Had a bad day
Unpaid bills on the desk
Kids demanding designer clothes
Toothaches without dental insurance
Partners who don’t want sex today,
Or most days, for that matter
Because they’re thinking
About the bills, the kids, the secret pregnancy
Taking out their frustration on who is closest
Rising heating bills during a February snap
Internet companies that overcharge
Because you d...

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Every one of us produces
at least one unparalleled masterpiece
in our lifetime,
but most of us never live long enough
to find out what it was.

–Limericist 2008

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The doctrine of the Manichees
turns soft neural tissues
to split-pea soup in hot skull bowls.

This teaching inspires
religious-political devotees
to love hatred and seek fake justice--

The doctrine requires
a Star Wars "Evil Empire."
A grim villain who will lung-breathe
on hackled necks, fomenting the masses
into a mad frenzy.

They must eliminate
the demonized
until their angry ...

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It is always easy
to think that we could
do better than our parents,
until we are one.

It is always easy
to think that we would
be kinder than others were
without knowing their struggle.

It is always easy
to accept current propaganda
as certainty
until we have
identified with another culture.

It is always easy
to condemn our historical figures
with 20/20 vision
from the safe ...

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Rolled out feeling fat and dumpy
feeling ugly and useless, quite a typical
morning. Stump into the bathroom to dribble
because that is the current stream.
Mirror mirror, what is that? Is that thing
familiar? Oh-- hi me. Barely.
What am I seeing? Over the decades,
the same scene has replayed like
groundhog's day.
The, now, baggy eyes
disapprove. There is raw disgust.
But why? Was destiny...

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The road ahead divides
into a many-headed hydra
with each long neck coiled
as if to strike imminent doom.
At the forks,
a knight atop his steed
weighs his journey.

Each path demands a decision
to navigate their circuitous route.
If any are to reach
their holy grail, they must
throw caution aside. To obtain
their desire,
their dream,
or their nightmare–
one must risk everything.

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Handed down from unknown ages,
a secret locket carried from birth,
an inscribed angelic amulet
--barely noticeable, but
always with him

Its ancestral origin was unknown,
it dangled above the baby boy,
a spinning mobile before his wide eyes
watching and calling,
the boy cooed at it
and heard an ancient name then,
now, and to come

He rode his tricycle down a big hill,
a dump truck w...

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I am delighted to sit here with me,
at three,
enjoying a cheery cuppa tea.
My heart blissfully
allowing myself to be
with nothing to do
but dream
with steamy caffeine entering
my bloodstream
Just considering
how I came to this point
seeing
I am royalty
to sit here with myself singing free
but understand, please
it was not easy,
I think
you would agree

If you, with me, would sip...

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Snowflakes drop a blanket
like Christmas at Easter.
Three vain Narcissus
Woo with their gold,
ice-encased.
Calendar demands
teeth
Tears with each snap.
Acidic stomach, head throbs,
last night’s wine.
Dreamt I could fly.
Felt so real.
Why wake up?
Morning report:
dead crow on the road
would not leave the kill.
Snow displacing sun,
a white lie;
birds sing, go away, go away,
sittin...

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Seated still,
change is speeding up
now I see light
an alien grimaces back in my bathroom mirror
every day, I think I'll capture my story
from the coasts
of personal and private,
woven points of light and dark
but still, I can not,
meantime, I AM
cycling a scrambler in and out
where no "here is me" can be determined,  
but a fanning multi-me

our ball travels
a billion-mile oval
...

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By Brian Hodgkinson Jr.

Imagine one could dump
the "what-ifs" into the toilet,
then flush all of it
to swirling oblivion.

The evening news,
the internet,
the persistent messages,
bombard the mind with enough explosive
impact to cause shell-shock.

We hunker down,
wait for one ugly thing
to resolve,
then the news flashes again,
"What if the next is worse?"

What if
those ...

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By Brian Hodgkinson Jr

"Good Morning, Daddy God
Help me focus on this new day.
Brush aside the cobwebs of confusion.
The world news is dismal as usual.
I am sure glad we humans are not in control.
We certainly know how to botch it all up.
Bring the inner focus back to what matters,
which is only YOU in the here and now.
Thank you for your unconditional love.
Thank you for your mercy.
...

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Like angels pinhead dancing,
we have truly lost our way,
to live the fat anointed life
for fossils, we will pay,
radiation will not go away,
as oceans flood the bay.

Thus, the Machiavellians
enjoy their little rants,
and the paid-off scientists
are bribed with oil grants,
pretending they cannot decide
if CO 2 will raise the tide,
boost the climate worldwide.

For political advantag...

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Saw him crying,
a friend's father died today,
what can anyone say?
--the emptiness of trying

in that, this passage
of advancing age
we all are departing,
puzzled by the parting

filled with fears,
and pent-up tears
trying to make sense,
of a tangled past-tense

memories stab
the inner core like
clawing a scab
scratched bloody,
grief
an unwanted buddy
the only relief

trying...

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Woke this morning
with fuzzy words coming into focus and replaying,
the leftovers of an unfinished dream.

I heard this phrase whisper,
"business-like relationships from
business-like communication..."

Often, the strange thought-flashes
upon waking are only a jumble of junk
that fizzle away into nothingness.
But, this time, I fixated on the idea.

Right then, it occurred to me
that ...

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Isn’t it easy how other things
can begin to define us?

Boiling in this infernal informational
depot of screens
rot seeping creeps in and forms us
if we let it,
and even if
we think we didn’t.

A curious youth
took a peek through a dark taboo portal:
“I wish I didn’t see that.
I can’t get it out of my head.”

I don’t want your damned reformation,
whoever you are.
However–

I rem...

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*

It looked and smelled like the excrement
of a giant bull, a pile of you-know-what.
Then it moved.

A giant snapping turtle went to explore
after its customary swamping-grounds
were submerged from torrential rains.
Without intervention, it was stepping to
its destruction in search of another
mudhole.  

It had ruled the same sewage
runoff swamp for several decades.
But now, it was...

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***

I don't wanna watch that
because it already happened,
and happens inside me when I do.
Our culture is enamored with
the psychology of observing life
rather than living it.

Why do we love to watch evil?
Why do we love bloodshed and pain?

We think,
as long as it's happening to someone else;
as long as we're not the one--
if we just watch and feel,
what we witness isn't real,
...

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Shuffle in lugging, Go to the back
In this damn room again – so drab
The decor is frontal-lobotomies
Yellow painted cinder-block, Walls
Conduct the outdoor chill into me
1950’s rowed desks contort to fit
Instruments of cruel endurance
Under quarter inch vinyl pads,
riveted steel – a cold path up
Some nostriled grunge drips out –
Smear it, paint back of index finger
Human sounds, as...

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*

Right here, right now
is how & what, & where,
to be--
for nowhere else
has the key;
could it ever be?

This is it,
of a timeless Rhyme
set in space--
atomic time.

Anomaly or intention?
Accident or invention?
Stop-- and check-in--
since this is the occasion
to lose--or to find,
a flowing mind.

*

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*

reckless begins the odyssey
when all feeble ties abandon
and shrewd the wish to chart the stars
until a Dipper pours its angel dust
and blind Orion's sword finds its mark

how terrible the dare that motivates
a brazen sailor to kiss
the face of Devil's Thumb
that allows blood-mingled tears to cleanse
doubts before each vision, intruding
yonder barred horizons
        
by an elect...

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*

He came into my life
with his fuzzy mustache clown smile,
sorry and happy at once
he was running, just running
down that road by himself,
singular --he seemed
bent on self-destruction

then he flashed his look at me
as I was driving home in my new car
at first, I didn't know what he was
it was raining, mucky, with poor visibility
he was matted thick with mud
but I saw those eyes,
...

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To My Valentine -- V V

*

  Our love is very patient
      we crave to share always
        & we are very confident
       we can make our ardor blaze
      when we show we are competent
     our desire becomes a craze
      our energy feels omnipotent
       we flex our passion plays--
        our mighty dance is fervent
         we imitate ballets
        & when our force is final...

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*

time stopped after faces smiled--
squinting at square time-capsuled windows
books packed, amber remains to portray
slices of cryogenic experience

yellowed paper in brittle plastic sheathes
stare back at me-- voices call
to the nowhere places that are not
wishing, wondering, "what if?"
--look for some dimensional door

some resemble me too, horribly so
the mocker looks artificial,...

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*

Is it possible to yearn for a place and time
solely for its colors?
Green is my favorite color
so familiar, but not in our old garden
Everything was an out-of-this-world green
looking out our backdoor in western Kenya
nothing could match the crackling vibrancy
of glowing full-blooded chlorophyll
it seemed too good to be true
Open the back door, imagine a valley
shrouded with luminou...

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***

Two vacant park benches
under an old gray pine
are slate and damp
with dingy mold,
moss & pine needles
coat cracked seats
& tables crisscrossed
by mucus slug-trails–
        
A gray squirrel grips a stray
acorn between razor teeth
to sit and nibble under chilly
ashen bowers; this somber
winter day of the newborn
year. We sat there.

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***

spring is springing up:
green fingers pierce through the ice,
no force can cancel.

Limericist 2021

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***

Writing about life:
Writing for an audience?
Yes, I write to me.

***

Limericist 2021

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a vacuous gunmetal dervish spins
column of swirled perdition
howls like Bedlam let
loose foundations
yanked uprooted–
–stare deep in
its eyeless
last face,
hypnotic
swirls
the

streamers of graphite sky curl down
like monstrous wiry arms
war of the world
deceptive in
appearance
weak;

insanely steady its fickle
course, this berserker balls
voracious with revolving
maw inhales...

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What I recount here wasn't a dream
Clouds cracked open a spotlight sunbeam.
Pinpointed on me, whose mind was in sorrow.
I desperately needed a job by tomorrow.
At the end of my rope by the cold reality,
our dwindling supplies were depending on me.
Stranded in Hawaii, before traveling the earth,
We went there for training to share the new birth.
Sold everything we owned, flew as a family.
...

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This is based on a true story. In 2010, I was extremely ill with pneumonia from H1N1. I was in the VA for 2 weeks. I came home no better because I couldn't get out of bed. I got an encouraging kick out of a cardinal dancing up and down outside my window. He wanted me to get up and put a peanut on my sill. This is a rework of High Note, more accurate to the actual event.

Red

We like to t...

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We walked together
with many smiles on those dusty Kenyan roads.
You taught me how to see
through your African face. We laughed. We wept.

I was a young, 28-year-old, hot-headed foreigner,
but you patiently led me by the hand
and showed me your home, taught me your language and customs.
You were my multilingual interpreter.

You were wise, and I, often, foolish.
So many times, I tested ...

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