Short Fitfully Poems

frisky flowers fly

feet foxtrot fitfully

fun fuchsia frolics...

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Chlorophyll,
dissected hearts,
painfully
realized.
Atom bomb,
broken glass,
finally
putrefied.
Sanctuary,
is absurd,
heavenly,
dramatized.
Warming sun,
fragrant bloom,
fitfully,
cauterized....

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As I lay in my bed lit room
I mutter to myself silently
"Powerless I feel"
But, compelled to thrive 
Maddened by intruders 
Yet mastered fitfully my role in life 
Formless doesn't exist in my vocabulary 
I will quench onto faith for evermore...

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her place smells like lavender
or violets
i've slept here many times before
but never well
never fitfully
alien atmosphere i suppose
the bare bulbs in the bathroom
kill my shadow
i'm a stranger in the kitchen
smoking weed on the couch
pissing in the tiolet
and screwing her in the shower
intimately removed
she wants me to move in
i miss her already...

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I fitfully half-slept in our half empty bed,
Reaching for my lover,
Assuming you were dead.

Sweet word touched not my longing.
Passion's urge over 
N'er rang my yearning phone.

I died a little bit more each lonely day,
Praying if lost
You would perhaps somehow find your way ...

Then, happening stumbled to my very door,
And such the cost
When I saw you've been with her, your whore....

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The Fifth of July

The noise is over now
celebrants nurse their foolishness
a small dog peeks out from under a bed
children sleep fitfully above.
Ah, the Fifth of July
battle strewn lawns show evidence
of our independence.
The acrid scent of fireworks lingers
mingled in wisps of fading smoke.
Birds warily peek from the trees.
“The Spirit of Seventy Six”
awakening from freedom’s festival.


John G. Lawless
©7/5/2019...

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And the Rest is...Restful/Restless


tonight

At last, he sleeps
beneath the stars and,
for once, beneath the grass.


tonight

at last, she sleeps
beneath the stars and
for once, above her horse.

tonight

One sleeps peacefully
one, fitfully.
One free,
one free of free.

tonight

Both sleep.

tomorrow

One rises,
one sleeps

a mother,
her horse.

tonight
One dreams of tomorrow.
tonight
One dreams of yesterdays....

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The day was of spring, 
Very warm and damp
The sun shone fitfully
A day that harbors with it brightness

It was a night that carries no signal
Owl was not in sight
Neither was its voice heard
But it was a night of the owl 

It speaks ominous dialect
Utterly different from the day’s language
Its parlance we could not understand
It was a night of bully.





Alayande Stephen T.
August 3rd, 2008
11.38pm

At the Kitchen Republic,
NYSC Camp, Yikpata, Kwara State....

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Take two and a half peach, one blue round three elongated white.
My eyes are blurry; I cannot see any longer. My right hand is asleep.
Now my left hand is asleep.
I climb back into bed 
Wait. This is only part of the morning dose?
The only one I know for sure is Benadryl.
It is bright pink.
Taking pills upon pills.
I smell medicine when I take a whiff of myself.
Fitfully wondering ….would I be well if I stopped
taking all of this stuff cold turkey?
Dare I?
I believe I do....

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She has a fever.
I leave her dozing fitfully on the veranda.
Halfway to the woods there is a farm gate
where she will often squat
and piss.
The grass is brown, but still thrives,
strangely adapted to uric rain.
Paris the giant poodle is here,
his nose a rapier seeking past and present.
Several dogs from good families arrive
to vie with each other
in search of her ‘wherefore art thou?’
Tragically, Romeo (a bulldog neutered last week),
today plays alone
with his squeaky bone....

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