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abecedarian Jun 2020
“your arrhythmic rhymes, skinflint perspectives,
this is what I ask, what I need, what you can give,
what is in your possess, what you need to unburden,
making me better for making you lessened”  

<>

she offers me this,
a way out to more,
a way in to lessen,
knock on heavens door,
a suggest tendered,
treaty of mutual arms-ments-to-be?

perhaps is my answer,
utter the skinflints perspective,
maybe it is no treat, this treaty,
but a rad road well traveled to
mutually assured destruction,
the intended embrace
of unintended consequences
I woke to a morning that called out in crystals,where mistletoe ice wands would grant me three wishes and wise men were wrapped up in kaftans and turbans.
The clock stuck at five,so the **** came alive and told time from cracked egg shells and church bells were snowed in,no dings and no dongs,the rights and the wrongs of it seem to fit in quite nicely,when at six the wind whips through the streets where I walk,it's like treading in chalk leaving footprints to read,with my toes feeling the way,so glad I wore two pairs of socks and my wellingtons today.

Then at eight there's hot chocolate and a muffin with jam and the work day begins.
No djinns and no genie,just the boss who's a skinflint and a tightfisted meanie
but it all ends at four when home seems to beckon,
I reckon I'll go and make more prints in the snow and maybe call in to see Andy for a pipe and a brandy,then off to feed Joe,(he's my cat dontya know) and then bed with my nightcap,take the bolt off the catflap and dive into a book I was saving for the time before I nap.
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)


Let me take my poetry to the bottom of African latrine
As clearly directed by my colonial master,
After he read and failed to sing my poem
Which I wrote and troubdoured on the digital platform,
Of social poem hunters dot commercial
My poem’s title was; ode to the heart of the racist,
Which I sang as a melody of an anti racist
Singing to echo the rights of humanity,
Beyond the skinflint castle of the skin
Without charm to offend any specific race,
But a special dedication to the people living in Diaspora.
My dear reader from anonymous country
Neither England nor America of Canada,
Read my poetry in feat of amok seizure
With strong spasm to lynch  an African poet,
His civilized comment was worst case of universal ignorance
That crystallized into arsenal to condemn my poem
By desperately demanding that I take my mauverick poem
To the stark depth of fresh African latrine,
His civilization left me bamboozled to my possible hilt;
As his ghastly condemnation sent me to deep frenzy of wonderment;
Why a civilized comment must be abusive
Why anti racism poetry must be ghastly condemned
Why songs of racial freedom should be heinously decimated
Why songs of home nostalgia
In the bigotry ridden Diaspora abodes
Must be taken to the bottom of African latrine?
I beg your pardon my dear master,
Allow me to take my poetry
To the top surface of a white latrine.
Dave Robertson Sep 2021
No age
no age at all
never a justification
a reason to placate us
just an implacable, non-negotiable theft
of love, histories and too much still to be

the solace, a skinflint’s compensation,
is that for a short while you had them
and they had you
and that was life

but that’s as much as you get
to try to make it through
fearfulpoet May 2020
she said:
you are a man knowing cruel, knowing hard,
with strangest soft skin, a funny way of talking,
lick my face with your words so I’ll learn,
to be tough and tender too, this I want, wanted


he replied:
life gave me splinters, broken from rough edges,
left under my exterior to fester, blister, and scar,
life licked my face, taught me mean, and the words
that came with that, were sand papered on my skin


she answered:
I’m not blind, I can feel, smell your contradictories,
want your antibodies in my blood, survival skills,
to be what I am not, and keep too, what I’ve got, to
be infected and protected, knowing words defensive


he listened:
what you desire, is the health that comes after,
after what you don’t understand, until you’ve
loved, lost, been beaten down so that getting up is
miraculous, this unteachable, this licking by words


she insisted:
your arrhythmic rhymes, skinflint perspectives,
this is what I ask, what I need, what you can give,
what is in your possess, what you need to unburden,
making me better for making you lessened


he wept:
and said nothing.

for nothing taught appreciating silence and that,
was the beginning,
of what she wanted,
of what he did not,
of what he gives reluctantly



8:16AM
Wed May 20
Isle of Mind
Patrick Sporrer Jan 2018
I felt the echoes of you reflecting across time-
Your knife pierced my heart,
Opening old wounds-
Scars that have yet to heal-

Stubborn and skinflint,
Resisting all natural urges to resuscitate the broken skin-
An entrance now for evil to crawl into
And desiccate the sacred soul.

Your tears remind me of my own-
A time when I once sobbed molten mountains
Of softened crystals
Over the devastating death of my friend-

My old friend-
The one who left me in the dark-
Alone and humbled,
Huddled in a hollow tree,
Contemplating suicide as the rain poured 'round me
And the cold closed in,
Crushing all fleeting chances of hope remaining.

Dead eyes stare back into mine from the refracting dew-
Falling without a sound,
Without a memory of you.
Denis Martindale May 2018
What do I do with my money? I need the Lord's advice!
While, to some, that may sound funny... I really think it's wise...
He knows the bills I've got to pay... and those I don't have yet,
He's planned ahead for all I pray... so how could He forget?

I'm such a skinflint with my cash... and discounts helped me save...
With such resources I'm not rash... I'm cautious, Lord, not brave!
But then He comes again to ask, 'My child, it's time to give!
It's time that you complete this task... that others, too, might live!
My child, don't act like it's a chore!' So I obey God's will...
And so, I go online once more... to websites God loves still...

Donating here... donating there... Until the Lord says, 'STOP!'
'Thank God for that!' I say in prayer... 'At last, it's time to shop!'

Denis Martindale April 2018.
Daffodils in a sawmill with the will to survive can thrive.

And I do cartwheels when I don't get my own way!

What has today done to me, has it made me a miser, a scrooge like skinflint?
I hear operas from angels only to complain about the noise.

The choicest cut,
but I want that one
and as time goes on
I want it more,
the butcher has other ideas.

seek and ye will find
well
I find that behind me
others seek too

nothing unique
and when it is
it's patented.
You cannot light a fire with a skinflint
hints at sadness but tries again.

What pain we endure until we find
that love is the cure and alcohol was
just a panacea.

I have lots to turn my hand to
but it seems like getting through
each day is hard enough,

I'd get the butler to do it
but he already did it
or was that in a film that I saw?

Wednesday and tomorrow looks likely.

— The End —