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Using form: Limericks: RHL, 'Attitudes in the Holy Land'

Moses says God says: (Deuteronomy 20:16-18) God’s ruthless. Just read Deuteronomy, believers get zero autonomy: “You must kill all non-Jews in this land that I choose.” Just back then? Or still now? (Love His bonhomie!) Luke says Jesus says: (Luke 19:27) Christ was often less peaceful than stormy, with disciples both pushy and swarmy; to the rest he made plain if they’d not have him reign: “Bring…

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#Christians #Jesus #Jews #light verse #Moses #Muhammad #Muslims #Robin Helweg-Larsen #The HyperTexts #using form

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Shamik Banerjee, 'A Meeting'

We chose our old patisserie, Faheem’s, One Monday noontime. Half the chairs were stacked. The waiter Abdul’s smile displayed the fact He knew our likes: fudge brownies with whipped cream. Her clothes were simple, just a plain Salwar Kameez—not what she mostly wore to meet me. No dimples sat upon her cheeks to greet me; Her body there, her mind was somewhere far Away. “Must be a slight familial…

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#arranged marriage #India #lost love #love #romance #Shamik Banerjee

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Edmund Conti, 'Class Action'

Forty farty arty asses Taking “Art and Humor” classes. We can easily dispense of Ten of those who have no sense of Why they’re spending time in class. Perhaps they hope the time will pass. Thirty dirty-thinking students Driving cars with one or two dents All with New York license plates (no one comes from other states). None of them are Trappist Monks. Three of them are from the Bronx. Twenty…

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#Edmund Conti #humorous verse #light verse #students #That Shakespeherian Rag

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SF Sonnet: RHL, 'Transhuman Evolution'

The humans crowd the riverbanks in cities while you, would-be transhuman in your boat, trust to your dreams and luck as on you float, ignoring all the land’s static committees, the buildings taller with their strident voices, the citied banks ever more crammed and loud, leaders and statues oversize and proud, fixed in their views. But you see other choices. And then there’s no more land. Only the…

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#future #Matthew Arnold #Nietzsche #river of life #Robin Helweg-Larsen #SF poetry #Space and Time #the infinite sea

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Melissa Balmain, 'The Marital Bed'

You always hog the blankets and steal my magazines. No need to ask what smells so rank– it’s you, the king of beans. Your toenails cut my shin. You blow your nose: I jump. I’m sanded by your bristly chin, then bulldozed by your rump. You scratch your back and sigh, you grunt, harrumph and bray. And yet the crazy truth is I can’t sleep when you’re away. ***** From Walking in on People © Melissa…

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#bed #husband #Light Magazine #Melissa Balmain #sleep #Walking In On People

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Sonnet: Marcus Bales, 'Walking in the Rain'

Today when we went walking it was raining, Not so hard to keep us from it — still Distinctly wet. We thought about abstaining, But March this year has lost its normal chill, So on we went. She did her bombs away, I bagged, and she looked up, with fur-soaked skin, And shook some water off, as if to say, Open up the door let’s go back in. Well you’re the one who brought us out this far I said as if…

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#dog #dogs #Marcus Bales #rain #Shakespearean #sonnet #walks

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RHL, 'Everyone'

Everyone’s naked under their clothes, everyone’s bald under their hair; hide if you like, everyone knows! Everyone sees what you’re like under there. Everyone’s meat under their skin, everyone’s bones under their meat; we know what your outside is hiding within: hiding will always end in defeat. So banish the words and censor the book, draw little clothes on the cartoons for kids; everyone knows…

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#Bridget Ziegler #children&039;s books #Christian Ziegler #hypocrisy #light verse #Lighten Up Online #LUPO #Moms For Liberty #nudity #rhyme #rhythm #Robin Helweg-Larsen #sexual assault

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Using form: Villanelle: Discoveria, 'October 7'

Your actions have unleashed a living hell. Each day Israelis, Palestinians die; Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves. October 7: gunfire and the smell of death in the kibbutzim testify: your actions have unleashed a living hell. The siege of Gaza, ground invasion, tell the UN of the “risk of genocide”. Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves. And when the hospitals are bombed as well, and there’s…

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#Deuteronomy 20 #Discoveria #ethnic cleansing #Gaza #genocide #Hamas #Israel #Israelis #Jews #Muslims #Netanyahu #Palestine #Palestinians #terrorism #using form #villanelle #war #war crimes

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Parody: Brian Allgar, 'If you can ...'

If you can make her laugh, that’s half the battle, Especially if she’s married to a bore; If you can make her glad to be your chattel, Yet treat her like a lady, not a whore; If you can undo bra-straps single-handed While murmuring enticements in her ear; If you can make her think you’re being candid When telling her just what she wants to hear; If you, my friend, can easily persuade her To…

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#Brian Allgar #If #Kipling #laughter #light verse #love affairs #parody #rhyme #seduction

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Deuteronomy 20: 16-18

You’ve no autonomy under Deuteronomy; it’s your obligation to your tribal nation to kill all Palestinians so you don’t sin against God, who’s neurotic. Yes, Yahweh’s psychotic. No escaping his wrath, no path but the psychopath. ***** For Christians and Jews who state (as Jesus did) that every reported command by God in the Torah / Old Testament must be obeyed, I ask their position on…

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#Deuteronomy #ethnic cleansing #Gaza #genocide #God #irreligious #Moses #Nakba #Palestine #Palestinians #religious #Torah

[batgovernor]

RHL, 'Deuteronomy 20: 16-18'

You’ve no autonomy under Deuteronomy; it’s your obligation to your tribal nation to kill all Palestinians so you don’t sin against God, who’s neurotic. Yes, Yahweh’s psychotic. No escaping his wrath, no path but the psychopath. ***** For Christians and Jews who state (as Jesus did) that every reported command by God in the Torah / Old Testament must be obeyed, I ask their position on…

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#Christians #Deuteronomy 20 #ethnic cleansing #genocide #God #Israelis #Jews #Moses #Muslims #Palestinians #Torah

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Richard Fleming, 'Invisible'

It’s footwear that I recognise not faces but that’s no surprise: I don’t look up, they don’t look down except occasionally to frown then look away and hurry on and moments later they are gone. There’s city Oxfords, polished, black, worn by the older, banking pack, and Converse sneakers for the lads, whose work is fabricating ads. The women, they too, dress that way: I rarely see high heels today.…

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#Covid #formal verse #light verse #metre #old-fashioned #rhyme #Richard Fleming #street people

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Duncan Lawrence, 'The Poet is the Luckiest of Artists'

There is no struggling with a wayward cello on the train Or carting a large canvas through dank cornfields in the rain. No need to worry chapter sixteen has somehow been deleted Or that the woodwind section remains a long way from completed. No welding burns to speak of, hammered thumbs or calloused palms, No temperamental band mates whose bad habits raise alarms. No fearing, that the next plié…

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#Duncan Lawrence #formal verse #how to write poetry #John Cooper Clarke #Lighten Up Online #LUPO #walking

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Using form: Iambic tetrameter: Brooke Clark, 'Celebrities'

They’re insecure black holes of need and here they come to clog your feed with photos and confessionals shaped by PR professionals— a pool glows blue in the backyard next to a pull quote: “It was hard to fight those demons of self-doubt”— How brave you are for speaking out! (“Dinner? Umm…the rainbow trout?”) Some glossy shots show off the house where, on a massive sun-splashed couch the boyfriend…

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#Asses of Parnassus #Brooke Clark #celebrities #iambic tetrameter #insecurity #Rat&039;s Ass Review #Swift #using form

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Using form: Sonnet: Josh Geffin, 'A Guide to Renting in London'

So, when it says delightful take it as a word for small. Make sure to steer away from cosy – that just means it likely has no place to put your things or even pray. A huge and gorgeous room is medium size while well-maintained denotes a certain lack of charm and won’t be winning Best Home prize. A friendly house is code for watch your back. And please avoid affordable single room – you’ll have to…

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#Acumen #Josh Geffin #London #music #renting #sonnet

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Using form: Stretch Villanelle: Maryann Corbett, 'Pictures of Ourselves at 21'

a meditation on the current Facebook meme Those were the days we had amazing hair. And bodies. And ambitions. Chutzpah, too. “Look on our manes, ye mighty, and despair!” we cry, smirking disdain like Baudelaire from yearbook-picture ranks and files. We grew it lush, that long-ago amazing hair, while choruses wailed Gimme down to there hair! Though in our hippie hearts we knew we’d have to tame…

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#hair #long hair #Maryann Corbett #photo #Rattle #stretch villanelle #using form #villanelle #youth

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Louise Walker, 'Octave/Sestet'

With each deep breath, the flute will utter prayer, its voice vibrating with the purest note of G in the first octave. Then you can float up to the next because you know it’s there. The painter knows how to balance sea and air, concealing rules that have been learned by rote; the same that give the poet secret hope that all will be in order, nothing spare. But look – the sunflower makes a perfect…

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#A.E. Stallings #Acumen #Don Paterson #formal verse #Louise Walker #Petrarchan #sonnet