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Forty eight years of faithful service
Crumpled like a Kleenex and tossed away
By evil people with only ten names between them;
Forcing me to pack up all my grief and anger
And replat a blazing desert to make it be my home,

Far from where I’d ever want to be while
Deprived of what I’ve always loved to do
And surrounded by the things I do not like.
I had to replat the sand dunes of my very soul
To find a little valley where I hope to heal my hurt.
                            ljm
I asked for someone to give me their own word challenge and Ken Pepiton obliged with "replat"  After I  looked it up, I came up with the  above.
Looking at this blank note paper
I have to face the painful fact
There’s nothing in my mind but vapor
And any verse would be an act.

But I will not let that deter me
I drag my pen across the page
And gape at what has come to be
For I’ve become an HP Sage.
ljm
I love it when they write themselves.
BLT's Webster word game; Challenge me with your own word - let's play.
When an era ends a bell should ring
Even if it’s only tiny.
When the Curtain falls for the final time
The cast should get a flower.
When it’s all used up and there is no more
Someone should close the cupboard.
When the time is up and the whistle blows
We should all put down our hammers.

Sometimes the end is loud and brash
Sometimes as silent as sunrise
But which-ever way it comes to be
It always seems to be too soon.
It seems there should be one more try
Or even just an epilogue, instead
A note was posted on the door
And the era of folk music quietly ended.
             ljm
I was heavily into the folk scene in the 60's.  Had my own folk club for a while.
I don’t want to be here
I want to go back home.
I never will belong here.
My piece won’t fit this puzzle.

There is a little life here,
But it seems more like a death,
Stuck on a spinning carousel
With no brass ring to catch.

It feels just like a circus
Where everybody has a mask,
A 45 in their waistband,
And sawdust in their head.

I must step very carefully
In my egg-shell breaking boots;
I must never denigrate
This culture that’s absurd.

Guardrails all around my tongue
Hallelujah in my ears
To block what I don’t want to hear
Spouted out in endless rote

There is some sunburned beauty
To be found among these stones
But it comes at far too high a price
And I’m longing to go home.
ljm
I wrote this when we first moved here 6 years ago.  I didn't post it then.
So I'll post it now.
I'm just allowed to read 5 poems. I can't scroll down for  more.
I don't know what mistake I've made for Eliot to close the door.
I know I'm not the only one with no access to the index
Which I consulted constantly from forgetfulness and reflex.
Is there some way to make amends and put things back to right
Or are we all to drop our pens and fade into the night.

Will Eliot do something new and leave us on our own
Or are his plans a secret - totally to us unknown
Will Hello Poetry ever come back and be the way it's been
If we should lose our access it would be the gravest sin
I've offered Elliot a check instead of monthly nicks
But I've not had a word from him - up to his usual tricks.

I'll keep submitting what I write and see if it's displayed
And if it  never does appear, sadly I will be dismayed
If I am not the only one facing this conundrum
Let me have a word or two and tell me who it's from.
Then I won't feel I've crossed a line and there's no hope for me
And all together we will wait to see what we can see.
I'm crippled - can read only 5 poems, can't use index past A, and comments are coming to my e-mail instead of here so they can be answered easily.
When all the butterflies are gone
And only Caterpilers yet remain
The barren landscape will forget
Just what the color green looked like.

When the rain no longer ever falls
And water tastes a bit like salt
The withered earth will hunger for
The sweet flavor of the morning dew.

When water seeps over the window sill
And everthing is muddy brown and ruined
The Mocking Birds will gather in a chorus
To sing sacred dirges to the houses.

When billboards are spray painted white
With only dabs of purple in the corners
The world will finally have ended
And somehow no one got the word.
ljm
Billboards and cockroaches will be the last things to go.
Every morning I kneel and pray
For the needs of other people.
But nobody prays for me.
Fourteen ways my body fails
And my mind is failing too.
Yet nobody prays for me.
My needs are on the bottom shelf
I carefully set it up that way.
So nobody prays for me.
I thought I was invincible
But my needs outweigh my strength.
Won’t somebody somewhere pray for me.
             ljm
Orison is an archaic word for prayer.
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