Short Jailers Poems

Aphotic beneath countless depths 
energy fleeting, gloom haunting 
insipid jailers keep locks metaphorical 
never owning peace, quarrel, rage, surrender 
torture understated, verve waned 
xanthic ylem zombie...

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He said what he had to say
to tell the story
He did what he had to do
to rescue time
He paid what he had to pay
to bribe the jailers
He gave what he had to give
—per Gertrude Stein

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)...

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If writing is a crime 
I will write on my jailers prison walls 
Until my bare nails bleed
Till Deaf and Blind
The truth beneath the words I find 
Will bind me longer
Than the solitude of any walls 
You place before me
Because life got to me before the...

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All I gotta do
Is die
For those wings
To set
And fly
Skirt
The lows of time
Before I am asked
Again
To dine
And 
If I were
An Albatross
Sailors of yore
Would call
And point
Smile upon my path
Rejoice
In the omen
Of my presence
Before
The wind picks up
And I 
Fade
Into cloud an time
Where we are
But memories
Imprinted upon
A verse
That slowly spins
Around
That void
Death
You are not
My curse
Just my jailers 
Key...

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Feel captivities firm grip smother out the fun, 
The stretch of its reach felt with each pass of the sun; 

Metal doors slam shut, rumbling its echo down the hall, 
Now come jail bar shadows to lurk upon the night wall; 

There would come death to silence but for the jailers' keys, 
To rattle the quite where freedom none sees; 

Moment by moment goes time so deep to know, 
Where the inuring gloom of imprisonment, time creeps so very slow;...

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to the tune of Home on the Range

In the woods, in the gloam
There’s a muttering gnome
Like his mind, he’s wandered away
And he should be interred
Yes, the thought has occurred
But the jailers would not last a day

Big daddy’s deranged
He’s losing it more every day
He makes up strange words
And it all sounds absurd
But the kids do not care anyway

—————

Some of the many happy verses Vivian
was subjected to singing and walking in the woods.
...

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