Long Waifs Poems

1

The drummer beats slowly, the drummer beats loud
     as he beats of humanity wrapped in a shroud.

Well he beats of the rape and the killing of war
     and the mind mangling sorrow we blithely ignore
          and...

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The scent of musty, truly ancient fine books,
Waifs seductively behind the impossible doors, 
As they swing wide, out into L.A.’s balmy air,
I enter, a shiver, over what lies therefore.

There they are, the true Hollywood stars,
Scaling...

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* My take on the theme of my contest. Just for fun. 

A canopy of silvery stars speckle the ebon expanse above me, at once beautiful but at the same time, taunting. For if these...

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London

The tour of London begins
 In the streets of my mind,
  Through past and present
   Intrinsically entwined,
    Through people and places
     It's heart we will...

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Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
alone with the enduring Earth, and Night.
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
who wrestles with his dream; as some pale shape.
Their sharp black heads against a...

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Ah, the glorious damned winter
and the inviting  
gray chill in the air.
I meander 
ever 
so
slowly 
past lawns
strewn 
with a cluttered array
of pagan snow zombies -
staring blankly,
as I obliterate pint-sized
snow angels 
failing to don halos
that...

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The fat director in his piggy mien
 Sitting in opulent oval office,
 Wearing costly French suit
 A delicate silk bow tie,
 While the buttons are straining to keep
 The belly from bursting out,
 In performing...

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My ship of dreams I build no more
I hack to fragments my vain desire
To toss like trash and be ignored.
Upon my filthy, driftwood fire.

To sail the seas and not return
My ship sinks in the straight...

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I got to know her on Pacific Crest Trail's ridge
It was a water shed transition in my life.
With best friend Kim, my wife to be (or not to be) , 
Georgia and Kim already three...

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Blues in the Night.

A malignant moon
shines his metallic claws -
combs my hair and brushes me forward.
I am alone in the shadowy crooks 
of a poisoned metropolis.

A clandestine garbage chute -
where waifs and strays burn
within the...

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If nowadays we have become so wise
And are proud achievers
Who have explored the world from our cradle;
If these days men would hear with their eyes
And men would speak by their actions
And would prefer to reason...

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All avenues are amphibious arenas
Bubbles belch-burst, bitter Bacchanalian bombs
Clouds' cast-iron crescendo creates cold cantankerous caricatures
Drenched - darkness descending, daylight dying, disappearing duskwards
Every eye echoing every eye, emotional evidence enveloped
Fake furs, fashionable fools, firm friends fleeing...

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I WEEP FOR THE DEEPLY DEPRIVED

Weep for the waifs in a world we call the third
The woeful ones with bellies empty of nourishment
They are trapped while Americans remain free as a bird
Children chided by a...

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it is heaven on earth, some say; 
a paradisical playground, 
peopled by bronzed angels in miniature 
and permeated by fragrant incense, by jasmine, 
by the toll of a temple bell.
it is an eastern jungle, 
a...

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New Mexico bears the burdens of its once-sleepy past--
when awakened to join the current century at last.
To give birth to the fledgling Atomic Age
It still wears the perfume of fusion and sage.

They must go to...

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when war approaches, miles away 
it scuttles sideways like a crab
or creeps slowly, slowly and slowly
like a reptile, 
with holocaust claws;

a quick eye sees, 
a smart heart reads, 
at distance. 

war, as you may think,...

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There’s this tiny whisper that should be heard with a mighty roar,
by each and every being, twix each of our shining shores.

While upon life’s journey, feast you upon the many gifts of nature’s plan.
Stoop to...

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"Hurry up!" yells Mom, "the hack is coming 'round the bend!"
Another torturous day of school, won't this agony ever end?
With a fried egg sandwich in my Roy Rogers box for lunch,
I climb aboard to join...

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’Tween hither and thither while wending our way,
skipping, dancing through sand dunes in seascape croquet
and woven in waves watching dolphins at play,
I first tasted her lips in the ocean’s wild spray.

Mystic moonbeams, suffusing clouds’ shimmering...

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"Sometimes things only become clear when we are old enough to grasp what the universe is trying to tell us."   ~~The Poet~~


Had it been labelled charity?
Gazing at that star of clarity.

Watching it make...

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/Locks and Clocks

We change locks
like we change clocks, 
	as flippantly as daylight dims,
	as easily as days grow slim; 
		we try to bolt the sunlight out
		with combinations masked in doubt
	to shorter hours, as if we could
	feel...

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Relatives hanging out of every orifice, window, ledge, and lawn chair
Hands out, the two starving children beg as people walk by, ignoring them.
In Great-grandma McCormick’s teeny tiny farm house, during family reunion.
No more bowls of...

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The children sang “This Little Light of Mine,
Hide it under a bushel, NO! I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!”

My heart was touched by their sincerity,
For they put into...

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So strange this land, old and yet young.
Where is this place of tall green trees,
and grey-haired men in unknown tongue?
they must have traveled summer's breeze.

Adobe brick quonset "chalets"
mud-soaked roadways in all the blocks.
WACs and wives...

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The eve of darkness they come out to play
creepy crawly with our senses. The street
wise, the waifs, the tiny cherubs all blend
together to form a society of sorts that is
out of step with time; they...

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