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    AC Benus
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

1940, 1970 and Today – plus other poems - 4. in subtle features

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Poem No. 7

 

It was one of the rare times of Man

the devil was dead,

and hope lay dancing in the streets;

optimism in every bed.

 

But in the time evil was unimaginable

it lived well and

found form evenly in

subtle features.

 

 

 

Poem No. 8

 

Too young to feel so old

too old to be so young

Without hope I’m neither

living nor wanting

yet now all I want

is to believe again

that life is more than hope

more than a heart . . . beat

Too young to have no soul

too old to faith me one unique

 

 

 

Poem No. 9

 

My passion has hands and eyes

and lines like desire

 

But how easily a minute of rain

or an afternoon of sun

could destroy this love of mine

 

How could it burn through in a moment

of absentminded neglect?

 

 

_

Copyright © 2023 AC Benus; All Rights Reserved.
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Poem No. 7 speaks to the time after the crackdown in Tiananmen Square (June 1989), then the fall of the Berlin Wall (December 1989), and the eventual change in Russia from one-party rule to a democracy (December 1991). In retrospect, looking back on when it was written in 1992, the darker forecast of the poem has proved quite prophetic. Now America is faced with the terror of one-party rule by the Gops (2015), who, with the help of totalitarian Russia and the People’s (so-called) Army of red China, have brought waterboarding to George Washington’s army (2001) and January 6th to the nation’s Capitol (2021).

Edited by AC Benus
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Very true, @AC Benus.  Evil can disguise itself and live on.  Hope still lives, but is often muted.

While I am yet hopeful for the world, I am less optimistic than I was once.

Much emotion in an economy of words.  Again, well done.

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Number 8 really speaks to me today. My eyes sting with distant smoke, and my ears ring with the strident voices of fascism and bigotry rising. How I yearn for hope. 

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15 hours ago, ReaderPaul said:

Very true, @AC Benus.  Evil can disguise itself and live on.  Hope still lives, but is often muted.

While I am yet hopeful for the world, I am less optimistic than I was once.

Much emotion in an economy of words.  Again, well done.

Thank you, ReaderPaul. This material connected with you, and I'm grateful to hear about it. Critics of my work often accuse me of "using too many words," which has always confused me. I think my own work, as you mention above, is impactful and economical in its word-choices.

Thanks again!  

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17 hours ago, Parker Owens said:

Number 8 really speaks to me today. My eyes sting with distant smoke, and my ears ring with the strident voices of fascism and bigotry rising. How I yearn for hope. 

Thank you, Parker. I know the type of smoke you're enduring right now. San Francisco was blanketed by it a few summers ago. I took a picture with my cell phone one afternoon at 3pm, because streetlights had come on and the sun was nothing but a sooty 20 watt light bulb in the western sky.

In addition, I'd say the young 20-something who penned Poem No. 8 would be amazed his gripings about being in an in-between age (too young to be taken seriously; too old to be allowed the freedom of being a kid again) resonates with someone in a different circumstance. But then again, what did the poet know? He was just a kid after all 

Edited by AC Benus
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