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"for the vanity of man is as porous as dust...and, in their supreme wisdom, because of this failing, the Gods have decreed, that mankind deserveth no more, no less than his designated allotment of being.
And such it shall be."
writ by
The Marshal Gebbie
June 2023
<>
rise up, rise up,
son up, sun up!
see for yourself a newly birthing day,
the early rays licking the unlocking of a grinning earth's face,
humbling humans and their perpetuity e~mo/notions of eternity.
how are the daily~we, to measure ourselves, versus our ancestry,
by whom shall we~be set forth as examples to our posterity
what tools we fools think, we possess, an etch~a~sketch,
to imprint of who we are,
what we were, and
who we might become, and
be  beauty becoming,
marking our time with ensigns of
words of integers in some giant network
authored, offered, up unashamedly

and even though the sun
does not always greet & meet
the discombobulated human riffraff
every diurnal,
daily identical,
when it shines,
it shines for us all
in an equality of glorious,
it shines upon us all in equality,
it, great equalizer, who restores and
replenishes our colored planets blue green,
a methodology of air, soil and water interactively,
for we are all chemicals, forever effervescent rebirthing

and so it goes.
our cells, are a
rare earth depository,
we plant ourselves
eternally, fed by
foodstuffs of
our ancestors cells,
their brewed ***** dust,
and thus each of us singly
is thus remembered, reconstructed
as are we, both, individually and collectively,
from dust we are, to dust we return, the matériel futured…


postscript
We Hebrews have a knowingly foolish,
a most beauteous custom, gifted to us by
our forefather Jacob, who when espying a
solitary grave by the road, a nameless marker of
piled-on stones, marking an unknown person last remains,
added one more, add-on to ensure this nameless one yet remembered,
so we too do not pass by without adding a stone, a tiny pebble,
we encumbered, to solidify, perpetuate, renew, ever sustaining,
cannot pass by without adding another rock,
another pebble, that time will surely shift,
but as long we follow this custom,
spiting time's erosive nature and until today,
yet the same, for at a cemetery, every grave,
all marker, ego big, humbled small, topped,
festooned, with small stones, we top them
signaling that this, very spot here, here!
for now, until for ever
shall never
be forgot

<.
and so this peculiar, deteriorating canister places
one more smoothed handy beach pebble, upon
this, his unmarked resting spot
nml
<>
Monday morning
7:10am
an august, August dream day
specified as the 11th day of this
eighth month in one particular
calendric methodology
and as the
17th of Av 5785
in his ancestral calendar
sJews place stones on grave markers as a long-standing tradition symbolizing remembrance and respect for the deceased. It's a way to show that the person hasn't been forgotten and that someone has visited their final resting place. Unlike flowers, which are temporary, stones are seen as enduring, representing the everlasting nature of memory
Historical Roots:
The practice may have roots in ancient times when graves were marked with piles of stones
We lived for the
next drink; the elixir to
erase the memories of
a thousand cruel dawns.
It took work when we
were broken and bedraggled.
Creativity and thirst drove
us through the day.

"Do you have anything to pawn?"

"Hey, why don't we stop by the
old carnival guy's place, he's
always good for a belt."

"Big Brenda will you give you a
10 spot to go down on her,
are you
up for it?"

The **** we did to stay liquid smooth.
We redeemed cans for nickels, It took
hundreds to get a bottle.
In and out of dumpsters filled with
the most vile trash imaginable.
Me and those aluminum cowboys,
knee-deep in the filth just to
get a drink.

Winter was bad, frostbitten hands and
hearts, but summer was worse.
Something about the way the sun
cooked the trash had a hellish putrid
effect on the soul.
That smell was the seed of my
sobriety.
Here is a link to my YouTube channel where I post poetry readings from my latest books, Sleep Always Calls, It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse and, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, they are all available on Amazon.
One composes a poem, in a singular fell swooping,
the words, previous, unknown in that particular order,
are felled like trees in a ****** forest, newly saddened,
an emptying and simultaneously fulfilling sensory battle,
a dressing and an ******* and the
poem (again) writes itself

This literary body, literally is birthed with realized labor pains,
actual aches, a pulsing pursuing, and you dare not
stop to fix an errant knight of a typoe or an out of placed
CapitalizatioN, lest the streaming be broke, mind's momentum
be disturbed fiercely feared, lost to the vagabonds that
exist solely for the express purpose of denying your self-expression

One such poem, written yesterday (1), reminded me of another (2) composed, years ago, inspired by a ferry trip returning home, an ode to an old dear friend, a lover of the fulsome of life,
who had recently
passed away

Twelve years passing, yet well remember,
the utter urgency
of its composition, the purging of the sorrow,
and leaves me bereft, very sad,
for after writing thousands of scripts,
like a ****** obsessed,

feeling in the quietude of a sleeping household,
soon to be tumultuous with morning to and fro
runnings around and about, a/k/a errands,
wondering
Where and Whence
will come such a poem,
my next fix(ation)
a desired damnation of emotion,
and fearing its potential
unhappy origins

5:39am
Wed Jul 23
On the island
In the sunroom,
shushing hesitation
with chest pounding,
mouthing my forefinger
in puzzlement, befuddlement
A follow on poem to 'In the Sunroom (Suicide)"  (1)
writ many years later...
~For MWK~
<>
A stray thought. a burring burrowing, thorny tawny:

A wish, yet to get, but vetted for each of us.

This within, this redoubt, a contemplative oasis,
my indoor poet's nookery rookery sanctuary
each one, each is, deserves, all, one such,
a place holy filled, with lice and dirt of a life,
strained and trained for emission and transmission
of the best of the worst, and the triumphant emergent commission of
our individualized most excellent fresh best

where crumbs of apple crisp pie solidify, vanilla bean ice cream
melt offsets the oven heated warmth, and from this interactive
contrasts combative,
a poem pie reborn, newly disguised, familiar words,
yet unheard and before this very never,
went unspoken and now goes forth
svelte and unbroken

rhymes of yore, forgot from a before, but making up the walls
of the here and now,
a sunroom to spread out the lit lights of egress and entrance,
of fire door no exits that now are chiseled closed,
lock in, lock up, and somehow, one, stills to learn from
the stilling quiet solitude.
to penetrate the prostrate kneeling grinning grief,
how to expel and spell the words
that grant
relief

visit my sunroom, though no fiction.
the sun rays *******, create the friction
of that which cannot ever be withered nor contained,
and your mouth opens wide and a poem birthed and delivered,
pastiche paste composted of truth and dreams of fiction, fine diction,
with a shrug, a smile, a satisfaction extracted extraordinary,
you garner moments of satisfaction but cloud cover returns,
and the process of sunrise exposition recommences,
and one revisits the elemental sequencing of
all the predecessor pain, but this time,

for gain, for gain,
<>

written this sabbath Saturday
12:38am EST
Sat Aug 2
2025
in the sunroom,
on Shelter Island
"wish everyone was loved tonight
And somehow stop this endless fight
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days"

Better Days by the Goo Goo Dolls
<>
Yeah yeah. Dating myself.
Some reason find myself listening to the GGD,
(A less embarrassing initialization)
Heard it a thousand times,
Classic easy listening rock.
A sweet wish, everybody knows, ain't gonna happen>
But, In my hand, a -perfecta summer day,
Steady sun, genteel sea breeze, low humidity,
The insects tolerate a shooing away, go easy and disappear,
House empty, everyone doing something and
You know where I am, tip~tapping on my iPad,
Yup, in that room, where poems are fan circulated,
And fall, freely, from the wood ceiling directly
Onto screen, my only job, to screen
The screen for typoes and other such minor inconveniences

There is no time to calculate,
No time to measure, no errors to complete that can't be undone,
And To mourn,
And the Angels have come in silently,
The day so fine, their human side,
Returns for a sun tan and the heat that heals
Burns, wounds, fissures, and even stalling
Out the growth of the bad cells our bodies
Con~tain;
They do not run nor hide,,
whispering I am too pessimistic,
And the Day will bleed into sunfall,
With colors sublime and god designed,
And if ever there was an evening
That the possibility greatest that
tonight
Everyone could be loved,
Even me,
Even you,
Even us,
The air has harmonies in the air flow,
And tonight, will be the time
When we all remember with a sly grin.
that we commence by loving oneself,
And then cell splitting,
and saliva sharing,
following tears and sweat,
and cradling arms
will entwine
Only Love Poems
Res
For so many reasons;
When the wow creativity
Of the young, new baby poets,

Bursts all over me,
Making me question
My egotistical perception,
Not a slap, but a belly laugh!
At the old fool, who once thought
Ever so secondary briefly, momentarily,
Unofficially, of his own esteemed self-worth,
Only to be reminded, deaf~dumb & blind~sided
By the fresh air, the aggravating sight of new insight
The delicious!delight  of reading the whole of all night
The explorations, the baby hallucinations, the trembling,
Insights of the explorers of the old, not re!newed, but, but.
Made anew, re~viewed with perspectives boldly unknown,
With crazy wisdom to expound, here, you! right here, right now,
I leave you and return to delight, taste, new extra languages, that
                                               I must
                                         learn not to speak
                                       but to peak, even to
                                     Cry, Laugh even Smile  
    
                              In all my new native tongues



Friday, July 18
5:39 AM,
2025
In the sunroom

Dictated in one fell swoop, not a moment to lose, dispatched while
Still laughing at myself...
Frequently,
a reminder appears,
an app zap,

It's a good time to check your posture!
arrives with precise
ir~regularity,
when I,
couch prone
neck bent,
spine most unfine,
not in a good way,
it somehow knows,
which way my toes are curling

Got me a weighted vest,
to help me
grow down
straighter,
but realized,
already had one,
whole life long,
with the weights
maldistributed,
too heavy,
and the curvatures
of spine and line
was what made me
so unattractive,
were curved
with hard bad work
over decades,

Yes. Way to Late,
To be undone,
I Is What I
have become
undone by design
                                but I write not of my physicality, but
                          of mental posture, of my integrated thoughts,
                   the integrated consciousness of a lifetime of thoughts.
              deeds, desires, fires started and extinguished, acts summary,
as zeroes and ones, binaurally coded in my treasury of memory cells,
       edited by time, seasoned illusions, shame, with no recompense,
                totals of entirety and the totality of the net net of gains,
                          losses, courages *******, sticking points that
                                     unraveled by self~disassembling
                                     and the stench of actions untaken
                                    make me a bent soul, by ineffectual
                                    posturing, flim~flam, and eventually
                   the reminders to check my posture cease and desist
,
                                            with no word of farewell,
                                               nor a pose left behind
                                                          ­    <…>
“my poetry to protect me”^



an ancient teenage lyric
haunting comes, no longer shielding,
a gossamer consistency ironclad,
a tissue-thin papyrus,
my poetry to protect me

a clarinet reed, capable of swinging  
a highest pitch voice for turning
blades of clean steel clean away,
now stunting blunting no more,
indeed!

re-formed my shield, re-purposed,
into a stabbing instrument offensive,
my poetry comes to ***** tearings in my
worn thin fabric tapestry, woven from
excuses of why I can’t, why I couldn’t

this is life

moats becoming drowning pools,
castle walls, people entrapments,
wrecking machines, bombardier hurling,
medieval defenseless against modern,
rhymes giving way to free verse onslaught

too late to apologize to myself, my words,
my protectorate, island redoubt, now ruined
by doubts treachery breech-birthed from within,
these verses hollow point bullets re-engineered,
Caesar’s words re-versed, you’re the victim Brutus
as well

1:52 AM
Mon May 18
June 2020
Manhattan Island
^I am a rock” Paul Simon
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