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 710° 
Lawrence Hall
An Address to the Several Caesars and Their Generals
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                   For the Good of the Republic

                               To the Caesars and their Generals
        (But not to the Senate; they have made themselves irrelevant)

Illustris:

You have medals and money and country estates
Book deals and bank accounts and pleasure gardens
You can retire in soft luxury now -
Your military contractors have seen to that

The Rubicon is ruby with your soldiers’ blood
And the Tiber is stopped with the loyal dead
Who fell upon your sword-sharp signatures -
And now you conspire against each other

You have done enough; go home to your musicians
Your receptions, your hunting parties, your…wives
You could pray for the dead
But you won’t

Still,

If you love your nation you will not meet
At the Milvian Bridge
"A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

-attributed to Benjamin Franklin
#republic
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 143° 
Kylie
Untitled
i love them,
yet i carry
the reason
for them to die.
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 121° 
Opal Wood
Drugs
Drugs didn't love me
The way my Granddad or brother did
And when I look back
To when they lived
I realise that
That's the kind of love I need
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 74° 
Zane
was / never was
someone will drive you around the same roads i did
under streetlights at 4am
where our love was
where our love never was

to parks we sat in
wherein we spoke words of compromise
understanding and compassion
where our love was
where our love never was

in your apartment
i held your hands so gingerly
and spoke words of endless devotion
where our love was
where our love never was

//

in your arms
in my mind
in your heart
the place where our love was
the place where our love never was
#portland #pdx #new #rising
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 73° 
Maggie
Loathe and love are very similar words
I caught you playing with a stare from across the room
And thereupon was ready to shatter my ribs, break my joints
Just to fit in this tiny space you called your love
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 63° 
putiira
There's no going back
Once you have learnt how
to be happy on your own,
there's no going back
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 61° 
Crow
Semblance
we do not write poetry
we write mirrors
which are held up
to curious faces
who read
looking for their
own reflections
#poetry #mirror #reflection
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 55° 
self inflicted unkindness
loving
im falling for him
i told myself it wouldnt happen
hes better
deserves better
nicer
god what am i doing
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 49° 
Eliza
Unsent
You are my unsent message.
The cursor blinking rhythmically,
With my heartbeat,
Waiting,
For me to hit send.
But I am not ready,
And I’m not sure if I ever will be
So I left it like that.
Unsent. Unseen. Unread.
“I miss you.”
#love #hurt #broken #miss #regret #unsent #message
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 49° 
Caity
The distance, to you
There comes a moment
Where my fingertips
Can reach
No further
And
My toes
Can reach
Across the bed
No farther in your place

So I
must stay
Laying here
Where I
Can’t reach

The distance
to you
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 45° 
Ciel Noir
Chemistry
✽             ✽
a chemical bond
✽   undeniably strong  ✽
can't ignore what I want
 ✽   miss you like                
an electron
✽             ✽
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 44° 
Octavio Paz
Garabato
Con un trozo de carbón
con mi gis roto y mi lápiz rojo
dibujar tu nombre
el nombre de tu boca
el signo de tus piernas
en la pared de nadie
En la puerta prohibida
grabar el nombre de tu cuerpo
hasta que la hoja de mi navaja
sangre
              y la piedra grite
y el muro respire como un pecho.
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 41° 
David Lessard
To an unread poet.
I used to read your poems
but lately you don't write
you're silent and aloof
you know that isn't right.
You can't close a door once opened
you can't abolish all your dreams
you're a poet of the heart
mustn't fall apart at the seams.
Say what you can in words
they speak the message true
spoken from the heart
the poems will see you through.
A hermit's not your style
a recluse, you are not
never give up writing
of things that you've been taught.
I used to read your poems
I'd read them once again
if you would send them out
(this one's from a poet friend)
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 40° 
Ariel
Is this healing?
You messaged me today
I listened to what you had to say
My heart didn't hurt
You didn't try to flirt
You apologized to me
And said you'd like to see...
You'd like to see me and catch up
I said okay
I could talk to you today
Is this healing
Because I have no feeling
I have no feelings left for you
#healing
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 36° 
Aishu
The wait
The wait
Is teaching you patience
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 35° 
brian odongo
Your own artist
Let me be your own artist,

I'll change your
scars into stars,
the tears in your
eyes into butterflies
and your sufferings
into colorful
lanterns,
let me paint you
with the colors I
have, let me write
you using my
blood, my love,
You'll be the best
art and poetry
and our love story
would be the most
beautiful tale that
will be written
in the history.
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 34° 
Mims
Empty
Eyes are the window to the soul,

But what if,

You don't have one of those?
Cold
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 32° 
Hera
Weird
I want to be alone,
alone with you.
What's wrong with me?
Weird :'))))
#love #romance #poem #poetry
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 32° 
Dev
copy and paste
You once asked me if I could ever describe you in four words, what they would be.
I finally figured it out.
"control c, control v"
i know letters aren't words but ohhhhh weelllll (:
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 31° 
skye
aftermath
going home isn’t always
returning to a place.
sometimes
it is returning to yourself.
#growth #self #home #aftermath #freeverse
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 31° 
William J Donovan
Plastic Love
Plastic cups
plastic spoons
plastic love
plastic moons
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 28° 
Ashly Kocher
Lost
It’s ok to feel lost because sometimes being lost actually leads you to the path your meant to find…
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 25° 
Fay
distant.
do you know
who you are?

because i don't
recognize your face
anymore

did i ever really
know you?

or did i just fool myself
into thinking that i did?
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 22° 
Empire
Spinning
Sometimes
I want to spin
Myself into a
Hurricane
Just to
Feel
The
Calm
In
The
Eye
Because without the storm, how would you know what calm is?
#calm #storm #eye #peace
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 22° 
haysia
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL
They said,
"The most beautiful art is
looking into someone's eyes
when they talk about the
things they love."
And I said,
"Or looking at someone you love.
Or maybe, just maybe,
by looking at the mirror
is the most beautiful art
anyone should appreciate."
Appreciation post for myself; for you and for everyone as well. You deserve more than the world has to offer.
#love #yourself
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 22° 
memoona kazmi
confession#6
i want to hug you the way,
winnie the pooh hugs the piglet
#hug #you #tight
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 21° 
Faye
152
I fall in love with strangers on the train.
The descent as quick as the commute,
Our eyes meet and it takes a glance
And I have fallen in love with the way you smile.

With the colour of your eyes,
And the way your lashes crown them,
With the expressiveness of your brows,
And the way I seem to drown in them.
#love
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 21° 
Lemon
Theres a garden in my lungs
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Time goes by
And I miss you

Just like me
The flowers grew
But soon they wilted
Just like you

You were sweet
This I knew
Like an addiction
I loved you

Now the roses are dead
The violets are too
The garden's all gone
And so are you

Your flowers died
I did too
Because all along
I was you
I wrote this a while ago when I had a crush on someone and it was literally crushing me. This is pretty metaphorical, but it also has a bit of literal meaning. It's a mixture of my feelings towards the person I liked and how I felt towards myself at the time.
#love #hanahaki #flowers
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 20° 
dani
the way you know me
you know me a little too much
and a little too not enough

you know me in a way
no one else will ever know

you can never tell
my hair or toes apart
nor my fingers to my eyes

but you know what's mine
my words, my song
all things that make you feel
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 20° 
Max
Falling
She said "I'm falling in love."

I said "I'm falling apart."
What's the difference?
#love #falling #apart #him #her #he #she #begin #short
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 20° 
My Dear Poet
Solace
It’s in the silence I heard you the loudest
And in the noise I heard your prayer
But in my pain was the answer
And in my absence you were there
#silence #comfort #presence
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 18° 
Mar Orellana
Dust.
I know you won’t read this
and I know you won’t care
but I will tell you what it was like.

It was blurry.
it was slow
but time was running fast.
It was dusty feet
and dusty souls.
It was feeling nothing
and then all at once.
It was hating you
to drown the urge of hugging you.
It was writing a poem
and post it
wishing you will relate to it.

But who cares,
you don’t.
May 2017.
I wrote this instead of telling you, even though you were there, dancing next to me. And we were made out of poison, finding new ways to hurt each other.
#dust #pain #frienship #love #heartbreak
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 18° 
SCHEDAR
Carried
Falling off
she leaves,
leaves her tree
breaking free
of her majestic mentor
Falling over time,
leaving what she has
learned of truth
behind
Carried upon a
cradle in a breeze,
Tossing about in
crisp, edgy, crimson,
swaying, whirling, dancing
look at me, love me
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 18° 
Ariana Bagley
A Reverse Poem
I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.
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 18° 
Cherisse May
waters
test me
my waters have remained constant
rippling, reaching
as far as the eye can see
into the horizon; the water surrounds me
my knowledge is useless
when drowning in these waters;
i can only flail desperately
as my movements create ripples
out into the open sea
all these efforts
all in vain
all in my vein
blood rushing out
like the sea, light then heavy
then strong
like the sea, with a strong smell of salt
this time, the waters are red
and they reek of iron

test my waters
they’ve been stained crimson
with my lifeline
exam week got me in a bad light
#self #harm #waters #test #lonely #fight #battle #drown
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