Short Asthmatic Poems

justice sweats under its weight- an asthmatic laboring for its  breath...

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There is snow on her coat, her muff, and her eyelashes
She has run up the hill in spurts and weird little dashes
Her breathing is labored, she remembers now she is an asthmatic
Her inhaler is where? Too bad carrying it with her is not automatic...

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Unseen, pollen floats suspended…

Asthmatic reactions in stratos.



Although a landscape looks barren…

Organism legions live in strata.


Salt water is so prevalent…

Thirsty humans can’t drink frothy surf.


*For the Sky, Soil and Sea contest....

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old train whistling like an asthmatic
coal fire and soot, thoughts
deranged loosely connec-
ted salad of words
withdrawal at the last instant
birth of a celestial monster
bizarre postures purpose-
less agitations catatonic
excitements, waxy flex-
ible stupour...

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Empty as a new house
Without the eagerness to move in.
The struggle to breathe
Is almost asthmatic.
Tornado-like force
Sucks away any life within.
The smile on her face, so fake
Yet a plastic surgeon would be fooled.

But they don't care
They never did care.....

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      Daffodils on rolling hills
         Tulips in full bloom
       A rose emerges every hour
         Aroma of peonies in my room

       Dad burn it, I Hate Spring
         It’s far too aromatic
       Earth's rebirth blots out mine
         ~ Alas, I’m highly asthmatic
...

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As the snow is
tidal in the trees,
consider the tracks

and the dark tons
asthmatic with steam,
cold as the moon`s slight

black as the stars are hidden,
perfect as a pulse of wheel;
dead crate of steel

that rests and waits
then moves by magic
quiet through the ice night....

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Chickens we consign to coops
    Pigs we pack into pens
  Horses we corral in a stable
    Cows we stick in a shed

  Our children play in spacious playpens
    at night, like roses, they sleep in a bed
  Yet animals have fun, they feed and frolic
    ~ while asthmatic youngsters develop colic...

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Beyond the gates,
Where the old bakery stood,
Was a memory of cold hands and 
The saving glittering gems of the jelly doughnut.
Then late for practice and asthmatic from suicides.
My mother's voice calling in the wind.
When is it all reconstructed the right way?
Under what gray moon do things flutter with meaning
As deep as our bones?...

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My friend always says “we need to get together soon”
She is a phone friend.
I remind her that I am not going anywhere unless it is forty degrees.
I am an asthmatic.
Cold air triggers my respiratory infection and pneumonia.
I reiterate this twice during this phone call.
“It’ll be forty degrees tomorrow,” she says.
My pause does not last two seconds.
“I don’t want to,” I reply....

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At age ten, I found a trunk in the attic
full of leather-bound books and tied up comics.
Luckily they weren't dusty; I'm asthmatic,
dad scored them cheap base on street economics
but my recall’s somewhat melodramatic.
But for years, leery of Russian atomics
I would hide in the attic; my special place,
and read a book, from Shakespeare to outer space.


(Rispetto)
Feb. 1, 2019...

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The heavy, white powdered legs
of snow-sticky trees arches
the tunnel of street down the 
winding lane of Sunday morning
go-to-meeting church time full
of winter and children and rubber
shells of withered winter apples
used for snowmen's eyes like
asthmatic Shriners dirt-coated in
too-warm winter sun melting,
rolling, packing days of second
childhood smashed like crystal
snowballs in the future
of those green apple eyes....

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The Gray Park

Our parks, are slowly covered in gray
Devoured by steel, A cement buffet.

Business is booming, but at what cost I ask
Of course not the dollar!
I refer to green obstruction, a disagreeable task

Coughing and sputtering is not reserved for cars
as asthmatic patients suffer from smog, like non smothered cigars

My park remains green, but for how long I wonder?
The gray park gains on the green, construction loud like thunder...

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