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Image: Ronna Leon
A Valentine to an old romantic fool
i gave my ex her
valentine yesterday so to
day i think
i will give me
my best,
this ;
i love you,
“you silly old bear”
and am so
proud the way
you have walked thru the
fire these past three years while
the Whorehouse of Hell’s Jackals
hungered your soul.
thank you
for your strength
to get down on your
knees every morning
and ask for
help
corrected by M.R. Merris
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Biographic Information
M.R. Merris b. Feb. 12, 1953 in Illinois and lived there
until he was 13. Started writing in the 8th grade where his first attempt
at poetry earned an F, since he was use to seeing the grade he kept on
going. Black out drinker by age 15. Shipped as a merchant seaman for 2
years and then enlisted in USN. He was hospitalized by USN in Bremerton
WA for alcoholism in 1977. During the last stages of his alcoholism he
lost the ability to write and this was a reason for finding the fortitude
to get on his knees and ask for help. Came to the SF bay area in 1980 and
found sobriety. Married late, fathered 2 sons and divorced after 15 years.
During the last stage of his marriage he found he couldn’t write. And once
again, once he left the marriage, he got on his knees and the writing returned.
6 months after he left the marriage he was laid off from his job of 15
years. Unemployed for 2 years. Now working, he will be publishing his first
book, “Fistful at Fifty” in 2006.
2 Poems written on a Saul’s menu
To Liza Dodd
Your waters
wash our sons into diamonds continually
burning bright
w/ light for the lost.
In the whorehouse of Hell
I see their light
in the Jackal’s eyes
and …….God
…. I am lost.
I never said thank you
for giving me something
so precious, so perfect
in their becoming
that being w/ them
breaks the train
of your leaving.
poem w/ nowhere to go
To Liza Dodd.
it’s warm now
shirtsleeve weather in early Novem
ber funny,
after 25 years I
always expect it to be col
der full
nose blowing weather now,
but it isn’t
so I will move on.
drunk w/ the red
orange leaves ocher
undercoated hills painted sand
w/ dark blue gray washed shadows
and almost transparent sand highlights
I miss my turn off twice and
twice I must go
back
to begin again
looking for my destination.
but the trees.
the trees, the yellows
the browns, the rust blow about like dead soldiers in war everybody
fought in and no one wants to talk about.
ratchet my eye to the
brilliance
now
and all that was said or wasn’t said or done and wasn’t done
lays in someone else closet
and I hold its brilliance
in my memory
as I do these colors, fruits and spoils
In a war that I wish I hadn’t fought in.
and move
to begin
again.
M.R. Merris
362 Columbia Circle
Benicia CA
510-919-6515 (M)
mrmerris2@yahoo.com
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