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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
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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, this matériel future prepped


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
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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

I've walked your floor

sat beside you in candlelight
looking at photos
scattered across the floor.

you remembering names
and people and prayers
I had long forgotten.

you are the dancer
who glides this loner
through sorrows and the stars,
across the mist of moments
most treasured

where in the stillness between kisses
promises are kept
and the warmth of your hand on my cheek
felt in places to real to touch.

your love asks for nothing
and when you smile your quiet gift to me

tender one, every breath I take is loving you.

I like my coffee really hot.
Direct from the coffee machine,
Freshly brewed and steaming skyward,
Nonetheless to the nearby microwave, I digress,
For 90 seconds of steam room added bathing of my mourning
Coffee, bathing in a Vincent Van Gogh almond blossomed mugging

During said 90 seconds, I flutter and putter among the kitchen
countertops, hithering and dithering all about, wiping, swiping
crumbs of prior day's excessive remaining excesses, carcasses of
grains and grams, fruits and vegetables, restocking coffee beans,
watering said machine's infernal thirst for double pure ground water,
ect. etc. etcetera

all of the above takes a little over a minute, whence I return to my still
pre-re-intializing heating microwave clock is  advising twenty four seconds till my additional brewing will be finite finished…

gawd, what the heck am I supposed to do for the next 24 seconds besides rock back-and-forth watching my coffee cup turn Vinny's
almond blossoms slightly more yellow?

Nah.

the internal ding resounds, with a write a poem dummy!
and so I did, even if it ain't exactly short and sweet or more
pissy than pithy

Ha!
while dashing off this scripty nitty gritty writy,
guess what?
my cafe au lay
grew cold again,
and so  the
poem repeats
itself...grrr...
now, me extra very hot & pissy

I am not a poet.
I am only a wanderer in the marketplace of words,
a fool who follows the glimmer of syllables
as others follow the scent of bread.
Poetry is not ink on paper.
It is the pulse beneath the page
a breath moving through the hollow reed of the poet,
a secret that leans close to the ear of the heart.
When I meet a poem, I bow.
I circle it once,
then twice,
then again,
as though it were a shrine whose mystery
can never be entered in a single step.
Each reading strips away a veil.
Sometimes the veil is my own blindness,
sometimes the poet’s mercy in hiding the flame
until I am ready.
There are nights I leap from sleep crying, I have it!
and mornings when the truth laughs,
gently reminding me:
Child, that was only the shadow of the meaning
come back, and drink deeper.
Poetry is a journey without map or return.
It is the caravan of joy
that passes through my heart again and again.

NEMESIS

Her Voice — MY FAVORITE FOE

You wear your smirk like sharpened steel,
a weapon I have learned to fear—
and crave.

Each glance we trade
is a duel in disguise,
your eyes tossing barbed riddles
across the space between us.

I am the shadow at your heel,
the storm on your horizon—
you, the thorn in my perfect garden.

And still… I sometimes wonder
how your mouth might taste
mid-battle.

Yet somehow,
we are bound in this dance
of strike and counterstrike,
of victory that tastes sweeter
when it is stolen from you.

Perhaps you are my curse.
Perhaps I am yours.
But tell me—
what would either of us be
without the other to fight for it?

His Voice — MY WORTHY RIVAL

You call me thorn,
storm,
curse…

But you forget—
I was made for this duel,
and you are the only one
who draws my blade so easily.

Each word you throw at me
strikes clean and true—
but you know I will always
answer in riddles.

Each strike you take
only makes me want to step closer.

Do you not see it?
We sharpen each other.
We make the fire burn hotter.

And if I ever claimed victory,
if I ever saw you yield—
the world would grow dull,
colorless,
unbearably tame.

So keep your barbs,
your fire,
your wicked smile…

Because perhaps you are my undoing.
Perhaps I am yours.
But tell me—
what would either of us be
if we ever stopped
fighting for it?

....