Category: Poems
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An Anthem for our Times
A nation breathes a sigh relieved By the comfort of the tolling knells, As a month of “Guiltys” ring the alarm Across the land alerting all You can’t outpace the steps of Justice. But in the distance a black man tries To out-run a speeding bullet!
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Jogging in Central Park
The blood-eyes blank in the ski-mask slits, A fistful of hair beneath her. The knife on top, its tip at her tits, Stilled even the faintest shudder. Beyond the hedged-in grassy glade, The birds oblivious winging, Still on her ears her iPod played, Her favorite song kept singing. His smell osmosed into her…
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Stopping By Woods
Here I’m reading a favorite of mine. Robert Frost’s Brilliantly simple poem. Stopping By Woods
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Displaced
The sky’s so vast here in the Midwest Stretching like a giant rainbow reaching Side to side across the earth. Some days I wonder if I climb up high Could I just see my home from here? But there are no tall trees in the prairie, The highest thing a dormitory. On rainy days droplets…
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For Lorraine
When Do I Miss You? I miss you in the morning scurrying With side-long glances hurrying Into the business of the afternoon. I miss you in my walkabout Tom’s half-deserted streets Filled with the bleats Of unanswerable questions… I miss you in the past when you were not, And yet you were… And in the…
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City Notes
Family Portrait Eight-year-old Ann-Marie drinks her milk. The edge of morning slices through a slat At the glasses asleep in pools of sweat. Picking her way through stubble fields Of a riotous night her day breaks Into shards of sharp memories strewn Cut, bruised, and sleeping about the flat With mum and reveling strangers and…
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I Traveled to an Ancient Land
I traveled to an ancient land, Where mountains dive into the sea. And in the black volcanic sand My startled footprints followed me Like harrying questions nipping at my heels, Springing from the ground to hound My rootlessness with furious queries. Is this for me? This land of broken promises? Not this but that I…
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Cruel April
This pitiless April morning I threw open my door And there in a collapsed heap was an exhausted traveler, Her straggly hair like struggling dandelions on her back, And limbs splayed out like denuded twigs on a bare tree. I looked and saw her still alive and asked her name, “Spring,” she whispered, “Midwestern Spring,”…
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Autumn Leaves
In the nostalgia of fall I marvel at the red and gold of gorgeous death as leaves yield the salad greenness of their youth to the decadence of nature’s inexorable cycle. Is this not the most beautiful quadrant of the year, this “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” as John Keats called it? How easily…
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Winter
Snowflakes on my recoiling cheek, Like an unwanted lover’s caresses Brushed away abruptly. We’ve been together too long And I must away in search Of warm embraces. Your lips and hands blue My shivering skin, keep My bed cold, chill My tropical genes… Every time we break up, You return to seduce me With your…