Long Tallying Poems

The emotional, mental and spiritual fallout courtesy Colt Gray

Apalachee High School,
located in Winder, Georgia
witnessed an active shooter,
whereby the alleged lone gunman
(actually just a teenager of fourteen years)
killed four people and injured nine more
the latter hospitalized with...

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Pellucid pachyderms wade across
the purpling River Manjees
and Tozzath watches from the bank, 
the seat of his maroon pantaloons soaked with mud,
his nostrils flaring with the fragrance of ombadalias,
whose lacey petals flutter
like the wings of long-dead...

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All hope was vain and nothing could atone
for deeds beyond atrocity defined.
These demagogues turned nation hearts to stone
through apathy and rhetoric maligned.
Though hell’s regime forged mechanized deceit,
the mighty Bear bore guilt for kindred aims.
Barbarity would...

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Voting day at long last has arrived.
Scrambling through closet,
a cavernous space in accumulation.
In the deepest darkest corner, 
purpose achieved, 
garnering my three by five inch American flag,
glorious yet demure.

This my opportunity to come out of...

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great expectations
anticipated in the 
poetic heart 
Havisham delivered
all and more for love, 
a separate unseen thief, 
tore the others’ worlds apart

webs like ectoplasm
from underneath a rock
scurrying swiftly out of sight
wrapped tight around a child
dressed in...

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All hail thy – sweet – small – courtesies of life.
For smooth do they make the road of it.
Grace and beauty – they cut so deep not unlike a knife -
They beg all inclinations toward...

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When the frustration with self and poetry
can be described as the perfect spiral attempt of the peeling of an orange 

Investing so much time into perfecting something that matters to no one

It's a creation, a...

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The ammunition greased casings pepper skull and cross lovely bones, 
   lightening speedily deals mortal blow persons unaware,
   the final minutes/seconds of lives leased
shorn of existence, and akin to sheared sheep,...

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Belts, switches, bricks, and near misses
Broken boys starring as established men
Police whistles, leather shoes clamouring
down city  alleyways slick as a polished floor.
White clubs swing, black heads snap
against the dingy lines that hold
brick walls together. The devil...

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It was a sultry summer day,
The air lay thick and still.
The leaves hung flaccid on the trees,
As if slumbering in a deep sleep.

No birds were to be heard
For they were hiding from the heat.
The awful...

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Sugar is so sweet!
Pale light shines through the liquid
Sweet as it can be!
                      ...

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It's like some rotten little joke
That your kindergarten teacher spoke
All of God's things get broke and it's we must fix 'em
The bones in your body, snapped in half
The tree on your house while your wife's...

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Man has mused over life’s origin for ages.
The thoughts and treatises of the sages,
filling tall tomes tallying thousands of pages,
tell of evolution in stages over millions of ages.

Life, some say was sparked by lightning arcs.
Amino...

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Written: February 28, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Robert James Liguori

               ***********************
I long to explore 
the depth of your flummoxed mind,
fathom...

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Written By:  D. Collins 7/14/23


Karma is nothing but how we choose to live.
Whether we take from, or have the heart to give.
Things we have done, may creep up 10 years later.
Like a person we...

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People can save the world by the way they think and by the way they behave and what they hold to be important. By Cyndi Lauper



To utterly assume someone else's position
Hide under a mask and...

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Sinister snarling swindling scandalous scoundrels secretly slither shamelessly
Implicitly interrogated ‘bout innermost insidious illegitimate impertinences
Ghastly Grotesque grimacing gumption gorging gruesome gimmicky gossip
Netherworld’s nauseating narcissistic nefarious nature nibbling at naiveté

Obnoxious oppressors outrageously ostracizing offspring to oblivion
Facetiously fondling...

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Abundant wisdom appears to be lacking
Behind the halls of our venerable House.
Could it be our seers are slacking,
Drowned in the spittle of an untenable grouse,
Even now as our country falters?
Fickle spats and t.v. preening
Gives away...

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Hushed mystic quests esoteric intellect
As quietude permeates domain of truth
Ruminating about things done and said
Reflecting upon the avenues of regrets
Reminiscing on boulevards of conquests
Tallying up all the triumphs and defeats
Wailing in futility of feats and...

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I was at my neighbourhood café
Come to hide and read quietly
As I so often love to do
In my favourite little corner
My latte was especially smooth
My story particularly captivating
How better to relax on a lazy afternoon
Life...

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I'm in charge of everything.
It's my responsibility,
To keep control of everything,
Maintaining the tranquility,

Of everything and everyone,
And see that all runs well;
For this workplace is my domain,
I watch the rise and swell,

Of all the comp'ny's status...

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There’s a piece of sheetrock in my aunts house.
That’s newer than the rest of the pieces.
It hasn’t experienced the joyful times
The rest of the ceiling has.
I remember the days when life was normal,
Before that orange...

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Not that anyone asked,
but it does seem to me
that Donald Trump overrates himself as an effective politician
more than Merryl Streep is overrated as an effective political actress.

And, while we're responding to self-glorifying tweets,
perhaps we might...

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I don't know
that love has a 
bucket list,

a program best
to follow...and
writers do seem often
inclined more amorous 
of
text...

especially us poets, flag
carriers of the heart,

seldom an emotion
not expressed
by pen in part

like an accountant
tallying feelings
numbers his bread
and butter

one...

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I fully remember my earlier life completely as a man
People of my village used to call me Phony
Who was killed with a shot gun fired at close range.
The reason was I made a pretty girl...

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