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Doug Potter Dec 2016
These winter days go one by one
and seldom does much happen;

yesterday my cat murdered and ate
a chickadee on the deck and the blood

and snow mixture left a pattern
similar to what a painting of

Vincent Van Gogh’s severed ear
might look like on fresh linen.

I let the killer inside, she licked
her paws--curled on my lap.
Doug Potter Dec 2016
is like cotton twine,
if you put a match

to string, it will
burn away,

but if dipped
in beeswax

the flame will be
slow and sure.
Doug Potter Dec 2016
Winging on thermals
across river valleys

counting days until
death hones-in;

lead pellets
swallowed,

prey
eaten.
Doug Potter Dec 2016
He said his Christmas Eve was good
in his recliner, TV cranked,
drapes closed,

bottle of Nyquil in one hand,
remote control, in the other,

waiting

for NBC News
to end and football
to begin.
Doug Potter Dec 2016
Nothing in this alley to crow
about—backboard and bent hoop
leans against an old refrigerator.

Over at   McMillin’s place
bags of garbage pile atop
a turquoise Chrysler.  

I’d give the family a pick
and shovel   if they bury
their old basset after it dies;

it’ll probably keel,
the first cold day
of 2017.  

My boots like this alley
even if my eyes don’t,
it hasn’t seen

a snowplow this winter
and, why should
it?
Doug Potter Dec 2016
I am  law
in your life;

you can  jump
high and long,

even  grow
wings, but

there is no
escape,

you will
return.
  Dec 2016 Doug Potter
James M Vines
Beyond the plains where the Buffalo once roamed beyond counting, among the tumble weeds and vast dry plains. There are footprints left by giants that have been around since before the time of man, vast crevices and gorges carved out of the rock of the earth. Canyons of great beauty that were created in time that cannot be measured in mortal days. Glaciers and mountains moving at a snails pace, cutting deep into the earth and grinding out these trails. Places deep beyond imagining, where clear water flows and streaks of color lay along the sides. While man leaves scarcely a footprint, the legacy of these wonders of nature will surpass all of the monuments that mortal hands can create and will be there long after we have left this earth as testimony of things that we are yet too young to understand.
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