Category: free verse
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Reflections
~The swell and billow of a cloud in the blue hand of the sky. The slowness of its permutations, and how it imagines into life these tiny brown birds who poke about the lawn in their tweedy jackets. Above, three gulls- raucous captains of the currents. Those rude overseers.~
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November neighborhood
In the switched-off kitchen I peered through drapes of grey lace, transfixed at the sight: a mirror hall of backyard infinities, benighted in a mute of blue. The straight rise of chimney smokes seeping secrets into heaven.
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At the beach, in morning fog
At water’s edge I plied the sand for vacant shells and stones to skip, so flat. There, there was a tree that had given up, acute in its angle, embarrassed at the nakedness of its bleached roots. Close by, an eyeless carcass grinned, in the throes of its last hysterics. [Image: https://pixabay.com/users/jamesdemers-3416/%5D
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Rawhide
Move on, we must. In boxes and bins, I carry my proxy love to the Stow-Away garage. Outside, the smirking cat has his wild bones on, drawing a bead on a tattered squirrel that curves down a dead-bowed limb. Night In the lush bush, there’s something that laughs. Treed, in a frightful dream it lolls,…
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Packing my bags
An apprehensionof not knowing the next move An assumed wordleft outthat should have been there The world goes cartoonish Walk with mefor I may not know the way Talk with mefor I know not what to say Do not trust meanymorefor I am poor and I watch a different show
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Night shift
This is wee, the hour. I play coy with sleep, thinking that if I ignore it and feign that I am fighting it, it will engulf me out of spite. But no. Its navigator plies me with pages from afternoon fades, jukes in studied loops. Sheep have gone out of style, I think.
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Dirty birds
Down here, tonight, on the green ground, it’s quiet and still, vacuumed. I look up, by chance, to test for rain. The darkening clouds sail, like a float of smoke. A diamond of dirty gulls rides the breeze, like flying M’s, and I fancy I feel feather fluff and whoosh of wings
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Dramaturge
I was one for Drama, but the frame was the thing. I wanted only to be the swelling strings, the muted xylophone, the kettle drum tympanic. I would whip the most mundane into the unforgettable. Make you think your sadness into music. All in allegory of our mad desires.
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Keep your focus, please
Detect the fault lines in a stubborn peanut shell Wet-nose the whiskery cat Feel the points he makes out of soft pads Let the large leaf ant explore your jungle Unite or untie your ganglion knots Sniff a crocus keep your focus
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Weird girl
She felt like a foot with uniform toes. Something to cover, but familial to her apartness. In her years, she picked up tools both shiny and showy, but of the wrong life. Fools’ gold, valued as real, was lost on her. Untrainable. Mulish, they said. Others of us knew differently.
Aremyfeetofftheground 