Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
  Jan 2023 Marshal Gebbie
Nat Lipstadt
502 Bad Gateway
(a work in process)
~~~

poetry
is to be found easiest, lying fatal-fetal amidst
the sewage of the blessed daily profane~mundane,
enslaved within the tyranny of everyday indignities,
encrusted within the indignities of diurnal tyrannies,
in the catch basin of sew-aged treatment  pools,
living as a perpetual unpublished draft,
locked behind Five Hundred and Two
Bad Gateways,
Emma Lazarus-yearning
to be free…

502 is an even number, the internet sages confirm,
equitably distributed with no regard to
pronouns,
disrespectful of any age, all creepy~seedy known gods,
equally unconcerned by the laws of **** poetica,
succinctly informing you to f*k off  with the elegant
sparseness of technical brevity,
a la vie moderne boulder,
repeatedly *****-fussy pushing back on you,
as we push a poem uphill

<?>

The road to good poetic intentions is human-paved;
a utile fact,  so continue to insure-shod be thy feet,
when shedding writings of poesy, lest the hot asphalt of
low inspiration yet get the better of ye…or the gates
or the bad gateways,
502 in their number, lock you out,
and carry the day, have their way, and
fracture well honed words
into bits & pieces of letters, scraps of scrap,
“pebbles and ******* and broken matches and bits of glass”^

that all the king's servers and all the king's technicians couldn’t put together again coherently, your words but conscripts in a
vast wasteland of eternal drafts^^

      <?>

well you know this story, that one that has being asking
you to writ it/get rid of it/tell it finally,
a couple of times daily,
that poem, this be that one,
an amorality tale of rejections,
a precision guided
error message,
a HIMARS missive miserly
missilery projectile
rife with hidden %#&”postulations,
of the “what’s wrong with me”
garden variety

think of life as a series of serious, independently linked moments, cherish-able, composting  usurping cursing phrases
distinctly worthy
of re-sharing unto the befouled upper atmosphere,
directly communicating the texture of your experience^^^

Ah Goodbye
Hello Poetry,
rejection is thy middle fingered name!*

this befouled poem
was
begun: many years ago
completed: Jan 4, 2023 @2:11AM
^James Joyce’s words
^Tevye
^^^ unknamed professor
If I had wings the size of helicopter blades
I would circle the world over and look for you
If I owned bulbous sheen o'er Irish glades
tinged in bronze I would enhance, accrue
the worldly space of you, for I love you

If I were paper or some origami glue    
I would enfold your secrets inside my heart    
If I were a harbinger of love an Angel of hue
a Carvaggio masterpiece of light and dark  
I wouldn't need to travel far to be with you

If I knew the waltz I could dance to your music  
I would leave behind my celestial lair
If I knew you needed me, I would be quick
I'd turn back the time and fly through the air
land at your side because I do care

I'd circle the world for the ripple effect of  your smile,  
then enter your soul, just to bridge the last mile.
A void, the emptiness, there is a window open
To bring in the sadness, it is the only feeling to come
And it comes.

My both set of grandmothers departed this land,
The start and the end of year as it happened
Above eighty, they lived through the eras
Saw the nation defeat and built.

Lasted longer than their spouses, outlived their peers
Lived through the crowd and loneliness,
Fed their kids and grandkids.

Their memories and their things,
Their words, they repeat in my mind
I keep thinking of them, them again.

They loved me and other dozen cousins,
They worried each day if I eat my meals,
catch my bus, reach home safe and sound.

It is funny how it comes to humans,,
When it is time to depart, their body deteriorates
The heartbeats comes to rest.

I really wish to have more of them,
I yearn to hear the same stories yet again,
Their hardship and the beautiful life.

I wish I had more time with them now,
I deeply wish I could go a year behind.
  Jan 2023 Marshal Gebbie
Bus Poet Stop
Restless hungry, found a tiny scrap of a brownie in the back of the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic about the size of a large 35 cent quarter.  
Gobbled up and gone.

Eye had purchased it a week ago, maybe more.  
Actually it was more like eye was held up at gunpoint by a sad young face for a large and green single dollar Bill.
In return, was bequeathed said brownie eye dropper-ful.

The  apartment I live in a big city, many apartments were recession empty for a long time.  But in the last few years, the empty apartments in the building were almost all sold to foreigners.  
Now the bldg is an amulet melted of the lucky overseas fortunate, those overseers overseas seizers, who come to reside in the most fabulous site in these United States...and buy a piece of the dream away from the be-headers, secret police or governments that decide you are now an enemy of the state, as of this morning. No judgement.

anyway, this doe eyed child of estimated six or eight years of age accosts me in our large lobby, proffers me the brownie scrap for a Bill.

me a sucker of a salesman myself, and an eye affician-doe, well those doefuls, those eyes, no one could resist!

so eye asked her name,
but all she could say in
Anglais was...

"Brownie One Dollar?"

laughing out loud for no apparent cause,
the hanging about lobbyists looked at me staring...
Why was eye laughing?

laughing cause eye realized
this elfin child had become
fitfully but fully Americanized.

and I loved her eyes in mine, and when I see her periodically, I say:

"Hey! Brownie One Dollar, How are ya!"

and everyone snicker smiles at the old man with the even stupider grin upon his eyes.

That would be eye.
Drinking the vin in vignette
brownie salesman
her profitability now legendary, she travels in a pack and woe be to the poor fool entrapped in an elevator surround by fawns with a hungry look in their eyes....
  Jan 2023 Marshal Gebbie
Nat Lipstadt
It’s only a short straight hill
(First Poem.of the Year)

“I'm 69, newly homeless, and can't wait to start the journey of a creative life after being asleep for so long. It's only a short straight hill and I'll be on a path into a new life.”

Jeremiah B Xxxxxx Jr.

<?>

it is
4:11am
on the
first day
of a new
year.

a year
is a unit;
mathematically
measurable,
defined,
calculable,
divisible
by seconds,
minutes,
hours & days,
all artifices,
mutually
acknowledged.

you,
& others,
remind
me too easily,
that the
creative
is the only
path
to endless,
(a unit immeasurable)
reinvigorating
life.

your fragrant
optimium optimism
is stun
gun overpowering,
the ill defined,
but instantly
understood,
immeasurable
distance,
you foresee
to life better is
conquerable!


”only a short straight hill”

imbues me to lift
head, heart, arm
& unloved dried ink pen,
to pen,
to unpack,
to speak,
of all that
needs climbing,
over the
artificial lines
of the first unit
of time:

a new year.

thank you.

Sun Jan 1 2023
NYC
  Dec 2022 Marshal Gebbie
Sara
When you kissed me, I lied.

I let you kiss me because I wanted someone to love me.  
I was selfish, I wanted to soothe my craving for attention, soft and kind love.

It’s because you’re warm and safe, I still do get the urge to trust you with love.
In fact you’re handsome while so insecure.

But I shouldn’t have kissed you, because I knew I didn’t want you but your aroma.
I chewed it and played with it to spare your feelings and to ebb my shame

but believe me, I’m happy to have made your acquaintance on that awful day that appeared on paper as perfect.
On the day when the last one I loved, introduced me to you
My poems have started taking sound of a prose?, not sure where it came from
Next page