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Marshal Gebbie Jul 2012
Screaming rage, the old pachyderm charges hard
Scattering predators away from the ravaged corpse of her fallen friend

The carnivorous stork and vulture cloud simultaneously take startled flight & retreat raggedly to the nearest dead tree, there to turn and glare with accusing eyes and cawing clamour. The hyenas and jackals scatter from the stinking cavernous maw of abdomen and scramble for the cover of thorn bush perimeter. Their hideous cackle and yapping adding to the cocophany of the noisy horror in this small, dry and dusty African drama.

Wheeling about the old cow surveys the clearing and, satisfied she has seen the vile things off, turns back to her fallen friend, shuffling through the thick white dust, she stands close by protecting.

Unfurling her massive trunk, she gently wraps it's sensitive tip around the scarred tusk of her fallen companion...and standing there, In a long, long sentinel silence...she remembers.......

Standing flank to flank in waters
Cooling spray upon the hide,
Trunks entwined to rumbled chortle
Bull and cow and calf abide.
Striding through the Serengetti
Grasses tall and sweet and green,
Grazing in this luscious plenty
Happiness in joy unseen.


New born calf cavorts, unsteady
Laughing at her rubber legs,
Keep a watch for lion menace
Always lurking for the dregs.
Cow to cow companionship
Builds the basis of the herd,
One reliant on the other
Cuddly calf to bull absurd.


Sunset on the far horizon
Golden glow across the plain,
Trekking for the waterhole
Through acacia tree domain.
Zebra throng with wilderbeast,
Quail and guinea fowl
Run through grasses long and brown
But leopard on the prowl.


Fun time with marula berries
Dropping from the trees like rain,
Staggering drunk pachyderms
Fall about but feel no pain.
Violence in defensiveness
Circled by enormous rage
Calves protected safe within
Roaring lioness engaged.


Quiet of the evening air
A stillness in the herd
Affection of companionship
'Twixt leather hides doth gird.
Companions together
The wise and the sage,
Companions endureth
Through an elephant's old age.


Kilamanjaro crowned with snow
Though plains are cracked and dry,
Prolonged drought has taken toll
And many creatures die.
Trekking from dry waterhole
A million dusty miles
To find the next one caked with salt
Enough to make you cry.


And when the cloud of death descends
A pachyderm must cry
For the memory of companion
Will bring a sadness to the eye.
Remembering their sister ship
Remembering their pain
Remembering shared elephant-ness
Brings good recall again.


Reluctantly a parting made
And fond and distant memories burn,
The taste of Africa prevails
As  skulking, predators return.




Marshalg
22 July 2012

© 2012 Marshal Gebbie
Aaron Mullin  Nov 2017
Grandeur
Aaron Mullin Nov 2017
Delusions of
Futures untold
Created for
Us, you know: the un-bold

Braying our compulsions
To the big ear in the
Sky
As we seek:

Glor if i ca tion
Being meek likely won’t bring
Gra tif i ca tion
Dulling my senses points to
Stu pif i ca tion
But don’t I deserve it, ain’t i a
Hall u cin a tion

So why put in the work?
Let’s wait

<<<PAUSE>>>

The avalanche will find us in perpetuity
Coming in time cause we been shirking duty
Oh, there it is - it’s time for us to be:
Aggrieved

Shoulda known better but we was:
Deceived

IlWanted to tell my truth, wanted to be:
Believed

Shoulda kept something up my:
Sleeve

So how do you rise above?

Do you got what it takes?
Could you climb your
Kilamanjaro?
With a little training maybe
And a Gut check: to find your bravado
Wouldn’t it be nice to have your own number,
Just like Avogadro

Let’s ask again,
How do you rise above?

Breathe it in
Seethe it in
Find a vessel to
Conceive it in
Now that it’s full
And overflowing

Now let it go

Trying to find answers in a bottle
Could point you toward
A 12 step mis-step

Getting back on the right track:

Use a compass
That’s internal
Realign it, maybe
Through a vernal
Equinox, the universe speaks a language
We are untaught
It’s of the Earth and Sky and
Can’t be bought
Maybe it’s me and
Maybe it’s not
I want to commune with my god
Through thought and
Heartfelt overtures that aren’t constrained
By limitations of my brain
Or systems based on economics
My value is not gleaned from
Gross Domestic Products

Answers are found as you expand past the vessel
You may become part of the trestle
Follow the false path long enough
And you get trod under
The false pathfinder becomes the path,
Did you make a few to many navigational errors
Cause you didn’t do the math
And now, as a part of the foundation of which the unending wayfarers
Can use to go a little further and a little longer in the wrong direction
Your hard work has become a bridge to nowhere
But let’s not dwell, cause

Scrupulosity
Will never guide you to the golden city

Maybe its the meat suit that you’re wearing
The overcomplexity of your eyes
That won’t let you see
The unending nerve endings that make you feel so much
You can’t feel, you won’t feel
You could pay heed to Seneca
Consider giving the suit a slip
Taking a trip
Through the underworld
With everybody’s favourite sidekick: Virgil
Kickin’ it, workin’ it
Trying not to let the lost souls hold you down
Throw you down
Now it’s time, let’s start coming around

On my journey, seems
I can’t shake em’
Me, myself, and my shadow-self
Guess I’ll try and integrate em’

Time for a va ca tion
From thoughts that won’t un-
wind, in breezes

Gonna get around to it, to
Writing my treatise
Maybe I can elucidate this false peace
Via an army of one, en masse
Slipping through the bars of false
Beliefs
As the trees
Lose their leaves

Maybe for the last time

I'm working on the unwind
From a labyrinth that is unkind
So sorry:
Guess I'm playing up the sublime

Ah, never mind - it’s
Navel gazing
Self hazing
I ain’t done razing

Roofs and
Telling truths
Or drinking
Vermouth
Cause at my very root I am
Uncouth

Razing?
Or raising!
Roofs
Finding proofs
Telling truths

Ever listen to Ruf-
Us or Martha
The Wainrights
Canadian brain-trust
Listen too hard make your brain bust

Let’s get back to navels, or
Oranges
But nothing rhymes with oranges
Maybe not
Gotta flip it
Tryna strip it
This noose is so tight
Can I slip it?

It’s geometrical
Said Euclides
We got the Greeks
Or do the Greeks got us
Squeezing us into this euro-centric
Box
Can it be un-wrapped?
Can you un-rap this poem?

Busting brains
And taking names
No one to blame, I
Don’t feel ashamed
When I win
Just means I can take it
In my shin
It’s got nothing to do with my
D N A, eh
Nor the choice piece of geography
I made the conscious choice to arrive on,
genetically

But remembering brevity
It’s time to cut the rambling for the sake of levity
Speaking of sake, I wouldn’t mind some saké

Oh, what’s that:
~~~ boom ~~~
Pulled another one out of my medicine bag

Just sitting here

Shifting gears
Confronting fears
Yesterday I was

Bleak
Er

Meek
Er

Should have been a
Streak
Er

Laying out the facts that are
untold
Thanks for listening to me
Another one of the
un-bold
I've got rambling. I've got rambling on my mind

— The End —