Long Steepled Poems

Long ago there lived a little  princess with her parents, The King Of Icy Mountains and  The Queen Of Peaks. Life was blissful with a very happy kingdom. Princess Star had her own...

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I was giving a lesson on the Liberty Bell, as the daily Church bells went off.
Yes, you guessed it, Dragon wanted to ring them, suddenly he was aloft.
Before we could follow, he was out of...

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River Findings

The Ohio winds around hills
and streams down the hollows
passes steel mills, brick yards and scrap yards.
It carries tug boats, pushes barges, and hauls
black coal stripped from the mountainsides. 

The Ohio’s littered banks 
are home...

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It's a quaint little street, bustling with tourists
Shops selling ice creams and coffees, sandals, and seashells...
People rushing, a bike or two in the street, a car searching for a place to park
A baby cries, and...

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Thanksgiving Dinner

How many more?
I asked myself, and answers
may be coming into focus with
the flimsy recollection
of that flock of chubby birds
each settling down a final time
upon audacious altars dedicated
to a gentle greed of some implied
profanity, but...

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I’d put on the gray drab uniform,
catch the yellow bus, while
other villagers made a pilgrimage
to Violet Avenue Elementary School,
and us parochials would be driven
to the now closed St. Peters.

This is where I first knelt, steepled...

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Inspired And in awe of Majestic Beauty.
.
Stagnant moss and patches of lichen
Cling to weathered uneven 
Sandstone dry stone walls
Segregating lush green moorland
Surrounded by silent sisters standing 
Lofty huge and tall 
As wholly clouds majestically ...

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My heart is in the Adirondacks
And day by day i drink the courage
captured in these mountain heights. 
The trail winds across the slope where bramble
lies like Tangled Truth--Blending Berries and Briars
--Bold challenges for hungry wanderers....

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Lonely Awaits

This gathering furl of past
Rising from love’s once moist heart
Now but dry sorrow
Lingering stubbornly
Where once its canvas
Of vibrant color
Rainbowed the future

Today only flaking memories small
Drift downward
Joining queues of bygone erosion
Where emotions of stalwart bedrock
Once...

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The nature of the leaves
                 praising thee
On this fine Sunday morn’
        ...

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Token of Blessing

Simple brass token sits with anticipation,
Like pennies, abandoned in the streets, wait, 
Gracing my desk with reminisce 
Of an inlet crossed by a narrow bridge -
To an island basking in spring air
Or trembling...

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"Tell me your ten happiest moments,
from birth through all your years."
ensconced he sat behind his desk,
stroking his Freudian beard.

"Take your time, my dear, and think,
just tell me when you're done."
I swear, for the life of...

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Still, in my pajamas, cold, ‘tis Winter.
Purple and gray wool socks, and still, cold feet.
Yet i’d walk down into the oaks, with sun’s
light be soaked, at the Summer-plumed heartbeat.

Into the glowing moss and down the...

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A gust of icy air blasts 
the cold into my bones,
tugging at my knees with 
hollow, aspirating groans,

making numb my cheeks, 
whirling 'round my waist;
pulling at me thither-ward 
down cobbled streets in haste. 

Thick snowflakes...

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NEVERMORE

What hell!  Of pale-green fever
that slithers and shakes no longer,
clammy under a cold clean sheet.

Feel the weight of gold roses placed
over the splintered sphinx,
luck of flotsam wood escape —
of twisted fate, no wand will...

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HARBINGERS OF MORNING



Seam-splitting the rim of an eastern sky,
morning's radiant golds  
grading 
down the rimpled brow of mountains
            leapfrogs
    out...

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CURIO NUN

placed in the palm of my hand,
a wee little nun with praying hands.
this tiny sculpture hugged
my heart, at once filled my eyes
with salty tears.

certainly my Aunt
leans on my shoulder
as my cousin presents
this precious gift.

Auntie’s...

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Sutherland No More – A Proclamation

Sutherland Springs from the pages of my media feed,
A story of guns, grief and the need, for no more.
Sutherland no more.
The innocent and the free sitting in their Sunday Pews,
Little...

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The mouth, 
It enters with a crisp tongue and a spinning pendulum
Like a stick-shift on 4 pivots
Making its way through a flourishing garden
Delicious sounds wisp as smoke through pardons
Painting destructive criticism with delicate regard and
Proceeding...

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Sunday sits unmoved.
The theater pipes on fire.
Restorative proved -
join the next door choir
in heart, soul, mind and strength of eye,  O God!

Paired with our pastor.
He wears grief well and joyous,
heav’n’s alabaster.
Suff’ring does not destroy...

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I would love to run after the midnight sun
And visit the fjords, museums, and shops
I would take to the forests on the run
And pick berries and hike the mountain tops

Oslo Norway I saw thru the...

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The Old Church in a Downtown Canyon

On the street look up,
And see the high steeple,
Run inside, beg a prayer,
With all the noonday people.


Up next door to the 50th floor,
Through opulence, old wood,
Marble walls, a temple
To...

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From A High Place

On the street look up,
And see the high steeple,
Run inside, take the lift,
With all the working people.

Up up up to the 50th floor,
Through opulence, old wood,
Marble walls, a temple
To businesshood.

Look down from...

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Upwards you gazed, poignantly painting me
like no one had before, nor has done since.
Concentric white and yellow circles. Free
of any common bearing or pretense.

I'd seen idyllic villages before -
The steepled church in sacred echo of
the...

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