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Before the night paints the world dark
Daylight surrenders to the evening and fades
A carpenter digs through the dead tree’s bark
Before nightfall a hole has to be made.
A hole has to be made before nightfall
There isn’t any place else he could stay
Since he can’t make the night stall
He must fast dig the passageway.
He must fast dig the passageway
Make for him a warm space
Till the sun gifts him another day
He once more gets back his happiness.
He once more gets back his happiness
The thought drives him in the cold night
It’s enough if he can just dig a warm space
To hold on patiently for daylight.
He must hold on patiently for daylight
A rewarding time until dawns darkness
A warm space he must dig for the night
Therein lies the woodpecker’s happiness.
 Aug 2013 Gary Muir
Craig Verlin
there were old men
laying around the
pool
like cigarette butts
in an ashtray
burnt out and
diminishing as
their feet
dangle in the water
lapping up against
their knees
they talked about
the old war
the good war
back in a time when
there was war to
believe in
now what?

now they have their
feet in a pool
fat white skin
burning in the moonlight
while knobby knees
are canvas to varicose
veins and the occasional
scar

--oh this one from
surgery, this one
from a foxhole
dug out some
hillside near Salerno
sliced up the
side of my leg
nice and good, yessir,
killed the
**** guinea
though don't worry--

and they would hold
out their arms
to explain how
they held those old
standard issue springfield's
while arthritis shook
that imaginary
rifle to the point
of danger but
they never noticed
leaning in to stare down
the sights
aiming carefully at
some elusive
foe across the pool

they would laugh at
how much they hated those
guns
they would laugh at
the insanity of it all
how young they had been
how old they were now
how much had changed
and how much hadn't
their wives were all gone
left widowed or divorced
all it seemed they had
was Tunisia or
Italy or that French
beach early morning in
1944

the world is a battlefield
for old men
with no
weaponry but old
stories caked in dust
 Aug 2013 Gary Muir
Jessica Rae
Thoughts spinning, creating insanity, Twenty Four Seven.
God do I Wish I could be sweet old Eleven.
All wanting sanctuary, Want to be on Cloud Nine.
Instead we sit in our lullaby,  stuck in Our Rhyme.
Black Crows fading in the grass field.
Turning fast , to defend, pulling out The Zelda Shield.
Whistling back and forth, calming nerves.
Heart dropping, where tires are not stopping, she swerves.
Music helps along the way,
Helping figure out a reasonable comeback to say.
Waking up, you're my savior.
Finding the key to this rusty ****** door.
Living in the unknown,
Almost nothing is really shown.
Under the blankets is where She turns Alive.
With no Authority, all She does is Connive.
Each measly passing second,
She drowns slowly, hesitant to go in the deep end.
About to die, left with ourselves, are only true friend.
High hopes, the letter She wrote was for you,
Collecting thoughts of passion was all She could pass on through.
Through the trees, fast speeds show flashes of unconscious views.
Jumping off the rock sides, She misunderstands, How to find her Muse.
With my canoe, I'll trying my best to save you.
Every bone in my body needs to, cringes, fiends, breaks, as you petrified me to do.
She spoke out, in no means of worries.
Not listening, growing ignorant.
Unaware of Her affair,
Leaving Her, to jump, leaving Her indignant.
She becomes whole, in the Levant.
(est.j.r.e.)
 Aug 2013 Gary Muir
Alice Burns
Just by chance the taxi drove a little too far
Merely by impulse I decided to go inside
The fluorescent entrance was conveniently right in front on me
why not called temptation and my feet obeyed

Just in curiosity I strolled down unnecessary aisles
Simply by nature I left my soul bare
Swarms of negativity and hummings of positivity flew through me
so what my faithful reassurance comforted me

Just as always I returned insult with compliment
Eyes as ever looking deeper than fantasy
And then I saw her, shredded clothes and body worn
look closer winds whispered from a land unseen

Just in loyalty my eyes studied this woman
And in love I recognized purity that I strive to wield
The evil whisperers are hypocrites in their claiming her *****
and wrong they are too for all I see is light
 Aug 2013 Gary Muir
Tim Knight
Jumps back on the ketamine and the *******
and stands in alleyways and lanes
and forgets why the stars sit and the moon stands;
who fights demons with hairdryers and backward hats.

And it’s okay to look like your Dad you never knew,
in glances through the wood would only a few see the resemblance,
but similar hair won’t make up for lost Christmases
and days away at rain safari parks.

You’ll have to leave the fox hole through the brambles
at some point in the future,
so get scratched now and bleed a little sigh
of relief,
one that you’ve broken the tie and loosened the knot
and show us all that you’re out of your cot.
coffeeshoppoems.com >> poetry blog for the ill informed
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