draw
Gun slinging the page with a six shooter of words
Letters ricocheting off of the page, escaping the poems...

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Who'd have thought it so easy to run a great nation,
No requirement for Congress or Supreme Court confirmation.
All you needs a Twitter handle and Executive Orders,
That's his guarantee to secure our fine borders.

While the Constitution...

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The air slipped onto the gramaphone the needle cutting me bleeding on the floor as mannequins watched with there masquerade masks sewn on took my arm saying "care to dance my lady" as we waltzed...

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Don’t press the wrong trigger,
or you’ll get hit by a truth bullet
Peep sound advice:  Don’t pull it ...
caliber of proof gon get bigger

Press your luck, if you want to —  
false bravado can...

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His artistry is unpolluted 
the way he pushes color across his world
is a miracle.
Whorls of potato people dancing  
blots and dashes of undiscovered animals
black lightning streaks strike 
a squarish-lemon meringue sun
orange finned tuna flying...

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He ate a caterpillar sandwich
Just to prove he could do it
He just gritted his teeth and
Chewed his way right through it

He washed it down with turpentine
Which he preferred to any wine
Ate a chunk of matured...

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dawn dual duel
two  poets
a face-off  duel joust
free verse  rhyme verse
a modernist  traditionalist
mull and muse   tell it true
prompt a reaction   lay it out there
lover of words, jarring ...

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Just When We Thought
By Franklin Price
2/29/2016

Just when we thought that politics
Had reached the lowest it could go
They've stopped slinging mud by hand
Resorted to a big back hoe

There's only one who's good at it
Has done it...

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This poem is not a Black Lives Matter hashtag
That it will seek justice for George Floyd
It is not a racial stereotype
Or a free the back  hype

This poem is not to seek bail
For the black...

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