Short Untenable Poems

the draw to you is untenable,
unformed yet perpetual,
tentatively checked, indirect,
corrected...
irreversibly defined.

and this distance is appreciable,
pining, yet unspeakable,
wandering dazed and crazed,
directed...
unrequited but aligned...

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Did you say you are sorry, my friend,
With a genuine feeling of humble contrition, 
Or was your “Sorry about that!” a means to an end,
To change your ill-considered, untenable position
Without regard for my miserable condition?

written January 23, 2022...

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Steppin’ Off 
My Platform 


I
Will 
Miss you,
It’s only so long
And not a swan song
I have projects awaiting 
They need some attention
An untenable encumbrance
Far too many to mention 
So I’ll be takin’ time out
Or bound to get worse
September First
Steppin’ off

...

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Inhale


my heartbeat slows,
blood sluggish
through stenotic vessels
unwilling to expand,
to breathe
to let blood flow

untenable, this suffocation
this dampening
it speaks of tired eyes,
of stolid limbs,
of stultified need

torpid blood,
when will you give up
your self-imposed stricture,
your closely guarded fear,
your wariness

and inhale...

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He rode the endless desert
As the days ran together in it

At first it was what he needed
But being alone finally exceeded

What he felt being the only law
In the Australian desert cut to the craw

He visited the homesteads occasionally 
And saw Aborigines living their life free

But one day when the heat was unbearable 
Life untenable he hung himself from a tree.

© Paul Warren Poetry...

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What unspeakable secrets
he conceals in his mind,
What spiteful thoughts 
he sweeps under the rug 
of his conscience,
what untenable desires
he breeds in his heart?

No heavens can compare
them in their complexity,
No oceans match their depth,
No erupting volcanoes
can match in their fury 
No vicious hurricanes
match their destructive force;

Man, thou art the quirk of nature!


~Brian Strand contest...

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Is cruelty hiding in the stars deceitful play?
What a waste of heart; for them to lie in silence as dying art

For their lights just untenable promises made,
Giants: long gone before we see them as something smart

I envy their brilliance cast in prior eons relayed
Death riding light waves, but arriving late for the start 

So, in the face of the most enormous losses, is hope conveyed?
Or does something big have to leave, for brightness to depart?...

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