"gobbler" poems
'Twas the night before Thanksgiving
And all through the forest
All the turkeys were gathered
From the richest to poorest
For a meeting was called
To plan their revenge
For all of their loved ones
Who were ever cooked or singed
Now this turkey rebellion
Was long overdue
How would they get even?
And what would they do?
I was there that night
When their meeting adjourned
Keep reading this poem
To see what I learned
This meeting went on
For what seemed like an hour
'Til a gobbler stepped forth
In their circle of power
Now all the turkeys agreed
To this gobbler's idea
They'd all eat some exlax
And give them diarrhea
No matter how they cooked it
Bake it or boil it
The humans would spend
All day on the toilet
So, remember this Thanksgiving
As you try to relax
Have plenty of TP
For those sudden attacks
Nov 10, 2010
Nov 10, 2010 at 10:17 AM UTC
Tomorrow is just today re-lived for Punxsutawney Phil.
It is odd to me that he is so very human, hunkered
low against the cold winds of winter's wrath until
finally, in celebration of Imbolc he rises to survey his vast
lands, a keen eye to the ground to scout out this years'
competition, even if it is only his shadow.
Phil's home in the burrow on Gobbler's **** is the
family sanctuary; there is a joke there but it is beyond
me, God. Just please keep us warm and brave, looking
to the sky instead of the ground, our shadows to our
backs where they will always belong.
Dec 27, 2013
Dec 27, 2013 at 11:24 PM UTC
Fifty years ago today
A half century. Yes--seems like a long time when we say it that way, sublimely forgetting time is a dimension we chop cheaply for convenience. In earth time, in galaxy time, the vast blue stretch since the cosmos’ first coding coughing of carbon, that five decades has been but a clipped comma in a thousand page tome, with a single stout capital letter being the history of a country, and a verbose sentence or two being the tale of our two legged species. For me, the 50 years since that day has been most of my book--nearly all that has been written since the dawn of light.
I was on the Kanto plains of Japan, so it was already Christmas--though I guess my world has always spun faster than most. During the night, my father had assembled my new black three speed 26 inch Raleigh English racer, a serious upgrade from my red 24 inch Schwinn, my first bike, long lost to spinning memory, and likely the property of some dump in the heartland.
The new bike stood beside the table in our large combination kitchen/dining room of our temporary officer quarters. I can’t recall if it was too cold to ride that day, but I probably ventured out, either in the real rays of the sun or in the land of imagination, the two being of equal measure in the realm of memory.
A month before, my father woke me with the news of Kennedy’s assassination. Like others who were old enough to remember, the events of that November day have much crisper edges than any other, including the Raleigh racer Christmas or any Christmas I can recollect.
Tomorrow is another Christmas. I won’t look at that day too much when I am walking in the park this afternoon, for tomorrow is not waiting for me at all. It will be there even if I am again dancing with stardust. More likely, I will be here, on the same rolling rock, eating the flesh of a fallen gobbler and making new memories I will recall only hazily in fifty hours. And if I were promised another fifty marching years, I might lament their passing before they arrived, knowing full well they too would be filled with forgetting.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 4:41 PM UTC
My demon lays, awake within me
Silently it taps its claws
Slowly it scratches into my bones
I can feel its grin
My marrow rots
The smell of its breath lingers in the meat of my body
It boils the blood within my brain
Sending me into a frantic frenzy
I feed on my thoughts
The gobbler is my name
Memories run at the sight of my teeth
I now know nothing
Full and unsatisfied I crave more
I sit.
I wait.
The next catch sure to be great
Like a tiger I purr at the excitement
I spot your thoughts across the room
Tender and soft they sleep
Unaware
Unafraid
Vulnerable
“Just a taste” I murmur
“A nibble wont hurt”
I’m still hungry
Your carcass
Sprawled
Mauled
Your eyes are still open
But there is no life within them
The blank stare eases me
Soothes the scratches carved into my skin
My demon is out
Applauding me
Feb 7, 2011
Feb 7, 2011 at 6:25 AM UTC
Career politicians, who cluck
as they strut with an impotent pluck
make me sick with the season
befouling all reason:
they're less of a **** than a cuck.
That gobbler and turkey-neck Mitch
makes me furious—so mad that I twitch.
He obstructs every battle
while jiggling his wattle;
unpardoned, unworthy (but rich).
The patrician political class
is a party that speaks through its ***
They are lacking in guts
with no ifs, ands, or buts
but I swear: they produce enough gas.
HAPPY THANXGIVING, Fellow Poets☺
Nov 23, 2017
Nov 23, 2017 at 9:48 AM UTC
Tight ride over uneven roads, long distance.
Defaulting poor folk kicked off by greedy banks.
The egg broken, the cocoon breached.
The warmth of family tested, cracks a little.
Why do we all play into sickness this way, holding up
the machine?
Nothin' but a greedy gobbler with zits on its face, holding us
over steam, turning our sweat to coins.
Highways passed and road stops by a strange camp.
No, none too friendly.
Into tiny blocks bundled, and foremen huddle sheep
to the fields.
Open slaughter of work. March us back to the confines.
A sad day. Bits of paper and forms to fill, is all we become.
Omelettes today, some meat in the tent later. Come happy, children.
Come lick at the cauldron on the dusty floor.
Beyond the golden fields, the sun bursts to final red.
A small walk denied. **** dreams in the hot tea curls.
Oct 23, 2015
Oct 23, 2015 at 1:59 AM UTC
Mary’s Mother is from Georgia, her Father from Pennsylvania.
A steelers flag hangs on Mary’s front porch, and every Sunday night in the fall means eating chicken wings while adorned in black and gold.
Mary’s Father has an office.
Inside of it lay a few rusting guitars, but the walls of the room are what truly catch your eye.
The paint itself, a dull muted gray is immaterial when compared to the dozens of plaques that enhance it.
Each frame carries a different piece of Groundhog’s Day memorabilia, many house pictures of Punxsutawney Phil, one is a certificate declaring Mary’s Father an “official Groundhog ambassador”, another an autographed photo from a Groundhog handler.
Mary’s Father claims that Groundhog’s day is America’s second greatest holiday.
Mary’s parents were married at Gobbler's ****
Punxsutawney Phil attended the wedding.
Mary and her little sister stayed home from school every Groundhog’s day in elementary school, and in middle school they attended but came to school in matching Groundhog hats.
Mary’s kitchen counter has a small black speaker.
Each Sunday morning, Mary’s Father blasts the Polka Party Radio Show hours into the afternoon.
The whole family knows all of the polka songs by heart.
Each Sunday morning they came together to listen to the “Waltz of The Angels”, a Polka special dedicated to various passed loved ones.
Even the turntable in Mary’s dining room only plays Pennsylvania Polka vinyls.
Mary’s incredibly familiar with Hershey Park.
She and her sister have brought home various souvenirs from Pennsylvania’s notorious “Chocolate Town”.
Mary’s family knows Gettysburg like the back of their hand.
I’ve known Mary for over a decade.
I never knew her mother was from Georgia.
“The Southerner’s Handbook” sits in Mary’s living room, the only true mark of Mary’s Mother’s life before she surrendered her maiden name.
I think it is a beautiful thing to give up your culture for somebody else.
I think it is a beautiful thing to sing Pennsylvania Dutch folk music with your Husband on late weekend nights because you know it makes your children happy.
Oct 3, 2021
Oct 3, 2021 at 4:03 PM UTC
MOTECUHZOMA
I stand here, lords, a humbled man, to bow
Before divine arbitrament with you.
Tell me the damage of my botchery,
And do not let my title tie your tongue.
Unfold his ballot, and unveil my doom.
TLACAELEL
Great Speaker of the state of Mexico,
It is my solemn duty to report
That, by the power vested to my role
In this most sacred trial by tournament,
Your bounty due unto this king shall be . . .
[Opens the second wager.]
Three turkey ***** of prime and grade-A stock.
MOTECUHZOMA
You staked your kingdom on three gobbling birds?
Why did you shy to wager higher, man?
HUNGRY PRINCE
My father always warned me, never bet
For more than what you know you might receive.
MOTECUHZOMA
But- grinning simpleton- what will you do
With burlap sacks of poultry for a prize?
HUNGRY PRINCE
Why, I’ll farm out a new triumvirate.
The old one closed from lack of membership.
MOTECUHZOMA
Not hamstrung by a certain turkey’s qualms?
HUNGRY PRINCE
But poachered by the greater gobbler.
MOTECUHZOMA
So you shall never gain my kingdom now.
HUNGRY PRINCE
And you can never keep your kingdom now.
MOTECUHZOMA
That fails to follow. Who could rival me?
HUNGRY PRINCE
You’ll follow my allusion soon enough,
Once your own subjects fail to follow you.
MOTECUHZOMA
Fool! What I banked on was your fantasy.
HUNGRY PRINCE
Friend, what you staked on was my prophecy,
And what I prophesied, the gods confirm
By our ill-tilting trial in this field.
I have foretold your empire shall be lost,
And lost it shall be, to my heart’s dismay.
And therefore, farewell Mexico! Or else,
Farewell, Motecuhzoma. I’m afraid
One must be sacrificed to speed the other.
MOTECUHZOMA
Why know you not, straw man, I am the empire.
My doctrines are her laws; her braves, my brawn.
It is my veins her riches run through, sir,
And when she prays, it is my vows she breathes.
HUNGRY PRINCE
But when she suffers, you repose and dream,
And when she starves, her rumblings go unheard,
As you crack crab shells at the groaning board.
A pretty study, then, in symbiosis.
MOTECUHZOMA
Why bandy taunts with this malingerer?
Let’s penitently tender sacrifice,
And leave this dreamer to his reveries.
It seems such visions reign these days.
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 3:59 PM UTC
Lisping along in the bravado nights
of banquet halls bursting with chandeliers
red carpets and butterfly maidens
serving delicacies of ordered neatness
tested in kitchens of manicured chefs
waiting in breathless expectation
of acceptance from a guest list
of the countrys best men and women
the chief gobbler looked at the lovely wife
of the chief guest
and gently slurped his birds nest soup
as the waitresses on wings flitted by
watching in delight
as his ******** showed clearly at the thoughts
raging in his bald head.
He wanted this woman?
and they all approved willingly
that someone must lose his head
to the heavyweights lust
and for the upkeep of the national pride
before he picked up his chopsticks
and gold embossed napkin
he flicked it twice
and the chief gobbler was whisked
behind a red bleeding curtain
and his wife was taken
on a candlewick bedspread
of green and gold
draped with the crescent moon
and scimitar.
ask no more questions
on where we are
or lose your tongue forever!
Author Notes
Despotic and dangerous.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 3:25 AM UTC
Gobbler turkey thrums
Red throat, feathers spread, he struts
Another spring dance
Sep 17, 2016
Sep 17, 2016 at 9:10 AM UTC