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1705

Volcanoes be in Sicily
And South America
I judge from my Geography—
Volcanos nearer here
A Lava step at any time
Am I inclined to climb—
A Crater I may contemplate
Vesuvius at Home.
Lawrence Hall Jul 2018
This is the Last Straw –
and Something About Sacred Buckets of Holistic Ice Water

****** predators, human smugglers
Starvation in the Sudan, civil war
in Syria, mass executions in China
Journalists murdered almost everywhere
Fashionable infanticide, homelessness
Unemployment, urban terrorism
Mass ******, school shootings, wildfires, racism
An unstable national government
Anti-Semitism, border desperation
Riots, arson, ecclesiastical corruption
****, alcoholism, historical cleansing
Skinheads, abuse, Khardassianistas
Volcanos, the death penalty, free verse
Affluenza, Jerry Springer, The View
Herbal tea, antifa, anti-antifa
And the soul-******* existential despair
Of inspirational singer-songwriters:

Nah, not a bit worried about plastic straws

But I must go now; The Voices are telling me
To pour a bucket of ice water over my head
(As long as it’s not a plastic bucket)
Stephen E Yocum Sep 2013
There are times in life
when a man needs change,
And I don't mean,
dimes and quarters.

Remember when you
were just sixteen,
Driving all alone, solo,
in your old man's Buick?
All the windows down,
radio music blaring,
Your bare arm draped
out over the side of the door.
to better exhibit your bicep.

Hell mister, no doubt,
you were ten feet tall,
the king of the road.
Ever wish you had,
that feeling back again?

Cars were always my thing.
I owned some Detroit
Muscle, Full blown Chevy,
Firebird 400, Chrysler Hemi.
Smoked some tires and
went to Court a time or two.
Of course all that was long
ago in my fitter youth.

When I became a Yuppie
I acquired a Poodle Puppy,
a Porsche and a MGB.

But the ***** does turn.
and so then, did I,
And my road got,
a little bumpy.

Along came marriage,
then a baby carriage.
And a big house
In the Burbs.

Then came a progression
Of Volvo Station Wagons,
to Soccer Dad Mini Vans,
to large SUV's.
All for hauling,
any number of things.
Kids and dogs, strollers,
bikes, kites and scooters,
Fellow car poolers,

And less we forget,
"Pulling" things too.
Boats, RV's, Utility trailers,
and all nature of landscape,
gardening, and general
shopping paraphernalia.
Little League Teams,
Drooling big dogs,
Papier Mache Volcanos.
Home Coming Floats,
Once even a Goat
You name it, I hauled it,
Or pulled it!

Years rolled by,
eventually the Kids
flew the nest, got married.
And low and behold,
The wife and I split,
Each going our separate way.
No one's fault, just grew apart.
The thinly veiled allegorical
Previous Patriarchal
arrangement became,
A whole new start,
A workable self allegiance
to just one.

Soon once more, I was the MAN.
I ran out, bought a **** boat
But not having the kids around,
Soon sold it, having found out,
that alone, I was not a water sport.

I caroused around, dated women,
got my pockets picked,
learned a few lessons.
Fell in love, fell out again,
Took a few pretty good blows,
Right on the chin,
Even some down lower.

Round about then,
An Epiphany kicked in.
Remembered my most,
ennobling, happy events,
behind the wheel,
driving Dad's Buick.

As I stepped on the lot.
There was never doubt,
There was only one choice,
I just had to have that,
Little VW Bug Red Racer.

Nothing like your Mother's
Beetle, the engine's up front,
Not stuck in the trunk,
And man it produces over,
200 Big Time Horsepower
Not to mention,
Lays rubber in three,
Of six gears.
Getting all the while,
33 miles per gallon.

Receiving additional help,
from a sweet Turbo Booster,
Just like a big, Indy Track Bruiser.

There's 19 inch racing
tires and alloy wheels,
They look so cool,
Spinning in motion.

Dual stainless steel exhausts,
And best of all,
a cool collapsible,
Convertible top.

Rack and Pinion steering,
Handles like a sports car,
Yet still offers a backseat
To take my Grandkids,
out for a spin.

Dude, it's got,
All the bows
and whistles!

Top Down Driving is such a thrill,
Makes me feel sixteen again.
The open road, the sky above,
The wind blowing thru my hair,
what there is left of it.

Perhaps the only thing that
Could possibly make this
Driving experience greater,
Would be to speed down,
The road, going eighty,
Behind the wheel of my
Little Red Racer,
Completely **** naked,
And of course all the while,
Feel the wind in my hair.

I don't know, I'm too old,
To call this a mid life crisis.
But on the other hand,
Maybe the acquiring of
This little red sporty car,
Has something to do with,
Those Testosterone shots I'm taking.
I'm even thinking, of dying my hair,
naw, lets not get crazy!
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2016
after that i'll let you wear my kneecaps for
prayer after that pagan harlot of a wife told me
it didn't rain because i wasn't a good enough ventriloquist
to her schizophrenia. i mean: **** just never stops!
(i actually like this line, apologies for vain-thought).*

"68% of Canadians respondent said that minorities
should be doing more to fit into mainstream society
instead of keeping to their own customs and languages..."

53% of American dittoed likewise...*

              a failure of multiculturalism is a failure
because: it didn't celebrate bilingualism -
i call that the Gaelic effect in Scotland just so
you know it was spoken in over-shadowed Gaelic
within a Glaswegian dialect...

  multiculturalism failed because it was easier to
make a lot of people deemed as schizophrenic
rather than have the ability to be bilingual...
multiculturalism is a failure because it made bilingualism
taboo and instead said: ah... be bisexual!
multicultural societies actually gambled on bisexuality
being more needed than bilingualism,
and anyone still bilingual and not bisexual
was ripened to be harvested by psychiatrists.

but i do wonder what these post-colonial societies
would have made of what the natives might have asked
them...
              i think the natives of America would have liked
the immigrants to appropriate at least some of their
cultural traits... and no keep them in natural reserves like
some talking monkeys...

it's not enough that i have to give up a part of my soul
that i then have to twang the tongue like a banjo
with all that Texan ma'am ******* like those Arabs
in Lebanese American Universities...
oh please, stop this *******,
   i'm puking with the French on the question:
if globalisation is to be arrived at, why is English
the language of choice in achieving it?
              it's not a minority language, that's for sure...
the most poker-laden expression? sure, it is...
but i thought that within a framework of globalisation
(as Napoleon said): if a man speaks two tongues
the first head of the hydra is cut, and two emerge,
hence            the ambiguity of god
      and the proud expression of lizards
and their spies (cats) and why the first letter of
the tetragrammaton is shaped as      Y....
          hence the ambiguity of god and his Machiavelli
in terms of whether there is a world beyond this
one, and whether that diabolical Machiavelli (in all
his despair) did so on purpose to show god the sifting
process...
                    yes, that face of the marine iguana:
smiles like a cat,
              sitting proud on the rocky beach...
yet it has unfamiliar mammalian eyes instead of
those slit-eyes of noon akin to serpents and cats...
            and as Machiavelli said: first time round was great,
second time round: i just don't understand why your
first incentive is somehow better?
        they simply can't know if the first version
is better than their own...
         got to feed them the knowledge of nothing,
so at least they can better what they're been given...
as did Milton, make him less of the two evils...
   what with inhospitable earth and the dream of
colonising mars... or as the history of stars suggests:
stellar evolution sort of does away with Darwinism...
Darwinism is the one form of paper that you
wipe your *** with... it's not a napkin for your mouth:
that ****'s for your ***.
                 at the centre so too iron: as in haemoglobin.
     and we never say stars in a constellation of stars:
those are white dwarfs...
                 is our stellar nebula origin to be resurrected
for a moment into a planetary nebula and then into
stellar ivory of the dwarf?
     personally i think we'll end up being a black hole
unless our right / left politics will lead us into ending
as a neutron... which can only be seen with subatomic
particle goggles... of when Mars and its two moons
housed all thing stable, we are at the stage of the dying
star: hence all our Apocalyptic thinking and bring together...
   Mars experienced the average / massive stage of
a star's life... it's the only planet that shares our common
thread of being solid rather than gaseous...
                    Mercury is equivalent of being the sun's moon
and not a planet if Plato is a declassified planet...
         that's my suspicion concerning u.f.o. sighting and
governments showing us the output of NASA
and then lying that they have this "capacity"...
    old Martians... after all: there were only volcanos on
earth, and then the dinosaurs...
      ******* about with time gets you into these
custard clots of: huh?! i didn't invent the Darwinistic
concept of history worthy noting, Darwinism invented
itself, it's just that after being popularising
the humanities' aspect of the theory came once
the science was debunked... which always sounds like:
see next year, after they told you i'd be
       using a chicken leg fibula for a toothpick:
oh sure, let's get together the Friday after that,
by then i'll be scratching one twig against another twig
to get the fire going...
             after that i'll let you wear my kneecaps for
prayer after that pagan harlot of a wife told me
it didn't rain because i wasn't a good enough ventriloquist
to her schizophrenia. i mean: **** just never stops!
the point is: multiculturalism failed because
  it created a toxic environment for language...
it didn't respect bilingualism...
         it respected bisexuality: isn't that the talk of the town?
all your home-grown terrorists? they only speak
a few words of Arabic... they have been harvesting
the toxicity of a multiculturalism that didn't deem
two language in man to be acceptable...
        and no one cared for the trade benefits?!
how the **** did they miss that sort of plus?
         surely if you're going to trade with the Chinese
you'd send a merchant to China who spoke Mandarin,
and not Swahili, right? common sense.
   if the multiculturalism of England embraced my
bilingualism, i'd be selling English crap in Poland
and perhaps vice-versus... but they said: nope, nadda,
n'ah... you schizoid... da' ****?!
               oh right, so i'm a slot machine or earnings or
those ******* farmers of the urban wheatfield of
thought that psychiatrists are?
   am i talking Dutch or something? me integrating
not good enough? a multicultural system that doesn't
respect bilingualism... deserves what history gives it;
and by now... i'm at Drury Lane: fanning the flames.
McKenna Carrig  Dec 2013
Volcanos
McKenna Carrig Dec 2013
volcanos form at the end of my wrist, erupting with every glide of the blade.
The lava flows and doesn't stop, but this time I'm not afraid
When I put water on the spot of red, it burns just as lava should. but it's not enough to make me dead.
I close my eyes and take another swipe and because this one is finally deep enough, it'll all be alright.
I open my eyes and look out the window at the many stars. then down at my many scars.  
I look at the sky, saying my last goodbye, I slip off into the night.
theloraxformula




i am getting to the point of my day
when
waking
up
is like making my way through a battlefield
where Valkyries live in my stomach
when I lay on my back and count my ribs
(what I can feel of them)
and stand only to find my head hurting…again
and I am realizing that your love
isn’t
worth
this.

but this isn’t really about you, is it?
it’s about power
and control
like feeling like a god of titans on a
volcano about to erupt
feeling like pele burning through bones & calories
and feeling some sense
of pretty while
starving myself to death.

but your love
isn’t worth
that
it isn’t worth counting calories in my sleep
playing mad mathematician with meals
weeks in advance
knowing the caloric value of everything in my university’s cafeteria
by heart
and feeling like
passing out when I try to tie the
laces of my doc martins.

your love isn’t worth that
and neither is the hate I have for myself
Earths anxiety; she feels too crowded her heart beat racing; volcanos erupt and the ground shakes. She's just trying to get rid of all the waste
Bryan Dahl  Jan 2015
Called
Bryan Dahl Jan 2015
Called Religion before Romanticism:
Darling Radha’s swing,
Pressing softly to her blue
Beloved Trickster’s skin.

Called dharma, grace, and savoir-faire
Confounding fated will,
Called freedom then for putting off
The destiny we fear.

From her swing I can believe
In good romantic faith-
While makers of a moment’s
Beauty, steal a tear away.

When I laid,
Bathing in the roaring spray
At the feet of the lower falls,
And wandered through soft blue
Volcanos guarding Atitlan.

When I watched,
Clouds burst from his fingertips
Cold war to choral glory,
Seid um schlungen Millionen!
An die Freiheit! An die Freude!

When I found,
A girl whose smile couldn’t hide her pain
Singing her song’s last echo,
At once the world was not the same, but...
How could I ever know.

How could I ever know...

After the West was won with lies
One man said, "God is dead."
I mute the TV from her swing,
Smile, and bow my head.
~
December 2023
HP Poet: Marshal Gebbie
Age: 78
Country: New Zealand


Question 1: We welcome you to the HP Spotlight, Marshal. Please tell us about your background?

Marshal: "My name is Marshal Gebbie and I write under "M" or "M@Foxglove.­Taranaki. NZ". I am 78 years old and a native son of Australia. I came to New Zealand for a looksee with a pack on my back and a guitar under my arm, intended spending six weeks but absolutely fell in love with the Kiwi people and this magnificent little jewel of a country nested deep in the waves of the great Southern ocean of the South Pacific. I've now been here 54 years and counting. I married darling Janet back about 35 years ago and we produced two fine sons, Boaz and Solomon both of whom have great careers, wonderful partners...and in Solomon's case, produced a delightful granddaughter for us to love and spoil to bits.

From ****** agricultural college I went to the darkest, deepest wilds of Papua New Guinea as an Agricultural Officer, returned to Australia two years later to become a secondary college teacher in Ag Science. Easily the most satisfying profession of my life in that I succeeded in drawing the pearls of enlightenment from within the concrete mass of the, then, recalcitrant, brickheaded studenthood to realise the wonder of discovery, involvement and engender, within them, a genuine spirit of endeavour. Stepping off the boat in NZ I took a bouncers job in a rough public bar, three months later I started my own brand new tavern @ the Chateau Tongariro in the skifields of Mt Ruapehu.

Seeing a unique opportunity and with no money of my own I bought a derelict motorcamp in the small country township of National Park, named the place "Buttercup Camp" and set about making the enterprize one of the very first destination holiday venues in New Zealand. I pioneered paddle boat white water rafting on the wild rivers of the North Island, commercial adventure horse trekking in the wilderness trails, guided adventure hikes across the active volcanos of Ruapehu, Nguarahoe and Tongariro. Cheffed three course roast dinners and piping hot breakfasts for up to 150 house guests daily and initiated an alpine flightseeing business and air taxi service to and from Auckland and Wellington International to the National Park airstrip, a long grassy, uphill paddock liberally populated by flocks of sheep and/or herds of beef cattle.

Somewhere along the way I earned myself a Commercial Pilots Licence and owned, through the duration, 7 different aircraft. With the sudden fiscal collapse of tourism in the late 80s along with several inconvenient local volcanic eruptions, I divested myself from "Buttercup", moved my young family to Auckland and took up a 20 year lease of a derelict motel in Greenlane. Within three months I had converted the business into Auckland's premier truckstop providing comfortable welcoming accommodation, piping hot dinners and early breakfasts with the added bonus of a pretty young thing serving drinks in the bar....Super service with a smile for the nations busy truck drivers.
It worked like a rocket for ten years then the local matrons objected to the big rigs starting up at 4am and the Ministry of Transport and the Local Authority shut me down.

I worked the last 12 years of my serious working life as a Storeman and Plant Coordinator for a major construction company building motorways and major traffic tunnels in and under Auckland city and in rural Hamilton. I loved every minute of it all and objected furiously when they retired me at age 75.

Now I'm happily a Postman Pat in a little rural country town on the coast called Okato, have been for three years and shall continue be, gleefully, until they put me in the box. It has been a helluva run....and I wouldn't have missed a minute of it all."



Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Marshal: "Poetry started for me when I wrote a beautiful ditty as an exercise at high school.....and the caustic old crow of a teacher said, publicly,...."You didn't write this!" That got the juices flowing and set me off on the tangent of proving my worth as a writer....and I have never stopped."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Marshal: "Falling in love for the very first time kick started the romanticisms....it took me years to mollify that. Since then and throughout life Poetry has hallmarked discovery, achievement, white hot anger, combat and delight!"


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Marshal: "It is the medium of expression which allows the spirit to enhance and colour my world."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Marshal: "Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Emily Dickinson, WL Winter, WK Kortas, L Anselm, Victoria (God Bless her), and a character, sadly long gone from these pages, JP. All favourite poets of mine."


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Marshal: "With the slowing of my battered body these days I commit myself to my darling wife, Janet, our kids, now grown and living out there in the big wide world, and in growing and nurturing the truly magnificent gardens of "Foxglove" ......following the All Black rugby team and enjoying the serenity of a cut glass noggin of Bushmills Irish whiskey (neat), sitting in my favourite chair, watching the sun set in golden array over the grey waters of the distant Tasman Sea, far, far below."


Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to get to know you, Marshal! It is an honor to include you in this series!”

Marshal: "Greetings Carlo and thanks for the opportunity to unload on my fellow poets."



Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed getting to know Marshal better. I learned so much about his fascinating life. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez & Mrs. Timetable

We will post Spotlight #11 in January!

~
Below are some of Marshal's favorite poems and links to each one:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1620867/windwitch-of-the-deep/
Windwitch of the Deep by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1274911/running-the-beast/
Running the Beast by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/386523/so-wetly-one/
Once, so wetly one. by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/435103/perchance-in-a-bus-shelter/
Perchance, in a Bus Shelter by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/389195/white-foggy-days/
White, Foggy Days by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/266893/cheetah/
Cheetah by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com
Day  Nov 2011
binocular eyes
Day Nov 2011
I see through magnified eyes
the binocular kind out of focus
I see with a telescope mind
but I think that the glass might be broken

your face
is a smear on the lens, a bit blurry
and my house, I can’t see from the ground
I got worries

it’s like why can I see
up above it’s so clear?
but I look straight ahead
everything disappears






the anthills have all gone away
you filled them all up with your problems
but volcanos on mars I can see
and each molecule, and their atoms

well that’s just my beauty
I can’t help what I see,
everything’s just so giant
to little old me

and my eyes
the binocular kind, out of focus
and my mind, that telescope mind
might be broken

it’s like why can I see
up above it’s so clear?
but I look straight ahead
everything disappears

— The End —