"rheumy" poems
Take the knapsacks
and the utensils and washtubs
and the books of the Koran
and the army fatigues
and the tall tales and the torn soul
and whatever's left, bread or meat,
and kids running around like chickens in the village.
How many children do you have?
How many children did you have?
It's hard to keep tabs on kids in a situation like this.
Not like in the old country
in the shade of the mosque and the fig tree,
when the children the children would be shooed outside by day
and put to bed at night.
Put whatever isn't fragile into sacks,
clothes and blankets and bedding and diapers
and something for a souvenir
like a shiny artillery shell perhaps,
or some kind of useful tool,
and the babies with rheumy eyes
and the R.P.G. kids.
We want to see you in the water, sailing aimlessly
with no harbor and no shore.
You won't be accepted anywhere
You are banished human beings.
You are people who don't count
You are people who aren't needed
You are a pinch of lice
stinging and itching
to madness.
Translated from the original Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut.
6.8k
Serendipity.
You ******* what!
What you saying, pal?
Serendipity, oh aye, all right,
Aye, seren-fuckin-dipity; whatever!
Tell it to the raggedy soaked-wino,
Look into his rheumy eyes, really look,
Want to kiss his toothless grin, eh? Do you?
Feel his sore-ridden tongue searching you out,
Nay, I thought not, anyway, he hears nothing,
Nothing except the rattle of change.
Tell it to the punctured ****** go on,
Cold body on a cold linoleum floor,
He can’t hear you either, maybe though,
Maybe, slipping away on the last tide of life,
Do-gooder, maybe he will hear you call,
‘Serendipity’ and wonder: what the ****
Until blackness closes in, blanking the stars.
Tell it to the Fourth Bridge jumpers, go on,
Always falling; to them, falling forever,
In hearts and minds, the event horizon of death,
Trapped in limbo, leaving unbearable hurt behind,
Along with serendipity and bad choices.
And the young, oh they need serendipity,
Cruelty of life glittering in furtive wary eyes,
Old already, far beyond halcyon blue-skies,
Used and abused by those closest, the shame,
Erosion of trust and sincerity completed over night,
Christmas ghosts: slovenly laggards by comparison.
Resilient youth! Yep, they ******* need to be,
Grinding machine of town-life hunting them,
Scouring dark corners, gnashing jaws growling,
Crunching down darkened alleys, feeding,
Lapping up the young blood of runaways,
Slavering maw eating them alive; laughing.
With serendipity, they can lie low, maybe hide,
Dream of escape, for they all want out,
Putting misery behind them, quelling cruelty,
After all, they live in a lucky ******* town,
So escape is not impossible, no,
Unlikely, yes, poor wee ********
Serendipity should shout a loud warning,
Run, scrawny urchins, run if you can,
Run for your lives, the rest of your lives,
Town-life’s grinding machine awaits,
Watches for you, so keep running,
Never stop, never look back,
Not ever, not ever,
Serendipity.
©Paul Chafer 2014
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 7:32 PM UTC
He that had come that morning,
One after the other,
Over seven hills,
Each of a new color,
Came now by the last tree,
By the red-colored valley,
To a gray river
Wide as the sea.
There at the shingle
A listing wherry
Awash with dark water;
What should it carry?
There on the shelving,
Three dark gentlemen.
Might they direct him?
Three gentlemen.
"Cable, friend John, John Cable,"
When they saw him they said,
"Come and be company
As far as the far side."
"Come follow the feet," they said,
"Of your family,
Of your old father
That came already this way."
But Cable said, "First I must go
Once to my sister again;
What will she do come spring
And no man on her garden?
She will say 'Weeds are alive
From here to the Stream of Friday;
I grieve for my brother's plowing,'
Then break and cry."
"Lose no sleep," they said, "for that fallow:
She will say before summer,
'I can get me a daylong man,
Do better than a brother.' "
Cable said, "I think of my wife:
Dearly she needs consoling;
I must go back for a little
For fear she die of grieving."
Ask no such wild favor;
Still, if you fear she die soon,
The boat might wait for her."
But Cable said, "I remember:
Out of charity let me
Go shore up my poorly mother,
Cries all afternoon."
They said, "She is old and far,
Far and rheumy with years,
And, if you like, we shall take
No note of her tears."
But Cable said, "I am neither
Your hired man nor maid,
Nor your ape to be led."
He said, "I must go back:
Once I heard someone say
That the hollow Stream of Friday
Is a rank place to lie;
And this word, now I remember,
Makes me sorry: have you
Thought of my own body
I was always good to?
The frame that was my devotion
And my blessing was,
The straight bole whose limbs
Were long as stories-
Now, poor thing, left in the dirt
By the Stream of Friday
Might not remember me
Half tenderly."
They let him nurse no worry;
They said, "We give you our word:
Poor thing is made of patience;
Will not say a word."
"Cable, friend John, John Cable,"
After this they said,
"Come with no company
To the far side.
To a populous place,
A dense city
That shall not be changed
Before much sorrow dry."
Over shaking water
Toward the feet of his father,
Leaving the hills' color
And his poorly mother
And his wife at grieving
And his sister's fallow
And his body lying
In the rank hollow,
Now Cable is carried
On the dark river;
Nor even a shadow
Followed him over.
On the wide river
Gray as the sea
Flags of white water
Are his company.
2.5k
I don't know what Jonas has been preaching,
There's a pigmie on the roof
And claymores in the kitchen.
I never rejected nothing
Cept when I was dazed and dazed and confused and confused
If I wanted to leave
I would use the door I saved for later
That leads out into the void.
I need to take a day away
Or breakdown and watch Casablanca all day long...
Because I thought it was a forever song I was singing,
But I'm out of tune,
And my rheumy eyes are liars,
And I want to christen my great granddaughter
But I'll be dead...
I just wanted my declarations to resound,
But in a town of disrespect
Chain link fences make for noisy neighbors.
I have every bit of it on the line for YOU.
I'll drop it,
But it will stand on end,
Like a trick quarter.
Four in the morning
Forty five caliber bullets blasting
I found myself in the backseat
Of a burned up police car.
Every thing is rotten,
Except the infantine seamstress
Who doesn't come out anymore,
Because you scar(r)ed her.
I just wish I could eat a bag of salt brine soaked
Ballpark peanuts, shells and all without having a **** stroke.
I wish I could, smoke, without Jiminy Cricket, calling my doctor,
And the red squad arriving with the straight jackets,
And the bear mace.
I can't project the rigght radiation,
I get that, but its not for lack of dying.
So this is my death letter, to be read to my reincarnated infant self
Twenty three times, by twenty four different people,
I want a life size wax model of Eeivel Keneival
To throw rice at me thrice
Once for each marriage,
But on the third throw wild rice
Because that is what I think of when I think of you.
The burglar ate my begging strips
And the ravenous dog
Is getting impatient....
I've seen the truth in the darkness of the soldier core.
Why not open the gate to abracadabra land,
Give me a list of your one thousand forms
In code of course,
And I will pay the piper
So he can finally change this doggone song.
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 6:56 AM UTC
Wizened, like the mountain ridges in the west,
you gazed across the desk at me, rheumy eyes unblinking,
and asked me what I wanted from life
When I answered, the blue opacity of your gaze seemed to sharpen
and pierce my soul
you clasped your hands comfortably, and rolled your ancient shoulders back
- trees rippled in the ridges of your crisply pressed shirt -
and you told me, with your well-worn voice, that you would exert every effort
to give me all the tools I needed to succeed
as you blinked, our conference ended, like the sun had gone down
I was free to leave, but lingered
your short white hair crested your brow like a fresh snowcap, you
had ravines beside your eyes, and smiled like a canyon
so I turned to go
And it occurred to me, as I left the inclines of your presence for
the flat horizons of my daily life, that I
would like to have the same peace that flowed
through your being,
it would be a healthy rain to the desert of my soul.
I longed to have the verdancy that you had - you,
forty years my senior; you put my youth to shame
but soon you would be my teacher, and
you would not let me go to waste
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 9:47 PM UTC
Just, thought I, to escape a while,
Mundane light in the desk at home
On these splintered, black-tar roads
Marching, festooned in leaf and in rock
Snapping and scattering from underfoot.
My heavy breaths are this odd meter
In-out, in-out on this pavement slap
The knees are strained, down, the stream
Of rheumy little beads—lines! (I sense
Conception of a rare cadence
In which earth finds its synchrony).
‘Round the walls of rustic homes and will
To this walking gallery of the ‘ville
Ancient oaks, they lift their head and grin
To a sky beyond the storm, what with plumes
Unearthly fronds, dark with salmon painted on
Softened, its oil, burnt carnal black
That loose-end feeling holding it back.
Furrowed brow, I run with now
Sweet winds and pirouette
The dancers go amidst the leaves
Hold Hell high ‘bove white hands
Turned in deference and o,’ Arbor!
Your threshold live and saturnine
Entire eternities unfold now, silk scarf on
Goddess Eve, her halo proud
Gold embraced by Pink and now
She strides in by the choral geese
Flown to sing her godhead to sleep
Her rest had blest pain to leave me now
At those gates loud, effervescent
Shimmering, shimmering
In calm disbelief
And on
And on.
Back at the source, that in-between
Bare **** of the Fasick bridge
Magmatic pallets, on faces two
One shared tear drop, a cosmic breadth.
I saw from there the garden of stone
Lonely tombs in blamy play
Fruits sprung in those past lives.
I shared their rest for moment still
And back it goes, the nameless past
Where they exists as dreams, beside me.
Two sides, met then so diverged
I saw their peace where night emerged
Where pink embraced the dark
Went to rest on low horizons.
The world closed its lips and lids
Its eyes and loving heart
Bathed, it all, in low florescence
And lullaby of cicadas.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 11:07 PM UTC
Though
Their bodies are benched on Church Street,
Their minds are capable
Of startling flight,
Time travel,
Trans Universe travel,
Invisible train travel
They take the blue line -
"All aboard for Valhalla, Inferno, Acadia, Hades,
Bliss, Abandon, Elysium, Pandemonia ..."
They sway clutching the overhead strap,
Eyes glazed, rheumy, vacant, or fiendishly happy,
Transfixed by the scenic whir that no one can see
But them.
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 4:10 PM UTC
Peg, roundly topped and
bottom squared, hops out seeking
holes to reconcile.
"Soon, very soon," she posits
then passes dear Fork
forlorn on pebbled road. His
tines are liquid droops.
His heart stabs for cheating Spoon.
Opposite, Puppet
sits to tend her knotted strings.
This path is puzzling.
Mar 10, 2010
Mar 10, 2010 at 8:52 AM UTC
Tiny things that strike your fancy
Any verse which hits a note,
Messages from all and sundry
Extracts from your favourite quote.
Moments from a treasured movie
Recollections from the past,
Sunday roast from Grandma’s oven
Sights and sounds and smells that last.
Memories of moonlight saunter
Arm in arm with newfound love,
Barefoot where the sand meets water
Lost to all... but stars above.
Walking in the hills at daybreak
Crispness of the frosty verge,
Feel the pounding pulse of living
Feel the joy of being... surge.
Tomatoes from the garden plot
Rich and biting, acid red,
Delicious on hot buttered toast
With liberal salt and pepper, spread.
Gazing at your baby daughter
Softly pink in muscled arm,
Wondering what future holds
For her in love and wealth and harm.
See the grasses thrash to windward
Hear the pounding surf cascade,
Lines of gulls in steady hover
Thunder breaks at lightning fade.
Old friend’s letter, unexpected
Tells of hardship over time,
Loss and sadness unconnected
To good fortune, found in mine.
Tremor in her frail, white fingers
Dancing of her rheumy eyes,
Sharing yesterday’s good tales
To bring a joy to aged disguise.
Lavender in gentle velvet
Serves the honey bee her gold,
Nodding in the balmy breezes
Reminiscent perfume, old.
Cup of tea for all the Aunties
Dear old Fred has passed away,
Sadness... but we all agree
He made the most of every day.
Sun ball on the far horizon
Melting orange, richly gold,
Sinking to the seascape, gone
To let the moonlit night take hold.
Marshalg
Sitting on the Taranaki sand with my love, with nibbles and a glass of wine
Watching the enormous, Autumn sun melt into a flat, flat sea.
April 2012
© 2012 Marshal Gebbie
Apr 13, 2012
Apr 13, 2012 at 8:21 PM UTC
He lay there in a ***** unkept ball,
Having surrendered to the pavement.
Wisps of stringy brown hair
Covered the lines on his sunken in face,
His yellow smoked eyes, rheumy and blurred,
His vision hazy, like a punch-drunk boxer.
Kathleen Harmon sashayed by
With nary a glace downward.
Once they were equals,
When they sat together
During high school Chemistry.
Time slowed from a Tango to a Waltz,
As a drop of saliva
Kissed the pavement.
Stringing there from his cracked, parted lips.
His tangled brown whiskers,
Patchy on his cheeks,
Had lengthened with the passing days
Since their last meeting with a razor.
Nikes, Prada, and Gucci
Ignore him in passing
All sports, fashion, and business meetings;
On the clock, and self-absorbed.
Dusk marked the sky
With a violet crayon
Worn to a nub,
Then worn to nothing.
A sudden thud startled him awake!
Then blackened hardwood stunned him as it bit into his ribs!
A caustic voice berated his slumber,
A navy blue reminder that even surrender was no escape.
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 8:23 PM UTC
Doleful and rheumy
Lost their light and sparkle
Shuttered and heavy
Stars in them no longer twinkle
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 7:46 AM UTC
Though the sky may fade,
your eyes grow dim and rheumy
and the sun lose its golden halo
I’ll still see you
I’ll carry a torch to
light your corner of darkness in the world
Though your voice may quake
and few may stop to listen
as you fight to convey opinion
I’ll still hear you
I’ll listen to find a
meaning through confusion in the words
Though most sound is quelled
and as if in sleep
your ears miss the sounds of morning
I’ll still speak to you
remind you of
who you are, both to yourself and those who care.
Jan 21, 2013
Jan 21, 2013 at 2:17 PM UTC
Those eyes of green
An old man's rheumy eyes
Awash with memories and salty tears.
And sharp eyes of green
That scan the distant skies
To capture shades from down the distant years.
Hardened eyes of green
Which cut with crystal sharp
The foolish prattle of that errant boy.
Weeping eyes of green
That witnessed cadenced harp
Consort with tone and brilliant colour's joy
Aging eyes of green
Now wilt with evening light
To not regret the fade of dying time.
Eyes of green recall
Her beauty's luscious sight
To life's commital of her hand in thine.
Proud eyes of green
Recall his baby's cry
The swaddled infant holding up her hand.
Tired eyes of green
Now closed his lids to die
To wander to his chosen plot of land.
Marshalg
For Grandpa
24 March 2013
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 9:40 PM UTC
He gazed at me with his rheumy eyes,
‘You think that you’re getting old!
You’ll not go travel that lonely valley
Until your bones are cold.’
His voice was like the sound of a rasp
Bubbling up through his chest,
And his claw-like hands reached out for mine
As I backed away from his desk.
‘I see that you won’t come close to me
And I can’t blame you for that,
This body holds a corrupted soul
That’s caught, like a drowning rat.
I tasted sin ‘til I’d had my fill
When I once was young, like you,
I’m twice as old as you think I am
At a hundred and twenty two.’
I took a further step from his desk
And I let his words sink in,
I’d known that he was a billionaire
But not that he’d tasted sin.
‘They told me you had the answers, you
Could steer me to great success!’
‘I could, but given your chances, you
Should probably aim for less.’
‘I aimed as high as I thought I could
But life only gave me gruel,
I wanted to rise as high as the rest
But the lack of success was cruel,
They passed me by for promotion while
The idiots by me flew,
I watched them counting their bonuses
While the ones that I got were few.’
‘So envy lies at the heart of it,
You think it’s better with wealth,
You only can spend a part of it
What you really need is health,
Your cheeks are ruddy, your eyes are bright
You can walk in the winter rain,
While I sit crippled with untold wealth
In a body that’s racked with pain.’
‘But you’ve been able to buy the best
In a long and a fruitful life,
While I’ve been able to give much less
At home, to my loving wife.’
‘At least your woman has stayed by you,
She hasn’t been fired by greed,
She’s more content than the wives I knew
Who wanted more than they need.’
‘I don’t have even a single friend,’
He said, with a misty eye,
‘But plenty of greedy hangers-on
Who are waiting for me to die.
I wasn’t warned when I signed the form
In blood, that the heart grows cold,
That even the love of my children then
Could only be bought with gold.’
He shuffled the papers on his desk
And pushed one across to me,
‘Just sign on the bottom line in blood
And you’ll have everything you see.’
I looked at his ancient, withered form,
At the lines in his face of woe,
Thought of my wife and children, then:
‘I think I’d better just go!’
David Lewis Paget
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 5:52 AM UTC
"Eyes, once full of hope and lofty dream, Now stare at passer-by, all
rheumy eyed. Gait of the man that once was. Like a sign post, saying:
Here!, 'how I do not want to be when I am grown"
...
@incognitaio
Mar 10, 2021
Mar 10, 2021 at 7:05 AM UTC
As I cross slender golden gate Québec sunset
I dream of the old Golden Gate; long lost psychopomp
drunk at typewriter in rheumy-eyed fog
and old Golden Lion, gay and howling in firelight New York
building fond memories of the old man back home
imparting wisdom in a cloud of mint smoke
Driving out past clear blue sky in early autumn heat
great iron bridges with drooping sleeping half-moon eyes;
their yawn the endless moving waters below
The stone children hiding underneath a quilt
of dirt brown and green and mycelium grove grey
who turn slowly as the ground turns as sleepless nights are had in the underground kingdom of a lost Eastern mountain range
The valleys are wide and I sometimes find myself looking straight down over a crest, into the edge of a picture memory of the Rockies back West
Feb 20, 2017
Feb 20, 2017 at 6:17 PM UTC
Though reading horror stories (macabre),
an only every now and again
genre crazy wave
washing over me like
a killer tsunami,
(subsequently fueling
desperation) to save
thine scrawny ****
(a derriere laughing stock,
and hence cheeky of me to rave),
those rare occasions satiated, when
hung over insomnia heavily bulging,
rheumy myopic blood shot eyes
nonetheless lock into
critical opening sentence determining,
whether adroit kingly author
nimbly setting the stage and pave
ving what thenceforth, pro
misses tubby a cell out ace
in the hole captive audience
(me, this apt pupil), doth brace
himself (by all counts once
a bad little kid) deserving, well...now...
just a bag of bones,
who fiendishly cackles
when leaning in (Sheryl Sandberg like),
whereat after opening sentence, an instantaneous
possessive gnarly hand
forcibly grabs my attention
presaging and frightening
yours truly (juiced in case
ye did not know),
where within the bazaar
of bad dreams epic,
which seems like forever,
when I finally erase
and exorcise the bogeyman who,
masterfully, immediately,
dramatically got woven
lady chattery teeth and all
withering wicked warp and woof
establishing (proof positive),
an excellently crafted
Chiral Mad heavily shades
of night are falling
gussying haunting place,
where the color of evil permeates
every cerebral space
with darkness, said
sub rosa prime evil punctuates
the mind this dream catcher,
whence after four past midnight
the reaper's image appears
sending adrenaline rush,
viz flight or fight blind
did, when firestarter alarm didst grind
passage of time manifesting dark forces
blaze zing atavistic fear itself lined
up battleground formation
from the borderlands of my mind
this even before turning
the first page where the eyes
of drag'n my afterlife shined!
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 4:23 PM UTC
Be ready! I'm coming for you, he warned.
We shrank into the doorways,
watching, waiting for the clutch
of his dragon's claws, his rheumy eyes, eagle's beak.
It was just Old Joe, playing our game,
until they stopped him dead.
Oct 23, 2016
Oct 23, 2016 at 2:06 PM UTC
its a type of mourn
Not death
Just my heart frowning
When I can't see
Your face
Body
Been months
But seems
Longer
Do you look any different ?
The tears from my eyes
Burn
The salt runs down
Rheumy
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 1:01 PM UTC
My dreams are drugs;
my hopes are dope
–the joie de vivre
of old so-so–
from waning eyes
to waxing grace
my spirit seeks
another place
And rhythmically
on pain of death
from newborn cry
to my last breath
with rancid teeth
and rheumy eye
around the globe
cutting soft sky
filling the stars
with water high
to flood and pour
to light and soar
to anger each
contented *****
But not so boiled
nor never baked
swathed transcendence
of all mistakes
melancholy left un-churned
around young danseur
crapping wealth unearned
fueling no immortal work,
marching still
against the dark;
Freshest grass-scent
Lingers long
past broken tractor
at break of dawn
as crumpled shrapnel
and sticks of oak
remain wedged throughout
the auger's blades,
refusing to reap
or shadow wheat;
Therefore, this vision
pulls and holds
on wisest minds,
with fools endures;
musty marble crumbles too
all garish gold
rusts through and through...
spinning slower
then Bosons are gone...
sunny sleep stops
mowing lawn
(All things must break
when left untouched
but touching wears toucher
oh so so much!)
Arrows fly,
inertly tickle
all that's evil
whatever's wicked;
But nothing so so much
as hope
fades quietly
oh so so much.
Slumping shoulders
warring forward
searching ever
for temperate porridge,
concluding all
to dust from dust
Inciting all
from lust to lust
But rarely ever
dreaming truths
science mangling
interstellar flight
because nothing good
rhymes with truths
devoid of pretense
and heckling youths
After crops have rotted
that fed our needs
One contemplates
tending the weeds.
I've lost you now
(I surely hope)
Because at last,
here is the dope:
Riddling madness
is a cancer.
Reading answers
is disaster.
We're much too late
to break the tractor.
Grapes left on vine
do not make wine,
so smiling scythe
will give me mine.
And in the end
it's not defeat:
For Beauty Grew,
And Many Ate.
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 12:06 PM UTC
These poems are for posterity (because mind-loss runs in the family.)
I dedicate all this poetry to my progeny, but most importantly,
to the one and only Future Me.
That old guy who's worn out and world-weary.
The one who's losing his memories,
and can't keep track of what he thinks.
These are all for you.
I'll record the lowest lows and highest highs.
Presented for the perusal of his (yours, my) rheumy eyes.
I might embellish at times -
I might even lie.
I just want to be able to look back and realize:
It's been an incredible life.
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 8:15 PM UTC
I’m slow when I walk now.
My eyes are getting rheumy.
I get crabby sometimes.
I know it. So sue me.
I only hope, when it’s time
That you remember this song;
That you have the fun I’ve had,
That you should live this long.
Being young wasn’t always
The basket of puppies was it?
Remember the growing pains
And all the things that cause it?
It requires that we persevere
And face things less than fun.
It starts right away in life
Well before the age of one.
Every age has it’s roadblocks
And sometimes its outrages.
Some politely refer to them all
As life in all of its stages.
There’s getting back on the bike
After we tumble and fall.
Rollerskating and sports, too.
We manage to learn from them all.
Age makes treasures of memories
And gold of the brass we once had.
The thing is to celebrate age too.
Applaud this stage and be glad.
Slow down when the old must walk
And have some good words to say.
And then walk behind them and smile
Because they are showing you the way.
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 5:21 PM UTC