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The Petty Player Who Rarely Sleeps

I'd Like A Taste (The Wolf Said)

The Crow Is A Black Bird

When I Start to Bloom

I'd Like To Be Your Shirt (when you wake up in the morning)



All Beings Considered

Words Between Edward And Jane

Nothing's Sadder Than A Rose

The Great Tsunami Of Our Growing Grief written 3/2.2021--retitled 3/14/2021

After Wide Sargasso Sea ( For Those of You Readers Who Have Empathy For the First Mrs. Rochester.)

WAITING ON THE WORLD (March/February 2021 poetry)

Wild and Unraveling

What Must Be

These Hands Exist July 4 2023 rei-edited 7/12/2023

I Am The Color Of Black

The Tide of Your Lies (2019-2023)

How I Wanted Your Pearls 6/24/2023 WRITTEN DIRECTLY TO THE PAGE

Love Wants What Love Wants re-edited 5/31/023

Winter's Been Too Long.... 4/18/2023 (LONGING)

The Dreaming Life ( A Series Of Dream Vignettes)

Like A Small Street Dog Lured In By The Promise Of Meat

This Is What Mermaids Dream Of

At Night, As I Dream of Vampires Who Have No Bad Intentions

And You Will Be Called Ashes As You Leave ( from a dream)

Certainly No Bread 3/16/2022

Someone Send Out A Search Party

THE FAN , AT NIGHT, GIVES GOOD ADVICE completely re-edited, an entirely different poem

What Is The Price For Your Touch? re-editied 5/31/2023

Where Is My Bed With The Pleasing Tree -Lined View(NOW REEDITED)

Oh What Fine Physics (Before Me ,Lies) re-edtited @4/17/2023

If Prejudice Were Dumb And Could Not Speak

THE COMPANY THAT WE KEEP WITH THE ONE WITHIN

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The Better Poem


write your poem
he commanded
but thoughts do not come that way
bidden
asked by way of command

poems are an act of
breathing
coming between thoughts
crowding into a brain
and then spilling out
onto the wall
a projection
of images and feelings

remember when you
found that projector
and you threaded that reel
and you moved the furniture
and suddenly
you had a theater
and you clasped your hands in front
of your mouth
as you saw younger versions of
people
you knew as old

that is poetry
isn't it
the past made present
the unreal remade into the living
the thought coaxed into breathing

Eileen and Walter
holding hands on a beach
the waves covering their bare feet
prescription cat eye sunglasses and Ray-Bans
perched on their heads
little white shadows around their eyes
and across the bridges of their noses
a large umbrella lounging in the sand

Norm and Ethel
Frank and Georgette
grinning with their hand-woven hats
and patterned Bermuda shorts
toasting under a turquoise cloudless sky

the flickering
and the click-clacking
of the end of the tape
and the bedroom wall images
falter

where did they go
the line of your smile
and  the better lines of the poem
you were told to write
vanishing

how is it the lines
you don't write walk away
and the memory of them
satisfies you more
because they disappear

beauty and people
fade and die
but the memory
will always satisfy
and remain
turn on the projector
and they return to you again

this is the better poem:
the natural one re-called and
un-commanded.


LEGAL COPYRIGHT FOR THIS POEM 2:27PM PST 6/12/2021 TIME AND DATE STAMPED INDELIBLE
AND ALSO FOR THIS POET/WRITER MELISSA A. HOWELLS
AND ALSO FOR THIS LEGALLY REGISTERED AND COPYRIGHTED SITE TITLE
MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD....







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