Ben Partenay Poems

Oh maybe in some far and foreign field
There sits a star that never liked the sky
That much prefers the barren soggy ground
Just as I
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She sleeps while sunrise slowly closes in
While somewhere near a rooster starts to crow
Last night she dreamed a crumpled little cloud
Where I can’t go
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five thousand
two hundred
thirty seven steps
to the edge of the
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Dusk to dusk
And head to pillowcase
And tonight I think
I'll let the winter
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I’ve never whispered much about my life
Nor have I offered up this veiled soul
To anyone, save maybe once, a love
With eyes like burning coal
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i cannot write when all is well
i need the grins that miss a tooth
i need the tolling of a bell
and for a little blackened truth
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I have believed and yet have not
and felt the bullets from both sides
who say it's harder to believe
while others say it's truth denied.
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Red and orange, yellow
Maybe a touch of blue
Paint the sky with fire
And the snow with a barren hue
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these streets are clogged with ball and chain,
faces walk with owl eyes, carry
bags of last kisses and goodbyes on telephones,
“tonight” they say, “love will break these chains”
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you lose a fight
then two, then three
tongues throw words like tiny stones
you drag home tattered bits of hope
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