"torino" poems
Here is a tale of blood, guts and war
The war is over but its still raging within
I can hear the bombs going off,hear the screaming as they hit the ground.
I’m back in Rhode Island Street, Highland Park, Detroit.
War has turned my heart to stone.
Now that you're gone I live alone, in this empty home remembering every word you've said.
Didn't bother to learn to become a father, old school all the way.
A 72 gran torino on display, I lived to work
Retired from 30 years in the auto plant.
Slowly the world has passed me by.
More black, more brown, more slant eyed
Still I know right from wrong
It’s the same here as in Hong Kong
When coward gangs seek power and control
I have to let them know they are digging themselves a hole
The weak and defenceless look with tired eyes
They let themselves become victims of a drive by shooting
I never express feelings of regret or remorse
In the night I made a plan
Go without a knife or gun in my hand
defeat my enemy with my brain
Making them believe I was insane
In an attempt to take on the entire gang
Yet they listened to my brave harangue
So I reached into my jacket for a lighter
They reacted like any street fighter
Opened fire to stop this threat
The church bells ringing
My body now in a casket
If you listen closely you can hear me say i'm the one to finish things
Sep 16, 2020
Sep 16, 2020 at 4:06 PM UTC
When I was little I would watch
Clint Eastwood on the tube,
Rowdy Yates from Rawhide
In black and white and crude.
He played a young man showing
All the attributes of youth,
With an exciting way about him
That burned with living truth.
Spontaneously cowboy
And fastidiously right,
He filled the part with action
And the character was tight.
He represented all the things
A small boy wants to be,
Young, bright and coiled to go
A special hero… Just for me.
Through the years I’ve tagged along
Watched him play the arts,
The action roles, the love story
And the recent wrinkly parts.
I’ve loved ‘em all and celebrate
The fifty years of fun
Of trailing after Eastwood
And his epochs in the sun.
Play Misty, Iwo Jima
***** Harry too,
Gran Torino, Million Dollar
Spaghetti westerns through
The Bridges and Rowdy Yates
The common touch in all,
For every day people
In an every way call.
Hero’s come and hero’s go
Some fade away to die
Thank God professionals like Clint Eastwood
Just keep reaching for the sky.
My thanks Old Son.....for a Great Journey!
Marshalg@the Gate
Mangere Bridge
New Zealand
4th February 2009
Jan 22, 2010
Jan 22, 2010 at 3:57 PM UTC
.no problem about the Polacks, the Romanians or the Bulgarians... no problem... the Polacks will return to a Clint Eastwood mentality borrowed from Gran Torino... thank god the Polacks are leaving these lands... but... you can always have your Commonwealth rape-gang! so... thumbs up! both parties win!
well, just another turn of
the century dynamics,
what else is / isn't to be expect?
the european provides
the wind,
the african provides
the drums...
****
the asians provide the
underlying bass notes?
that's not going to work...
i can't seem to spot
more colors on the piano
other than black, and white...
biG problem...
slaves? what slaves?
the African saved the Europeans
from violins, cellos,
and entombed themselves
in brass...
horns, saxophones... you name it...
what slaves?
so... if the narrative of
the world history, makes its crucible...
on the focus of the first man,
originating in Africa...
personally? as the last man...
the last in the lineage of Shem
Abel and Cain...
if i am supposed to play
the role of the last man,
and the man...
that's also supposed to become extinct...
i'm not liking it...
i'll just drink my blackbeard shake
of *** & coke...
and...
this is the part where i add:
now scuttle along... like the good
vermin that you are;
just don't touch my fox pet
on the way out...
no one touches Rommel.
Oct 15, 2018
Oct 15, 2018 at 7:21 PM UTC
He thumb is green
He grows a lot.
Wether it's in age or flowers
Or weeding pots.
His dog is about as as gray as he
And they shuffle around outside
Shuffling.
He keeps his time well to himself.
No use for material wealth.
Keeps up his ride
Each Saturday at noon
Goes to church every Sunday with his wife
How cute.
Picks out the litter outside my porch
With his quiet little stroll and cane
While I smoke and watch.
We had a conversation about music once
About Simon and Garfunkel, Skeeter Davis, and the Beatles.
He has some ink on his arms from youth
Back when he was fighting wars too.
Military vet
I know cause his wife likes to brag.
He's always asking how my day was met.
And I asking to help
To carry his bags back to his house.
No thanks, I'm fine.
You're so kind to ask.
You don't hear those kind of words from my generation class.
I saw his kids visit only once.
Like gran Torino, he just tolerates the bunch.
Get off my lawn!
With a shotgun in hand.
He'd be so badass had he done that, man.
Always first with his helping hands
Trying to spruce up the surrounding land.
Maybe I would too if he
Showed me how to plant some seed.
My garden is imaginary
But real flowers grow on his side of the street.
The elderly gent in 608
Is someone I look for on a daily rate.
I wrote of him because he's entitled to
Being heard of and remembered too.
But don't tell him you heard it from the chick who lives in 702.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 4:31 PM UTC
Those days recall less colors
and even less sense
With longer hair like Jackson Browne,
Pensively reeling in half rhymed ballads
walkin’ like Dylan and shredding our voices
like Springsteen.
“walkin’ real loud…”
When poets sang and singers
Listened, from a freight car door
Waiting on an old white fence
Anything that made an album cover.
My crew was meticulously unkempt,
one day shy of a much needed shampoo
but okay -
we were just 'okay' then.
...Surely for another day.
Our moms were old with
thick rimmed glasses and smoked
and our fathers,
they were smoking men too
wearing two shades of gray
tucked in all the way… around
And around, my dad and I went.
We spoke with twisted lips
Groomed our eyes and looked out
From behind narrow poles
and ***** brick walls
That gave, what we knew of our souls,
This, sorta clandestine refuge.
And our pockets
Were empty, our wallets -
were empty .
Except a beer cap and a phone number,
Scribbled and torn from the corner of
a Houghton Mifflin textbook.
“I’ll call her when I get home.”
Let’s go home.
Sitting on the hood of my Torino
I scanned the streets, smelled the tar
Of our last summers burning.
These girls hugged their diaries to their chest
and we’d gaze
we’d gaze through
Sunlit dust and dandelion fairies
eager to unbutton their secret stories about us,
always about us,
and our eyes made such nimble fingers.
We were outward bound on inward glory...
always thinking about love
hoping on plans that’ll get us "laid" by
a girl who wears daisies in her hair.
Big sweet flowers for the butterflies
Stirring in our stomachs
Fluttering to land softly at the entrance
of her big – sweet - flower.
My generation loved love.
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC
Do you remember those seasons in the sun? Carefree days of laughter and fun..
Remember seeing Star Wars and Close Encounters with a soundtrack by ABBA The Bee Gees and Boney M.
Do you remember playing football in the park. Staying out riding bikes until dark. Remember Kevin Keegan, Bjorn Borg and James Hunt. Iconic images of Concorde's first transatlantic flight.
Do you remember watching Space 1999, Planet of the Apes and Dr Who from behind the sofa. Remember space hoppers and friendly village coppers. Endless lazy summer days soaking up the suns rays.
Do you remember Steve Austin, the Bionic Man. Getting a 99 with a flake from the ice cream van. Remember how cool were Starsky and Hutch and wanting a red Ford Torino.
I remember those seasons in the sun. I remember carefree days of laughter and fun.40 something years ago, where did the time go?
That little boy who cheered when the Death Star exploded, hid from the Daleks and danced to Rasputin and Ma Barker still lives within my memory and in my heart.
Jun 23, 2019
Jun 23, 2019 at 3:15 PM UTC