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Life…
“Life is what you make it,”
They told me. So
I made mine
sit down and
shut up.
I stuffed it
into a small, neat,
square and shiny
box.
I crammed a
ball gag
in its mouth
lest it embarrass me or
scream for help.
I chastised it
for coloring
outside the lines,
for singing too loud
in the shower—
for thinking for itself.
when my life
dared – to fidget,
I tied its hands together
with
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Sick Day
I’m taking the day off
to mourn my life
which is not something
I can do at work
surrounded by computers
and codes.
Grief and regret – that one
we’re implored to deny –
can’t be codified.
They can be washed in tears
or taken for a walk
to the park, in the rain.
Or written down and out
in the hope of freedom
or better yet, redemption.
They can’t be summarized
into
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I’ll Not Pay The Piper
I’ll not pay the piper
Nor shall I sing
And forget about
That long flung shout
Which makes a man feel dumb
Have a little care
The grave is just down there
and with but a stoke
Of dumb luck or perhaps a joke
Pinch a penny and drag a shoe
There is much we ought to know
Just in time to get on by
And past the day or time we die
What Are You Thinking
(Bev asked me)
I am so glad that you are you
And I
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tough guy in moonlight
in 7th grade he sat
last row last seat
head on desk asleep Sister
Cleopha slapped
his ear he laughed her face red
hand
trembling on the playground no one
looked him in the eye afraid
to wake his hands
two furious stones tearing
holes in God's light
seven years later I poured
drinks in a seaside bar I'd learned
to know a little
about a lot
could talk to the toughest guy who'd
be in the Series where
to find
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(Notes on) A Suburban Landscape
Where dwelling is a mode
Of citizenship
Not self
Not text / landschaft
Because the world
Has been always
Made even not here
But the proprietary between-places
That poetry occupies
‘Filling [one]’—like Lewis or
Clark—‘with vague cravings
Impossible
To satisfy’
Privacy
Beyond the formal
Supervised
Without authority
The daft all-over metropoles
And
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by Charles Rafferty
He stole the stars above her house, pulling them out with a claw hammer. She wouldn't love him anymore, so he left her with a blue-black vault of night — the color of the grackles he used to throw rocks at as they crowded out the other birds around their backyard feeder.
He wanted her to see that the sky had been looted. She never noticed though, because already she had taken a lover, and why would she need the sky and its Rorschach of light when she had a man
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Those bright blue eyes
Rain.
I’ve seen how much she cries.
They drain her longing,
Desperate,
For what I don’t know.
But I showed her
Where to go,
Who to love,
How to be.
And she picked it up
Like no one I’ve ever seen.
She asked,
He answered.
I just saw the change in her
After
The fall before grace,
Fulfilled.
Those bright blue eyes
Rain.
She changes people around her.
Joyfully
Exploding
His
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At yon round table sprawls a rake,
A dissolute, belov’d by girls
Who cannot but great notice take
Of how that handsome flaunts his curls.
For nothing draws a maid like hair
On heads or chests or arms or cocks,
Or makes the fair sex wish him bare
So much as long and golden locks.
The lad kicks back and quaffs his wine
While ladies hasten to undress;
He’ll have them here if he’s inclined,
There’s not one craving he’ll suppress.
It’s
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