Long Stowaways Poems

Boiler, or bomb, the Sultana sank on April 27, eighteen sixty five 
Taking down with her, a good rounded off number of 1,800 lives

Carrying Union soldiers, who were ex-prisoners of war, up north
From Vicksburg heading...

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One morning I sat down with Ernie to explain English,
I know you're a mouse but that squeak can only go so far.
He looked up at me blinked and then bared his teeth,
I said I'll take...

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I remember the party, I went to last fall.
I never planned, to live through it all.
I did not want, to be alive.
And this was not, suicide.
I would blame it on alcohol, blame it all on...

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                   Tlaid like Rash' o stabbings, 
your voice hisses from your podium of Hell. 
Blah blah blabbing.
A...

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Gypsies

Across a misty channel
Sensor fingers
Stretch
Through foggy, silent waves
Where two souls embrace
In expeditions of speechless discovery
Two minds stand naked,
Face to face,
With wordless words
Each knowing the inner rhyme 
Of another soul –
Intimate outside skin and limbs.

Across the...

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The war is ever-nearer to the boarders of this land
Seeping forward through the woods
Releasing acrid echoes of doom ahead on energetic tongues of stowaways
Lucky to survive their ordeal
Here they are welcomed, and in this cozy...

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Bedraggled and grimy they hike from the tracks,
Fleeing the urban centers to the south.
Unsteady gaits and sun worn skin glow.
A young couple with a thin mutt,
Ramble towards a local store.
The lively grin of the underfed...

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Banyoles

With borrowed funds 
And broken hearts
We hitched a ride with the country’s realm,
Running, stupefied with pungent balm.
Through London swarms and Navy shops
We lavished on ponchos 
And swagger.
We met an astronaut that day,
On a bus to...

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   In the attraction of Nature's-draw, 
will my heart survive such beauty 
attracting with its maw- sitting beneath 
impending- melting offering -cascade of Winters drift encore of grift, 
scenic spring undressing the thaws,...

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Scattered Ash
         by Odin Roark

The urn is tipped
Scattered ash enjoins
Jetstream
Jetsam
Flotsam
Atop the winds and currents
Nature's gathering
Knowing not yet
The next evolution of life's decay

Possibility awakens
This consciousness beyond our own
This...

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your ocean waters begin to rise
    It's waves make a foaming fuss
  all your hopes and dreams left home
just as you thought things were bad enough
   collecting experience has...

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Stowaways.  
.
Calm tepid waters glorious golden sky
Two lovelorn newly wed castaways
My sweet love and I
Sailing onward to warmer climbs
A daring thrilling adventure
Leaving the troublesome past behind
Out of sight out of mind
.
Sipping away on some...

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SEEDS

Who did you leave under the sea?
Was it a black engineer building dreams?
And a brown baby with shackled hands little feet
An angel in disguise floating in the deep

Who did you throw in the ocean that...

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The Old Ship-Wright


I’ve held the stars in the palm of my hand
And ladled the sunrise where no man has been

I’ve forged my anchors from hellish fires
And planed fine teakwood that served the Queen’s tea

But now...

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