His money isn't free.
On the first date,
He picked you up in a Phantom
which haunted your inner gold-digger
Digging to harvest stardom, but
His money isn't free.
He's wearing a Rolex
You're wearing a Swatch wrist
Hoping to switch wrists.
It's much too sad that
His money isn't free.
He's harvested his cotton
And you're ready to rob him
But his ex keeps calling
Little Miss Lee Kaching!
She can sense your scheming;
she screams through the speakerphone,
"His money isn't free!"
Now he's seen
your blades, your spades, your grenades
hidden in the dark of your shade.
He's grabbing those keys
Leaving his seat saying,
"My money isn't free!"
Now you're left alone
With your flip phone,
Not even an iPhone.
And the waiter comes by,
Drops the bill and says,
"This meal isn't free."

The coca-cola breath!
Flashing lights, tweetie birds, the rough narcotic stench

The sky is devoid, it is scared of the streets etched in starlight, everything shining-- tangerine and Coit and ohhhh boy
don't'cha know what you're in for?

Twilight and she is a figment on my mind
the bark of cigar is fiery opal on my slender frame
I can hear something along the lanes of love
Echoing behind me, the rising sun

Funny dudes in new suits, pressed, steamed, machine-rolled
pills in the pockets
shipped locomotive
Every etching has its china
every etching is porcelain skin
The fog is a silken balloon, unconcerned, wayward
The men longingly abide in its cool, the breath of an over-excited lover, singing in the showerhead an embarrassing microphone
over the west coast

It's all over! it's the end
the roads are devoid of the things that called you
They are a clarion horn on the Claremont, facades etched with windowpanes
here the americans eat tofu and pretend it's bacon

I am in the rapidly rotating spoke, enjoying the taste of woodchuck, upchucking my guts every Sunday, white knuckle-- praying to god
release
release

what a steal that's a fantastic car for the price!
it is only 10 years of payment
only 10!
House worth 40, kids worth 60, medicinal payments
corn flakes
Fortified iron gates and god says,
naw let them all out until they drown,
I'll never flood the earth but I'll make it puddles
and if they want they can lay face down

I am eating Korean stew and wondering what will happen
when unification builds a railroad from Moscow to Busan
I will travel it and write a novel or two
it will be
"On the Railroad"
and start in San Francisco or a little while outside
on an October evening with not a fog in the sky
Just sky, blue, blue sky
A child on the hillside
blowing bubbles in the apartment complex or the gravel mound
next to new homes, now cookiebread gingerbed frames
Doing tricks on BMX bikes, getting our elbows smashed, a designated paramedic
It's all built up now, concrete streets and lonely streetcorner lamps saying
Hey we're gonna light up this little space
Hope you don't mind
Please don't play too loud

And given that these spheroids are monumentally moving
hurling like a pitched water glass
everything staying put under the motion of it
Such a lovely rooting of mass

I will call alongside it, crawling towards answers etching on murals and on the stamping of curbs
E-5 West main
4451 Lowell Street
554 Happy Valley Road
It's all the fun little tributaries of surface waters
heading with precognition towards seas
roped into it by specific gravity

On the phone i spoke to Mr. Victorious
I asked him about his particular drone
down south there in the more direct limelight of the night
he told me about his uncle, in prose
of course
we just hung our heads over the speakerphone
Not sleeping the way we should
shouldering burdens as ***** in deserted zones
laughing and preaching to cottonfields

Then there was the girl
the one we forgot, truth be told
The one unrequited impetus for all art, all physicality and feeling
loved by god in the corporeal
She is the saffron reed in my eye, the one i forgot to preach Victory to
She that one oblong pebble, rolled by the stream
passing our campgrounds and continuing her journey to sands
small little microscopic tetrahedral perfection
I could get stuck in between my teeth
or perhaps left on the sweat of the skin
the lost moments of beachside living, love for the expansiveness, left in the diner seat of the car, gotta keep moving
Carrying her away and if not careful,
nestling her back atop the summits from whence she came.

it is a cola in the glass on the shores of the bay,
it is a divine moment of contact in the oceans
two sailors acknowledging their vessels
with light shows and the play of eye
off the horizon, a green light o' sprite.

I remember sitting
On the tiny porch
Of my dad’s home
Offended by the sun
That continued to sink and set
Without pausing to acknowledge
My dad’s passing.
Offended by the cars
That continued on the highway;
Callous indifference, it seemed to me.
Even the birds at their feeder
Greedily fed and failed to look up
To mark the loss of their benefactor.

I found myself
Silently demanding condolences
In every encounter.
Not for the sympathy,
Or worse, pity,
But for the acknowledgement
That he was here
And now he’s gone,
And something,
However infinitesimally small
In the scopeless universe,
Has changed.

I have two cousins.
The first called my dad
Every month.
His regular call came
During the last days.
The decline surprised him.
He took a deep breath
And asked for speakerphone
Near my dad.
He told my dad
How much my dad had
Influenced his life;
How as a child,
he anticipated a visit from my dad
Like kids stay up to see Santa;
How my dad made my cousin feel
Like he was the most important kid
In the wide world;

How my dad gave my cousin
The otherwise unavailable
Sustenance of heart
Young boys need;
How my cousin had strived to be
Like my dad
And how he hoped
His own children see in him
What he saw in my dad.

That was acknowledgement,
Profound acknowledgement.

My second cousin called
Shortly after the first.
He had heard
That my dad was dying.
He did not ask
To speak with my dad.
He wanted to tell me
To call him
As soon as memorial
Arrangements were made
So that he could purchase
Discounted airline tickets,
To include a subsequent visit
To his son who lives
In the southern part of the state.

My dad was still living.

That, too, acknowledged something,
And served to impel my pending decision.
So I opted for
A less conventional
Memorial ritual
That required neither
Plane tickets nor attendance
Nor a frozen smile reception.

I would not suffer
Insincere acknowledgement.

I am sure I scandalized
Many acquaintances of my dad
Who enjoyed the social conventions of
The anticipated gathering
If only to point out the deficiencies
Of the event and the host.

I am sure I offended
And frustrated
And embittered
One of my cousins.

The other cousin thought
My dad would have preferred
Sincerity
Over a pantomime.

I would suffer
The disfavor and distaste
Of the discontented
With no difficulty.

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

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

A moments allocation of a syllogist abstraction
Shows perspective of the calibre 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

Eve's on Highway 70.
Been on it for some four hours.
After dialing the ten digits on
the cracked cell screen,
she turns it on speakerphone.
It rings once.
To the side of the road, a sign reads,
World's Tallest Prairie Dog.
It rings twice.
She wonders how long the wind
has been red; how long until
the red sun gives up.
It rings three times.
There are birds flying up ahead.
She wants to call them by name.
But what good would it do?
It rings four times.
He picks up.
Her lips are chapped.

I'm fine, Jay. Thanks.
Just calling to tell you
that I'm in the state.

What state?

Your state?

What do you mean?

I'm in Colorado.

What? What are you doing here?

Am I not welcome?

No, no. It's not that. Why didn't you tell me?

I wanted it to be a surprise.

I hate surprises.

Nobody hates surprises.

I do.

She's silent for a beat.
The birds are still ahead;
she races toward them but never gains.

Why didn't you tell me? he asks.

I just told you.

I think something's wrong with my phone.
I can hear an echo.

I have you on speaker.

Why?

My internal mic is broken.

Internal mic? What does that mean?

I don't know.

Where are you going?

Fort Collins. I have family out there, I guess.
Some cousins. Are you on the way?

Am I on the way to Fort Collins?

Yes.

No.

That's not what I want you to say.

What do you want me to say?

Just try again.

Eve, I don't think this is a good idea.

Try again.

What?

Try again.

I can hardly hear you. There's wind or something.

With her index finger she nudges the volume ****
to no effect. She puts her knee on the steering wheel.
She rolls up her window.

Say what I want you to say, she says.

I'm on the way, Jay says, if you take the long way.

I'll be there by six. What should we do?

You could start by apologizing.

So could you, Jay. What should we do?

Say that one more time--the phone.

What should we do when I get there?

We'll figure something out.

I hope, she says.

Please fall asleep so I can take pictures of you and hang them in my room.

You’re laying in between my legs, your back against my chest. I’m afraid you can feel my heart trying to escape my ribcage. Your fingers are interlaced through mine and I feel like I might throw up because they’re sweaty and I’m terrified you’ll be grossed out and let go. We’ve been in this position for hours watching movies and playing video games I want to freeze this moment in time.

So when I wake up I’ll feel like yeah everything’s alright.

You say you have to go and I swallow the bile in my throat. This is love in the worst way. You pull yourself away from me and gather your things. I want to grab your hand and pull you back down to me. Hide in this bed, under these covers and never come out.

You are still here, you are still happy, you are still smiling and laughing. You are still the only thing and everything I need in my life.

You say that I won’t give you space. I suffocate you with my hugs and the way I hold your hands and the way I always call and the way I yell. You say maybe we’re not a right fit and that you’re sorry.

And it goes in in out through the mouth breathing exercises I will never figure out til I am running in circles

You only ever call now to tell me to stop driving by your house. You said we ended weeks ago. That this space was necessary. But how could being away from the person you need more than you need air be necessary ?


or walking in circles, or crawling in circles, or laying on the ground

I’m laying in your backyard looking up at the same sky we would draw figures in with our fingers. Your father comes out and yells, he was never fond of me.

And I can hear your dog whistle from my bedroom*

I’m icing the bruise on my face. You’re on the speakerphone apologizing for your dad. You say I can't come by anymore. The only sound between us is the static of the phone and the sound of your dog whistling.

Sitting in the
Executive boardroom
The CEO on speakerphone
It's all fun and games
Until someone loosens a tie

Down at the
Local watering hole
Enjoying a round of darts
It's all fun and games
Until someone
Loses an eye

(Heated, Fiery trials,) by meself.. The time will come When our beloved planet will feel the suns quench, No breakfast or lunch to soothe that sweaty emotion..All time and devotion unravelling childhood memories, Where winters freeze, and you are still left by yourself...Kept, Wept, and melt out, Drawn to a pad of papery apprentice.. Such a menace when others think they know you, to show you such devious inventions..Of evil intention , they live to watch you die. To watch you cry and spill out all inners, Where your platters not entered into win any prizes..Miracles are few these days, The dark has infiltraded, the glooms turned to haze....Soo many Live in materialism and dreameries Lodge, where their cabin of themself is god , for they forgot who they are...phantom masks, fast cars..How a coverup to hide scarred innocence, where childplay rememberance Hits all at once...Who we really are...The cold empty bars are now lovers best friends...What a sad combination...We only have today to do our made out wills, For the numbings soo skilled this time of Infestations...Tretchery is Now the new..ALL HOT DAYS TO COME , none cool, For the furnaces will feel the excite..Days and nights will be mans worst enemy...The moon climbs the cosmic wave to show us all whats to be bound...Speakerphone sounds can no longer show humanity the reality of themselves..When will they see all belonging is there...Will they find it? or forever be Wanderers?

(Heated, Fiery trials,) by meself.. The time will come When our beloved planet will feel the suns quench, No breakfast or lunch to soothe that sweaty emotion..All time and devotion unravelling childhood memories, Where winters freeze, and you are still left by yourself...Kept, Wept, and melt out, Drawn to a pad of papery apprentice.. Such a menace when others think they know you, to show you such devious inventions..Of evil intention , they live to watch you die. To watch you cry and spill out all inners, Where your platters not entered into win any prizes..Miracles are few these days, The dark has infiltraded, the glooms turned to haze....Soo many Live in materialism and dreameries Lodge, where their cabin of themself is god , for they forgot who they are...phantom masks, fast cars..How a coverup to hide scarred innocence, where childplay rememberance Hits all at once...Who we really are...The cold empty bars are now lovers best friends...What a sad combination...We only have today to do our made out wills, For the numbings soo skilled this time of Infestations...Tretchery is Now the new..ALL HOT DAYS TO COME , none cool, For the furnaces will feel the excite..Days and nights will be mans worst enemy...The moon climbs the cosmic wave to show us all whats to be bound...Speakerphone sounds can no longer show humanity the reality of themselves..When will they see all belonging is there...Will they find it? or forever be Wanderers?

since last
we placed
his madness     on speakerphone

he has observed
over half the population
observing
the lesser
half…

he includes that he swims alone

that his lover works for someone
in the gag order department

that the act of naming     a son
is scarce

It feels so good to be home right now
Tonight wasn’t exactly perfect
You made me wait at the restaurant for hours
Claiming that you had lost your wallet earlier
Who loses their wallet in their own house?
You are just super messy
So it is unbelievable how you always show up to places looking like a million bucks but barely have 100 bucks to your name
Your tie was a disaster and didn’t exactly match my sapphire dress as we had planned
The food was scrumptious but I couldn’t enjoy more than three bites because your phone kept on ringing
I thought it was just going to be the two of us
But you had your boss on speakerphone
Dessert was going well until you fell out of your seat
Was it because of the waitress who kept on dabbing at your shirt to get rid of non-existent drops of water or have you always had trouble sitting still?
The bill was eighty-eight seventy-five but you came up three dollars short
Thank goodness I had a twenty on me
Now wipe that lipstick off your face and go pour me a stiff one