"librarians" poems
Making love,
a sweaty pit stop
between the sheets.
Politicians,
librarians,
directors,
janitors,
authors,
queens,
kings,
moms,
you,
me,
All guilty of this bittersweet act of sticky significance.
All willing to tangle our limbs every night.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 12:48 AM UTC
Senior Present
I walked in to the school this morning
To see all of the teachers
Munching and nibbling on food.
I turned down the hallway to be greeted
By a glorious sent that hit my nostrils
I watched as kids floated down the hall way
Towards the smell, they were just out of reach
Of the food, as the smell led them to a closed door
Of the teachers lounge.
Inside were all sorts of candies. There was a candy
Of every type, all shapes and sizes. No one was left
Out every teacher had there favorite kind some ware.
There were cakes and pies,
Fudge and brownies,
Ice cream and frozen yogurt.
There was healthy food
And nut free snacks.
There was lollipops
And twizlers.
It was Halloween all over again,
With a twist of fancy,
It was a dessert buffet
Just for the teachers.
It was a way to thank them for all the
Time they spent teaching us the same thing
To have patience for all the questions, to help us
In till we understood, staying extra hours to help us.
This food display is a thanks to not just the teachers
But to the janitors, the special education helpers
The nurses, librarians, office and consoler office ladies
The police officers and the principal her self.
I thought it would be nice to give you all a special treat
A present, instead a prank, since it is my senior year.
Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012 at 8:26 PM UTC
Why are librarians always mean?
They act like they are the queen
of the library scene
They are in charge, that is true
they make that clear when shushing you
if only they actually knew
people only go to the library to pass through
they ***** and fuss all day
and treat children like their prey
they all turn into a cliche
if only there was another way
they are lonely crotchety old ladies
who took their dreams and turned them into maybes
some of them had wished to write
or edit famous books into the night
but alas here they are in old schools
screamin' and yellin' all day about the rules
I think that's probably why
they take pleasure in making children cry
Forever they'll sit at their desk
growing in old age grotesque
when you see a librarian make sure to scurry
unless you want to feel her wrath and fury
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 9:08 AM UTC
the glockenspiel of our daily raid of sewers in heaven
and our Jovian dwarves appalling the rapturous capacity of forever and ever.
the kooky jingle of our serpents, darning socks for the antichrist
and our elaborate rats. the simple maze of our condition
in the hell were at. the creaking gate to a twilight
and a lost chapter
marooned on an
island
of undead Librarians.
starving for brains
tardy with the
Harold
Robins
knife in red breast.
Jan 19, 2013
Jan 19, 2013 at 4:37 PM UTC
Gold and silver battle *****
torn from swords saddles and crosses
lying beneath a farmer's field
tributes to kings and bellicose gods.
Fierce birds of prey snakes fish and bears
framed in filigree geometry
guarded warriors' savage souls.
No mercy in Mercia.
Archeologists anthropologists
historians librarians
curators and consertvators
collect confer and classify
while I just try to connect.
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 6:19 AM UTC
Well now, I used to teach.
I mean, I still do, but it's only for their benefit now, isn't it?
It's like the doctors and the greengrocers
and the streetsweepers and librarians,
still going through the motions
while they take recordings and what have you.
I guess we should be glad
that they're interested in the way we lived,
you know,
before they arrived.
But my kids, you know,
they're all actors.
They might learn the odd piece
of arcane knowledge
but I can tell they know
they don't need it.
No, no, I'm no rebel
I don't want any trouble.
Things are better since they arrived,
of course they are.
I mean, their technology -
we couldn't have come up with that
in a million years.
And they're very polite.
I have a colleague who says
this is because they feel guilty about their success,
but I don't know about that.
Things were bad for a while,
but I guess maybe that was our fault.
We didn't know how to react.
We adjusted poorly.
It's hard to accept that you're, you know,
obsolete.
Even me, you know.
For a while there I was,
well,
I was drinking a little too much.
It was hard, seeing the school destroyed.
They've done a good job
with the facsimile though.
even smells the same.
Yup,
can't complain.
Can't complain.
Jan 24, 2012
Jan 24, 2012 at 3:46 PM UTC
There is a boy in the library, ignoring the crazy lady talking through the window.
I feel like telling him she is nice. And probably not half as crazy as the librarians in this town. She has 2 children. They live in Greece. And when she cries, her dogs hide under the deck.
But he probably doesn't speak English.
Hardly any of these people sitting on their backpacks at the library do. And even if he did, he wouldn't listen.
He is reading. Its a good book. I know its a good book. I've read it. Now I feeling like telling him to leave.
He should not read it here, underneath the colour wallpaper. He needs to find a corner of a beach, so he doesn't have to cry in public. And he has to cry, because if he doesn't, I know the crying will happen inside. And his eyes will turn a shade darker with the smoke of their deaths, and his muscles will strain to rip from his ridiculously alive tendons. His eyes are already black, and I do not think he can afford to find more darkness.
Not that I would know.
He might pick cherries for a living and flirt with a trailer park attendant called Fiona is his spare time.
But I have a smell for the scared and enclosed people here. I can see the kracken hunters and the faerie kissers. They show themselves to me accidentally and I turn watch them destroy their dreams.
People ask me why I am cold all the time. They do not understand, because the boy at the library closed the book before he could cry and I knew he would be destroyed anyway
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 9:05 PM UTC
He is wearing gym shorts and she is a ten.
My god, a shimmering exemplar
in a new breed of **** librarians and
he is wearing gym shorts.
If you must roll off your front porch
into the world
do so with some self respect.
If you must work out
you probably aren't playing hard enough,
with a slight chance at
this being a projection
of my horrible personality
stained by the dregs in my
solitude's electric feedback.
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 8:58 PM UTC
My Brothers and Sister and Me
We all share the same genes
Though some hide it better than others.
Similarities And Differences are pronounced.
The apples don’t fall far from the tree
Though a couple of them bounced.
Apples baked into pies or
Thrown to the horses
Rotten and brown and wormy and
Delicious apple cider in the Fall.
Applesauce and apple butter and Appleton, Wisconsin
Looking for a job? Applications for them all.
Mountains, and mountains of books
Rivers, and streams of numbers
Hiking and running through canyons
Flowers and gardens and mushrooms and parks.
Shooting pheasants in the fields
Shooting stars in the dark.
Time will tell. Time will tell
Mom’s in Heaven, Dad’s in his own Hell.
Whose footsteps will you follow?
What size boots do you own?
Who most will you resemble?
When your own kids are grown.
We are laughing. We are laughing.
We are librarians and teachers
And accountants and staff and lumbermen always.
And still we all laugh.
“Thought one of you’d be a preacher.”
“Good money in that.”
Each generation’s gaps grow wider
As the trees grow taller the apples fall farther
Similarities and Differences well-defined
Still laughing. Still laughing at things
New genes swimming in the family pool
Some of the cousins can sing!!
PwL March, 2015
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 2:49 AM UTC
Her name was petunia
She had hair the color of twilight settling after a hurricane and irises darker than the moon
Her smile was the crescent that the stars sung for
her fingers as dainty as China ware on the finest plates
Shy as werewolves howling for comfort
and brave as the wind dusting the horizon
She never did understand why her mother named her after something as petite as a flower
She couldn't understand her own beauty
Daisy; nose as freckled as the beach is sandy
Wrists as worn as the pages of a librarians favorite book
Sundays sunny as the sunflowers she wore on her church dress
inconspicuous was the boy she held hands with under the pews
Hated her parents for her wretched name
she murmured between kisses with the preachers son
the devil himself wasn't a flower, but a ****
Took her life the day he was baptized
A flowers life is not the life for me, said daisy
Rose
The beautiful of the most
with red lies that'd set your heart to flames
She'd burn down every field
and ***** every finger of those who kissed her lips
Ivory skin of leaves so green
envious of those who weren't picked, and pitied, and deprived of their innocence and privacy
Just because fate handed her the life of lust and friends of petunias and Daisy's who never made the cut
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 10:40 PM UTC
My college instituted a new policy today.
In an effort to promote solidarity,
All students, professors, service workers,
Janitors, coaches, board members,
Dining hall workers, librarians, baristas,
Gardeners and printers
Are required to mark their foreheads,
A sort of branding if you will,
With permanent marker.
This is retroactive immediately.
I had thought I had seen it all within week one:
Lions, GPAs, phone numbers concealed by long
bangs
Personality traits, four letter words, names of
significant others
The very same that were crossed out as the bottom
fell out,
Rocket ships,
Or what I'm assuming were rocket ships,
Advertisements, slogans, “taken”.
I also saw bar codes
And statistics
And long, non-terminating sequences.
I looked at myself in the mirror
And saw that I had not yet marked my forehead.
I pulled out a sharpie
And upon my face
Highlighted my wrinkles.
Because, who isn't tired of being a cog in the machine?
And who doesn't worry about life otherwise?
Sep 19, 2010
Sep 19, 2010 at 5:30 PM UTC
If we were two books who happened to cross covers
Or over lap tittles,
In a momentary lack of structure
You would find us stacked back to back
As unlikely as a tragedy with star struck lovers..
Happened upon the other
in a library archiving
Written word and lives, and eons worth of soft
Text typed,
I would be a book of Russian poems
Roughly speaking of beautiful things,
With a bare textured cover, a soft sea foam green.
And you would be lost in the meaning,
In the reflections of your wealth
I would give you all the answers you hide inside your self,
You would be of another breed,
Your italic headings speaking of vastly different things,
You would show a thousand places I wish to know,
With a hundred hand drawn maps
Filled to the indentation with
realities greater than my own imagination
with pictures
That capture you, whisper liberation,
You would be the inspiration every trapped
lower class individual looks upon while dreaming up
Vacation homes.
You are the window to the places everyone
Everyone wants to know
Your pages crisp but warm, smelling of vanilla
Not a single scuff, crease, you are not torn.
A soft Carmel brown cover where
A hundred careful fingers hover.
You are probably thinking we don’t belong together.
Not in a library alphabetized and
Split into sections,
Good thing great librarians
Know better, she
Stole us and set us together in her own
Private collection.
There is no where I fit better than
Next to you, pressed cover to cover,
we are becoming a story of
unlikely lovers,
We are best friends,
Penned from different ink
Speaking different themes
meeting
Resting between book ends designed
Out of clever minds set out to
To fuzz the line between actuality
And your aspiration,
We are just the perfect combination of
Drive and a dream,
The fact you are here means something
And the more I read the more it seems
Together we'll achieve great things.
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 5:52 PM UTC
Organizing books
Answering calls about the availability of books
This is the role of the librarian
I am watching them in action now
Looks like a fun position to have
I don't have a position
I just wander from place to place
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 3:29 PM UTC
The Mecca is the trifecta of the vertex of the epicenter of the apex
But we just use that as a reference point
We refused to be swayed by centripetal force
And peeled back the layers of the mind to find the inertia that had given us the centrifugal force to push us in our quest to find the ultimate reality
I saw a vandal giving in to voyeurism
When a watershed moment happened
He had a sudden premonition
There were nervous virgins about to take the plunge
There were people giving hi 5's to each other and making pinky promises they swore to keep
There were poor soul's trying to quit cold turkey
Eating molten ****** cakes
I looked to the East and visions came to me as well
I saw kids having fever dreams of pitching fits and fever pitches
I saw liberated lesbian librarians eating their feelings and playing
**** one, **** one, marry one"
I saw the extinction of guilty pleasures
I saw a man being caught up in getting up to speed with
I trifling teenagers
Low on money but high off drugs
I saw myself checking in to check up on the check out line to pick out and pick up a new catcher's mitt
I caught a case
A call
And a cold
I saw the love of my life running towards me on a soft white beach
As she came closer I could see her beginning to decay
Her skin melted
Her organs and blood fell from her
Her eyes and teeth dropped out of her head
Her hair fell out
And her skeleton came into my arms and I heard a whisper
"I will always be with you, my uncrowned king"
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 1:57 PM UTC
Art work in pencil
Peach shadows on the outline of everything
Jaw lines, good times
Trees in the park
Dinosaur tracks and Fedex Fax
Librarians don't do their job
I was talking about shadows
Then my mind was robbed
Feb 15, 2013
Feb 15, 2013 at 2:52 PM UTC
together, more than a century
it occurs to his fresh coffee'd brain,
as he,
sliding in behind, half-assedly,
as in half in/half off the bed,
but the rest, the best, nestled, ensconced,
in a serpentine curvature connected
smiling too loudly,
titter~muffled giggle
at the passing by, a funny bone notion,
that combined, conjoined,
together, more than a century,
well, and well more, than that,
a depository of collections, nuances,
cross filed, so that our recollected told tales,
have been all heard before and will again
be retold with a swelling newness
to newborn readers,
checking out the classics
the roar of my suppressed soundings,
clearly too louding,
sleepy hoarse asks
the inevitable "what's the chuckle,"
so accustomed she be to my,
unexpected laughs expectorated,
menagerie of multiplicity of muckled
roars and guffaws, tee hee's,
she will n'ere be satisfied
with a non-answer,,
with a wiley evasion to
her invasion of my innermost
"occurs to me we are a very historical
(never employing that olden adjective)
library,
two cuddling librarians,
who are compelled
to our shelves,
to add a new book daily"
she laughs and kindly requests,
my immediate departure,
for having caused her by
mine awoking and
her evoking
laugh,
to be kicked out of the
library
for excessive noise making
not the first time,
and not the last,
he laughs,
uproariously,
in the deepest of his innermost,
hidden in the silent stacks of their library,
in a demilitarized zone,
neath two pillows soft by,
lest he be shushed vociferously,
by his once again, softly sleeping,
co-conspirator
librarian
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 7:29 AM UTC
he weeps in that subtle way
whereby the crumbs of grief
shaken from his eyelids
are caught by his thumbs
and his head shakes
like a kite chewed by a tree
he's all trembles and tremors
and he quakes
like his body breaks
when tectonic plates collide
he surveys the carpet and the shoelaces
the way that all librarians know their places
the books return to their stands and their spaces and
he keeps his fear in the crook of his tongue
and eyes hook him like bait
that's there for the taking
he pulls with veined hands
at the ashen strands of his afro
they've seen more years evaporate
than they've seen tears
because his eyes and sacked and
the corners of his cornered collar
escape his clasp as he cracks
among the shelves
like dropped eggs
and window panes
and dancers' legs
and weather vanes spun too hard
he gets a should touch like
a stroke through the wire of a rabbit hutch
and he sits beside closed ears
that pretend to listen to the clutch of his fingers
on his forehead
he leaves and they rearrange the chairs
remove the water glass
and erase the marks
of where his heart has passed
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 1:24 PM UTC
many learn lessons that schools cannot teach
where ego meets danger and unknowns beseech
perhaps there is nothing and everyone’s clean
or maybe there’s something that’s going unseen
from teachers who cheat to admins who steal
no dose of prestige can save lives that are real
the crossing guard owns twenty cats with the mange
school cop clipped his brother while out on the range
a history teacher abusing his kids
librarians selling school books to high bids
the crew in the arts are all in on a coup
while the principal staff launders money for *****
hey, i’m just here to sweep up and i call what i see
other folks won’t speak up but a few will agree
i don’t do that no more, i’m out five years last june
they’ll be following suit lest they change their act soon
still no one here dares to expose what’s involved
in keeping the peace held among these halls
Dec 16, 2019
Dec 16, 2019 at 12:11 AM UTC
this debt, this book, this tort,
so overdue, uncivil wrong demanding reconciliation,
that the librarians sent the hoodlums
to remind me of my obligations
there must be unfinished, three or four Gebbie precursors,
lying about awaiting further final definition
unmarshaled me, unable to see them through to completion,
but my hindsight, my guilty plea, aided by an assertive,
rear self-kicking, offers me some motivation immediacy
When I see the Auckland Sky Center in photos,
a hard hatted man with softest heart always,
is on top, doing his native Aussie global
(in place) walkabout, better to see,
the cubature volume of the global poetry underneath his feet,
the poetic underworld, needing a
Gebbie supervisory drilling read down
Enough!
unsatisfactory above this ditty notation for one who
tenders unto me comforting words that
drill down so deeply, keeping,
"the night shall not disrobe you,"
that only a single rhyming word
is satisfactory but yet too,
is insufficient to capture
the audio of innards weeping
surely aware, the nighttime, is when I best my own analytics,
disrobing in a room of black letters on a white background
for all who stumble by moonlight on the bards of "perchance,^"
giving pieces of me to the those who not only read my verses,
but those who ken
that the unspoken spaces in between,
containers of what is not writ,
but only modestly well hid,
is where lies oft the more important script
and he gets that...
where the skills when most needed?
his precision will deserves artistry, not sophistry,
and I am flailing, failing inadequately to pay my overdue
it is early morn in Taranaki,
perhaps he will see this lackey's lacking insufficiency,
before he goes climbing man-made towers
that bear witness
to mens bigger dreams,
perhaps when he returns later tonight,
in a snifter of old malt scotch,
his "last one for the road"
he will see it floating,
and think of me,
this time, happily,
disrobing mine soul's own nighttime,
trusting him to keep all safe,
entrusting it to him,
and to Janet,
my best,
red and black,
sweetest dreams
<>
https://hellopoetry.com/marshal-gebbie/
9/5/17 13:55pm
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 1:53 PM UTC
she likes older men
because Ty said boys
like ***** and he tells
me that librarians are
**** when I say I have
a full bookcase at
home, when he
says he doesn't
read, when he
ditches me on
July 4th to
get drunk
prays before
his meals but
says that he
would ****
my friends
if I broke
his heart.
Jul 13, 2014
Jul 13, 2014 at 12:50 PM UTC
I like walking to see the man.
When the trees are stiff
and the clouds are glowing,
i take the high road up
to where creeks are flowing.
To where panthers sing, in
the darkest nights, to where shadows
are pythons and liken bites
when i can i see the man
i feel something inside me
bland, but beautiful,
second hand,
like a magic spell
in possum land, goannas
lizards, private lynx,
and kissen wizards
hybrid shrinks
when iv got a problem,
or my eye lid kinks
i follow the road
up to the skyward links.
Theres three roads,
once you arrive there well
theres one that will take
you up a plywood cell
and in this you scream
“take me to the dream
mr Pirolell!”
And if he hears you
in time youl smell
a clear blue gel, or feel a tear brew.
Well that is a bridge to enter your dreams.
—
The next road, the second, leads to
a humble abode with a pleasant
decadent essence. Inside this are
creatures that are big and
small, hairy and airy
ones, some are fairies holden
up librarians with scary guns
some are twisted toads with
bowed blisted noads
living life in a dark pit
solarium.
You must confront these
creatures to reach
the immortal bays
of the Pirolell beaches.
And here you will
be taught by the teacher
of teachers.
And that is the man i
walk to see.
—
The third road
you must tame an
insane hawk to walk
to the magic chalk board.
The bird is wanting to
**** those that wish
to write with the sword or quill, in spite
of it guarding its lord that is still.
If you can tame the hawk
than what ever you question
on the board with chalk will speak aloud
proud monstrous way,
and will discover all that is heavenly.
And youl realise that the man is fantasy.
Oct 2, 2015
Oct 2, 2015 at 2:33 AM UTC
You are more
Beautiful
More brilliant
Reminiscent of stars
And librarians
With their glasses
Hooked on strings
And yet I am
Here
Wait for you
To notice me
To find me
To love
Something
About me
And you speak to me
And post your
Little
Self deprecating
Harmful
Hurtful
Thoughts
Of how you’re
Unloved and alone
The room
You’ve locked yourself
In
Is shut
Unopened
Do not disturb
With walls lined
In black
But with
The light off
And your hands
Over your
Beautiful
Wide
Tear-filled eyes
You fail
To see me
Wanting to
Love you
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019 at 11:26 AM UTC
Corn syrup! on blue table-wood!
The librarians
kick you out, right after
you get it,
the heart monitor high that comes
from so much well-spent sugar.
Nov 30, 2014
Nov 30, 2014 at 4:15 AM UTC
When they let us back into the building
two days later,
it felt like visiting the library of Pompeii.
our world, frozen in a single
unthinkable moment
We all did it
Silently, and instinctively,
we recapped the borrowed pens,
recycled the scrap paper
and reshelved the stray novels
abandoned by our fleeing patrons
We dusted off tables
We checked the bookdrops
We scanned the public spaces
cross-referenced our gut reactions
with a checklist of trauma responses
We took note of the missing books
by the doors, where the blood was -
absence, often the most visible
evidence of tragedy
We took deep breaths
We pushed in chairs
We tied up loose ends
on our plans for next month
We sent emails to tell folks
their classes were cancelled for the week
We gathered
listened and talked
We comforted one another
We went on doing all the small,
important, invisible work we do -
*through our grief,
through our fear,
through our trauma*
- for the people
Apr 5, 2025
Apr 5, 2025 at 9:44 AM UTC