"edifices" poems
Grand edifices, seem pretty nice
Hoarding up money, such a heist
Pockets full, everything to boast
All that luxury, all that toast
Curtains of wealth, over those eyes
Trapped in such a state of vice
Stockpiles of silver and gold
Deal, a sign, everything sold
Wealth in reality, zero a price
Counting em, this year x thrice
Pretending to be above n bold
The stiff heart you couldn't mould
Crawling over body, ants and lice
Scorpions too, it's nothing nice
Shivering with fear and cold
The pain, agony, all foretold
In the grave, horrendous mice
Game's over for the rolling dice
No one to tell, weren't you told
To that paper now grab a hold
May it be Burj khalifa, all those malls
The huge tall towers, everything falls
Sabotag shall suffer those proud walls
(Awaits!)
The vast stage, superior than all halls
Oct 4, 2017
Oct 4, 2017 at 2:04 PM UTC
1338
What tenements of clover
Are fitting for the bee,
What edifices azure
For butterflies and me—
What residences nimble
Arise and evanesce
Without a rhythmic rumor
Or an assaulting guess.
4.1k
Sometimes
I feel a well
dug deep
into my heart
I try to stop it
but it quickly
becomes ocean
and overflows
into great tsunami
rises over all the levees
rushes past dams
breaks down tall
city structures,
edifices crumbling
in its path
all the squid and octopi
skitting forth
in wild pulses,
tentacles entangled
in doorways and rooves
slipping through narrow
window-openings
as they pour ink
in clouds,
shifting shapes
in cephalopod excitement
while blue whales
and humpbacks
breach over bridges,
phosphorescent jellies
light up
the dark streets of
my arteries
electric eels illuminate
the alleyways of
desolation's thick syrup
and I cannot stop it even
if I wanted to,
these darkened,
swirling waves
I am both floating and flying
like a jumping manta ray
curling around the ferries
bobbing in seahorse iridescence
weaving between buses
as if they were corals
And when the storm subsides,
colorful rockpools form,
rich in diversity
It is there,
in between the
multicolored ***** and
succulent shellfish,
in a mermaid's
voluptuous smile
and turquoise eye
that I see you,
so crystal clear
I could reach out
and bring you to me,
holding you tight
until the
gentle break
of
morning
Sep 3, 2017
Sep 3, 2017 at 5:31 PM UTC
sun, light, murmurs
through slatted edifices
onto restless 4s
they shuffle tireless
ssssn uf fle
those 4s
ever do
on strawlittered floors
t
rapp
-ed
in woodly cages
a 2 enters
pets 4 1
whispers to 4 2
soothes their aches
2 astride 4 1
clumsy gallop
through golden portals
into ****** time
Apr 17, 2010
Apr 17, 2010 at 5:48 PM UTC
Yuletide essays read poorly of spiritual love
Save of winter concerns of cold hands and feet
But to me my warmth is from within and without
From sensitive elements and looks of expectancy
All through the year I am loved and brought home by generous arms
Holding my tender heart with simple fingers of gentleness
At Yule my fears are ones of inability to conform
Yet I know that my love will be kept holding small edifices
Of temperate thoughts and radiant hopes
Lest our love is exposed to the winter blast
It has no maintenance worries as we stay locked
Deeply embracing through the chill of the night
In the mornings there may be white blankets of snow
Which drive others to feel isolation and loneliness
But here at Yule as ever our hearts are as one
Despite the dragging pressures of the seasonal presence
New Year is a triumph of milestone epic
Fantasising our minds with future conquerings
Especially as most are timid in their push for reality
Ours has been honed to supernatural levels
Although we look deeply into bringing these to bear
We know from our hearts these are just around the corner
Upon the very road we travel
Jan 3, 2011
Jan 3, 2011 at 7:50 AM UTC
The decaying mansions of English language
Rot and recede
into teenage grasses
with each unspoken year
The hired help have left their hair unmown and surrendered their uniform dress
Content with the neglect of nature
taking its timely course
When the architects and master masons of linguistics
Survey their forgotten plans in the heaven of English literature
They are not dismayed
but patiently sit and sit
The pristine edifices of the classics
Once grand and clad in deferential brick
Stand scaffolded and unread
The doors unlocked, ajar and hopelessly inviting
Into the library of the English canon
The dusty cloak on the carpets of grammar
Sheets thrown over the disused armchairs of archaic words
Echoing the plink of the out-of-tune pianoforte of the perfectly crafted short story
Bathrooms of formal poetry
With the rusty plumbing of metre and rhyme
Whereas the temporary outhouses,
hastily arranged huts of slang and idiom
are adorned by the living grasses of new forms,
creepers of half remembered dreams
mulching leaves of half formed thoughts
forests of half forgotten loves
writhing in living incompleteness
Which will in turn harden and fossilize
And we can then rue the passing of our once organic lingo
Dec 14, 2009
Dec 14, 2009 at 10:18 AM UTC
Tears.
Salt water
mixed with fire
from my core ,this molten
center; Where viscosity erupts into
the cavernous third chamber, sufussive.
Hands. Feel across the valleyed surface, touching
the unhealed; A perfectly clean circle sitting upon solar plexus;
Cupid’s sharpest hit. Unseen. The fissure runs deep into a chamber
nestling betwixt red pulsing atrium. Only I sense the tremors here.No beats sing
out in this vast ethereal emptiness. Silent. Vaulted edifices shining bright with colourful
minerals. Molten. Lovers leaving stains upon the walls, as pure deposits cool. Crystallizing
in the aftermath of each eruption, my volcanic heartrock shines like a diamond in the rough.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 6:24 PM UTC
You’ll find them in all such establishments,
(Be they graceful small-town former Victorian homes,
Or cinderblock edifices mindful of some campus multi-faith center)
Sitting in the basement, cheek-to-jowl
With moldering burial records and banking statements,
Yellowed newspaper clippings, faded prayer cards
Small squared-off boxes hastily tabbed together,
Ostensibly temporary containers which have acquired
An unintended and wholly unwelcome permanence.
The whys and wherefores of their subterranean placement
A mixed bag of foible and outright foolishness:
Unresolvable squabbles concerning possession and burial,
Families that skipped out on the bill, leaving mom behind,
Cases of outright not giving a good-goddamn.
And so they remain, in lieu of repatriation and redemption,
To sit for something akin to perpetuity in some cases
(Members of the profession resolute in their respect
For the dignity of life,
Though their sincerity enjoys less unanimity)
While others wait for mass burial
Once legal niceties have been satisfied,
While still others, in care of firms not so scrupulous
About crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s,
Are flung, albeit somewhat surreptitiously, out the back door,
The remains to take flight if the grass is dry and the wind is brisk,
Otherwise to be left to the vagaries
Of curious birds and creped soles.
Aug 31, 2018
Aug 31, 2018 at 11:28 AM UTC
Inspired by the dream of the founders of city
Collated by planning of leaders and mayor,
Built by the muscle and sweat of believers
A Masterpiece fashioned for pride and for care.
Magnificent structures of bridges and tunnel
Faultlessly conjoined by highways of God,
Dreamt by the forebears of knowledge and passion
Crafted in concrete and sculpted in rod.
Towering edifices scything through city
Asphaltic motorways curving with grace
Estuaries bridged by elegant girders
Created by vision with tears on it’s face.
Fashioned by strength and belief in the promise
Fashioned by fortitude's strong hand as guide,
Crafted by people's belief in tomorrow
A Vision for Auckland and nation with pride.
Marshalg
With the Wellconnected Alliance.
AUCKLAND N.Z.
(Inspired by the animation on a good Mayor’s face)
6pm,14 February 2013
© 2013 Marshal Gebbie
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 12:45 AM UTC
We strode together in another age, my love,
You, in your earthen gown and beautiful dark tresses.
I, the wearer of the long plaited, thong and sinew sandal.
You and I, we strode through quiet valleys of tall conifer
Where huge rock falls left monolithic edifices... as monuments to past largess.
Together we walked as one, in a world much simpler than the one we live in now.
In a time, without the inhibition of contrivance or sophistication.
We walked in clarity and drank from clear, clean waters.
We dallied in the honeyed light of a huge, summer moon.
A field of dandy lions in the warm April sunshine, was the byre in which we made love and produced our babies.
A love ... un-harried, unhurried and devoid of any preoccupation other than that of the beautiful desire
We felt for each other.
The love we feel now is the same as the love shared then;
But in this age it is diluted and complicated by the urgencies and imperatives of the day.
Then there was just time...given and taken.
Without cost or penalty, without blame or insinuation, without hurt or harm.
Time in that better age...was a friend.
A friend who augmented the beauty of today into the promise of tomorrow,
A friend who exchanged the serenity of yesterday for the excitement of the new day’s dawn.
This was our time, when the bond of eternity sealed our commitment to each other.
For however many lifetimes we may live in...
We shall be one.
Marshalg
For darling Janet
12 September 2011
Sep 12, 2011
Sep 12, 2011 at 3:14 PM UTC
Wear your words.
Let all hear the fatigue you bare.
Paint portraits with phrases.
Sound symphonies with imagery
that your idioms decree.
Establish edifices with nouns and verbs
so magnificent that none disturb.
Make your mind match your mandates.
Engage in your expressions proudly.
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 4:49 PM UTC
Airwaves awash in the new gospel barrage:
calling forth the neighbourhood hack,
Abe Lincoln toon in towering hat,
the corporation is coming -
will you not
collaborate my friend?
Everything good that you ever dreamed of is here:
Marbonite floored flats with self-terraced roofs;
The swankiest of cars, in imported hues;
Your arm candy drools,
now, brands, bigger brands!
All in your grasp, now, in community gates
shut safe as society decays.
Skies spitting frogs? Pestilences amass?
Listen to the Gospel according to Bane:
in the desert, smell octane. Hallelujah,
everything we make, from watches
to headscarves - your underwear is cheaper
sourced from the next so-lala-land.
Forget your sources tiny of incomes varying:
Bakers, cobblers, tinkerers, we also have
a uniform for you. Oh you rustic
tradition-bound bandy bumpkins!
Abandon your alleyways, and
welcome to the ghettos...where
What you eat, to where to retreat:
we cure everything from heartache to panache.
Wash away your sins in wonder medicines;
Waters can part, yes, see how the Pharoah
is disarmed; Big city dreams, dream
global manna beams. All that is needed for
salvation, is a little bit of classification. Are you
left-wing or right? Center-left or center-right?
The powerdrill tearing down edifices
resonating through noon. A crane arm's shadow
hovering high by the moon. Tablets from skies
now proclaim the new gospel for the land,
the airwaves are awash
of the miracle of Witwatersrand.
The corporation is coming, to a store near you:
Amen! Will you not, then, collaborate, my friend?
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 5:22 PM UTC
Thought Broadcasting
Silence is a silver ship
Traveling at the speed of the darkness,
Black holes are the edifices in which I
Build my thoughts-
Word by word,
Each and every syllable forms upon my lips,
And then broadcasted, aloud-
Thoughts are killers- thoughts can harm-
My thoughts can be heard from afar.
Within this room I write my thoughts
With a pen that is void of ink, or a pencil
That has no lead,
Invisible they are, but somehow,
These thoughts are broadcasted aloud.
Thoughts are killers thoughts control-
My thoughts can be heard from afar.
A silver ship with its sail to the wind,
A wild horse that canters across vast terrain, or
Pebbles that roll off of my fingertips,
That splash into the creek, one by one,
You can see, you can hear, as
My thoughts, broadcasted aloud.
My thoughts can be heard from afar.
My thoughts are a flame that only I can quench.
I am in control of what comes into my mind,
As my hands build the world from
The bricks of Time,
My thoughts control the world.
My thinking destroys those, whom I abhor,
My thoughts control the downtrodden.
Silence is a silver ship, or
The dome beneath which I dwell-
I build my edifice beneath this dome.
No one dares to enter, as
I have broadcasted a message to the world,
My eyes order the world away;
My thoughts are broadcasted aloud,
A bad thought can destroy, as good ones
Create and control,
My thoughts control the world…
Claudia Krizay
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 11:18 PM UTC
**Out and about
Amidst the hustle and bustle
Of ultra-modern cities
Is a phenomenon that escapes my mind’s grasp
Penniless famished hoi polloi huddled together almost in unison
Arms outstretched eking out a living from begging
Pitiful downcast eyes that tell stories untold
A sad sight to behold
Begging the question
Haven’t humankind a shred of tenderness?**
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 3:05 AM UTC
*blinded by startling light,
can one really
see?*
mild visions sitting in the dark corners
of shame
strong options flying about
in wild abandon
demanding resentful attention
no epiphany on the steep edge of nerves
just constant and silent grating
escalating the fatalistic complexion
of old wounds
seeping through the rotten bandage
of sickening pretense
rank blood-clots scream such fine expletives
your curling toes may not cope with
which one is chosen..?
dual visions
of life and death
opponents on the same board
no coercion in choice
neither works solo
third option hides
beneath the burning scales of judgment
live through life and death
cut through the slices
of pain
even serrated wedges are better managed
than large edifices
yes, far better to
CRE8 options
than swallow the superb crap that Life shoves
just, who in hell said:
there's only one way...
*visions can be
overturned*
S T, 9 July 2013
Jul 9, 2013
Jul 9, 2013 at 3:45 PM UTC
To look carefully.
It begins with a reminder to myself to look oh so carefully
Because this isn't just any time of day,
But the end of day time when the light fades away.
To think, that this happens before every eve and after every noon
Night pulls at the Sun so gently.
From behind the mountains
The anchor of time begins its distortion
Upon the Sun, its stress seems to bless the sky
In those blending hues
And spins clouds into colorful sweetness
As it demands an encore for a set too soon.
The mountains become flat nibbles into space,
Eating at the canvas
Where sky's light knows nothing of us.
It too, flattens buildings at the foothills;
A pasting of pastel flavor, drawn
By the distant gray air of sand and sea.
The glorified glass edifices at my shore watching,
Bleeding, in mocking colors of a time that burns into another
A time that ends in blazing defiant oranges assaulting the falling sky
In quarrelsome pinks and purples
I remember the tender
I must see this so softly
At the sinking light
As the mountains swallow burning sky
One ring at a time,
Lighter than velvet.
Heavier than vivid.
Humility rose, with this setting,
To stand against so many gradients
And recall the faux pas of permanence.
Not until it was gone
With its whims toward time.
Could I see, tenderly.
The width and warmth
Of their embellished embrace
Between day, and night-
Pouring that fragility-
From the last light.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 5:39 PM UTC
two sides of the same coin, two parts of the same struggle, a heavier burden to juggle,
Ive seen trouble in the eyes of the children on the news,
visions of the glazed and un-phased, shuffling in ruin
as foreign investors appraise the worth of the people theyre ********
the one moral man looking in the mirror asks what are we doing?
Coffee and cocoa-beans,
oil and toil,
diamonds on the queens ears ripped from the soil,
these are the things for which we ****
and people wonder why they can never get their fill,
why they feel morally ill?
perhaps paying taxes dosen't wipe the dirt from your fingers,
halfway around the world construction workers hurry the child to drop his dead mothers hand,
so they can bulldoze her home because the land is high in demand
for agricultural redevelopment, swine being brought in for re-settlement
people for pigs, the market is your master,
the dollar is your god, and your life is a disaster
the reason your life is a facade, is you cant turn false idols through ego worship into god
from a fake wife with fake *******
to fake kids with fake mental problems, A.D.D. generation and corrupt therapists to absolve them
to fake pastors, with fake ideals
this is what happens when one man profits from what another man steals,
and corporations re-define how love feels
and the rich try and justify why the poor have no food
why their own poor have no food, but why its more important to allocate funds to the protection of crude,
this is the slavery to which you have been raised
the hypocrisy of democracy can go on for days,
America, land of the thieves, where ideology is cheaper than bark on the trees
America, the land of the lie, where the children of the poor happily die
and yet America, the land where ideals meet reality, where the hopeful optimism of the middle class rightfully challenges the decadent edifices of the status quo
and where evil in the hearts and the minds of all of us has a chance to be laid to rest through the spirit of altruism,
America the ultimate battleground for truth to triumph over lies,
but where you stand, in the end, is the ultimate surprise.
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 1:01 PM UTC
firestarter and match,
pitching endlessly to become more
smoke, then intense crimson flames,
aglow in my heart.
brick and stone edifices form a
fortress around abodes
leaving habitats adrift
and alone
(I DON'T GIVE A **** ABOUT MY PHONE)
passing and switching faces -- an
entourage that follows but yet
the girl is alone.
alas, fire ablaze, uncontrollable but
sometimes tame
marking the forest trail and
spreading the damage, sprout and then destroy
like a fiery divine being
destruction of the old path and
a clean sweep of the
trees that once seemed so formidable
the flame spreads with a staunch
persistence, to maybe prove that
yeah, the water is weaker
like a conquistador who
pillages countries leaving them
penniless
the flame continues
no concern about the consequence or
destruction, set on being set and
ever aglow, what puts the fierce fire
out anyways?
Sep 9, 2020
Sep 9, 2020 at 11:17 AM UTC
In speculating a plumage’s stinging or sorting
yesteryear’s chromosomes glint of antiques
resplendent as rivulets at The Moonlit Square
that shimmered beneath penumbras of fear
A stained moon foreshadowing
Jahan Ara’s Chowk for Silver Wear
The canals blocked, choking with Change
Glistering new arrivals, effusing of Change:
the tryst carries grave integrity within veins
branching across peninsula for pumping reigns
Ours is the Strange Acquiesce
where a fledgling’s plumage unfurls
toward velvety notes of wealth
A perennial disruption of equilibrium
From Smack to Silk Route till Here
Before Iwans, Jhajjharis, or intricate Basti
its plumage swayed from Golden Age
burdened through pronouncements as
Gujarata-Pratihara; Pala; Rashtrakuta:
the peninsula that sustains formidable histories
shall commemorate edifices lost by centuries
Together We Ruminate: What state must it bear this day?
traversed across periods
sorrowed by time
plumage seeks to retire
in search of rhyme
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 1:58 PM UTC
Shaded maple hallways, leaves abundantly growing.
Majestic storming waterways, holy as Holy Water.
These are part of us. These help define.
Glass and steel accomplishments jumble like
edifices of hope in cities of gloating pride.
We are these cities. We are these shapes.
History written and history being written
of yesterdays, now and tomorrow.
Cold of Winter and hot of Summer,
placid Fall and anticipating Spring.
So many Illusions, so many soft dreams!
These too are wrapped in our myth.
Canada, our Canada, once again
celebrates the escaping vowels
of national delight. We are humble
and yet we are arrogant in pride.
We are one people united under one Crown,
one stumbling picture, one dabbling future.
Merchants and priests. Politicians and
ordinary workers. Poets and dreamers,
these are also our definitions. We surprise
and we are surprised. We surrender to
our tossing hearts, we gesture with hope
to images of our future. Oh dear land
of contrasts and similarities, we live for and
in you. Shaded maple hallways, leaves
abundantly growing. Majestic storming
waterways, holy as Holy Water.
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 8:02 AM UTC
Listen to those quiet old streets,
A throng of old people,
Soaked with years they’ve gone through
Bending meekly and closing their eyes,
You’ll hear them if you close your eyes.
Notes fall from the heavens
As if on this earth’s piano roll
Arpeggio from the heavens
Gray angles play them overhead
I have never seen god, but now
We have a friendly rendezvous,
In the streets I walk
And now I see his tears.
Listen here, the lapping of tiny oceans,
And the croaks of delight
From the sneaking strangers
Or listen, the Apsaras,
They have deigned to dance on earth than in heavens
Their fairy-tale robes kissing the mud, the water.
Or the strings of a Sitar,
That echoes from the blossomed clouds.
Or if you’re tired like me,
Let’s take a seat beside those
Who with their all life loathe this day,
As their homes get washed away
Drenched to their skin they wait for the sun
God doesn’t live here for them
You can find him in those lanky edifices.
O look at those naked but happy toddlers!
They know not what life can be
Being the debris of a society
Hah, only were they blessed by these tears
God cries from the heavens…
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 9:28 AM UTC
@--\\------
fragile
as a mist
over
the
placid
lake
of
slumber
mirror
of
moonlit
ponds
mauve
mysterious
midnight
murmuring
scented
secrets
to
the
sachet
skies
Sirius
spinning
subterfuge
luminous
loquacious
liquid
light
pours
roses of glass
out of organic
orafic
edifices
equinoxes
edifying
garish
gardens
burnt in
effigy
glass rose
thorns
broken
off
shattering
into
brilliantly
scintillating
sand
SoulSurvivor
(C) 1/29/2016
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 10:39 AM UTC
The rubble cries, mourning the loss of human touch. Weeping over the crushing silence that echoes through the once busied cobble-stoned streets. These neglected edifices, with their iron-rusted bones, litter the long-vacant valley. The inhabitants of the forgotten valley stopped bearing children and began falling ill, heralding the arrival of their great collector.
On their own horizons, the people could see the visage of their guilt, cloaked in tattered rags that seemed to disintegrate against the most subtle breeze and sitting atop an emaciated mount with pallid skin. That rider, who strolled ever so slowly, dragging behind him wrapped in chains the ill-begotten promises of fools, the indiscretions of humanity came with ample warning. They ignored him; their self-loving monuments fell, and the crystalline waters of their gilded fountains flowed with arsenic. All too late did they recognize the shameful consequence of their hubris.
And so, when that cold Gray Rider arrived, gaunt and hollow-eyed, to collect his caravan of souls, the buildings howled like mothers sending the last of their children into the cold, unforgiving world. Thus, the sorrowed rubble weeps until it is reclaimed by the borrowed Earth, slowly returning to the soil from which it was born, allowing the verdant valley to take shape once again.
Dec 20, 2024
Dec 20, 2024 at 5:38 PM UTC
I stare enchanted out of the fogged window.
Teardrops roll down its smooth transparent surface,
crying for the warmth of the sun.
Old edifices stretching toward the sky,
reaching with arms out high above,
waving under the pitter patter of the misty morning's face.
I am afraid to go outside.
To leave the window alone in its misery.
Deep blue eyes search for glowing glory that never arrives.
Sidewalks stained with icy slopes.
I am called away and I comply,
in the chill of the angry winter's sky.
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 12:57 PM UTC
It is the essence
of all things,
standing here in
flagrant opposition
and calling ourselves
friends
And yet through
the fights and opposition,
there's the bend and
sway of latitude
where each word is but
a shadow on
emotion's battered
skull
Can you see me
as I see you,
here now within the
present moment,
underneath a sky
that doesn't care
whether we laugh
or dance or cry?
Can you hear it now,
that drum beat of
indifference,
threading through
the certainty of
footsteps etched
in stone?
Oh, these contrived
things we share,
and our sanctimonious
musings that
tell nothing and give
nothing but
the languish of
a soul deprived
And in these brick
edifices,
we would cling to
our salvation within
a solitary world
we need to believe
corresponds with us
There they are,
these moments
and damnable expressions,
cast like lots
onto the stage
where the curtain is
just beginning to rise
And if we were truly
honest,
if our truth was so
undisguised
then it wouldn't take
the very breath of us
to turn the other way
But a black hole
is mesmerizing,
the unknown is
a desired thing
for if you can
walk into those
darkened rooms,
you can come back
to spread the tale
About the Carpenter
who wasn't a Walrus,
and the Dark Man
who possessed light,
and the Woman who was
a ****** Harlot
yet somehow set it all
to rights
It is there,
you see,
in the rhyme,
the single rhyme
that tells the mystery
of this riddle
And I am only its instrument,
sitting down like a flute,
pressed to the lips
of infinity
and screaming out its
breath
And here's the part
where we rise now,
here's the portion
where we say "Amen"
and walk away towards
translucent horizons
and ebony dreams
filled with alabaster
musings written in gold
It's all symbolic,
you see
The alcohol of the
intellectual,
a summation in
a single stroke
of lines
So I can weave my web,
and you can weave yours
but the meaning,
that subtle meaning,
will be a secret to us
that's etched in stone...
Mar 24, 2010
Mar 24, 2010 at 5:50 PM UTC