A-PATHETIC Expecting the bad, receiving the worse, To pessimist’s just what’s par for the course. But when it devolves from worse to the worst, Seems even a pessimist can feel cursed. A cynic’s convinced whatever is right Cannot be achieved without quite a fight. But when this proves futile, he even might Retreat apathetically out of sight. A […]
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With her name in your mouth more than a word, a morning and everywhere on Earth at the same time, in daylight though once every year you eat an apple in silence as if a whisper could pull the stars down closer and closer to one another and from your mouth a second sun that has […]
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Sometimes I wonder If I have anything left to give Any small pieces of myself left to share I feel too broken Too worn out Thread bare and bone-tired I search myself and find nothing worthy My emotions, my words are hollow My heart is emptier than my belly I feel it gnawing away within me Desperate for something to […]
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Shaping the Internal Of course it’s about the words… their weight, their meaning. Stringing them, placing them, cutting them. Wielding them with passion, fury, and sometimes… regret. With careful measure given to every syllable, every pause. For words are both weapon and salve. Love and hate. Kind and malicious. Words take root deep within. They linger long into […]
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Intrusion Forced entry into caves, mud huts, castles, log cabins, condos, has been a constant, despite best efforts of self defense, violent penetration usually resulting in looting, rape, slaughter, violation of the dwelling, yet more survive in modern times, courtesy of better law and order. Gary Beck/Ignition Point ‘Ignition Point’ is an unpublished poetry collection that looks at […]
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When I pile up cut tomatoes, red onion, and radishes on top of romaine lettuce, I think of the hands that picked, cleaned, packed, and loaded them on trucks, carried them to cold rooms arranged them on shelves. As I remember stories of my father, a new comer a child-laborer in another era in another country, I say a […]
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DO-OVER (Inspired while watching “United 93,” the one flight that was prevented by its heroic passengers from fulfilling its mission of murder on September 11, 2001) If you could go back To one time and place, Stop accursed attack On the human race, Could you simply choose (Knowing what you know) Holocaust of Jews? Nine-eleven’s blow? […]
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QUESTIONABLE CHOICE Gathered at the water hole Primates lacking hair. Cover selves from neck to toe Lest reveal what’s there. Feeding till they’re satisfied, Drinking till they’re full. Elders showing sagging hides From the planet’s pull. Try imagining these apes “Masters of the Earth,” Guzzling down fermented grapes, Adding to their girth. Evolution must have […]
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I. As suspicious of the morning as I am thankful for the night, I no longer follow bird flight, the sinking of the violated sun. Mouthing a dialect of short checks and charity wards, I stare at a wasting life, unhappy, aging, unhealthy. Sympathies have been trained out of me. The elegance in a sniper’s logic is what remains. […]
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A Nuclear Childhood What if your parents had never met had never married had never yelled at each other and instead had wed someone they loved and lived peacefully all those years. That would have been their Eden but you shaking there now decades later wouldn’t be with us cursing the tremors of a […]
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