Category: Poetry
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On a beach waiting to witness
A poem ⁂ On a beach waiting to witnessworks of fire thundering forth for the Fourth of July,sparklers burst against a cloudy sunset—the flames of liberty burning out fast. Darkness descendsand the main event announces itselfwith flash-bangs against the firmament:Declarations of incandescence,self-evident in their light, loudness, and pursuit of happy viewers. United they fall,a coterie […]
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Feet stuck in the muck and eyes trained to the sky
I’d never heard of the poet Timothy Murphy until reading about him in the Prufrock newsletter that mentioned him after his passing. He specialized in poetry about hunting, something I’ve accumulated an amateur’s worth of experience in over the years. Intrigued, I checked out his book of poetry Hunter’s Log: Field Notes, 1988-2011 from the […]
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For when you want to live again
A poem A half-deaf star with promise, next always to the one who grew into a supernova and left to shine brightly, shrinks and stares at the cold abyss. Then the supernova returns with its light, to its small town in the universe. A eucatastrophe to save a life, For when you want to live […]
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Folks, I’m Telling You
I don’t remember where I got the idea, but recently I’ve started memorizing poems and posting recordings of me reciting them on Instagram. They’ve been mostly short thus far, 10 to 15 lines. But I aim to take on longer ones as I get more under my belt and feel more adventurous. Part of this […]
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The sunrise, it comes to me
A poem The sunrise, it comes to me A rippled grace bound for the trees. Coming and coming, it comes, sent from the yonder colors, that are billowed in atmosphere. What is otherwise clear must contend with a cloudy obstruction that gets the best view of all: A panopticon dawn, but for me, the mere […]
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Betide Me
A poem Betide me, O titanous waves, that subsume vessels to watery graves (we benthic slaves). Beclothe me, O swathing light, a star-quantum bound for earthen delight (paradox in flight). Befall me, O radiant wind, and topple the proud mightly with (your aeolian din). Bewilder me, O god of the sky, as I gaze upon […]
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Slow West
The refrain from Thomas Hood’s nineteenth century poem “The Haunted House” stands out not only because it appears about halfway through Slow West, John Mclean’s darkly funny reverie of a western, but because its final line—“The place is Haunted!”—breaks the iambic pentameter the poem employs throughout the rest of its eighty-five stanzas. Such a break jars […]
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Poetry in the Park
I was in a park and saw some things so I wrote a poem about them. What sends the human heart dreaming? A girl, little with frizzy hair, asked sweetly, Did he have to put a knife in his heart? Her mother said no, and that was all. A woman, grown, hobbled on one crutch […]
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I Ran Here for the Sunrise
A poem I ran here for the sunrise. I ran here straight down a concrete corridor, a road slippened by snow, past a corner store where coffee and pie rise to life in manifest alchemy. With my breath steaming in locomotion I approach the boulderow, a stone sluice of Sisyphean resolve—bulwark against the lacustrine, but this morn like poppy […]
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The Plutonium Plot: An Ode to Doc Brown
Remember, remember, the fifth of November, When Doc bumped his head and made it so tender; He could not recall his singular sight: Capacitors fluxing and time circuits alight. Calvin the sailor with life jacket steady Inquired, ‘Hey Doc, are you now ready To freeze space-time in the tower-clock? Banish the thought of paradox. Not […]