eVille Times: The Poetry

As usual, I don't really know what's going to happen here, or where this is actually going.

I'll put up some real poetry - by real poets. And I'll throw in some of the junk I've come up with as well.

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So Begins The Task --Stephen Stills

And so begins the task
I have dreaded the coming of
For so long

I wait for the sun
To remind my body
It needs restin'

And I must learn to live without you now
I must learn to give only part some how

Camping on the edge
Of your city I wait
Hoping someday
You might
See
Beyond yourself

The shadows on the ceiling
Hard
But not real
Like the bars that cage
You within yourself

And I must learn to live without you now
I must learn to give only part some how
And I must learn to live without you now
As I cannot learn to give only part some how

All of these cages
Must
And shall be set aside
They will only
Keep
Us from the knowing

Actors
And stages
Now fall before the truth
As the love
Shared
Between us
Remains
Growing

And I must learn to live without you now
As I cannot learn to give only part some how

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The Pretender --Jackson Browne

I'm going to rent myself a house

In the shade of the freeway

Gonna pack my lunch in the morning

And go to work each day

And when the evening rolls around

I'll go on home and lay my body down

And when the morning light comes streaming in

I'll get up and do it again, Amen

Say it again, Amen

I want to know what became of the changes

We waited for love to bring

Were they only the fitful dreams

Of some greater awakening?

I've been aware of the time going by

They say, in the end, it's the wink of an eye

When the morning light comes streaming in

You'll get up and do it again, Amen

Caught between the longing for love

And the struggle for the legal tender

Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring

And the junk man pounds his fender

Where the veterans dream of the fight

Fast asleep at the traffic light

And the children solemnly wait

For the ice cream vendor

Out into the cool of the evening

Strolls the pretender

He knows that all his hopes and dreams

Begin and end there

Ah, the lovers as they run through the night

leaving nothing but to choose off and fight

And tear at the world with all their might

While the ships bearing their dreams

Sail out of sight

I'm gonna find myself a girl

Who can show me what laughter means

And we'll fill in the missing colors

In each other's paint-by-number dreams

And then we'll put our dark glasses on

And we'll make love until our strength is gone

And when the morning light comes streaming in

We'll get up and do it again

Get it up again

I'm gonna be a happy idiot

And struggle for the legal tender

Where the ads take aim and lay their claim

To the heart and the soul of the spender

And believe in whatever may lie

In those things that money can buy

Where true love could have been a contender

Are you there? Say a prayer for the pretender

Who started out so young and strong only to surrender

Say a prayer for the pretender

Are you there for the pretender?

Say a prayer for the pretender

Are you there for the pretender?

Are you prepared for the pretender?

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Waiting for the day

the pain of your memory

is greater than

the fear of letting it go

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AFTER YOU DIE

--Marva Lee Weigelt

Just so you know

after you die

I will not wonder

why you didn’t do

your dishes or

how long it’s been

since you

cleaned your

oven or microwave or

mopped your floors

or why there were

dust bunnies under

the bed and

behind the door

After you’re gone

I will not wonder

how you could

have allowed the

piles of old mail to

accumulate or

why you saved so

many bits and pieces

of this and that or

why you weren’t

more goal-oriented and

well-organized or

why your refrigerator

contained so many

expired condiments

When you are

absent from all your

familiar places

I vow to avoid wondering

why you didn’t

eat less and

exercise more or

why you waited so

long to stop smoking

or drinking or

whatever else was

simultaneously

soothing and

deadly or

why you took

whatever risk may

seem to have hastened

your exit or why

you left so much unsaid

unfinished or

unresolved

I will only wonder

if you knew how much

you mattered to me

just as you are

as you were when we

met in our temporary

human disguises and

laughed in the

dressing room of the

world at how funkily

our skin suits fit

at times

I will wonder and

hope you knew

you were beloved

I will wonder when

we last hugged

and whether you

felt how our

heartbeats

converged

and our bellies

bumped like boats

and then we

both sighed

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The best I've ever felt

Was being with a woman

And the worst I've ever felt

Was being without her

There's no way for me to think I'm better off

now she's gone

But there's no believing it could be better

if she'd stayed

She's poison

She's addictive

I'm her junkie

One day at a time is too many

And not enough

Valentine's Day 2024

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Every time we say good-bye
I die a little
Every time we say good-bye
I wonder why a little
Why the gods above me
Who must be in the know
Think so little of me
They allow you to go

--Cole Porter

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Never Be Me --Miley Cyrus

I know I do this every time

I walk the line, I play with fire

And I stop myself before the crime

I walk the line, yeah, I play with fire

I don't wanna push you way too much

I don't wanna lean that way too far

I don't wanna ever learn the hard way

But if you're looking for stable, that'll never be me

If you're looking for faithful, that'll never be me

If you're looking for someone to be all that you need

That'll never be me (hard as I try)

That'll never be me (I play with fire)

Dry your tears now, don't you cry

I'm by your side, at least for a while

I know I do this every time

I walk the line, yeah, I play with fire

I don't wanna push you way too much

I don't wanna lean that way too far

I don't wanna ever learn the hard way, no

I don't wanna keep you in the dark

I don't wanna gamble with your heart

I don't wanna ever leave you lonely

But if you're looking for stable, that'll never be me

If you're looking for faithful, that'll never be me

If you're looking for someone to be all that you need

That'll never be me (hard as I try)

That'll never be me (I play with fire)

Can't get too close to the sun (fire)

Baby, you're the only one, oh, I

I'd never lie to you, baby, oh (fire)

You give me a reason to run from the fire

'Cause baby, you're the only one

Oh, I swear I'd never lie

If you're looking for stable, that'll never be me

But I hope that I'm able to be all that you need

If you think that I'm someone to give up and leave

That'll never be me, no

If you think that I'm someone to give up and leave

That'll never be me (hard as I try)

That'll never be me, no (I play with fire)

That'll never be me

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Funny how I loved the things you gave me
In my heart and in my head
In my hands and in my bed

Funny how the thing that saved me
Was knowing and seeing
That loving all those things

Meant I wasn't loving you instead

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Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the

mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever

in allegiance with gravity

while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds will

never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say

“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads.

--Mary Oliver

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Could I rest here for a while

Near that medal 'round your neck

St. Jude's wearing a smile

He wouldn't mind I bet

I can't go face the world

My bones won't hold me up

So tell the saint of lost souls where to find me

Softly sleeping

Here in the deep end of someone who loves me

You'll let me cry it out

Because you know that sometimes I can't stop and

Still I'm seeking how

To stand up when the bottom drops

The weight of all the world

Can blind me to its beauty

But every time I need to be reminded

I know you will

And say you're still someone who loves me

I try to push it down

But it comes back faster and harder

Tides are changing on a dime

And I'm just trying

To keep my head above the water

Surrender's just a word

Till you try it out

And see how hard it is to hurt

With someone else around

I'm the worst I've ever been

Afraid of almost everything

The skies are clear

But storms are always coming

Your gift to me

Is just to be

Bracing for the winds I always summon

My home, my heart

Thank God you are

Someone who loves me

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Well, I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking these days
These days

These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do for you
And all the times I had the chance to

And I had a lover
But it's so hard to risk another, these days
These days

Now, if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
Well, it's just that I've been losin' for so long

I'll keep on movin', movin' on
Things are bound to be improving these days
One of these days

These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them

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If I'm up and around, I'm thinking about you

If I'm not thinking about you

Then I'm asleep, dreaming about you

If I'm not thinking about you

And I'm not dreaming about you

Call the coroner

And schedule my wake

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A woman wants a man

who can speak of his love for her

with a sincere and open heart.

A man wants a woman

with a trustworthy heart

so he can believe she deserves to hear it.

Oct 2023

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Ain't it funny how a moment could just change your life And you don't want to face what's wrong or right Ain't it strange how fate can play a part In the story of your heart

--Jennifer Lopez

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Between what is said, and not meant -

and what is meant, but not said -

most of love is lost.

--Kahlil Gibran

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The Audacity Of Heartbreak (exerpt)

--Kristina Mahr

I dug us too shallow a grave,

and things keep digging us up.

Things like your smile.

Things like my heart.

Things like memories -

memories like a spade,

like a shovel,

like two desperate cupped hands.

Truth be told,

I don't know how to bury us

any more than you knew how not to.

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It's a fearful thing

to love what death can touch.

A fearful thing

to love, to hope, to dream, to be –

to be,

And then, to lose.

A thing for fools, this,

And a holy thing,

a holy thing

to love.

For your life has lived in me,

your laugh once lifted me,

your word was gift to me.

To remember this brings painful joy.

It's a human thing, love,

a holy thing, to love

what death has touched.

--Yehuda HaLevi (1075 – 1141)

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Kae Tempest - People's Faces

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I am not your Angel Michael

If that's the way you see me now

There's something here needs telling

If only I knew how.

There's a darkness here beside me

standing opposite my shadow

It walks in perfect step with me

Always going where I follow.

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What should I say

when I want to kiss the side of your neck

and leave it at that?

When I want to feel the heat

of my own breath bounce back

and warm my lips

after I place them

on my favorite pieces of your skin.

I want to leave goosebumps

everywhere I have not yet kissed

and spend the night

trying to read them like Braille.

--Tyler Knott Gregson

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Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep --Mary Elizabeth Frye

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On Children --Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

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Peace to those who are scared

those who watch the news & wonder

what is going on in this country

& those who always knew

Those who feel less safe

& those who never felt safe

Those whose bodies hold memories

Whose DNA holds memories

Which tell us clearly

That never again
Is now.

--Jessica Kantrowitz

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Meditations Before Kaddish, from the Mishkan T’filah

When I die give what’s left of me away

to children and old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

cry for your brother walking the street beside you.

And when you need me, put your arms around anyone

and give them what you need to give me.

I want to leave you something,

something better than words or sounds.

Look for me in the people I’ve known or loved,

and if you cannot give me away,

at least let me live in your eyes and not your mind.

You can love me best by letting hands touch hands,

and by letting go of children that need to be free.

Love doesn’t die, people do.

So, when all that’s left of me is love, give me away

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You ain't got what it takes

And it takes what you ain't got

Now I'm no prize

But when I close my eyes

There's something better'n you

Playing on this side of my eyelids

So if you don't mind

Or even if you do

Please take your kindly offer

And miss me with it.

-- Mike Roberts 2020

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At Least For Now For You

For just this moment

Let me lose myself in you

Let a woman's tender heart abide me

Hide me

From the curious eyes and the wearisome lies of the rest of the world.

Yours is such a quiet spirit

Given to the deep'ning crimson half-lights after dusk

And mine a constant flailing churn

A black and buzzing lightless fire burning down inside me

Waiting for the walls to crack

Letting in your gently tumbling tide

To wash away the wait of countless ages

-- Mike Roberts 1977

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Feeding The Worms - from "Bonfire Opera"

Ever since I found out that earth worms have taste buds

all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies,

I pause dropping apples into the compost bin,

imagining the dark writhing ecstasy,

the sweetness of apples permeating their pores.

I offer beets and parsley,

avocado and melon,

and the feathery tops of carrots.

I'd always thought theirs a menial life,

eyeless and hidden,

almost vulgar - though now it seems,

they bear a pleasure so sublime, so decadent,

I want to contribute however I can,

forgetting, a moment, my place on the menu.

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Four and a half billion years are gone behind us

Another 4 or 5 are stretched ahead

I'm content to spend these few moments

right here

right now

with you

--Mike Roberts 2021

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March 2021 - Mass Shooting In Boulder - 10 dead

Red Rocks at Sunrise

What has just happened to our beautiful home,

Our peace and our joy, our lush freedom to roam?

Where gone our flowing beauty, our friends and live environs?

Now it’s blood and tears that flood over the Flatirons.

Those red rocks at sunrise now drip with new memories.

More guns, many clamor - More guns? Guns? Oh, Please!

Once again, they gun us down, buckle us to our knees.

No government solution, so many still say.

If not, what evolution will ever come into play?

This writ of execution comes by whose right?

Is there no resolution to cast a new light?

I ask for imagination from all who can choose.

Escape thought pollution, and walk a mile in my shoes.

Envision where you walk, shop and banter with friends.

Now see them torn apart, your times shared—bled out to their ends.

Then see “We the People” rising up, past such nightmares of dissolution.

Look in the mirror; it’s us looking back, urging us past confusion.

Please find your own quiet, strong place of connection—

Yes, it’s so vital

To all our relations, to all life, to all love which we’re all so entitled.

Let go all those ‘why’ questions, all those blank thoughts and prayers.

It’s past time to act, past time to declare,

Past time for those among us who still pretend unawares.

--JR Roberts, Boulder CO

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The most beautiful part of loving a guarded girl is this:

When she lets you in, it's not because she needs you.

She stopped needing people a while ago,

And that's not because she's somehow broken and cynical.

She just knows she doesn't require anyone's permission or approval.

It's because she wants you.

She's invited you in.

You.

She's telling you that her want for you

Is greater than her need to feel safe.

For her, that's the purest love of all.

Take that to heart.

Be true to it.

Tend it well.

Make it part of you

And she'll make you happy beyond your dreams of paradise.

--Mike Roberts 2017

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I walk thru the world resisting the realization

That the dreams I had last night

Are wishes made by my subconscious

That my waking mind knows can never be fulfilled

-----------------------------------------------------

But really, it's not about what fills her shirt

or what's between her legs

Aim higher

The rewards you discover between her ears will take your breath away

And leave you wondering -

Why all this fuss about oxygen?

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It helps that you look delicious

But that's not why I feel this way

It helps that I like what you like

But that's not why I feel this way

It helps that your laughter fills my day with smiles

But I feel this way because

Once I really listened

I knew you sang a song that only I could hear

And that's everything

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It's Just Me

ca 1982

When you're wondering who the voice is

in the darkness late at night

And you think your only choice is

fading quickly out of sight

When my reasons for good-bye

are ringing hollow in your head

And the bitter empty mem'ry's

what you lay beside in bed

It's just me

Running from the daylight

It's just me

Running from a fight

That illusion really took me

where I thought I'd like to go

Phony dreams had really hooked me

and we've just survived the blow

I guess what kills the most of us

is not knowing how to live

And what takes the most from all of us

is not knowing how to give

It's just me

Lost in my delusion

It's just me

Seems I need the confusion

If there's a darkness now inside you

where the moonlight used to glow

And you know that you've been lied to

Cuz the truth is just for show

Then blame me for your taste of hell

for the way I broke the rule

That darkness lives in me as well

for being such a fool

But that's just me

Wondering how I could lose you

It's just me

Knowing how I still use you

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Lobocraspis Griseifusa

-- Ted Kooser

This is the tiny moth who lives on tears,

who drinks like a deer at the gleaming pool

at the edge of the sleeper's eye, the touch

of its mouth as light as a cloud's reflection.

In your dream, a moonlit figure appears

at your bedside and touches your face.

He asks if he might share the poor bread

of your sorrow. You show him the table.

The two of you talk long into the night,

but by morning the words are forgotten.

You awaken serene, in a sunny room,

rubbing the dust of his wings from your eyes.

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A Toast For Memorial Day:

This is a day for remembering the fallen

The lost

Those who won't grow old with us

And yet they're still right here

Forever young

Forever by our sides

And will remain for as long as we don't forget their names

I raise my glass to them

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O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again."

-- Langston Hughes

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May we raise children

who love the unloved things -

the dandelion, the worms, and spiderlings.

Children who sense the rose needs the thorn

and run into rainswept days

the same way they turn towards the sun

And when they're grown

and someone has to speak for those

who have no voice

may they draw upon that wilder bond,

those days of tending tender things,

and be the ones.

-- Nicolette Sowder

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i found her beside the river,

a few tears frozen to her lips

her hands palms up,

holding the moon

and the stars

she’s asleep now,

but not asleep

her frail forgetfulness has expired

all makes sense to her

now, the moonlight and everything

-- Elizabeth Moura

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You'll never change a mind

Unopened

But you can slip a mad man

Water

From the well he's poisoned.

-- Grant Peeples

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I’ve learned that grief is love - but seen from a different angle.

Grief is all the love you want to give but can’t.

All of the unspent love piles up in the corners of your eyes.

It gathers to make a lump in your throat, as it leaves that aching hollow in your chest.

Grief is love with nowhere to go.

Remembering,

and knowing how others have been where we are now

is how we go from despair to celebration

We will find each other in the darkness

and move the light to where we need it

(I borrowed that first part from Jamie Anderson)

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A Glass Face In The Rain

Sometime you'll walk all night.

You'll come where the sky bends down.

You'll turn aside at a fold in the earth and

be gone from the day.

When the sky turns light again

the land will stare blank for miles at itself.

You won't be there to see any more.

Back where you lived,

for those who remember well,

there will come a glass face,

invisible but still and real,

all night outside in the rain.

--Wm Stafford

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How many times will I come to my senses

And go to great lengths to make myself lonely

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Somebody said it couldn’t be done

But he with a chuckle replied,

"Maybe it wouldn’t, but I will be one

who'll never say no till I've tried."

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

on his face - if he worried he hid it.

And he tackled that thing that couldn’t be done,

And he couldn't do it.

--The Return of Edwin Carp, The Dick Van Dyke Show

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We sit and talk,

softly,

with long lapses of silence

And I am aware of the stream

that has no language,

coursing beneath the quiet heaven

of your eyes

--Wm Carlos Williams

-----------------------------------------------------

I can see my way back.

Never to be that dead moldering stump again

Cut down, burned up and chipped into nothing.

I will retake my place among men.

-----------------------------------------------------

I listen for the quiet eloquence of your heart

to cut thru the noise of my conversational armor

Breathe me in and be my voice

Shout me to the wind

Fill my empty words and whisper them back to me

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The look in your eyes

is what I see in my mind every night as I fall asleep

And the memory of you

is so strong

it puts your scent in my nostrils every morning as I wake up

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The lips of this woman move me when they approach,

naked,

for a kiss

They undress me completely,

from the top of my words to the bottom of my soul

I am disarmed

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Loving must never be a simple transaction,

But we shouldn't want for anything for being together.

Satisfied, no matter the balance of accounts,

We start fresh every day

Even. Equal. Renewed.

-----------------------------------------------------

--Andrew Jefferson
Published: May 2014

I've fallen in love - I don't know why

I've fallen in love with a girl with one eye.

I knew from the start. It was plain to see

That this wonderful girl had an eye out for me

She's charming and witty and jolly and jocular

Not what you'd expect from a girl who's monocular.

Of eyes - at the moment - she hasn't full quota

But that doesn't change things for me one iota.

It must be quite difficult if you're bereft.

If your left eye is gone and your right eye is left.

But she's made up her mind. She's made her decision.

She can see it quite clearly in 10/20 vision.

She'll not leave me waiting, not left in the lurch

If she looks slightly sideways she'll see me in church.

I'll marry my true love who's gentle and kind.

And thus prove to everyone that love's not quite blind.

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like a lava flow

tasting the edge of the sea

the way you kiss me

--Derek Firenze

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Something Missing (A Light in the Attic)

I remember I put on my socks,

I remember I put on my shoes.

I remember I put on my tie

That was printed

In beautiful purples and blues.

I remember I put on my coat,

To look perfectly grand at the dance,

Yet I feel there is something

I may have forgot—

What is it? What is it?...

--Shel Silverstein

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The Peace Of Wild Things

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting for their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

--Wendell Berry

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I get up every day thinking

There can be no better day than this

Knowing every tomorrow with you

Will prove that statement false

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It's like she had a tattoo across her Mons

"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here"

I did and I did

And now I pretend I wouldn't do it again

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"Fly home to me" is what you said

But you never meant to bring me close

You promised hearts and kisses every day

Then panicked when I came to share them

"You had my heart a long long time ago"

Is nothing but an empty song

when there's nothing where that heart belongs

Never any point in flying to where there is no home

No point in chasing kisses where there is no heart to find

Slouching Towards Oblivion

The Poetry

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