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Marshal Gebbie Mar 2020
Jottings from David Bagerow's "Quickie"

Shame on she, the selfless *****
Who caused your temperature to fire,
caressed your sandy, sweated brow
To rivers of desire,
Tho she fled at poignant time
To leave you in the lurch.
Best you weave your magic touch
And promise her, the church.
Then woo her and caress her
In your happy, carefree way
Then at that moment of exultance,
Laugh and run away.

David Lessar's "To an Unread Poet"

Dave, You are right ,of course, once committed you raise an expectation and once that expectation is released to the world you are obliged to maintain face...but that damnable thing called "Life" intervenes and totally stuffs up the programme. Take the current interlude of coronavirus...the whole world has been taken by the scruff of the neck and jammed, inconveniently and complaining, into seclusion, all systems ground to a halt, production lines vacated, malls and city centres deserted, blown newspaper cascading across the deserted pavement...a testament to mans ultimate frailty when his house of cards collapses, without a whimper.
So you see, as life intervenes...we are excused from maintaining face.
But fear not, like McArthur, we shall return.
Cheers mate M.

Fawn's "Happy Trails"

Were it not the touch profound
That doth caress my feathered ear
Would thou wish a thousandfold
That I should shed a tear?

A glistened tear suspended there
in iridescent light,
While you, my love, with parted lips
Await, the ruby night.

Victoria's "Wherefore Art Thou"

Strides, he does, through corridors of lust bound lessers,
through forests of small penised dwarfs, through canyons of would be's who could be.....just to countenance the promise within your words....Dear Vix!

Terry O'Leary's "Sweet Butterfly"

You enter the portals of entomology where bugs, flies,butterflies and moths are the true rulers of the planet.
A world vastly magnified by compound eyes, of lightening lifetimes and vivid, saturated colour. A world where life and death are synonomous with the culmination of a single ****** union and the reproduction of a batch of precious pearly eggs. Yea Brother thee hath entered the portal...rejoice!
M.

Fun with Terry O'Leary

"Buried in the Sand" by Terry O’Leary

A beggar clump adorns a dump, his pencil box in hand -
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned.

He’s fallen down in Shantytown, his knees too weak to stand,
With no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.

The Bowery blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
And Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

"A Rebuttal" by Marshalg

So Hood lied low, despite the show ensueing without help,
One would have thought a British sort would spring forth with a yelp!

Would spring ***** to help deflect contusions which occurred
When beggar Clump adorned the dump confusing all deferred.

Whilst sister Ant, attired in scant, ran forth on spindly legs
And brother Frog with shaggy dog said "****" and drank the dregs.

It all became too much, as such, a meelee did ensue,
So all called HALT and as one did BOLT...to the local for a brew!

Phew...that was FUN & hard work!
M.

Singing the Devil's Song*

There is no Makers formula
This life depends on chance,
The way you play your given cards
Depicts your daily dance.

Oh dogma flows in utterance
From pulpits far and wide
From those who claim to understand
Eternity's vast hide.
From those who hold damnation
As a weapon from on high,
From those who claim a judgement
As their finger points to sky.
The good, the bad are absolute,
The right bedevils wrong,
Redeemed shall live eternally
The bad shall singe for long.

Old men stand in pulpits
Across this Sunday's land
To threaten with damnation
If you should cross God's hand.
"Belief" is now their catchword
Abomination's wrong
Is to seek to proffer proof of claim
....to Sing the Devil's Song.

So gather all ye faithfull
Go listen to your man,
Sing the Gospel loud and long
And pay your tithe, as planned.
...But should you find you're dying
From cancer's frozen claw
And the the Godly fail to sweep you
To eternity's gold door?
Remember my clear message
Your life depends on chance,
You live within your own good sphere
....There is no Maker's Dance.

Marshalg
After an overdose of Pulpit hogwash.
10 March 2013

Singing the Song of Angels:
A Response to Marshal Gebbie's "Singing the Devil's Song"
By Luca Anselm
There’s a church in the city with pillars of stone
And windows like sea-glass, still and alone,
A fountain, and cloisters of ivy, away
From the noise of the street, and the hum of the day.
There my father would tell me of Christ, how he died
Surrounded by soldiers and thieves, crucified,
How he wept for the women, and fell in the sands,
And loved those who hammered the nails in his hands.  

Marshal, dear poet, you have heard the priests tell
Of a god who left heaven to walk into hell?
Of a god who wept softly for men he had known?
Of a god who dripped blood in a garden alone?
Of a god who sent men with book and with sword
With eyes bright as fire for love of their Lord,
With limbs dressed in black, on altars of stone
By windows of sea-glass, still and alone?

So they give up their lives for a lie, as we say,
And toiled for centuries, long as each day--
And our money built palaces, lofty and tall
With frescoes and candlesticks, gold on the wall--
They preach with words awful and deadly and free,
Of gorgons and hell-fire, worms and the sea,
Of the last day of judgment, and mankind amassed
By the wailing of angels and bright trumpet blasts…

But Marshal, they preach something sweeter and kind--
Of a mother’s soft love, of a father resigned,
Of a still, soft voice, that comes with a light,
And gives hope to the hopeless, and conquers the night.
Of charity, piety, sweetness and love
Like fiery ***-cakes, but soft as a dove,
Spicy as Christmas, solemn and grand--
(Like throne-rooms or magic or the roar of the strand)
Then you wake, and the house smells of peppermint-pine,
And a child is laid in the crèche, now a shrine.  

And all that I long for, dear Marshal, you see,
Are the gold-blooming gardens that soar by the sea,
The mountains and dragons, the prophets and kings
And Icarus falling with fire-fraught wings,
The grey-shifting sea-lanes, the flutter of sails,
Temples on mountaintops, graves in the vales,
And Dido who bleeds from her breast as she cries
For her Love, and stares helplessly into the skies.
But more than the shadows of worlds that might be
Of fairies or phantoms or rocks by the sea,
Dear Marshal, I long for who made me a man.
And would love and give glory as best as I can.

But these days oh! sad days, the loss and the shame
In which all of my loveliness falls into flame--
Where gardens have withered, and sails have been furled,
And kings plodded off in the dust of the world.
Our cities rise higher, and burn through the night
And rear into heaven with noise and with light,
The palisades echo with horns and sound
And the churches with voices and quarrels resound.
But the statues sit silent, and some say they cry
For the shame of the sins against children. Oh! My God, Why?

And those old men—well—they taught me the loveliest things
Of my gardens of gold, and the sunsets of things,
They told me of kindness, and honor, a way
That winds to the West, where the end of the day
Breaks bright like fresh bread, and crimson like wine,
And the sun sets to purple and green in the brine.

And still I remember their words and their songs
And the churches which taught me so well and so long--
Though I’ve turned my head, to the lands where the sun
Will rise again brighter when starlight is spun,
Somewhere fresher and pale, where the cold and the air
Spreads the dew like a lawn paved of crystal, and there,
In the meadows of silver, with light in my eyes,
I will honor my god in the dome of the skies.

Marshal Gebbie's poem "Singing the Devil's Song" inspired this. It's in anapestic tetrameter, for you metric buffs. If you haven't, you should absolutely check out Marshal's stuff--it's awesome and poetry-inspiring--seriously amazing. Thanks again, Marshal!

Sepia Sown

Sepia sown as best it can
Where you and I, as one, once ran
Across, beyond a savored sea
Where lust became reality.
Where spiraled lust, entwined, entrenched
Left you gasping, pale, en benched...
a figment of a thought, now lost
Forever..at what cost, what cost?
M.

Addenum to "obituary" by V

So no one notices, at all
When golden greys of aged fall?
Except perhaps, for those who stay
To blend with every ordinary day

Plus you and I as time flies by
And too, those starlings flocking high.
That old man loitering in street,
Who eyes the million passing feet.
And she too at corner store,
Toothless face and wrinkled maw,
Exchanging cigarettes for coin
(With surreptitious scratch of groin).
Mailman, fat, long, loop mustache
Complaining long and rather harsh,
That they, gone, without a word,
Should vanish into air...absurd!

Someone in their every day
Feels the absence in the way
Details don't fall into place
And warmth is absent from the face.
M.

The Kraken Arises

From blue tranquillity where turquoise waters wash white golden sand, where brilliant fish school in myriad colour and shape, where magnificent squadrons of sleek tarpon and barracuda dash in perfect formation, grazing schools of silver mackeral through diamond flecked deep green shallows, to plunge vertically down to the depths of the black abyss and security.

Calm tropical waters which shimmer like aqua blue glass in the mid day heat and turn to simmering,red fire at the setting of the enormous, ovate, orange sun.

Sea birds flock above wind blown waves, their sharp cries a symphony of the sea, to suddenly wheel and dive en mass, to dine amidst teeming schools of flashing, shiny minnows.

The idyllic picture of a calm blue infinity of ocean framed, in brilliant sunshine, by white sands and gracefully bowed coconut palms.....and suddenly, at the horizon, a thin black line appears, It approaches with steadily, mounting speed, the coastline surf recedes dramatically seaward leaving exposed coral, mountains of seaweed and frantic flapping, beached fish everywhere. A sudden, oppressive silence becomes a distant roar. The sea birds, as one, take panicked flight... and a massive wall of water rears up and rises like a giant beast, to rush headlong, raging, at the coastline.

What once was blue and serene is now a huge cascade of violent black death and destruction, gigantically it destroys the coast, snapping huge trees like twigs, surging ashore, a tsunami of unimaginable violence it obliterates, housing, streets, bridges, vehicles, shipping, aircraft and people, thousands of panicked, helpless, struggling people, killed in a titanic, black, swirling maelstrom of inexorable violence. The wave is followed by another...and another, extending right along the coastline and beyond. Each wave larger and more violent than the last...surging inland for miles  until defeated by the accident of gravity in rising land.

Those who have survived, on high land, on tall buildings, in treetops....cling to each other and look on in horror and utter helplessness. They can only wait, in fear, for the monster to retreat before venturing down to the devastation below to render help where ever they possibly can.

Twice in the space of the last forty thousand years the Kraken has awaken and risen from the depths of the Tasman Sea to the west of New Zealand. It has risen to gigantic proportions and driven right across the Auckland isthmus to the Pacific Ocean. It has twice flattened gigantic primeval Kauri forests laying them waste, all lying in one direction, each time beneath twenty feet of debris and black mud.

Born in innocence from a natural tectonic adjustment of the earth plates, the Kraken doth arise at any time, in any place to wreak it's dreadful work upon we, who reside in our comfortable, seemingly secure and beautiful coastal idylls.

Marshalg
Dedicated to all the coastal population exposed to the threat of inevitable tectonic induced tsunami.
JAPAN. WEST COAST, USA. WEST COAST, SOUTH AMERICA. ALL PACIFIC ISLANDS. NEW ZEALAND. INDONESIA. AUSTRALIA. SOUTH AFRICA. EAST COAST, CHINA. MALAYSIA.
KOREA. THAILAND. PAPUA NEW GUINEA, VIETNAM. PHILIPPINES. TAIWAN. BURMA.

Part of My Job (A love Poem) by Nat Lipstadt

A little embarrassed by all the attention but great to hear from you Sweetheart...all fine and dandy, here...except for being forbidden to go to the beach and the park..and anywhere else except in cases of dire need..(And on punishment of prison time if caught out!)...but hey, I'm not really complaining...All for he common good, aint that right?
M.

Bridges Burnt....

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Holds a saddened felt refrain,
Holds a touch of muted horn
Blown in passion unadorned.
Blown away in errant winds
Where no truthlessness rescinds,
Where a lie begat the night
Interceding lost love's plight.

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Sacraments of loss remain,
Sacraments fragmented drift
Redemption clad in bloodied shift,
Redemption worn as wrong slays right
Till wrongfulness blots out the night,
Till no return this path can be
Until they torch eternity.

M.
SE Reimer's words float before me in his impassioned poem "Bridges"
allowing me to wallow in this, my own dark tangential refrain.
M.

Perchance, in a Bus Shelter

Here I sit amidst the ruin of a white winters' day
Convulsive rain and harsh wind outside, contribute tumult.
And in here, in this small shelter, there is a tension in the air.

We two sit apart, uncommunicative, remote and quite detached.
Not for any reason other than the fact that we are strangers,
We have never met, nor are we ever likely to.
She has an elegance and a stylish angularity whilst I am bald, bearded, unfashionable and somewhat overweight.
She is singularly indifferent to my presence, whilst I am uncomfortable with the circumstance that placed us in this small proximity.
We would, in truth, rather both be elsewhere.

I break the ice in throwing her a small smile and complain about the weather,
Her eyes flick across my face and immediately resume their distant focus on the rain,
She adjusts her seating to face,ever so slightly, askance.
Her choice of course, to assume an air of indifference or superiority...or adopt a measure of defense..or perhaps a combination of a bit all three.  
Regardless... I wipe my backside in exactly the same manner as does she, I  am definitely no less a person for my dumpy demeanor and friendly overture
And I really feel that I don't have to share my space with coldness and impertinence,
Better, I think, to be wet and content with my own company
..So, donning my cap and jacket, I stride out into the deluge to leave the remote and uncommunicative young woman alone and dry with her thoughts.

And then....
Howling rain and shards of wind
Pelt me as I walk
Along the foreshore wild and white
As hovered seagulls squark.
When all at once she's by my side
Walking pace for pace,
Her linen suit a sodden mess
Hair plastered to her face.

"Thought I ought to make it right"
She told me with a smile
I threw my coat upon her back
And walked another mile.
We called into a coffee shop
And sat down by the fire
And sipped a steaming latte
As she told her story dire,

"The cancer's all but killed me
My husband's left the home,
The baby's gone to mother
And I'm facing death alone."
We quietly spoke for ages
I held her hand in mine
Then suddenly she stood to leave
And thanked me for my time.

I sat there in a stupor
Recalling how it played
And felt the guilt impact on me
For judgements I had made.
Those callow, shallow judgements
Made in ignorance, my friend,
Will haunt me as she girds herself
To boldly meet her end.

Marshalg
On a bleak and blustery cold winters day.
Titirangi
5th September 2010

The Old Café by Steve Yocum

It's my go to place,
has been for years,
The Wildwood Café,
an eclectic tiny place
with a mix of old dinette
tables and mismatched chairs.
the cutlery also unmatched
and well used, old photos
and signs adorn the walls
and there is usually a line
of people waiting patiently
on benches outside.

Best of all there is this pleasant
girl, always wearing a welcoming
smile, who seems to know us all.
She knows my order by heart,
Ham and eggs over medium,
a half ration of potatoes, home baked
slice of bread, well toasted, well buttered,
home made salsa on the side, a cup of
"hot" Black English Tea. Tall water no ice.

If I arrive between the busy times, she may
sit down at my table and we talk a while,
It's not a big thing, just chitchat, I'm old
enough to be her grandfather, it's the
dessert before my meal served with genuine
friendliness and unforced civility, not often
encountered in these strange days and times, it's a slice of small town America at it's purest best, she and folks like her help sustain my belief that basic human decency is far from dead.

The food is always good, but it's the comforting embrace of familiarity and
simple warm kindness that assures my frequent return.
It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those.
written by Steve Yocum

It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those

Marshal Gebbie
  That old world touch suits you Stevo,
When I come visit your beautiful state of Oregon, We shall partake this delightful repast in the company of your fair maid.... and we shall tip her well!
M.

Scoot the Streak
One must believe in something be he misanthrope or gambler
In tomorrows omniscience or the future proof of God
The penance in a drunk's decay sets self destruct's imposer
Wether speaker phone's on disconnect or cellphone's in the bog.

Conveyance of a threat to adherents of St Selfwise
Show atheist's are proof here, in belief of disbelief,
Haunted by the images painting painful retribution
Picture sympathetic **** star's allocated hand relief.

A moments allocation of a syllogist abstraction
Shows perspective of the caliber we now reserve for Saints
A paradox regarded as autistic fascination
In a one act play of living disregarding all restraints.

Deliberately indicative of fraternal heat's expression
Notebook at the ready and deep frowning at the brow,
Question definition's collage of confusion's contribution
Do we sit it out pretending or just catch the late bus now?

Marshalg
13 February 2014
© 2014 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie
Written by

victoria  Intriguing work...so I search the comments for help... Ah
0
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary  Marshal, I kinda like this (I read it several times since yesterday)... but I'm still not sure what it says... maybe I'll down a shot tonight and try again... ;-)) Terry
0

3 replies

Feb 2014
Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie   A confession Terrance.. I was half cut when I wrote it!
I have no idea what it means.
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   :-)) Great... I'll be back in a bit... T
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   Well, in the meantime I've had a few shots... now I think I know what it means... hic°°.... hope I remember in the morning... ;-)) Terry
Feb 2014

Pradip Chattopadhyay
Residues
By the night one long dark road
the houses are deep in slumber.

Lucky I'm alive and awake,
can see the stars
in their vast magnitude of silence
gentle and not drunk
have love to count upon
filled with a will to live
feeling I'm almost done.

Having a life is a great reward
and with the residues
gets more valuable.

I won't cry over the lost years
would rather think
have been blessed with enough.

The stars grow blurry dots
as I slip into dreams.

I had a once upon place
and I'm grateful.

With dewy eyes
I hurry to the warmest space
beside her.

You slip into your years well, Pradip.
Your woman must relish your peace, your contentment.
Cheers mate
M.


Tony Grannell
Autumn's Sonneteer
Behold, upon yon ivy bunch, my darling blackbird sings;
I know not why nor shall I try to understand such things.
For born this morning on a song, pray hark, her sweet refrain;
to chance a sigh, oh, dare not I, for this is God's domain.

Out of the night the art of song in tuning in the day;
unknowed afore or evermore such music on display.
'Tis love begad, a lover's song, a diva, I declare,
in soaring o'er both vale and moor, this morning's love affair.

In wonder's charm, this precious bird in song to comfort me.
Alone I stroll, no proffered soul to share my company.
Yet rare this morn, in splendours all, true love like none afore;
let passions roll, in song extol, in verse the morn's rapport.

Be succour in such music found for autumn ails me so,
when summer's run, the harvest done, to rest my scythe and ***.
Of idle lands and nowt ado, to wait without employ.
Yet, hail the sun, my kingdom won, when sings that bird of joy.

Behold her charm and charmed, I am while autumn leaves still fall.
'Tis life anew, a sweeter brew when hear the songstress call.
Though winter’s nigh, with strength and will, we’ll bear our pain and fear;
'tis all to do, good hearts and true, sings autumn's sonneteer.

Written by
Tony Grannell  62/M/Spain

Marshal Gebbie  I stood out at the rock wall and gazed at the splendour of Autumn in Taranaki, as I read, aloud, your sonnet.
...and my heart sang.
M.

Dr Peter Lim
When?
When is the when
of when?  
rampant still is the ravage
which will not relent-

the claustrophobic shut-in
hearts toward gloomy moods they bend
no happy voices of kids heard outdoors
the green fields do not comfort lend-

the downcast look, the sinking feeling
are the joys and delights of yesterday years all spent?
the spectre of pain brings bitterest tears
in the faces of every continent-

oh, when is the when
of when?
such a wash-down
we could never comprehend.

Marshal Gebbie:  But isn't that the way, Dr Pete? Mankind builds his castles in the air, thrusts out his chest and proclaims himself, King of all!
...to be decimated, in an instant, by a microbe of infinitesimal stature. Oh! the fragility of it all.
Life cometh, life goeth....but somewhere, down the track, life shall come again.
M.


Al Drood
The Merman of Orford Ness

So long ago in King Hal’s time, our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.

Entangled ‘midst our dripping catch, with eyes that stared all hellish green,
enscaléd like some creature deep, a Merman writhed as one obscene.

All webbéd were his hands and feet, his body dripped with ocean bile;
upon his head the ****-wrack grew, green-bearded was this demon vile.

Fast to the shore with awful haste we sped before the wind and tide;
Lord Glanville for to summon forth, the Merman’s fate all to decide.

Upon the quay his Lordship stood with men at arms and shriven priest,
and all did cross themselves in fear before this strange unholy beast.

“Enchain it,” cried Lord Glanville loud, “then to God’s Kirk with all good speed!”
The shriven priest prayed long and hard as to the church we did proceed.

With Holy Water, cross of gold, with candle and with testament,
the priest then exorcised the beast, who knew not what was done nor meant.

To all’s dismay he would not bow before the Host on bended knee;
and so to dungeon was he dragged to dwell upon his blasphemy!

The silent Merman beaten was, and hung in chains in for seven weeks,
and fed was he on fish and shells, yet never did he sleep nor speak.

And so at length his Lordship said, “Across the harbour tie a net,
and we shall see how he shall swim, but by his ankles chainéd, yet!”

The net a-fixed, the village folk came down to see the Merman’s plight;
into the sea they threw him then, with foam and wavelet flashing white.

He vanished ‘neath the waters like some seabird in pursuit of prey,
then surfaced laughing, chain in hand, and to his Lordship he did say;

“You thought to make me such as you, who walk in blindness o’er the land!
You’d punish me for difference!  You thought to treat me like a Man!”

So long ago in King Hal’s time our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.
Al Drood
Written by
Al Drood  M/North Yorkshire

Marshal Gebbie:  Tones here of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.
An original work in time honoured rhyme and metre.
I devoured every syllable..Bravo!
M.

G Alan Johnson
Kafka's Bug

When I shed the last skin
last year
there was left a hardened shell
protecting a patched up heart
and a petrified husk
of a soul.

You can throw your bombs
if you wish
and they will hurt inside
but I will just eat them
and **** them out
flushed and forgotten.

Sometimes my antennae
come out in a social setting
and people look at me
with an odd expression
or look off into space
a kind of awkward acceptance,
(the ones that know me).

My mandibles will at times
spit out a divine stupidity
a slacker kind of opinion
and no amount of saliva
can dissolve it
so it sits in the heavy air
stinking like a butterfly corpse.

It was an attempt
at transformation
that failed
(I'm too weak with ego),
and I'm glad that I tried
otherwise I would always wonder.

Vincent Price in a cheap suit
and a lost puppy daydream
a world full of flies, wasps and failed caterpillars
patient spiders and polished leeches...
and all I can do is write.
Written by
G Alan Johnson  65/M/USA

Response by Marshal Gebbie

Pelting rain adheres to soil
As spiders sprint and earthworms roil,
World in turmoil stinkbugs, stink
And Satan beetles disgorge ink
But thee, my budding, sodden flea,
Hath entertained quiescent....me.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
Pandemic Poems: Unclaimed bodies, There’s ain’t no anonymity in heaven.

There are more poems inside me, but I intuit it is longer fair to impose on you by sharing more.  The deep seeded infection of my spirit waxes and wanes, and there is no antidote, and unlike the virus itself, there never will be, a future cure, an inexpensive replacement cost for the spirit spent, the time and futures spirited away.

Perhaps you recall I was one mile away from Ground Zero on September 11th.  Rarely do I walk there.

The coronavirus poetry inserts itself unaided, never asking permission, a like minded, but a contra-cousin to the coronavirus.

I live in New York City, the epicenter where now, close to 800 die daily.

Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on Hart island, mostly for people whose families can't afford a funeral, or who go unclaimed by relatives.  In recent days, though, burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day.^^

Each dies with no last words, no Kaddish recited, Last Rites, too late, no Ṣalāt al-Janāzah or Om Namo Narayanaya.  Each one, a numbered pine coffin, and each one will have at the very least, a poem of their own, so help me god.

Buried side by side in large trench, room plenty for new arrivals,
I hear the banging, protesting, resisting, this is not the way, I was promised, my ears left pounding!  Hillel, the great scholar in this dream, reminds that “the time is short, and the work is great.”          

He paraphrases, though, “the bodies many, the poems too few.”

There ain’t no anonymity in heaven, but I’ll reconfirm that with you later.

Written by
Nat Lipstadt

Marshal Gebbie
God! It's harrowing to feel the raw spirit in a New York City man's soul.

You speak for the dead, the ailing and the fearful.

You speak for beggar in the street, the broker, quaking in his plenty, imprisoned on the 14th floor.

You speak for the cop, in face mask, on 24th and Vine, doing, as always what he must, with authority.

And you speak for the White Clad Angels who carry the dead to Hart Island and who forgive you, your fear and safer seclusion.

You speak also for we, who watch and sorrow from afar your agony, in our own fear and seclusion.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
raw is the word, oft need to lie down midday to escape the the viral infection of every outlet we use to pass these days. don’t know when i’ll go outside again, because the virus kills and wounds in horrible ways... thank u MG for the kind appreciation natty

Sally A Bayan
Conduits
In distance and in proximity...in despair
and joy...in existing and in dying...in the
bliss of love reciprocated, and in the pain
of love unrequitted...verses dance and call,
awaiting......

poetry has its own pulse, its own heartbeat,
it calls, taps the shoulders any moment,
awake, or adrift, it just can't be ignored...
even in a tangled, or weird circumstance,
it sparks like a bulb or a comet, curving
in a rainbow...riotous some days, teasing, fleeing,
then, turning up at unexpected times and places.

in every bit and breath of life, in every seed,
in every drop of dew, in every ember burning,
there is poetry birthing, growing...

deep within us flows green, purple, red,
glum gray, darkened inspirations...fleeting,
but, when time is ripe, they linger long,
giving us time to capture them all
.............................................
we sense them...we give space
we speak them, or we write them,
:::::::we are conduits:::::::


Sally

©Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
February 11, 2020

Marshal Gebbie

  A touch, so light,
So sensitively slight
As to be caress,
In dead of night


Don Bouchard
And then
We become old men
And old women, and

We look back wistfully, and
We look forward hopefully, and

We wonder....


Written by
Don Bouchard  60/M/Minnesota

Marshal Gebbie
  Slipped betwixt the then and now
Methinks, with finger on the brow,
Thee needs a shot of earthy ***
And a wanton ****, to rub your tum.
Thee needs a cheery pick me up,
Some hairy mates to help you sup
Elixir from the joy of life
To salve tomorrows' threat of strife.
Cheers mate M.
0
Tommy Randell
From a young man's parlance, tripping from an old man's tongue; Right On, brother, Right On!
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2012
A coarse, yellow coat with dark spot aplenty
Lean as a greyhound with limb long and lengthy,
Faster than hare from a cold standing start
Impossibly glimpsed in tall grasses that part.
Crystaline jewels in two huge hazel eyes
With the svelt of a feline’s cold killing surprise,
Explosively quick with an elegant gait
And a murderous jaw full of canines that wait
For a fleeing gazelle or a springbok at speed
Then a launch that would emulate bullet, when freed.
Incredibly smooth with a fast loping stride
That would tax any racehorse an envious ride,
Snapping manouvers to left and to right
That mirror a quarry’s evasions of flight.
A blur in a frantic explosion of dust
Then the life blood erupts, splashing red as the rust.

Heaving great flanks after thrill of the chase
Wide open muzzle and gore on the face,
Guarding the game till the kittens locate
Then the spoils of the chase will make portions dictate.*


Marshalg
Serengetti Plain
Central Africa
30 November 2012
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2012
Strange how the dank hand of disaster clarifies the thinking,
How all irrelevancies are scoured from the frontal lobe,
How, strangely, should you look into the morning sky, the blueness is of a brilliant, startling intensity.
How biting into a piece of fresh fruit reveals the new mouth watering,  exquisiteness of clean sweet,flavour.

Strange how the dank hand of disaster allow us to consolidate our values.
Where suddenly, the drabness of yesterday becomes the brightly,beautiful now.
Where miserable mindedness adopts an abrupt re-evaluation, in that the sour faced neighbour is embraced with passion as being a fellow survivor.
Where the rich and the poor are thrown together to work willingly, cheek by jowel, for a common cause…Tomorrow!.

Strange how the dank hand of disaster brings out THE VERY BEST IN US …isn’t it ?**

Marshalg
A commonality observed In having survived many disasters over the years.
1 November 2012
Marshal Gebbie Jan 2013
Heat beats down upon the street
Birds too hot to fly,
Blistered sand you cannot stand
Drenched with sweat am I.
Cows collect in shadow deep
Panting sheep hang head,
Goshawk flies in cobalt skies
Hills of grass stand dead.

Whisp of smoke, a puff of breeze
Sirens scream in air,
Running men in squads of ten
Emerge from everywhere.
Now the rising wind takes charge
Runs with leaping flame
Into crown of eucalypts
To rage across the plain.

Too late the tenders hoses pour,
Too late the fireman’s shout
Inferno hot has run amok
And all control a rout.
Generating mighty winds
The fire charges forth
Spiralling in furnace air
To incinerate for sport.

Vanquished men exhausted stand
Watch with useless eyes,
As raging flames consume their truck,
Inside a good mate dies.
A live thing in the burnished night
It writhes and spirals high
Across the flaring treetops
Hot, red smoke fills the sky.

As sudden as it starts, it stops
A wind change in the air.
Ravaged forest stark and black
Hot ashes everywhere.
Hills of cinders smoking now
Stock in death’s repair,
Homesteads rendered charcoal like
Farmers in despair.

A silence in the ravaged hills
Birdless in the sky,
Bushfire horror, death and smoke
Enough to make you cry.

Marshalg
In support of my Australian brethren and their torched nation.
30 January 2013
Marshal Gebbie Sep 2011
(Quote by Spike Milligan)

One very wise man sat and said
That, long before this world is dead
This planet’s problems won’t be solved
By reasoning which, though now evolved,
has got us, where we now do sit,
Afloat neck deep in mankind’s ****.

There’s SARs, Ebola, AIDs, Bird flu
And in the woodwork, West Nile too,
Each replicating viral spat
To mutate, (at the drop of a hat),
To complicate enviro’s stew
Of global degredation’s brew.

Urban spread and over stocking
**** deforestation’s shocking,
Depletion of aquatic life
Intrinsically creating strife,
Industrial pollution’s goo
Ozone depletion... ALL FOR YOU!


Environmental degradation
Means the world’s a weaker place,
Susceptible to malady
Wide spread across the human race.
Those animals in corn fed stalls
Who never get to see the sun
Or graze green grass where honey bees
Are vanquished by varroha’s fun.

Too late to save the Hector’s dolphin
Conservation’s lost it’s tools,
Rastafarian hootchie smokers,
Save the whales to **** the fools.
Governments sell the carbon credits
Everybody smells a rat
Restorations for the birds
And social conscience creamed the cat.

****** greenies own the airwaves
No one gives a flying ****
That good artesian water’s poisoned
By good farmer’s leached out muck.
CO2 in global warming
Sings it’s song of fast decline
Glacial retreat a-roaring
Bass relief in blood *****.

I guess the little children’s future
Most depends on lady luck,
Humankind in mass denial
Most don’t give a flying ****!


Marshalg
In retreat to Taranaki’s green haven in the gales of the equinox.
21 September 2011
Marshal Gebbie Jun 2013
(Quote by Spike Milligan)

One very wise man sat and said
That, long before this world is dead
This planet’s problems won’t be solved
By reasoning which, though now evolved,
has got us, where we now do sit,
Afloat neck deep in mankind’s ****.

There’s SARs, Ebola, AIDs, Bird flu
And in the woodwork, West Nile too,
Each replicating viral spat
To mutate, (at the drop of a hat),
To complicate enviro’s stew
Of global degredation’s brew.

Urban spread and over stocking
**** deforestation’s shocking,
Depletion of aquatic life
Intrinsically creating strife,
Industrial pollution’s goo
Ozone depletion... ALL FOR YOU!


Environmental degradation
Means the world’s a weaker place,
Susceptible to malady
Wide spread across the human race.
Those animals in corn fed stalls
Who never get to see the sun
Or graze green grass where honey bees
Are vanquished by varroha’s fun.

Too late to save the Hector’s dolphin
Conservation’s lost it’s tools,
Rastafarian hootchie smokers,
Save the whales to **** the fools.
Governments sell the carbon credits
Everybody smells a rat
Restorations for the birds
And social conscience creamed the cat.

****** greenies own the airwaves
No one gives a flying ****
That good artesian water’s poisoned
By good farmer’s leached out muck.
CO2 in global warming
Sings it’s song of fast decline
Glacial retreat a-roaring
Bass relief in blood *****.

I guess the little children’s future
Most depends on lady luck,
Humankind in mass denial
Most don’t give a flying ****!

Marshalg
In retreat to Taranaki’s green haven in the gales of the equinox.
21 September 2011
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2013
Jesus runs in Everglades, Mohammed climbs the roof
The Angels stamp in anger as the Devil stands aloof,
A wandering Pope in la-la land while Jewish hands do writhe
Those apoplectic Muslims glare while Catholics pay the tithe.

Religion, girls, has hit the skids…the game is up on God
With rosaries rotating hard, theologians do nod,
While Mormons rant moronically with frankincense and myrrh
The irreligious bark and howl in Rastafarian fur.

Sectarian’s recant Sanctum’s Shrine the rite of soul is lost
As neophytes are dancing… the High Priest counts the cost,
Theocracy unbalances as Voodoo’s stamp the floor
And the Prophets throw their hands up, fast retreating for the door.

It’s transcendental disbelief that’s nailed it to the Cross
With the Priesthood chasing little boys all credence here is lost.
With sanctity’s monastic plunge the pagans roar and shout
As Shamans scream their incantations…God declares a route!

There is silence in the Temple now, stillness in the pews
As dust lies thick on altars, a nervous clergy holds reviews,
What, once, was good and vibrant here, is now as dead as dust
As the Blood Red Wine evaporates and Holy Bread…to crust.

Marshalg
Feeding the pigeons by the dusty, open door of the very, empty Chapel.
30 November 2013
Marshal Gebbie Apr 2013
Standing on the hillside is a rustic yellow cottage,
Rusty yellow staining from the steel dust of the trains.
Passing, rushing carriages that crisscross by the hour,
The ten o clock from Frankston meets the City train detained.

Golden light of sunrise in the calm of early morning
Golden light reflected on the rusty cottage roof,
Puffing at his briar and sitting at the doorstep
Old Grandpa drinks the peacefulness whilst stroking cat aloof.

Bacon smells a-beckoning from coal range fires a-glowering
Delicious tang of coffee from my Granma’s breakfast fare,
The clattering of silver wheels as silver rails reverberate
Sings the music of the morning with not a trace of care.

Memories from yesteryear I treasure on reflection,
Memories, a little boy, recalled from times secure.
Memories of cuddles in the ***** of my Grandma
And the scent of plum tobacco giving Grandpa’s pipe allure.

Perhaps a trick of memory, perhaps my passing fancy
But I clearly recall a sign above the kitchen door,
A simple sign of welcome with a sense of real belonging
In the gentle name of “Sunrise” to warm the heart galore.


Marshalg
In memory of my dear Nan and Pop Cummings @ Mordialloc by the bay.
23 April 2013
Marshal Gebbie Jan 2010
Blondes illuminate
The dizzy world of men,
Confident and forthright
And simply, oozing acumen.
So sensually brazen
In a silly sort of way
Yet intuitively capable
Of leading all of them astray.

Blondes are irresistible
When they catch the errant eyes,
When their pearly, sky blue peepers
Irradiate and mesmerize.
When they catch him glancing
At a nicely rounded ***,
When rosebud lip's apouting
Leave him breathless, limp and numb.

Blondes move in a manner
Which defies all things right,
It's a sweet undulation
Which turns day, straight into night.
It's suggestion incarnate
And quite breathlessly so.
Causing pulses to race
And his expectations to grow.

Blondes think in straight lines
Periferals are lost,
And woe betide myopics
Who underestimate at their cost.
Golden locks breed pushiness
The will to have her way,
And the man who calls a challenge
Won't survive another day.

Blondes are soft and fluffy
Dimpled cheeks and curve of thigh,
And are specialists in the art
Of come hither to the guy.
But just beneath the garnish
Is a mind that calculates
And a passion for success
And a taste for wealth that rates.

Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
19 January 2010
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
Marshal Gebbie May 2012
Turquoise in the morning light
The treetops are alive
With the myriad of birdsong
As the swirling mists arrive
And the shaft of brilliant sunshine
Penetrates the greenish gloom
To illuminate the craggy ridge
In a honeyed, golden bloom.

The rabbits head for burrows
Retreating from the night,
A flock of teal, in unison,
Explosively take flight,
There’s a freshness in the morning air
A tingle to the skin
And the twinkle in the blue eyes
Lets a secret smile begin.

Autumn in the country glade
The russets and the gold,
The song of early crickets
In the leafy knoll takes hold,
There’s a brilliance in the crispness
In the piles of windblown leaves
And the healthy crunch of underfoot
Invokes a sense of ease.

The peacefulness is calming
The solace in the sound
Of the distant song of blackbird
In the tall oaks that surround
And the velvet feel of morning
Thrills the mind to warmly hum
To the glory of occasion
In the warmth of Autumn sun.

Marshalg
Beneath the reds and golds of Autumn leafage.
14 May 2012


© 2012 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie Sep 2013
Social chaos metered out through tiers of population stung
By indiscriminate battle wrought lifeblood, incessantly, is wrung.
Why so the need for Assad’s torch, your Syria so needlessly debauched ?

Nameless causes fuel the fire, Shiite, Sunni intervention. Hezbollah and al Qaeda spew
Vindictiveness to streets of rubble, Toxic, killing vapours stew.
Misery to gasping children, horror in the dying eyes….
Condemnation points it’s staff to you, Assad, where vile blame now lies.
Why so the need for cities torched, Damascus needlessly debauched ?

Inevitably the missiles cometh, raining incandescent death and blast,
International righteousness throws intervention’s unknowns vast.
Why so this need for man debauched, Your Syria, once so beautiful, now scorched ?

Marshalg
Pukehana
7 September 2013
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2009
Dark terrorism creeping
Across the world in flood
Lacerating peace of  mind
And soaking us in blood,
Indiscriminately mauling
Targets they perceive
Will further their ambition
Of global dominance and greed.

A mother tears her bodice,
Her moans, a hollow sound,
Her family caste about her
Shredded by a mortar round.
Little children in the playground
Mothers shopping in the mall,
Mullah’s kneeling, praying in the mosque
A car bomb kills them all.

How’s it hanging Tony Blair,
Have you enjoyed your breakfast yet?
Felt inclined to visit far Kashmir
In your speedy, private jet?
It’s murderous in Kashmir
And has been for a while
For, still, India and Pakistan
Throw lethal bullets, bombs and bile.

And Beruit is as dangerous
As the Lebanon can be,
Iran is building maelstrom
Feared by Jews eternally.
The I.R.A. Still loathe the Brits
Koreans hate the ****
The Russians distrust everybody
(Especially Chechun rats.)

El Queada is stateless
They attack across the board
From Washington to New York
To Indonesia’s tropic shore.
America’s a fortress
But still fighting foreign wars
Whilst China sits inscrutably
Nursing Tibet’s cuts and sores.
Islamic fundamentalists
Throw Jihad to Israel
And Israel tears at Hammas
Did they steal the Holy Grail?

The beauty of a little girl
Her skin as smooth as silk,
Expression in those calm brown eyes
Is as innocent as milk.
Because she lived in Gaza
Her tomorrows are depraved
By an A.K.47 shell
That despatched her to her grave.

Who are the good guys?
Who are the bad?
What part of this unholy mess
Is anything but mad?
All invoke the righteous stance
God is on our side!
Each engage this hideous dance
And foreign God’s deride.

Ripping, skinning, blasting, killing
Terrorists do lurk,
Spreading fear across the globe
Intentionally, is their work.
Taking citizen’s by the throat
And slashing with a blade
To leave their mark indelibly
On countless corpses laid.

Dogma, ideology
The mantra is obscene
Because the minions who perform these tasks
Are usually quite clean,
Their mentors are the instigators
Enmeshed within the code
Of obsession, faith and bigotry,
All adhere to this dark road.
Obsessed with racial hatred,
Obsessed by loathing greed,
Obsession ruled by God alone
Jihad, Fatwah decreed!

Pray tell me noble man of prayer
Where is your God in this?
Pray tell me any one out there
HOW DOES THAT GOD EXIST?

Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
6th March 2009
Marshal Gebbie Aug 2013
Back to my land of verdant green
To feel the bite of winter chill
To know that while all this is so
That far off land enthralls me still.

That far off land of granite peaks
Of crystalline white massif high,
Of conifer which scale the *****
Of rocky outcrop to the sky.
The baking heat of desert mesa
Spread as far as eye can see
Sage bush in its fragrant aura
Tumble **** soon rolling free.
Squirrel dart on shale cascade
Of green grey slate on alpine flank
Bright blue birds in curious hover
...For this, my reeling senses thank.

Fishing boats in bright array
Adorn the West coast sheltered lee,
Crab and mackerel brim the bin
Of bearded fishermen with glee.
Pounding surf of North Pacific
Carves the rock of bastioned coast
Embryonic currents cold
Do modify the climate most.
Redwoods huge clad coastal ranges,
Bright geraniums do sing
From earthen pots outside the cafe
Hot coffee fragrant from within.

Hilarity as laughing people gather
Watch as yelling Serbs do sling
Huge silver fish across the stall
Amid Seattle's Pike's Place din.
Colour paints this market place
Flowers stacked in every hue
Noisy vendors bawl their product
Creamy ice cream cone for you.

Streaming dust in streaming hair
Scree slopes avalanche past for thrill
Mountain crevasse yawns aloof
As ATV's roar up the hill.
Wild terrain of wilderness
On mountaintop of forest fir,
Cougar, grizzly bear and wolf
In pack are found herein astir.
Atop the very precipice
We view the everlasting peaks
Magnificent in summer sun
Embalmed in snow when Winter speaks.

Freeways snake from coast to mountain
Clover leaf in junctions pile,
Forty ton trucks pull big trailers
Endless day for endless mile.
Barrel straight these concrete tarmacs
Stretching far as eye can see,
Headlong surge huge pickup trucks
But cautious eye for Sheriff be.
Roadside diners loud and raucous
Selling burgers, selling beer
Neon flashing through the night
Old ***** waitress' toothless cheer.

The years have clad our friendships well
Familiarity's warming hand
Allows resumption of our words
Despite the 40 year gap spanned.
Houseboat floats in crowded wharfage
Swimming through a clear cool lake,
Californian wine with friends
Hot chilli food and fresh bread bake.
Eye fillets grill on barbecue
See the distant mountain peaks
Summer snow endures aloft
Glows indigo as sunset speaks.

Endless skies of cobalt blue
Cloudless in the summer sun
Gracious denizens do offer
Generosity unsung.
Graciousness across the land
Across these people so diverse,
The wondrous gift of ready smile
Friendly hand and open purse.

History tells these people spoke
Electing leaders for their time
When sanity's quiet need arose
It was promulgated on the line.
With Washington and Lincoln
Through FDR to JFK,
The Presidents who bed-rocked
This Foundation for the nation's day.
Astounding, that exceptional men
Have carved this face from stone,
Have caste the global presence
That Americans call home.

I understand the feeling now,
Of pride and patriotic stance.
I understand the inner strength
Of America's great, true romance.

This poem bequeathed to our good friends who inhabit this land... Big Rich, Suzie and Mike, Our mate Stevo and Ian, Heidi, Wyatt and Cooper, Dear old Greg and his elegant lady, Holly.
But most of all, with gratitude and love, to our marvelous son Boaz and his lovely lady, Angela.

Marshalg & Janet
At "Foxglove", Taranaki... In the Southern hemisphere's mid winter.
2 August 2013
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2013
From blue tranquillity where turquoise waters wash white golden sand, where brilliant fish school in myriad colour and shape, where magnificent squadrons of sleek tarpon and barracuda dash in perfect formation, grazing schools of silver mackeral through diamond flecked deep green shallows, to plunge vertically down to the depths of the black abyss and security.

Calm tropical waters which shimmer like aqua blue glass in the mid day heat and turn to simmering,red fire at the setting of the enormous, ovate, orange sun.

Sea birds flock above wind blown waves, their sharp cries a symphony of the sea, to suddenly wheel and dive en mass, to dine amidst teeming schools of flashing, shiny minnows.

The idyllic picture of a calm blue infinity of ocean framed, in brilliant sunshine, by white sands and gracefully bowed coconut palms.....and suddenly, at the horizon, a thin black line appears, It approaches with steadily, mounting speed, the coastline surf recedes dramatically seaward leaving exposed coral, mountains of seaweed and frantic flapping, beached fish everywhere. A sudden, oppressive silence becomes a distant roar. The sea birds, as one, take panicked flight... and a massive wall of water rears up and rises like a giant beast, to rush headlong, raging, at the coastline.

What once was blue and serene is now a huge cascade of violent black death and destruction, gigantically it destroys the coast, snapping huge trees like twigs, surging ashore, a tsunami of unimaginable violence it obliterates, housing, streets, bridges, vehicles, shipping, aircraft and people, thousands of panicked, helpless, struggling people, killed in a titanic, black, swirling maelstrom of inexorable violence. The wave is followed by another...and another, extending right along the coastline and beyond. Each wave larger and more violent than the last...surging inland for miles  until defeated by the accident of gravity in rising land.

Those who have survived, on high land, on tall buildings, in treetops....cling to each other and look on in horror and utter helplessness. They can only wait, in fear, for the monster to retreat before venturing down to the devastation below to render help where ever they possibly can.

Twice in the space of the last forty thousand years the Kraken has awaken and risen from the depths of the Tasman Sea to the west of New Zealand. It has risen to gigantic proportions and driven right across the Auckland isthmus to the Pacific Ocean. It has twice flattened gigantic primeval Kauri forests laying them waste, all lying in one direction, each time beneath twenty feet of debris and black mud.

Born in innocence from a natural tectonic adjustment of the earth plates, the Kraken doth arise at any time, in any place to wreak it's dreadful work upon we, who reside in our comfortable, seemingly secure and beautiful coastal idylls.

Marshalg
Dedicated to all the coastal population exposed to the threat of inevitable tectonic induced tsunami.
JAPAN. WEST COAST, USA. WEST COAST, SOUTH AMERICA. ALL PACIFIC ISLANDS. NEW ZEALAND. INDONESIA. AUSTRALIA. SOUTH AFRICA. EAST COAST, CHINA. MALAYSIA.
KOREA. THAILAND. PAPUA NEW GUINEA, VIETNAM. PHILLIPINES. TAIWAN. BURMA.
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2009
Ancient people, ancient ways
Protracting back through time,
The culture of the Chinese race
Far predates Roman line.
Before the Huns and Visigoths
Cascaded forth to burn,
Confucian bred conformity
Did budding scholars learn.
Astronomy, anatomy,
Philosophy and law,
The ancients sought the knowledge path
Wide open lay the door
To secrets, mystic and arcane,
They plied their trade craft well
...Then broke into another age
Of red chaos and hell.

Swarming by the millions
And dying by the score,
Brother slaughtered brother
Until Chiang said,"No more!"
To Taiwan's craggy shores he fled,
He fortified it then
And left the Marxist mainland
In the hands of Mao's men.
The red tide swept the nation.
To militarily expand
And the cruelty of a massive force
Descended on the land.

Oh your heart should weep for China
The sensitivity and grace,
Is lost forever in the ******
To revolutionize this place.
The educated strangled,
The policemen didn't care,
And the little children running
With that red book in the air.
Oh your heart should weep for China
With her golden history torn
And her future in the sewer
Where the filthy vermin spawn.

The Chairman died without a God
Praise Allah, let it be.
And Jiang Qing, his willful wife,
Was jailed for treachery.
Deng Xiaoping rose from the dead
An elderly, wise man
Who galvanized the nations will
With a workable great plan.
Gradually, the people breathed,
The terror disappeared,
And hard repression from the top
Was nervously unfeared.
The cogs began to mesh again,
Commerce began to flow
The Red Brigade was over
And NEW CHINA was on show.

In recent years the old men
Still retain the reigns of power.
The Communistic system
Commands to this very hour.
But the rigid hand of commerce
Has loosened up a lot
And the capitalistic system
Allows profits to be got.
And the flow of information
Issues freely from the west
Influencing aspirations,
Putting systems to the test.
And the leaders know with certainty
That just around the bend,
There will be younger challengers
Who plan a different end.

The Olympics are in Beijing
In the coming August moon,
A showcase for the nations best
A demonstration soon
Of advancements that will show the world
Just how well that we have done
And that the hand of friendly comradeship
Is well and truly won.

But there is trouble in Tibet!
The saffron runs with blood.
The monks and soldiers trading blows
Are dying in the mud.
Agitation to be free
Is Tibet's distant call
And the rage of hot embarrassment
Demands the brutal fall
Of the troublemakers...Old men say

The saffron legions die.....

The howling Prayer flags scream their rage
To a lonely, cold, blue sky.





Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
1st April 2008
Marshal Gebbie Jan 2010
Gunboats ahoy there’s pirates about
Speeding from Somali’s shore,
A fast flimsy boat and some black skinny men
With grenade launchers, cannon and more.
They’re coming to capture the tankers
They’re coming to capture the crew
They’re coming to take you hostage
Because fat cats will pay cash for you.

It’s happening more every day now
Ships are held to ransom for gold,
This contagion is out of hand now
The Somalian pirates are becoming so bold.
Hard men in the west prepare crackdowns
Gunboats sail for the Gulf as we speak,
With instructions to shoot to **** now
And make eradication of pirates complete!

But you ask, why is this happening?
Why does a man, a pirate become?
What instigates this crazy morphosis
From fisherman to pirate with gun?
Somalia has no Government to speak of,
It collapsed and went long ago.
No law or army in place here,
Life is dangerous, chaotic and low.

Some fat cats made use of the vacuum
They ditched toxic waste in the sea
They irradiated the coastline region
Making this a poisoned place to be.
The coast folk were dying in thousands
Sick mothers lost babies and kids
Black illness spread madly in villages
Then blind panic and pain hit the skids.

Some fat cats made use of the vacuum
They trawled the coastline clean
Somalia’s fishermen were destitute
The catch went from vast to lean.
The villagers were starving and hopeless
And what was pain became death.
The leaders appealed for salvation
But those with the means, had turned deaf.

Who would take this problem on now?
Who would make these ******* pay?
Most turned around and shunned them,
The world had turned and looked away.
So hit transgressors where they’re vulnerable.
Strike in sea lanes where it’s free.
Hit them near the Horn of Africa.
Attack with blades of piracy.

Hooray for the small man’s justice.
Hooray for his skinny, black shanks,
Please God help their quest for deliverance
For the West has arrived with their tanks.

Now I ask you, in all fairness
To stand back and view the scene,
Where the richest and most powerful
are doing something that's obscene
For not only are they poisoning
The most vulnerable race on earth
But compounding it with genocide,
And I add, for what it's worth,

The West, in righteous arrogance,
are crushing poorest fellow man
In his struggle for survival
Against their mammoth, global hand.


Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
25 April 2009
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2012
Dust on the ledge, before me, magnified
Smell of gun oil in my nostrils and cramp in the calves
The boredom of the wait intensifies,
Stale air in my loft is full of must
With the failing light I’m grateful it is almost time to stand down.

Through the cross hair sprints a target
An ordinary, everyday, running target,
I know not who this target is,
I know not why it runs across my sights,
But because it is, where it is,
It becomes my enemy.

In a microcosm of time
the loud bang alters things forever.
The buck of the rifle’s recoil,
The immediate sour stench of the shot washes back across my face.
The intoxication felt, in being the one who caresses the trigger.
The satisfaction earned in deservedly making the ****.

My target spirals in mid stride,
Contorts in agony
And collapses to the rough tarmac
To lie dishevelled, an insignificant, dishevelled item.

Checking the **** through the telescopic sight
I see the rough stubble of the chin,
The nicotine stain on the fingers,
I see the colour of the eyes are pale blue.
…I know well, it will breathe no more.

With descending twilight
I trudge from my tower perch
With the long ****** rifle slung across my weary shoulders
The  crones in the street glare as I walk by
There is a loathing in their aged eyes, It is a tangible thing.
I know they have no knowledge of the target,
But they know, however, that there has been a killing made for the cause.

A cold beer would be nice.
God! how I hate these young punks with purple hair.*


Marshalg
Gaza, Palestine/Mogadishu, Somalia/Kabul, Afghanistan/Tehran, Iran/Cairo, Egypt/Islamabad, Pakistan/Soweto, South Africa/Dier El Zour Province, Syria/Beirut, Lebanon/Baghdad, Iraq/Tripoli, Libya/Pristina, Kosovo/Grozny,Chechen Republic/Veracruz, Mexico/Guatemala City, Guatemala/Sao Paulo, Brazil/Moscow, Russia.
27 November 2012
Marshal Gebbie May 2010
It's unfortunate that Parisians
Are very hard to bear,
In terms of flash obsequiousity,
They drive me to despair!
And patience is an attribute
I don't profess to have
To mercifully administer
When accents veer to Slav.

Baltics look like jellyfish,
The Germans are obscene
And loud and overbearing
But the Swiss are very clean.
Italians are a swarthy lot
Who gourmandize on food
And sacrifice their suavity
By being impudently crude.
The Spanish are no better,
In fact they are probably worse,
For obsessing in the blood sports
I actually rate them in reverse.

Starchiness is British
They're convoluted to the core,
The Old Boy system's lost it's sheen
Aspirants flock to it no more.
The Yanks are looking slightly crass
Whilst fighting foreign wars,
Their pinky held up squeaky clean
To call "foul" to China's flaws.
China sits inscrutably
Holding all the cards
Waiting for the moment
To strike beneath the guards.

India and Pakistan
Are squabbling like kids
The uproar over Kashmir
Rates them lower than the Yids.
The Yids are walking tightropes
With Iran's nuclear ******,
Whilst currying Yank approval,
Eventual bombing is a must.
The Dutch behave so anally
They're always proven right
When faced with rigid negatives
They blanch with haunches tight.

But not the Argentineans
They love to dance and flirt,
To chase the senorita
Cavorting in the scarlet skirt.
The South Pacific's wallowing
They're adrift from World affairs
Oz's self preoccupation
Mirrors Kiwi's vacant stares.
Africa's way past comment
Lost to heat and dust,
Warfare, **** and pillage
And the rest decayed by rust.

Eskimos are OK
Clean living on the ice
The population static,
Zer-O pollution's nice!

Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
14 April 2009
Marshal Gebbie Oct 2010
Dedicated to the Steelers who do their hard work so well.

The Pier five superstructure
Looms above the turgid waves,
Gothic cranes do hover close
To service needs of orange knaves
Who swarm to manufacture,
Who work to make complete
This massive bridging edifice,
This mighty engineering feat.

Cathedral like in grey austerity
Freezing zephyrs howl and blow,
Through the maintenance shaft tunnels,
Through the bridge's bowels go.
The catacombs are echoing,
Stark light's reflection deep
In corridors of baleful concrete
Through which angled cause ways sweep.

A forest of reinforcing rods
Stand starkly high and straight,
Atop adjacent pylons
Which arise from deep mud's gate.
Hazard lights are flashing
Amber, green and blue
As north east gales bring pelting rain
To obliterate the view

The tattooed hands of black skinned steeler
Twitch the wire to make the loom,
Lattice works of reinforcing
Blackened mesh of iron entombed.
Hard to fathom steeler's chatter
Bending low to twitch by feel,
Working fast in noisy unison
Twitching reinforcing steel.
Pliers flash in rapid movement
Wrist's convulse in rapid slap
Unintelligible chatter flows
But the job is finished, just like that.

Skill saw screams in echoed silence
Booming blows of hammers pound,
Pipe work's resonance percussion
Tempered by a sad song's sound.
Great concussions pound the air
As towering cranes do drive,
Enormous pylons into mud
And bedrock's solid hide

The mighty form travellers moving
High above cold estuary waves,
Reaching forth for unbuilt mana
It's red extension arm enclaves
Providing for the next poured section,
Providing for the next steel work,
Reaching out for firm embrace
Where Pier four's form travellers lurk.

The pungency of solvents spread
Across the steel plate, made to last;
Barrier to adherence of
The sticky concrete's surface cast.
The form work archway's wooden shell
Adopts a high cathedral stance,
This bride in waiting nervous for
The concrete pumps lithe serpent dance.

An unyielding environment
A hard surfaced place to be
Where materials of venom
Are handled casually.
Where massive superstructures
Unforgiving in their stance
Lead the busy, ant like steelers
In their lofty, hard days prance.

To look across Pier Five's expanse
And view the surface cant,
And visualize the future motorway
With it's headlong traffic rant;
And look again at what is spread
Across it's surface now,
At the jumbled reinforcing steel,
The cables, tools and how,
Organizationally chaotic
The whole affair appears ???
Whilst in actuality, my friends,
This clockwork sequence has no peers.

With the roar of passing traffic
As the headlights flash on by,
And the Pier's massive cantilever
Looms impossibly to sky.
One must praise the skilled designers
And those engineers of skill
Who summount vast odds of nature
To scale this monumental hill.
As this mostrous concrete edifice
Claws inexorably from tide,
To loom in towering sillouhette
Where estuary mists abide.

Marshalg
onsite@Pier5
Manukau Harbour Crossing
29 June 2009
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2011
Enter the dragon with death and disruption
Pride and tradition cataclysmically thrown,
Magnificent structures reduced to rubble
Distraught people bereft of their homes.
Chasms of heartache with bodies of babies
Strewn with the bricks in vast disarray,
Dust in the air and the howl of the sirens
Shouting police on a horror filled day.


Christchurch is bleeding, her confidence shattered
Our keynote cathedral is lying in shards,
Vacant eyed people are clinging to strangers
Jagged black holes in suburban back yards.
Christchurch is bleeding, our torn, gracious City
The nation arises in hurt and alarm,
To face the challenge with strength and resources,
To nurture our sister with healing and balm.


Sympathy shown by the myriad faces
Racing to help from all parts of the globe,
Expertise offered with money and labour
Students with shovels and priests of the robe.
Sadness and torment for kin of the missing
Frustrated rescuers work till relieved,
Moments of triumph with lost resurrected,
Agony felt when the dead are retrieved.


Led by the strength of the Mayor of the City
Courageous citizens help where they can,
Moments of bravery, moments of agony
Inspirational feats of elan.
Poignancy shown by the sad Maori Warden
Guiding the aged through the strewn broken glass,
Aiding the ambulance crews in their labour
Proud to be Kiwi as folk show their class.


Christchurch WILL arise from the death and destruction
Once again people will overcome grief,
Pride and resilience will triumph with the passing
And time will repair with deserved relief.





Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
AUCKLAND
25 February 2011
Marshal Gebbie Oct 2009
The assassins hit in 63
And Camelot was gone,
Inspiration vanished
And the darkness sang it’s song.
Vietnam escalated
Brezhnev’s Russia loomed,
Africa was eviscerated
And Red China entombed.
Floating on a long white cloud
The Kiwis were replete
With abundant British markets
For their butter, wool and meat.
The Europeans went ****
And Britain lost it’s way
When the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
Monopolized their day.
Man landed on the moon
And raised the Yankee flag
And they shot Mahatma Ghandi
For making good things out of bad.
The Berlin Wall dividing,
The Cold War tense and spare,
ICBM’s threaten silently
In their silos of despair.
Bob Menzies ruled Australia
As an amassing of his loot
And his White Australia Policy
Condemned him as a brute.
Found naked on her tousled bed,
Blonde hair across her face,
Marylin Monroe is dead
The world’s a darker place.
In the Age of Aquarius
Our children lost their youth,
LSD and smoking ***
And Afro’s were the proof.
Lots of leg in miniskirts,
High bouffant’s in the hair,
Screaming teeny boppers
Rock with Elvis on “the Air”.
Giant, Rawhide, Ponderosa,
Martin Luther King,
Kaftans and a cheese fondue,
Abortion is a sin!

It’s a sixties kaleidoscope,
A panoramic skim
Of an era of wonderment
Which you and I lived in.


Marshalg
@the Gate
Mangere Bridge
20th January 2009
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2014
Everybody in Russia loves Vladimir Putin.
In the years since he muscled his way to the top of the tree, he has established himself as the Champion of all Russia!

In the degradation following the collapse of the USSR, national pride in Russia spiralled down to an all-time low, there was little to be proud of. The satellite nations fled to independence abandoning the Rodina,  Agricultural and industrial production fell dramatically, law and order diminished dangerously. The economy shrank and the order of success in business depended largely on connection with Government and/or the Mafia. The Oligarchs became monstrously rich, the average Ivan monstrously poor. Life savings were rendered worthless overnight by the plummet of the value of the rouble. Russian society polarised from the ecstatically happy, filthy rich to the chronically unhappy, beggared poor.

Russian leadership staggered from Gorbechev’s democratisation through Yeltsin’s alcoholism to Andropov’s sudden death…. enter the fray Vladimir Putin.

Putin tightened the reins.
He organised regular payment of wages and salaries to the movers and shakers, the police and the military.
He changed the rules of doing business within the nation and made investment opportunities within Russia available to outside interests.
He took charge and commandeered discipline within the ranks of central Government.
He set about correctional treatment for the terrorists/freedom fighters in the Chechen Republic and elsewhere.
He raised the expectations of the common man and gave the people an element of promise for Russia’s tomorrow.
He invaded and took back the Crimea as legitimate Russian sovereignty.
He garnered the roaring support of the six million ethnic Russians domiciled in the Eastern region of the Ukraine.

Putin now stands, bare chested, astride Russia. He faces a hostile but cowed West with pale, blazing eyes and a ******* bulge in his trousers.
He is widely idolised by Russian women and admired by Russian men. He is their champion; he is believed to be their key to the future.
His nation is currently under severe trade embargo and economic sanction by Europe and the West which is hurting the strained economy right across the board.
The declining price of oil is adversely affecting Siberian oil profits and making further shale oil exploration uneconomic.
He enjoys hugely profitable Siberian natural gas pipeline sales to the Southern neighbour, China, but they watch the unfolding political landscape with careful, calculating tiger eyes.
Putin is regarded by Europe and the West as an unpredictable, serious threat who should not be unduly provoked.
Undeniably, the West, in their sour lipped manner, would be happy to see him and his Russian bear, fade quietly and permanently into the obscurity of the frozen wilds of the far Siberian tundra.

But if Vladimir Putin plays his cards well, he could actually bring the Rodina all of the benefits, glory and rewards that it seeks.
However, should he overplay his hand here, he may well crash and burn….and in doing so, could bring Russia’s dreams and aspirations crashing down with him.

Marshalg
Auckland
15 November 2014
Marshal Gebbie Oct 2009
The stink of fish on earthen streets
A hot wind blows from ochre hills
Black faces shine with brilliant teeth
Street market ***** doth cure all ills.
Redness in her plaited hair
Rhythm in her steady tread
A harmony of balance, she carries
Water jars on her head.
A market girl is singing
As she sits among bananas
The drama in her music
Is as dusty as the street,
It fills the air with magic
As it lilts above street chatter
In the atmosphere of Africa
Where new and ancient meet.


The goat boy herds his docile flock
Through camel trains and bales
The steamer tethered at the dock
Announces that she sails
With billowed steam and mournful wail
It echoes through the town
And the planter and his agent
Bargain with a harried frown.
The bleating of the goat herd
And the stench of fish and dung
Is as ordinary as Africa
In the searing mid day sun.


Zanzibar is spices, Zanzibar is Stone.
Club Zanzibar is whiskey on the rocks
Consumed alone
Or shared upon the balcony
In the shadow of a palm
With the turquoise Indian ocean
Reaching out beyond the arm.
Do you see the dhows are sailing?
Do you see the fishing nets?
Do you hear the oarsmen chanting?
Did you see black muscle flex?
Have you watched the dripping sweat
Cascade on alabaster brow?
Have you inhaled the scent of Africa
And allowed it to allow?



Colobus monkeys in the treetops
Narrow lanes in the bazaar
Dull white walls adorn stone buildings
And the rupee is by far
The favorite tenure of the Island
Since the days when slaves were sold
By Arab camel caravaners
Who traded coin for young black gold.
East and west collide in concert
Africa and Asia blend
The Sultan's mix of race and spice
In Zanzibar, beyond lands end.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
3rd June 2008
- From Watching the Ripples Radiate
Marshal Gebbie Sep 2011
Dedicated to Ashley and Logan...May your young lives find the way.

You ***** and moan about your lot
You loath the rich and what they’ve got
You howl abuse that you’re so poor
You’re out the window, out the door
You’ve no place in this affluent land
And migrant Asians you can’t stand
The Moslems and the Poly’s too
Are barging in and breaking through
The things you value in this state,
They give you cause to vent your hate,
Beat them up or cut them down
Deport them, throw them out of town.
White supremacy’s your bag
Redesign the nations flag!

You gaze about and all around
The simple things in life abound,
The wonder of the detail small
Enthralls the mind and makes it all
Deliciously and so enticing,
Like sticky date and sugar icing
Like hoarfrost on the meadow green
The scent of love in sheets between,
The stuff you smoke, the scotch you choose
That muted trumpet’s low jazz blues,
Aroma of fresh coffee ground
The hum of honey bees around.

You step the walk and speak the talk
The loudness of a parrots squark,
The cooing of a nesting dove
The harshness of a boxers glove,
Hot sweating brow on summer’s night,
Those fingers freeze with winter’s bite.
The tangerine of that first kiss
That velvet touch of female bliss.
Soft golden glow of setting sun,
Dawns bright first rays when night is done.
The tempests howl, the zephyrs touch,
That feeling when you eat too much.

It all amounts to lifes great song
When all is right and nothings wrong
When dreams come true and every day
Enables you to laugh and say....
THANK YOU FOR THE CHANCE OF BEING
THANK YOU FOR THE SIGHT I’M SEEING,
THANK YOU FOR THE SMELL OF MINT
MY THANKS TO YOU FOR WORDS IN PRINT,
THE MAGIC OF A LATIN BEAT
THE SOFTNESS OF A KISS SO SWEET.

It’s all a state of mind you see
You bind your mind or set it free
You take the yin, you take the yan
You make your bed ,you choose your plan.
The way you think the way you live
Determines what you have to give
To this old planets state of being.
Stuff it up and you’ll be seeing
Disaster on a massive scale,
Social chaos off the pale.
Misery and  destitution,
Thuggery and prostitution.
Burnt out buildings torn up streets,
Corpses where the violence meets
The kiss of death, the chosen few
Consider boy, it may be you,
Lying there in that bleak place
Lying there in dead disgrace.


I’ll leave it there, it’s up to you
To choose to do or not to do
Tomorrow’s there for you to take
So grasp the prize or hesitate,
The dice roll out the bright coins spin
Go suffer loss or grab that win.
It’s all before you…spread about
You make the choice… YOU WORK IT OUT!

The simple things in life abound
The soft rains fall,
Our world spins round.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
10th September 2007
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2009
Ant
An ant is just an ant my son
An impact it wont make
But a million ants will move the world
A conviction you won’t shake.
An ant is still a living thing
It eats, it breaths, it works
It runs in an environment
Where the hostile spider lurks.
It works in regulation
With a thousand brother ants
To a strict cooperation
That achieves communal stance.
An intelligence is present,
A timetable has been set
This organized endeavor
Makes it’s success an winning bet.


An ant makes love, it rears it’s young
It grooms it’s brother’s hide.
And if enraged an ant will fight
A foe a thousand times it’s size.
It’s glittering antennae
And it’s shiny compound eye
It’s economy of movement
And compulsion to deny
Involvement with any cause
Apart from that one sent
By the Queen Ant’s regulations
At the Ant God’s monument.


I am moved with admiration
For this tiny creatures heart,
It’s commitment to community
And resolve to set apart
All individual aspiration
And selfish action of it’s own.
To gather condiments for nest and Queen
Compelled forever more…to roam.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
17th May 2008
Marshal Gebbie May 2010
As I lay beside my darling
On an early Sunday morn,
I could feel her rounded softness
Sleeping under blankets warm.
My mind caroused the memories
And loitered on it's way
And found itself deliciously,
Immersed in golden play.

I remembered something special
In the way my little boy would look
As his eyes rose up in wonderment
When I read  his favorite book.
And the joy involved in feeding
A hungry little mouth
When the porridge spooned all over
From the eyebrows heading south.

A tantalizing moment
On the beach down by the sea,
In the warm December sunshine
With my happy family.
We were running in the black sand
Drawing circles with a stick
As the surging waves approached them
Laughing little boys were quick.

Laughing, happy moments
And some sad ones like the day
When dear old Meg, our Labrador,
Got sick and passed away.
Young Boaz in his sadness
Climbed the big tree to it's crown
And it took a lot of pleading
To persuade him to come down.

And young Solly played the taniwha
At the Cornwall Park school play
And a better taniwha has yet
To grace the stage today.
A natural in his element
This young comedian
So hilariously funny
As he drew the audience in.

The tender, loving moments
As we both strolled arm in arm
Through the verdant Ferntree Gully
With it's sunlit grace and charm.
And the towering eucalyptus,
Hanging wood smoke in the air
And the whiplash resonation
Of the lyrebird hidden there.

Of Buttercup's wild parties
When fancy dress was king,
When everyone would whoop it up
And laugh and dance and sing.
When mum's and dad's and little kids
All joined the happy throng
With  spud mashing as a ceremony
And a night of fun and song.

Of sitting in the garden
With your feet up and a book
And a cold beer at your elbow
And a barbecue to cook.
With the easy feel of family
As they go about their day
And the joyous sound of summer
When two noisy tui's play.

Memories of yesterday
Moments in the life
Of ecstasy and agony
And wonderment and plight.
And the ordinary ness of everything
And the magic everywhere,
Like the auburn in the sunlight
As it strikes my darling's hair.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
10 October 2009
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2011
Weighing brutality's candour is taxing
Feeling the certainty, heavily dark,
Sonorous mutterings echo in twilight
Whitely, loquaciously, utterly stark.

***** ***** in a temperament simmering
Stalking through rage in a judgemental way,
Lurching for conflict from deep in the mindset
Locked in a skirmish of consequence play.

Searing white pain of brutality's candour
Reeling from obvious lack of control,
Obliquely collapsed beneath blue jackaranda
Flaccidly spent, I surrender my role.

Marshalg
In absentia
7 December 2011
Marshal Gebbie Jun 2011
Stark in freezing winter air
Deeply orange, clustered there,
Rich shades in a cameo
Of black and white in frozen snow.
ROSE HIPS IN THE MORNING LIGHT
Shining warmly, softly bright.
Wicked thorns, the stems, adorn
***** frost, on the buds, is borne
Atop the ancient root in soil
Where beetle gnaw and earthworm roil.

Marshalg
Exhaling in the frozen air
24 June 2011
Inspired by Patrick Wakefeild's delightful "When I have been a Rose"
Marshal Gebbie Jan 2010
In toasting Mike I recollect
His steady watching gaze,
I recollect his calm
On a thousand stormy days.
I recall his jaunty humour
In his funny cockney style,
And the rationale behind it
And the pleasure of his smile.

And the quiet determination
In the steeliness within
And the love that emanated
When his Jules laughed loud with him.
When he held her hand and strolled
In the life they shared as one,
In the racket of the grand kids
As they shout and leap and run.

Through the years of hardy seamanship
From England's chalky reach,
Across the ocean's vastness
To far antipodean beach,
To the soft greens of New Zealand
And the promise of this land
And the shining eyes of Jules
When he offered her his hand.

And the life they shared together
Through the joy, the strain the tears
The utter joy of baby Kristin
And her beauty through the years.
The seamlessness of craftmanship
In tradesman's art supreme
And the pride of his achievement
In a sweet successful dream.

A chasm has appeared in life
Where old Mike used to be.
Dreadfull death has exercised
It's right to set him free.
But I can't feel bad for Micheal
For the brilliance of it all
Is celebration of his life well lived
And my toast to judgement's call.

Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
10 January 2010.
Marshal Gebbie Jan 2010
Seldom doth man stop and stare
At the caste iron manhole cover there,
Seldom doth he analyze
The majesty, which beneath it lies.
The pipe work systems vast and long
Dark catacombs so precise and strong,
Buried deep beneath our feet
Extending forth from street to street,
Out across the breadth of town
Those secret fluids trickle down.


Laser levels carve the pathway
Through the walls of solid stone,
Shovels scrape and dig with effort
Forging hard trajectories home.
Digging, digging metal mountains
Sweat cascades upon the brow,
We lay the pipes in straight formation
Precision's satisfaction now.


An Artisan's great work is hidden
Lost beneath the earth's grey stone,
Appreciation camouflaged in that,
The cast iron manhole stands alone.
Magnificence unrealized
For deep beneath your feet,
A subterranean Michelangelo's
Sisteen Chapel, lays discreet.


Unsuspected rivers
Flowing darkly to the sea
In caverns of unwanted waste
Quite unbeknown to thee.
Vaulting brickwork chambers
Which are ancient works of art,
Carry oceans of excretement
Far from where their journey's start.


With thunder's crash and lightning flash
And torrents of cold rain,
The road's awash and gutters flow
Through roadside grates to drain.
Gushing torrents cascade down
In waves of flowing might
To the storm water system
Which promptly swallows it from sight.


Magic, you say ?
Nay, nay I say unto you
That the drain layers artistry
Is unappreciated, that's true !
That the Herculean effort wrought
In winning his great fights
Is largely lost to all and sundry
Who avoid construction sites.
They miss the planning and the layout
And meticulousness too
And the rubber seals which stop the leaks
Which really bother you.
The massive holes and danger
Of being buried in collapse
And the wondrous satisfaction
Of achieving downhill flows... Perhaps!


Marshalg
Apprentice drain layer
MHX Beachcroft site and Eastport
19 September 2009
Marshal Gebbie Aug 2012
For my mate Chris*

To sit around in anger…does no favours,
To bellyache to me… It’s all unfair,
To hope somebody else… comes up with answers,
To see the world’s shortcomings… flaunted there.


A lack of motivation keeps you grounded
Friends and family try to keep you at arm’s length,
You loathe the Government’s lack of comprehension
In that joblessness depletes your hope and strength.


You feel those carbohydrates clog your arteries
And see your muscled body turn to flab,
Discipline’s resolve flies to oblivion
And you curse all that… which makes your life so drab.


Disappointment curbs the high expectations,
You feel the planet owes you that, to which you seek,
Aghast to comprehend your own misgivings,
You feel the need to say…but then, you never speak.


Then suddenly… a stark, clear realization
That NOTHING HERE WILL CHANGE…UNTIL YOU DO,
Until you turn around your thinking to endeavour,
Till then that something that you seek… shall hide from you.


So look, my sweetness, look into the mirror
Shed the worry lines that always cloud your brow,
Kick your sorry **** profoundly to tomorrow
And lose the ****** shards of bitterness….RIGHT NOW!



Marshalg
Endeavouring to re-motivate a lost cause.
18 August 2012




© 2012 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2010
Aloft upon some distant shore
The seabird sets her wings to soar
The salt sea tang of crested breeze
Or howling gale of winters freeze,
Through oceans, mountainous or not
Or sea Sargasso flat and hot,
In dancing wavelets sparkling clear
Where hunted mackerel school in fear,
Where natives in their dugout boats
Caste out their nets and balsa floats,

That tiny bird will soar adrift
Negotiating each wind shift.
One wonders how a thing so small
Can fly against the wind at all;
But sweep she does and plunge and veer
In gracious symmetry to steer
Across the oceans vastness too,
To land right there, right next to you.
In squawking lightness, dancing swings
Sea bird alights ….and folds her wings.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
8th. December 2007
Marshal Gebbie Mar 2011
As a maddened beast it charges
Emanating with expanse
Brute techtonic plate reaction
From the epicentre’s stance.
Huge concentric rings diverge
Expanding at horrific rate
Black, titanic, towering waters
Ploughing to a deadly fate.

Kneeling in her bed of roses
Pollinating bees abound,
Morning sunbeams kiss her shoulders
Peaceful garden bliss surrounds.


Surging to the coastal shelf
The black gigantis rears on high
Claws toward the placid beach
Seabirds scatter to the sky.
Tide receds to bare the reef
Stranded mackerel whitely leap,
Enormously the massive wave
Attacks the land and they who sleep.

Death comes fast to they who loiter
Violence in the tangled purge,
Massive pressures, crushing debris
Broken buildings in the surge.
Ships and cars are tossed asunder
Inexorably it slams
Far inland to slay those fleeing
Locked in highway traffic jams.

Strange roar at the garden wall
Terrified, she finds her feet,
Roses, bees, sweet girl engulfed
As black entombedment swamps the street.


Far inland the chaos flows
Wreaking death's destructive bands,
Halted now by highland hills
Where souls in horror, wring their hands.
Slow retraction leaving ruin
Desolation far and wide,
The smell of new death in the air,
Heartbreak in the countryside.


Marshalg
For Nippon
18 March 2011
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2013
Balanced on the cusp of reason
Teetering in rationale,
Gyroscopic permutations
Take the leap or stay and snarl.

Reason fights with high confusion
Torn between the yae and nay,
Gyroscopic permutations
Pack the case and leave or stay.

Screaming taunts in ragged order
Torment in saliva mist,
Gyroscopic permutations
Cut the throat or slit the wrist.

Standing on the lonely cliff top
Way below the surging tide
Gyroscopic permutations
Take the leap or run and hide.

Balanced on the cusp of reason
Teetering on right or wrong,
Gyroscopic permutations
Join the dead or sing a song.

Walking up the baking highway
Soaking up the streaming sun
Gyroscopic permutations
Laugh or cry... today I won.*


Marshalg
Throwing the dice.
22 February 2013

© 2013 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie Jun 2011
Lines of life through gene transmission
When handed down through *****,
Tho’ rugged, sound or sickly matched,
Are caste about like coins.
Luck ensures a robust chance
Of longevity and health
With intelligence or dolt hood
As a final gauge to wealth.

Traits of blue eyed, fair haired lovelies
Brown eyed, freckled, long of limb,
Temperaments across the spectrum
Placid fat to fiery slim.
Aptitude to run the long race
Good endurance, depth of heart,
Lady luck decrees their worth
Tho' the Priesthood may depart.

Frontal lobes of clear retention
Heightened rationale of thought,
Reasons through the problematic,
Resolutions made as ought.
Capacity to empathise
In tears of joy and sorrow spent,
Capacity for true belief
When wrong is righted with repent.

Goodness and black evil
Are caste about like chaff,
Depends upon the show of cards
Who laughs the final laugh.
Conscience can be virtuous
But then, so can be greed,
Depends upon the circumstance
And if approached at speed.

And finally indulgence
Plays a massive hand in this,
For love and lust determine
If a union is remiss.
And should that union founder,
Should Lady Luck throw in her hand
...You can blame it on the chromosomes
Which confounds the Makers stand!


Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
14 June 2011
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2010
Pretence to be what you are not
Compounds the very way,
You spout the cause and issuance
Of guilt in interplay.

The moments carved from honesty
Cause sweat to run between
The shoulder blades of conscience
And beads of guilt to gleam.

Gut squirms in apprehension,
Those averted, eyes do coax
A riot of indecision
And shrill nervousness to broach.

Sweating brow is glistening
There’s a tremor in the fist,
Wide, dancing eyes unsteady
And a reluctance to resist.

A perfunctory bark of laughter
Occasionally forced between the teeth
And a loosening of the bowels
Betrays a quivering beneath.

These symptoms to the practiced eye
All unveil the hidden truth,
That surreptitiousness in it’s starkest form
Shall reveal you as ....uncouth.


Marshalg
Victoria Park tunnel
11 November 2010
Marshal Gebbie May 2010
Have you wondered how tomorrow looks
When you've lied about today ?
Have you squandered opportunities
When you've refused to play ?
Have you sought the possibilities ?
Have you broken through the ruse ?
Have you shed your limitations
And tried to fill some bigger shoes ?


Will you spread your wings to fly
Across the chasm in your life ?
Have you shared your closest fears
With the one you call your wife ?
Do you long to break the mold
And try to start the day afresh ?
Is there courage there to stride out,
Have you the will to make it mesh ?


Is there a shade of self deception,
Is a colour bar installed ?
Are there feelings of inadequacy
Has your darling not yet called ?
Does your flacid nature falter
When pinned against the wall ?
Have you moments of reluctance
To recall it all, at all ?


Does it all really matter
That your world is locked within,
That the things which hold you back
Are simply things you revel in ?
That the greatest limitations
Are the ones you self impose,
That the key which locks the door
Is locked outside the door you close ?


Marshalg
reflecting@theBach
Mangere Bridge
28 July 2009
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2009
Tall men think of robust ladies
Shorter ladies dream of length,
Toothless people fantasize
Of mandibles of white, bright strength.
Porcine women lust for thinness
Breast less girlies long for *****,
Dissatisfaction fills the air
It's greener grass or down the tubes.

Black man hopes for pale complexion
White girls bake to raise a tan,
Brown eyed lassie's envy blue-ness,
***** lesbian's, a man.
The wealthy want the easy life
Beggars yearn for cash,
Dissatisfaction's in the air
And mirrors are so trash.

Across the human spectrum far
Mankind wants for more,
The grass is always greener
Looking through another door.
It's bigger, better, brighter, best
The quest is always there
Relentlessly pursued with glee,
Bright eyes and bushy hair.

Results are mixed and varied here
Some reach the holy grail
To watch it slip beyond their grasp
Then founder, fall and fail.
Some teeter on a platform,
Some grasp the prize and run,
Some hit their stride at bounding pace
To see the contest won.

But by and large there's misery
Few climb the road to joy,
Frustration be my brother
Dissatisfaction be my ploy.
Limitation is our lot in life.
Our secret to success
Is to love the mirror warts and all
All other **** ...repress !!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
23 December 2009
www.worthyofpublishing.com
Marshal Gebbie Jan 2013
Dear friends,

Outward we go, outward to the vast infinity, the great mother ship of all entities, past present and future.
Outward to the cold reality of limitless space where pinpricks of light reflect time which began a million years past.

The great unknown where for eons, since man descended from the trees, his very hopes dreams and prayers have been directed.

Beyond the maelstrom of the sun's living cauldron, beyond the titanic violence of coronal outforce, there lies a false calm. A vacuum of seeming emptiness which harbours a promise of galactic peacefulness but delivers the potential likelihood of eternal, calamitous catastrophe.

This is the realm where God's and Devil's reside.
This is the realm of unimaginable forces and stupendous violence.
This is, at once, our hope and our damnation...
THIS IS THE UNIVERSE.

This is the realm where man has sought communication as long as he has been able.... With utter futility.
For all of his advances in technology, his network of huge radio telescopes, his continuous Asceti transmissions, the development of the World Wide Web, the orbiting space station, the wonderful Hubbard telescope and his advances in space exploration and travel....THERE HAS BEEN NO REPONSE FROM OUT THERE.
SO WHY IS IT THAT MAN HAS HAD NO COMMUNICATION FROM SPACE?

And of time..eternal time ....anticipated as tomorrow. Retrieved as the now and dispensed to the yesterday. Are all three interpretations valid as manifestations of time or are the tones of future and past merely renditions of the actuality...the present?  If that is so how can the light of the stars, emitted so many eons ago, be seen right now as a reflection of the actuality of real time? Has time stretched or are the factors of space distance and time linked entities?

Is eternity a factor of time and space or is there another spectrum. Another source creating equilibrium in the quantum flux? Is size a factor... Is our solar system a submicroscopic nutrino attached to an atom on the **** of an incredibly slow living, gargantuan, multi universe sized ant?
.
..and if this is so...There's no wonder that there have been no replies to our efforts to communicate
...We are infintesimal.....Nobody can find us!

Serenely in the morning air, magnificence defies
Predictions of catastrophe from those whose word implies
That chance, that willing player, who skirts around the scene,
Would show her cards, calamitously, to render doom obscene.
....But for now the peacefulness and order everywhere
Has lovers in the lane ways and laughter in the air,
Has Autumn leaves cascading and white caps on the bay
With balmy clouds in blue skies to reflect this perfect day.

(Though....Forever now humanity could decry me as a brute
For I have, inadvertantly, crushed that ant beneath my boot!)



Marshalg
Looking up through the cold clear night air at 'Foxglove', through the myriad of crystal stars...and beyond.
27 January 2013

A word of explanation: The poem in italics depicts a scene of normality in the big picture, the megamacro world out there, where, like us, they have their own insecurities, their own great unknowns....and like our world, way down here, it is a place where accidents can happen!
Mg.
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2011
Lazy days and choppy waves
Upon a copper sea,
A breezy, warming westerly
Is blowing down on me.

Sunlight striking wavelets
Below clouds of cotton cool
And seagulls hang in squadron lines
Aloft from oyster pool.

Road signs judder in the breeze
Ripples weave amongst long grass,
Mangroves bend in unison
And asphalt bakes in molten glass.

A parasol of brilliant blue
A picnic basket brimming high
With lemonade and icy beer
Whilst sausages and onions fry.

Two barking dogs cavort with joy
Chasing ******* sandy beach,
Leaping high in summer air
Running, fetching, ***** to each.

The lazy summer saunters in
Engulfing us with solar heat,
The pretty girls wear tiny shorts
Which breathless boys find such a treat.

Pohutukawa’s bursting forth
In waves of rich and scarlet red
Which juxtapose dark olive greens
Of leafage midst each flower bed.

A sky of brilliant powder blue
With salt spray aura in the air
As swimmers splash in gales of fun
Hot sunlight baubles kiss their hair.


Marshalg
Port Waikato beach
15 November 2011

© 2011 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2010
Through halls of cloud his spirit soared
Through countless skies of gold
In windless corridors of air
Through vistas vast and bold.

Across the checkered fields of green
Above those mountains high
My friend would wing his aeroplane
Into an endless sky.

The windswept beauty reaching out
The world so far below
This freedom to spread out his wings
Would make my friend’s heart glow.

His spirit soaring like a bird
Into a sky of rain
The sunlight setting in the West
In shades of sweet refrain.

Alone, aloft in peacefulness
Is where he means to be,
To fly as one with eagles
High above a distant sea.

To reach up through the heaven’s gate
To be at one with God
To spiral round like feather down
And touch down on the sod.

With a heavy heart and weary hands
He shut his motor down
Forever more to be with us
Imprisoned on the ground.

A sunbeam I see yonder there
At play amongst the shrouds
And I fancy seeing Leon’s ghost
Flying up into those clouds.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
11th June 2008
Dedicated to my flying mate, the late Leon Denize.

— The End —