Carnival That peacock opulence, Swarming on strutting grime; That massed ecstasy, squeezing itself, Short-breathed, near suffocation; That sound-abandonment, seeming to plunge To deafness’s peace; Yet keeping those maimed faculties alive, Ever denying their last fulfilment. Maybe it’s only I and it, I, starting in the middle And it, commensurate with my idea Of my own size? Maybe I […]
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Rethinking Things – By Gil Hoy I should have married a computer with high-speed internet at an early age. I wouldn’t have needed so much school. Just search for “Most useful info” and read on for four years. Grad school? Just search: “Most useful info—advanced.” It’s all there. If Bill Gates had thought of this, he could really truly […]
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The Cross Near the Edge A too small cross in a big wayside shrine amidst the fields on the fertile loess soil, soon to be devoured by the bucket wheel excavator, a monstrous word for an even more monstrous machine. The shrine made of dark red brick, plain, simple, solid, almost for eternity, like the many farmhouses here; […]
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Darker by Mike MatterThe lights linger through the ache in my head and a smile flashes for an instant The memory of a past and future to preoccupy me mindfully paces before my the end of day and I type once more in victory and defeat while settling for a middle ground like a battlefield where the warhorse struggles in […]
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An Act of the Will If love’s real, not the puppy kind, it’s not just a feeling but an act of the will a constant giving whether one feels like it or not. After many years you don’t know why you’re doing it or why It must be done. Two begin as grapes purple with passion unaware you’ll be raisins wrinkling at the end.
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RELEASE – By Roger Singer Strong pulses water my eyes as I fail under collapse of trying to control, to stand or sit. My feet, weak, pull at my legs, like gravity forcing the moon to fall. The grief backed up my breaths, choking the air within me like cold thick soup. I gasped to free […]
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Sylvia’s Son I was wrapped in a towel like a bad dream, wet feet on linoleum. I was too preoccupied to see the cracked blood, to hear the silence until I was knee- deep in your tomb. Sometimes, I dreamt you were a baby being born, waking to a pain that was not yours, a motherhood I never had. It […]
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DON’T LET THE SUN GO DOWN ON YOU (Based on the article “No Welcome Home” in The History Channel Magazine, January/February 2008, pp. 40-45; and other Internet sources) Ever hear of Sundown Town? Likely not, few tales around. History kept underground Lest embarrassment be found. Born and raised in Illinois, Town of Anna, since a boy? Went […]
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PALL MALL The Mall which I frequented Has now been left for dead. The thriving shops oncesplendid To other haunts have fled. Where once there was a FoodCourt Are now just empty chairs. No Kiddie Train to transport Their laughter here to there. My decade past resembles The fate of this sad Mall. Where once I crowdsassembled, […]
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Nocturne Small specks at night Made light of all our thoughts Which grew, in wonder, And burned the flesh that knew them And found the first thoughts, the controlled desires, the boxed fires the thrusting shields. And spoke behind the pauses, And thought between the brain-tissues, And swarmed through infinite cells, And crowded out the millions And burned […]
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