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 Oct 2024 Crow
Falling Awake
Sitting cross-legged at your site,
dreadfully admiring the grass clumps
growing disrespectfully over your plot,
as if time forgot to stop for you.
Your neighbors are encroaching closer,
becoming a sea of graves,
You’re blending in with the rest.
Crickets and birds keep chirping
while the excavator cuts through
my thoughts digging new plots.
Time and life just keep progressing
But without you, I’ve stopped.
 Oct 2024 Crow
Donall Dempsey
MOVING HOUSE

"Shhhhhhh!"
Uncle shushed me
"See that there now!"

I looked at
the house and the house
looked back at me

"That wee house wasn't
there yesterday!"
Uncle whispered

"Really?" said I
"Really!" he said
I stared at it

"No! Don't look
at it or
it might...!"

"Uncle never
finished what
"...it might. .  !"

the house it seemed
terrified of being caught
crept back into its shadows

it crouched
by the side of the road
as if at any moment

it would up sticks
and do a runner
at great speed

we walked on
warily by
careful not to scare it

"Let sleeping houses
lie!"
Uncle warned me

I not being
used to countryside
I was blinded with green

so that when
Uncle brought me
a different way

I was
none
the wiser

"See what did
I tell ya!"
the house had gone

"That wee house
likes to
roam about!"

and then the next day
and "Jaysus!"
wasn't the house back

Uncle kept this up
for a week or more
bamboozling my mind

and for all
the summers of me
being 3 and 4

I heartily believed
in the moving house
and its comings and goings

Uncle smiling
at my innocent
belief in him

*

Auntie Nellie used to always give out to Mikey and with always the same words"For God's sake Mikey will ya stop filling the child's head with nonsense....can't ya see that he believes everything you say!" Mikey would always smile and say his catchphrase: "Be the Hokey!" It was his stories such as this made up on the spot that seeped into my imagination and I soaked up my Uncle's storytelling through emotional osmosis. He made me the poet I am today.
 Oct 2024 Crow
Caroline Shank
When the Universe lies
once

the vellum
of the Book of Life

fades.

The ink (always there is
Ink)

Sours.

You are my Page ;
play me.

You are the

Voice in my sleep.

Crying.


Caroline Shank
10.26.2024













⁹)
 Oct 2024 Crow
beth fwoah dream
you wrap the stars around my shoulder blades
place the night on my lips, listen for summer
and whisper day-moons and gothic hills,
bend like the willow dreams of old, sad songs.
your ghost is the rhythms of a sigh,
is a planet stunned by the dark-lashed sea of skies,
an enigma where the pools empty turquoise
and topaz, where we fall - how we fall.
 Oct 2024 Crow
CJ Sutherland
Lurking in the corner
Of the conference room
Whispers
A Tete-a-tête confabulate

Enough of the palaver
We have to move on
There are more
Impressive issues
To discuss

No need to
Extrapolate
Don’t make a fuss

Whatever happened
To the days of;
Honor
Virtuousness
integrity of probity

The political campaigns
has become mudslinging
*** for tat
We lost the sustenance of
Where we are about

Despite the
Moderators
Best efforts
Opposing sides
Still remain
Intransigent

Most people are
Betwixt between
A rock, and a hard case

Family Friends on
Opposing sides
In Retribution
They stoop to
Degradation

Some find
It difficult
To conform
To propriety

Struggling
to fit in
With Society

Perplexed
We are at
An impasse

An impression
Unsustained
Does not last

That is the dilemma!
growing up one of 8 children, my father encouraged us to use a larger vocabulary to improve our lexicon. We were taught to choose a word from the dictionary, and for the rest of the day to use that word correctly. Three syllable words were called five cent words, and we were given a bonus nickel. I had a jar full of nickels as a tribute to my furthered education and for my fathers inspiration. Later in life, he would smile when I would use a five cent word, and he would quietly hand me a nickel. Hence, our secret phrase was for a nickel I will.😎
These words were from past Webster’s Word of the Day

tête-à-tête ; in private, face-to-face Conversation
Confabulate; to chat, confer, gossip, gab, talk
Palaver ;unimportant or meaningless, deceptive
speech or discussion
Virtuousness; moral excellent righteousness
Integrity; adherence to a code of especially moral values and decency
Probity; adherence to the highest principles and ideas of uprightness
Intransigent; A person who refuses to compromise or abandon, and often extreme position or attitude or a point of view that shows a kind of stubbornness
Betwixt; in the middle
Retribution; Punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act
Degradation; a condition or process of degrading, or to be degraded humiliated shame
Propriete Quality of conforming to conventional acceptance, standards of behavior, or morals
Perplexed; you feel baffled, very puzzled, confused
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