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                              POETRY . . .
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BAR POETRY
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MENTAL FLAGELLATION
  Copyright 1994 Francis U. Kaltenbaugh

You've a heavenly body,
Eyes of the Devil,
Tongue of a snake.

Taking me where
No man goes -- it flows.
Wrenching desires, you slake.

Ripped shattered, your soul's rent.
The *great* weight presses
On your mind -- quite bent.

Feeding you myself, fills you
With ecstasy. Complete abandon,
Baby bird -- blind -- frenzy.

With need to consume, yourself
Of another, one more time;
We, each, mutually devour.

And are individually -- gone.
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(Untitled)

If I speak to the wind,
To ask his advice,
He tells me a riddle
To make me think twice.

He then goes on to say,
It's up to me to find a way.
The answer I seek is not hard to find.
But, it's still up to me not to be left behind.

With one last breath,
The wind does say,
Look inside one's self,
It's the only way!

Copyright 1994 Larry McCoy

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(Untitled)

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.

If you'd stayed in your pants.
I'd still be with you.

Copyright 1994 Gina Johnston
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CARRION COMFORT
 by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 
Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist -- slack they may be -- these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry *I can no more*. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and
   flee?
   
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh,
   cheer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot
   trod
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That
   night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my
   God.

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