Long Stratum Poems

Rest now
O restless heart
released in ebb   to flow

ride the other side of the king tide rising
buoyant your movement in rise with the waves
Rise! to beyond where breakers break long-suffering shores
pitiless the grind of...

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Cypress trees like evergreen steeples
rise above rows of gravestone woes,
their shadows lie side by side like railroad ties 
across writhing paths banded like snakes;
gravel birth cords sinuous 
sensing the ground   seeking the sun
crossroads...

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we …
are trespassers …
can you feel them?
the blooms, electric?
our world is pregnant with other worlds -
transient planes of existence that are
provisory to entirely disparate
rules and ids and forces …
why do we even question such?
particles and...

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Written April 11, 2025, for Contest Sponsored by Edward Ibeh

Quote: 1/ “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ? Rumi

           2/ "Many...

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On this peaceful land where we live comfortably 
with the neighboring villagers sharing the sun and moon, 
stars and clouds, winds and waters, rains and snows;
we sow the seeds on the field, wander in the...

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"Kalapana fishing village laid west of Mount Pu'u O'o. Our home was behind the church that sat on an abutment tip that rose slightly higher. The lava poured from the east side of our home,...

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I fall a raindrop from stratus to stratum
birthed from clouds pregnant with thunder
a lion’s roar —a pride in the sky— fierce!
armed with lightning’s rip and slit
the scythe of claw and tooth finds its prey
knifing sunset’s...

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In the anchorage of the mundane mind, 
detached from the principled roots of sanctity
by the dislodging drive of sequential desire,
untamed instincts shroud the senses.
As the needle of ethical compass breaks,
the vortex of  immanent emotions...

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Written: September 24, 2023
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In the dawn-like haze—a shriek was heard,
An echo so shrewd, yet birdless, oddly slurred 
It was ordained by—a stratum unseen,
A throbbing coerce, a numen so keen. 

A canticle flower—a bellow coarsely flung,
Through...

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Written: Mars 1st, 2024
              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spring sonata serenades a zest of love bloom
Daffodils dance, tulips swing, birds sing and fly
Azure sky, brilliant sun, and...

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Slender saplings sprout from sub-soil abode slowly
Tremble gently in the wake of the embracing breeze
Proliferating branches flutter like verdant wings wily
The forest flaunts the treasure of the towering trees.

Nascent leaves look up with promise to...

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What's wrong in giving birth to a girl?
Love and nurture her she can be a pearl
I can't be quiet towards your disdain for her
Even those boys you seem to prefer
For whose benefits you violated her...

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The calling gull leaves her nest
her wild magic cleaves the nimbus.
An avian aerialist suspended aloft 
she sails on tapered ribbons of cirrus silk,
ruffled sea breeze ironed ‘neath her lustrous wings.

A wind witch, she defies and...

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Submerged in the flood of the maddening crowd,
I see a verdant valley carved out by covert ingenuity
within my lonesome mind, drifting away entranced,
displaced from the still stratum of suffusing sound 
of converging cacophony, resonating loud...

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In my journey across the plain plateau of life, 
stalled in the undulating landscape,
the course of the designated track 
as ordained, I don’t lose.
The hazards on the way,
paving the path of protection, 
I could follow...

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Floating in the flash flood 
of divesting dissonance pervasive, 
I see a verdant valley carved out 
within the entity of lonesome me, 
drifting away with the desolate sigh, 
displaced from the stratum of sound 
of...

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(chanting)
Atom Atom Nuclear Atom
See the evil in continent stratum
Folly Folly Mankind's Jolly
Come to end my daughter Holly
Nova Nova dear planet Johovah
destroying utterly my Irish Clover
Sinner Sinner despot Winner
After explosion he will eat his dinner
I,I, I...

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Today, the sun shone brightly over our shores.
Peering over the forest and meeting the cores
We share fundamental truths across the waterways.
across the grasslands, then onto the Himalayas.

Past somatic feelings are cognitively preserved.
Spirit is the natural...

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Submerged in the flood of maddening crowd,
I see a verdant valley carved out 
within the lonesome me drifting away,
displaced from the still stratum of sound 
of converging cacophony loud,
I dream attached to the unanchored mind....

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Immersed in the madness flood of crowd,
a verdant valley I find carved out
in the lonesome landscape within me, 
displaced from the psychosis stratum 
of disorienting dissonance,  
attached to the insecure mind. 

Away from the...

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The turning wheel of time stirs up the dust of disarray 
that settles in the crumbling cauldron of disordered life.
In the maiming moments of disdained dejection
truth tumbles in the debris of disorienting tribulations.

In the disorderly...

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In my journey across languid life's undulating landscape,
the course of the designated track as ordained I don’t lose.
The hazards on the way I could circumvent and safely escape,
as I walk toward the final destination someone...

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The culminating azure ecstasy of the glistening autumn sky 
fades away at last with the blizzard of the arctic blast.
As on the wings of winter the golden leaves fly
at the end of their verdant time...

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In my journey across the undulating life landscape,
the designated track as ordained I don’t lose,
the hazards I could circumvent and safely escape,
walk toward the final destination someone chose.

I don’t believe in what is said with...

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“feeling not thinking, soul with love linking ~       
we attained God consciousness unblinking”


In the awareness anchorage of the mundane mind, 
detached from the ephemeral principled roots
by the dislodging drive...

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