Long Stigmata Poems

"Conceits"



Such conceits
as veils between 
our windowed worlds 
torn torrential incomplete

mayst thou watch and learn 
the one I spawned, 
strength beats weakness
carried soft and harsh

one direction or the other
strength and weakness
both carried soft and harsh
ego and...

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A shameful act in this world we live today
surely an educated mind can clearly see the truth behind a mask
Ignorance is the hardness of heart manifests in such violence 
The horrors and inhumanity of it...

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“Pale Words Riding the Revolution”

it takes a woman
to bear the pain 
of a world ripping
wide open, apart

a part,

the child 
crowns crimson 
marked forehead
cheeks and lips, bloodied 

kissed awake
readied for the hunt
their tribal screams 
heard sweetly,...

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I was born to be the dark horse...the underdog. 
But, I'm nowhere near endearing enough for people to root for me. 
Some look at me pitifully like I'm a blind puppy, others see me as...

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The din of darkness,
 The cacophony of impostors,
 The symphony of ignorance,
 The decadence of progress,
 Colonial heritage,
 The empire of the pharaohs,
 The agony of the pyramids,
 The ordeal of free men,
 The heat...

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I know some will dismiss this 
As nonsensical chatter
Call it philosophical blabber
Think of it as mind over matter
Ask questions and trash the answers 
Because they, quote unquote
Challenge the status quo
It’s insane but I get it
I...

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Where goest thou soul?
have you split again 
into your kaleidoscope frame
in the body so vestigial contained 
what if there is not one Other
but many that enter inside 
waiting to stake claim 

Where goest thou poet?
the...

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Their numbers drawn, the backwards lottery
Almost none were aware they were playing

Assaulted by the poisons that save them 
Hairless children with steroid-swollen cheeks
Feared stigmata of chemotherapy
Daily valiance, heroism unsought

Magic bullets are a relative thing
Modern wonder...

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Compassion sings in velvet vibrato violin strokes, thrumming upon
an ivory frame suffused in dulcimer tones of need.

Half deaf we echo broken words, sharp jagged phrases, defining
the borders of empathy, binding the reach of the heart.

Compassion...

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On the restless road of existence,
Winding through beatnik midnight dreams,
I met a wanderer with stigmata palms,
Tales carved into hands like nomadic streams.

Under the neon hum of jazz club nights,
His scars sang stories of holy flights,
How...

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Dear swollen-trunk maple, deemed 
diseased by the saw-happy tree guy, 
you who have stood silently, supposedly 
slipping your ailment through your roots 
to the neighboring trees, now fallen 
full blast down, geometrically down, 
right angle,...

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I know you're out there
    I can hear you ... typing, rat-a-tat-tat
      I echo it, but place with intent
       each finger-step...

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I know you're out there ...
    I can hear you ... typing, rat-a-tat-tat
      I echo it, but place with intent
       each...

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Known as Jesús he was.
Known to be abnormally alive.
A gregarious thinly woven figure
in any overly large space.
The city contained him
kept him buzzing under its glass eyelids.

He said he had Jesus wounds.
Would lift up his T,...

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is that all I am to you …

a tear on your cheek??
a (not-very-attractive) streak in your
Clé de Peau concealer?
a haggard line from eye-to-chin
that now spells my doom …
that drips to stain the
only white Armani dress...

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TO BE BROKEN IS TO BE HONEST
Voice: Space Cadet (Wesley C)

The sand is a warm window; 
from the sill, 
     I watch skiffs in the distance sail away from me.
Sea opens...

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The Miracle Worker

He had chosen his path amidst a rainbow in the dark
 A chosen road in which to cross amidst the misery & sod
 Padre Pio was such man with an intense heart &...

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The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across 
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final...

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The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across 
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final...

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The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across 
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final...

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The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across 
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final...

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And the great spirit shall lay waste for cursed
in every foible of sin
the worst of us in us 
be the worst stigmata of hate
our convicts sanction of suffering
in continuous rehearsals 
for the judgments end 
and...

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The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The...

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Fell twilight for the gods on craven haunches,
  sarcophagus tantrum slammed,
broke fingers dug in the sacred bread,
stilled mouths from sipping rough cask wine
  from the vine of the freshly damned.
 
Satan, with crossed...

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She had many sad stories,
they were filed away, labeled,
color coded;
tales presented as apocryphal bibles.

He would listen as she pulled them out
of her droning breast,
intoned then as if reciting
poetry to an acolyte sponge.

Her stories festered the...

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