Long Talismans Poems

"Oak" 

The guardians
stood around and 
shook their heads

great thoughts 
quivering 
from the ground, roots up, 

as if to walk 
confidently 
with great armies

yet hesitation 
was witnessed
in their waving gestures

perplexed 
and touching 
green crowns, 

there they...

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Something strange

and unexplainable comes this way,
this way, it comes to us sly and fast, 
some say, perhaps, 
it has already arrived, 
it walks unseen, in the midst of all, of us 

we go about our...

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The Scroll of Sorceress:
I do dark arts,
I do allure men to beat drums,
I cast spell through evil eye beads,
My dirty tricks no one reads,
I am someone who never cheats.
I am dark art goddess,
I am wise...

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There was an old lady, a frumpy old bag
who people called horrid, a witch and a hag
And 'though she was ugly and danced 'mid moonbeams
all was not quite as it might've then seemed

Old-fashioned black clothing...

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uniting farcical flocks all over the world,
gregarious garments, talismans & 
little good luck charms required by religions
to ward off “evil spirits,” to separate man
from “god,” or to just protect the fuzzy sheep
from the rest of...

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There was a dense fog upon the land
not a fit night for animal nor man...
the moon did change its silvery view 
replacing it now was a blood red hue....

There just beyond thicket of the marsh...

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Tears are not just drops
That fall from the eyes 
Tears are messages
Were written with an encrypted language 
And need deciphering

Tears are not just drops
That fall from the eyes 
Tears are words
Were written with all languages
And...

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Therewithal, profluent life ettles it's while.
Thitherward, from Death's bleak campanile
Grim antiphonals serenade.

A capriccio, the slashing swipe of the reaper's scythe
 will serenade.
Stringent Death forthwith anoints the mithridate to
Life's cantankerous and rankling ado

Hither now come, anon...

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With shaking hand I write in dimmed light
Strings of words robust burst and slip from my pen
With a grave heart I write
With a frail heart I forgive
It mimicks the sound of life
   ...

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for Aidan in row 5

At the edge of the sky, there is a crimson slash 
seen through the leafy scrolling of trees that soldier 
the perimeter of the lake. Overhead there is only 
gray, as...

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Among the forests of ideas that get lost in dense fogs,
On high cliffs, beliefs carved into the mountain's root,
We stand bound by incantations, by formulas we recite like a litany,
With hearts full of ancient seals,...

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Big ups to my lyrical legends
From ground zero to the heavens they ascend
Crafting with precision they're the artisans 
Their words etched deep, like ancient talismans

Ever vibe to a verse that cuts you to the core
Like...

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Sweet organic scents waft softly 
through the vast and endless valley
where myriads of trees grow in tight rows
marked by long lines of rich, robust soils
that brighten with the rising sun. 

I am happily lost in...

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3.

Death, the Master, wears a thousand faces.
The white smile of the skull
Lies behind the 5 O'Clock shadow
And beneath, perhaps, those laughing eyes
Looking your way across the bar.

When the shock begins to fade I turn off...

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Acts of contrition, on knees if I recount
Beatitudes, eight, sermon on the mount
Charity given, is blessings received
Dalai Lama, a Buddhist deity
Ecumenism, it understands and unites
Fascism erodes individual rights
Gaia, Greek goddess of our mother earth
Heresy, one's...

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To preserve this day, I pick red plums wild
Within my soul, I dream a while
A vision ancient, to me smiles
Of plums growing wild in thickets dark
There for taking by man or lark
Beside running waters where...

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Note: Laura Leiser has been a good friend for several years and was the one who invited me to try Poetry Soup in 2016. She leads a writer's workshop that I am blessed to be...

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Earth left shattered, broken ground
Call of duty raised the dead
Screams are felt, no need for sound
Blazing orange spotted red
Douse the fires with blood shed
Pillaged homes and raided farms
Burning bush may well have said
All men rise...

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Amphibian antiquities from the age of normalcy 
Pathologically festive creatures of the night
Verdant phosphor moon frogs bark their insistent mating call
Adorned with talismans, chanting mantras of maroon heroism 
Conflagration of croaking becomes ritualized war of...

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flag

a train runs over me and mine
indifferent to our
cries its moguls feed without blinking are incredulous
masses going to swell to occasion grace is it
to be sheep suckled on milks of 
savage pride while honey-blessed malnourished
legions...

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1/19/16

That is it
After this
No matter if
The road ahead is hazardous
Beside many establishments
Waters with or without halibuts
And areas where the ground and air has traces of contaminants

Bought her a lot of amethyst
And garnets that were called...

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Gleaming wager’s chart spells filmy odds
And tip triers to toss wee mites for more;
To forfeit modicums of ground for vaster 
Acres wider than the fabled Midas shore.

No curse greater than lost chances fair
Baked and gilded...

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A time to rake; to search embers,
to pore over resurrected,
fire-damaged relics.

On an ancient shore
driftwood, fagots, and reeds
are heaped up onto a pyre of time.

After the fire there is a sorting.
a probing for talismans and trinkets.
Before...

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There was a time when feathers found me like talismans, they came.
Without their down, I was grounded, the sparrow thought to lend me flight.   
Now, neither up, nor down do my eyes go,...

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The
imagined force is recast and concentrated into an inorganic
material.

Intentional,
possessing the owner's future with satisfying
charisma.

The
talisman, as some are known to be, is the resulting
changeover.

Better
days lay ahead of the object holders, who will be the subject of...

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