Short Grates On Poems

Urban decay's a haunting beauty
Darkness swirling from drain grates and
Breaths of transforming souls....

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Tunneling
Underground
Smelling
Life
Filtering
City
Grates-
Horn
Cacophony
Plays
Base
Backdrop
In
Temporal
Darkness...

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Four pedals rusting --

screech of  bikes

grates love’s uphill climb




................
Biker’s Dozen for Maureen McGreavy
10/3/2018...

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The laggard oak leaves
skitter like brown field mice
their stem-tails and sharp edges
scratching across the road.
Grates and bushes trap them.
Layering they accumulate
awaiting the recomposition of life....

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Listen to poem:

When shovels scrape
and make screeches 
like fingernail grates 
on blackboards,
you know the job
is almost done.
As shovels designed to scoop,
when flipped over and made to rake,
shriek their embarrassment....

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sweetcorn tied snug to a white pillar 
tobacco leaf em-prisoner of soul 
seasonal grey ragged tint 
cancer causer to rot 
a beady black eye 
the war tattoo 
calls bodies 
rusting 
grates 



7/1/19
written by James Edward Lee Sr.  ©2019...

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Gorillas grow growly gruffy grouchy grampas
Giving grateful gremlins grassy growth plates
Glassy glistening glowing glaring glimmers of globes
Groovy grizzly gristleworms gracefully grifting grandmas
Grandiose grimlets grabbing growling gracious grates....

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swing low,cheerio.please if you should go before me,tell them I'm am coming too.let the heavens await my coming,i have one more round to run then my race would be over,i would have run a full race.lived a life of no re-grates,until then tell them am coming too  ....

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From a threadbare reverie
Of nights disheveled
An aching solitude grates
Betrayal wrestled--
Howl endures love’s  stain
As rage bears cold quietude
Words cannot explain.


Seguidilla Contest of nette onclaud
Sept 13, 2017
7- 5-  7- 5- 5-  7- 5 ...

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Snow banked high against the gate
Walking to school,never late

Milk left solid on the cill
Ears well muffled,against the chill

Rationed coal,eked ,bit by bit
Fire grates, so rarely lit.

Nights of cold,run into weeks
'Til grass through iron soil,peeked....

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It's so easy to fall asleep in the teacher's room.
It's a sanctuary, silent of children.
Hearing people speak in even conversational tones
Grates like chatter in church.
I don't knock out like that anywhere, but I do there.
And then I leave work to drive to the city,
and float in my car....

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If I move, she grooves
If I shake, she bakes
If I tell, she yells
If I date, she grates
If I groan, she moans. 
 
I am right here,
She is over there
I'm making, she's faking. 
She's day, I'm night.
 
We don't fight?
We do
For we're sisters.
 
And we’re
This, too:
 
Opposites....

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Covid is a lie she tells me, hoping for an argument.
My silence probably grates her.
All news is false except for my news station, she goads me.
I do not roll my finger around my ear or make the L sign on my forehead.
I congratulate myself on my restraint.
Finally feeling like a grown up....

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Winter wears on my patience.
Dim dreary days – the grey
grinds and grates the spirit. 
Sleet slushes the street.

I don’t even ask for spring.

Grant me a blizzard
or a biting freeze with inky skies,
just something
to lift the weariness
that has wormed into my mind
and paralyzes.

2/12/2018...

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Shake out the trembles that restrain you
Walk upright in a downward glanced world

Shake the hand that refuses you

Smile at the demons that control you
Relive the moments that embarrass you 

Grovel in the sand that grates you
Reach out to enemies that flog you

Live

            Live


01/16/12
© All Rights Reserved...

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Old Pattie just cannot stop talking
Voice grates like a mallard duck squawking
Can't you just be quiet ?
For once you should try it
Her hen pecked husband left walking!

Written after we went out tonight - this woman would not shut up and in the end her hubby just walked out of the room


6/10/18...

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I serenade my wife each night
With songs both old and new
To show how much I love her
It just seems the thing to do

But she is not enamoured
To hear my dulcet tones
She says it's just annoying
And it grates upon her bones

She says “just you keep quiet,
And I'll tell you this for free
If you don't stop your racket
You'll get nothing for your tea”...

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What are we without Hope?

She sings to us pleasantly
Melodies of dream
She whispers to us sweetly
Driving us to
Our knees

Hope plays instruments
Of flesh and bone
Picking the strings
As time grates on
An ensemble of fish and line

Hope is a huntress
A rabbit ensnared 
Lured by scent
Of blaze orange salvation
A truly deceiving mistress

Is Hope...

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I will remember
most shades of gray hues
as waves of tears ebb,
staining night’s inked breath
while lost esteem grates;

my heart grows numb
pressed by doubt’s weeds
till glints of light
filter moist eyes...

soft breeze hums
dulcet chime
to whisper,

‘love glows
within

me’




By: nette onclaud
Form: Diminished Hexaverse
Topic: Love yourself Contest...

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Group of gals
Yeah we're pals!

She went to jail
Let's laugh about bail!

My child self shines through
As my inner self grew!

Lovely ladies laughs about that pilates
Bellyaches hurt at all that grates!

Now becomes funny thinking of honey
Jump up and down, it's sunny!

That celebrity from Laugh in does it well
Doctors orders as endorphins do so kindly swell!...

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He leans against
the silent factory
as bustling parrots
regard his plight
with heartfelt indifference
bathed in the glow
of touchscreen devices
and the notion of
absolution through
repetition.

Heels clack firm
paced on schedules
trampling the dust
into pavement cracked
and pocked like
the lamentable stares
of cardboard refugees
sprawled limp beside
grates pumping
exhaust....

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dry white snow rasps the asphalt
attempting to reclaim the purity
of a metropolitan morning

coating the concrete pillars
brushing with tender touches
the grates and allies

dusting the bottom lands
of bordering belted swamps
with leggy aplomb

the icy shavings take flight
on the whoosh of winter
in hushed whispers they move on


First Published by The Tishman Review January 2015...

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Worry wears a face
Odd and out of place
Pain grates time and space


Self-destruct stands tall
Confronts bitter gall
Growing big from small


A tiny spark flares
In silly affair
Lies tinge the strange air


Drama in wrong gaze
Fashions bitter maze
Worry sculpts sure craze


Watch fear blooming fear
Drowning all good cheer
Watch how faith dies here




Leon Enriquez
21 May 2017
Singapore...

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The cook with the dirty fingernails
breaks the yellow cap on the egg...
The intestines of the coffee machine
are impossible to clean-as far as I can see.
The blue people don't seem to mind
they keep gurgling up from the grates
to gorge on average cuisine.

This dirty diner is the soul of the community
serving dirty coffee and dirty eggs 
to dusty customers...
location location location-always trumps quality....

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When evening’s bass tone whips a refrain
Strummed by an old man  in our country yard; 
A most haunting string--movement  dims the air
Reminiscent of my young, bygone days. 

His fiddle plucks through my  hidden places
Where the touch   wails   speak through acoustic waves
Dragging notes  from  torn memories’ past
While first love grates … as  I think of blackbirds.



Brian's Choice 7 for Brian Strand...

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