Category: Poetry
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Storyteller
A storyteller I be With words Crashing against The boulders of life, Smoothing the hard edges With laughter And a pause For the moments When I’ve made People forget Where they are. A story teller, I be.
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Nothing on TV
Nothing on TV We stumble upon the graves Of those who spoke up When we wouldn’t Listen. Their words Of justice Fell silently In this terrible forest Of complacency, Of convenience, Of nothing on TV.
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Repurpose
I’m going to a cabin Somewhere To write Haiku And drink coffee While I remove the bullets From too many years of Losing myself In unimportant purposes. It may take years. To fix the mistake Of missing the first snowfall On the lone cedar.
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Who Am I?
Mystery About Me I am a mystery In search of a clue About who I am And why I do What I do.
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How To Remember Me
How To Remember Me I want to be That last explosion at a fireworks show, Leaning over the horizon Glowing brightly, Floating gently To the ground. Look for me If you want, But I’ll be All burned Up.
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Haunting Memory
The Cats Waiting For her son To come home She said Have the cats been fed. Have the cats been fed? No, they’re dead, Have the cats been fed Was in her head, Have the cats Been fed Is all she said Now that Her son was Dead. (I was a newspaper reporter…
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The Stench of an Unpublished Novel
The door opens to the stench Of an unpublished novel, Crumpled papers, scattered like tumbleweed, Roll across the wood floor Until they rest against A barbed wire wall. He raises his head from the desk and Wails like a wolf hungry for prey.
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5150
I didn’t know until yesterday that April was Poetry Month. I don’t like designating months for this or that, still I wrote this poem last week, “5150,” which refers to a section of California law that allows police to take into custody a person acting weirdly. My poetry is developed while I drive, usually on…
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Free Lunch
In honor of my stand-up beat improvisations of decades ago, I came up with something new this week that I would not put on my resume: Free Lunch I want the free lunch No strings attached Sirloin steak with all the fat Leave the explanations for somebody’s cat I want the free lunch No strings…