Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2022
There but, for the grace of God, go I…..
That wizened one on corner bench
Balding with a wrinkled eye,
Challenged by his verbal clench.

He holds forth with a knowing tongue,
In cadence, difficult for me,
Phrases from a wheezing lung
In yesterday’s lost repartee.

Pedantic, in occasional  way,
Quite racist in the words that flow,
Combative to retorts, I say….
Breed angrily, response….. I know.

Wishing to avoid offense,
Impatient, in my need to go,
I interrupt, to make amends
And flee with fleeting smile to show.

Thus the way of late, it seems,
Curtailed in his ancient eye,
Impatience with the aged dreams,
Communication cauterized.

Hurt,  I see the face withdraw
Bite the sentence from the tongue,
Quiet….but  the look implores
Condescension has begun.

Agh, these days go thinly by
The telephone now rarely rings,
Words are short twixt he and I
A hollowness this silence brings.

M
11th December 2022
Foxglove@Taranaki,NZ
A perspective from the other side.
A young, busy mind having to cope with the dwindling perspicuity of the aged, difficult Dad.
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2022
Read the words upon the page
Depicting how was such an age
That, then, ensconced in everyday
In truth, permitted Hell to play.

Where age with all it's wisdom gleaned
Should logically be rightly seen
As guidance for emerging youth
Where past mistakes impart as truth.

Though tragically, bereft as seen,
The actuality now doth scream
For youth doth relegate to grass
Aged wisdom's pearls.... as shattered glass.

Dispersed amid the flotsam tide
Lies that which salves salvation's hide,
Lies that which wreaks of God's works, twist,
Dispersed through cold, Alzheimer mist.

The waste of ancient eyes at rest
Expelled, devoid of life, at best
But should a crisis start to burn
Old minds may co-opt young to learn?

History makes the paradigm
That thumps the lesson home, with time,
In squandering the wealth of age
We burn the story, tear the page.

Now delegated to the shelf
Immersed in indignation's self
Old wallow in blue pity's taint
Inhibited by self restraint.

But then the moment comes around
When happenstance, by chance compound,
When youth, of clear complexioned face,
May stumble into mute disgrace....

Thence whilst the Angel trumpets grace
Whence in that vacant, silenced space,
Then flows of wisdom tumble thine
From lips that spake in ancient time.

Knowledge held in Holy Grail
Empirically forth then, when regaled,
As pomp and circumstance decreed
Should all, combined then, .... be agreed?

M.
9th December 2022
Foxglove@Taranaki,NZ.
Oh! the frustration of the aged at being sidelined by the arrogance of emergent youth.
The impertinence of the transfer of power and influence from one era to the next and the ever present wastage of invaluable lessons learned and priceless experience, gained from the labour of the travails of time.
M.
Like my life, all my kitchen crockery
is used, worn and chipped,
Maybe I could buy replacements,
but sadly, they do not make them
like that anymore. Or me either.

Aging, and time leave some wear
and tear behind and are unavoidable.
Sure, new dishes I can buy, but can
anyone sell me another 25 or 30 years
of healthy life? Now wouldn't that be
great! Let see I'm 77, 30 more years
would be 107. Naw, that may be a bit
greedy. I'll just plug along with the
wear and tear as it comes naturally.
One day at a time. Grinning all the way.
There was a time
when music meant
more than the
heartbeat in my chest

Through its veins
flowed notes of great inspiration

The heart raced to the rhythms , escalating elations

The spirit soared in explosions of glory and verbal fireworks awed

The vibrations tingled the
chill of skin

Who would have believed it could feel so great within

That was this , that was then
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2022
N Oct 19
Beneath Putin’s Thumb

Somewhere out there just
beneath
Putin’s thumb and the
spiralling
plumes we have each
grown
accustomed to, a swathe
of crimson
devastation and desolation lie

......and in the glint
Of his cold grey, eye?
An insinuation
That this world
Undervalues,
Is unappreciative of,
Disrespectful to,
His place in history....
As the true
Reincarnation
Of Peter the Great....
Rightful Tsar
Of the savage,
Magnificence that is...
Mother Russia,
The Rodina!

M.
4 November 2022
An eye for a thumb, delving to find the reason why Putin is what he is!
Just published and am half way through reading PUTIN; His Life and Times by Phillip Short...MAGNIFICENT & REVEALING!
Next page