"marshaled" poems
An Open Letter to Really Important People
The Old Dime Box, Texas Statement
A Manifesto Made Manifest in Manifesting Manifestingness
We post this serious looking document
Bloated with long vocabulary words
Sodden with weak dependent clauses
Marshaled in numbered ranks, down, down they go
To the GossipNet all serious like
And everyone has to pay attention to us
Because it’s AN OPEN LETTER, y’know -
You may sign it if you’ve got letters behind your name
Signatories:
Apostle-Disciple Magic Dawn, DD., Non-Binary, Author of Green Polar Bears I Am, Co-Equal-Director of the Anti-Oppressionist Theatre Against the Occupation, Agent of the Revolution, Auteur, Guest on The Wheel of Fortune and Parent of Two AMAZING children of indeterminate Gender with Their AWESOME and AMAZING Life-Partner Sven-Marie.
Massive Ferguson, M.Ed., Poet, Rector of Admissions, The University of Where the Old Circuit City Use to Be
Poncy Tworbst, M.A., PUBLISHED Author, Seeker, Inspirational Singer-Songwriter, PUBLISHED
Heather-Mistee La’ Thwitte-Tworbst, Ph.D., Director of Library Resources at Saint Margaret ****** Homeschool Resource Authority Collective, Inc., Certified Ordained Consecrated Priest in The Worldwide Church of Me-ness and Pastor of the World-Famous Weddings ‘R’ Us Chapel of Rainbow Dreams in Magdalena, New Mexico
Lawrence Hall, HSG, Thinker of Thinky-Ness and, Like, Stuff, Endowed Chair he found at Goodwill, His Mark: X
(Sean Ian Johann Johnson, MBA, J.D., Chief Photocopier Operator at Donald Trump University and Fashion Editor at Gun, God, and Guts Magazine, was not able to sign today; he is sharing a cell with other White House staff and patiently awaiting The Day of Greatness.)
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 3:48 PM UTC
My memories of you are wires
crossed with the stories
I’ve so often heard.
Dates and certain traits
are now blurred
and faded.
I can’t remember your voice.
It’s been years since I could,
but I remember
how it rumbled.
I do remember your arms—stalwart
and freckled so deeply they looked
tanned—the same arms that gave blood
in the name of each
of your grandchildren.
Your arms were my first charitable act.
When I would wake at four
and stumble sleepily into the living room
to find you watching the news
on mute
in that old battered recliner,
your arms were my rocking chair.
When you marshaled your parade
of capped grandchildren
across the street
to the park that will forever be yours,
your arms were a force of nature,
sending multiple swings soaring
into the air
in a complex rhythm
only you
could comprehend.
I remember your chest—barrel-shaped
and strong—creating a whistle
more powerful than I could fathom.
I still think of you
each time
I manage to carry a tune.
I remember your hands
picking me up and dusting me off
when I jumped
too soon.
The selfsame hands
that gathered up all the caps we strew
carelessly in the grass and mulch
balancing them one by one
atop your head
when the sun was setting
and it was time to leave.
I can remember
that lovely rumble
leading one final rendition
of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
as you marched us
safely home.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 11:39 AM UTC
To sleep the sleep of
an artist is
the best sleep ever.
All the foes lie vanquished,
and I paint words with
their blood.
All the letters spent on
the paper in
ejaculatory fashion,
like ***** to the egg.
There is no fodder from
dreams to be marshaled,
just the birth of my
creation,
when I
awake.
Nov 10, 2021
Nov 10, 2021 at 10:38 AM UTC
She will make it a perfect holiday
(“Don’t touch those cookies! They’re for later!”)
Just like the ones on H & G TV
(“Don’t touch Santa! I’ve got him where I want him!”)
With the perfect table and decorations
(“Who moved the Easter bunny, --- --- it!?”)
Exactly like the ones in the magazines
(“Just leave the tree alone; I’LL decorate it!”)
And smiling faces all around the house
(“I expect a little cooperation around here!”)
Perfectly wrapped presents with perfect bows
(“Turn the tree…not that way…LISTEN TO ME!”
Cute Easter baskets for each little child
(“Leave those chocolates alone! You’ll ruin your lunch!”)
Marshaled prettily for a photograph
(“Oh, ----! There’s a grass stain on your church dress!”
Meemaw and Pawpaw will be proud of them
(“---- it! I told you not to play outside in your church dress!”)
The children’s table is just like a picture
(“Not yet! We haven’t even said the ----ed grace!”)
A perfect holiday, or she’ll just die -
No matter how many children are made to cry
Apr 19, 2019
Apr 19, 2019 at 5:28 PM UTC
There's little more to do for
that solitary image.
A brown house on an off-brown
background. The door stopped
closing right nearly ten
years ago.
She sits at the single table
eating the brown dust like
a baby's song, cooing to
herself. Cooing to the walls.
And stopping to stretch her
muted fingers.
He sleeps. A deserved sleep.
Better than propped dry against
the outside wall, marshaled
hands still en deshabille. All
that stuff was his wife's or
his father's.
It fetched a nice enough price
all the same, and where
antiquity fails the wise man
speeds off with a whistle. Funny
tune, but it's better than what the
wife murmurs.
Oh my, one almost forgets.
There was a boy as well, but
he left long ago, must have
been nearly twelve or so
years ago, when the sun was high
as now.
Though truth be told, he was
one of those poor ******** that
exercised theory and let practice
starve; let action gather dirt
and whipped the thoughts to breathe in
still more dust.
One would say they raised him
right enough and still be wrong.
The day he closed that door
on them, they just stood still
kinda watching as the wind blew
them along.
Feb 16, 2010
Feb 16, 2010 at 6:21 PM UTC
Along the path of definite course
No repent, no sense of remorse
All she know is action, promise
River converges to a distant ocean.
No question of dictator’s levity
Negative, negative this time the gravity
Marshaled by ostensible banks
Pointed Grabble makes the poignant
All she know is action, promise
River converges to a distant ocean.
Stream, wears, canal or notches
All counts for philanthropy
Against the odds still reclusive
Slavish devotion but pain legacy.
All she know is action, promise
River converges to a distant ocean.
But she keeps the motive clear
To attain the grace continue the voyage
Million stars to play the role
One grace that unites the whole
And one day she meets the goal
Proved the actions, keep the all
All she know is action, promise
River converges to a distant ocean.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 12:23 AM UTC
“And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes”
-Chaucer
Everyone is a palmer this holy day
Seeking the strange, elusive shores of truth
Each pilgrim bearing in his eager hands
A palm frond and a photocopied hymn
The pilgrimage begins in the parking lot
And marshaled by the blue HANDICAPPED signs
Ascends to the doors, the narthex, and in,
Up to the Altar, there where all worlds meet
Come to Jerusalem; you’re on the way -
Everyone is a palmer this holy day
Mar 25, 2018
Mar 25, 2018 at 7:47 AM UTC
“No doubt they’ll sing in tune after the revolution.”
-Kamarovsky in Doctor Zhivago (film)
Kerenskys marshaled in two ordered lines
Unsure exactly how to stand, to pose
Merry banter, backpats, handshakes, and smiles
A show, a glow of Party unity
And then – a hiss, a strike, a spit, a spat
In sixty-second bursts atop the tomb
Comrade against comrade, a free for none
The audience applauds the ****** fun
Who is the Trotsky, and who the Stalin, then;
Who will die in exile, and who will win?
Jun 29, 2019
Jun 29, 2019 at 4:04 PM UTC
Clutches of Adversity
If only her distress could be weighed,
And all her misery be placed on the scales!
It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas__
No wonder her offsprings nuked her peace-eggs.
If only her pains could be rain,
And all her tears be flown to paradise!
It would surely outrank her wealth-eyes__
No wonder her progeny merry in poison.
If only her sorrow could be quenched,
And all her afflictions be banked like gold!
It would surely oversize the four pillars of the world__
No wonder terrors are marshaled against her world.
If only her hurt house havens in hell,
And all her agony be filmed in movies!
It would surely overshadow the kingdom of Israel__
No wonder famine thwarts the plans of the milk.
©AUTHOR KELLY JUUZ
[A salient prolific author...]
>> 11/07/2017
⊙01:08AM
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 8:44 AM UTC