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Yo, Beremundo el Lelo, surqué todas las rutas
y probé todos los mesteres.
Singlando a la deriva, no en orden cronológico ni lógico -en sin orden-
narraré mis periplos, diré de los empleos con que
nutrí mis ocios,
distraje mi hacer nada y enriquecí mi hastío...;
-hay de ellos otros que me callo-:
Catedrático fui de teosofía y eutrapelia, gimnopedia y teogonía y pansofística en Plafagonia;
barequero en el Porce y el Tigüí, huaquero en el Quindío,
amansador mansueto -no en desuetud aún- de muletos cerriles y de onagros, no sé dónde;
palaciego proto-Maestre de Ceremonias de Wilfredo el Velloso,
de Cunegunda ídem de ídem e ibídem -en femenino- e ídem de ídem de Epila Calunga
y de Efestión -alejandrino- el Glabro;
desfacedor de entuertos, tuertos y malfetrías, y de ellos y ellas facedor;
domeñador de endriagos, unicornios, minotauros, quimeras y licornas y dragones... y de la Gran Bestia.

Fui, de Sind-bad, marinero; pastor de cabras en Sicilia
si de cabriolas en Silesia, de cerdas en Cerdeña y -claro- de corzas en Córcega;
halconero mayor, primer alcotanero de Enguerrando Segundo -el de la Tour-Miracle-;
castrador de colmenas, y no de Casanovas, en el Véneto, ni de Abelardos por el Sequana;
pajecillo de altivas Damas y ariscas Damas y fogosas, en sus castillos
y de pecheras -¡y cuánto!- en sus posadas y mesones
-yo me era Gerineldos de todellas y trovador trovadorante y adorante; como fui tañedor
de chirimía por fiestas candelarias, carbonero con Gustavo Wasa en Dalecarlia, bucinator del Barca Aníbal
y de Scipión el Africano y Masinisa, piloto de Erik el Rojo hasta Vinlandia, y corneta
de un escuadrón de coraceros de Westmannlandia que cargó al lado del Rey de Hielo
-con él pasé a difunto- y en la primera de Lutzen.

Fui preceptor de Diógenes, llamado malamente el Cínico:
huésped de su tonel, además, y portador de su linterna;
condiscípulo y émulo de Baco Dionisos Enófilo, llamado buenamente el Báquico
-y el Dionisíaco, de juro-.

Fui discípulo de Gautama, no tan aprovechado: resulté mal budista, si asaz contemplativo.
Hice de peluquero esquilador siempre al servicio de la gentil Dalilah,
(veces para Sansón, que iba ya para calvo, y -otras- depilador de sus de ella óptimas partes)
y de maestro de danzar y de besar de Salomé: no era el plato de argento,
mas sí de litargirio sus caderas y muslos y de azogue también su vientre auri-rizado;
de Judith de Betulia fui confidente y ni infidente, y -con derecho a sucesión- teniente y no lugarteniente
de Holofernes no Enófobo (ni enófobos Judith ni yo, si con mesura, cautos).
Fui entrenador (no estrenador) de Aspasia y Mesalina y de Popea y de María de Mágdalo
e Inés Sorel, y marmitón y pinche de cocina de Gargantúa
-Pantagruel era huésped no nada nominal: ya suficientemente pantagruélico-.
Fui fabricante de batutas, quebrador de hemistiquios, requebrador de Eustaquias, y tratante en viragos
y en sáficas -algunas de ellas adónicas- y en pínnicas -una de ellas super-fémina-:
la dejé para mí, si luego ancló en casorio.
A la rayuela jugué con Fulvia; antes, con Palamedes, axedrez, y, en época vecina, con Philidor, a los escaques;
y, a las damas, con Damas de alto y bajo coturno
-manera de decir: que para el juego en litis las Damas suelen ir descalzas
y se eliden las calzas y sustentadores -no funcionales- en las Damas y las calzas en los varones.

Tañí el rabel o la viola de amor -casa de Bach, búrguesa- en la primicia
de La Cantata del Café (pre-estreno, en familia protestante, privado).
Le piqué caña jorobeta al caballo de Atila
-que era un morcillo de prócer alzada: me refiero al corcel-;
cambié ideas, a la par, con Incitato, Cónsul de Calígula, y con Babieca,
-que andaba en Babia-, dándole prima
fui zapatero de viejo de Berta la del gran pie (buen pie, mejor coyuntura),
de la Reina Patoja ortopedista; y hortelano y miniaturista de Pepino el Breve,
y copero mayor faraónico de Pepe Botellas, interino,
y porta-capas del Pepe Bellotas de la esposa de Putifar.

Viajé con Julio Verne y Odiseo, Magallanes y Pigafetta, Salgan, Leo e Ibn-Batuta,
con Melville y Stevenson, Fernando González y Conrad y Sir John de Mandeville y Marco Polo,
y sólo, sin De Maistre, alredor de mi biblioteca, de mi oploteca, mi mecanoteca y mi pinacoteca.
Viajé también en tomo de mí mismo: asno a la vez que noria.

Fui degollado en la de San Bartolomé (post facto): secundaba a La Môle:
Margarita de Valois no era total, íntegramente pelirroja
-y no porque de noche todos los gatos son pardos...: la leoparda,
las tres veces internas, íntimas, peli-endrina,
Margarita, Margotón, Margot, la casqui-fulva...-

No estuve en la nea nao -arcaica- de Noé, por manera
-por ventura, otrosí- que no fui la paloma ni la medusa de esa almadía: mas sí tuve a mi encargo
la selección de los racimos de sus viñedos, al pie del Ararat, al post-Diluvio,
yo, Beremundo el Lelo.

Fui topógrafo ad-hoc entre El Cangrejo y Purcoy Niverengo,
(y ad-ínterim, administré la zona bolombólica:
mucho de anís, mucho de Rosas del Cauca, versos de vez en cuando),
y fui remero -el segundo a babor- de la canoa, de la piragua
La Margarita (criolla), que navegó fluvial entre Comiá, La Herradura, El Morito,
con cargamentos de contrabando: blancas y endrinas de Guaca, Titiribí y Amagá, y destilados
de Concordia y Betulia y de Urrao...
¡Urrao! ¡Urrao! (hasta hace poco lo diríamos con harta mayor razón y con aquese y este júbilos).
Tras de remero de bajel -y piloto- pasé a condueño, co-editor, co-autor
(no Coadjutor... ¡ni de Retz!) en asocio de Matías Aldecoa, vascuence, (y de un tal Gaspar von der Nacht)
de un Libraco o Librículo de pseudo-poemas de otro quídam;
exploré la región de Zuyaxiwevo con Sergio Stepánovich Stepansky,
lobo de donde se infiere, y, en más, ario.

Fui consejero áulico de Bogislao, en la corte margravina de Xa-Netupiromba
y en la de Aglaya crisostómica, óptima circezuela, traidorcilla;
tañedor de laúd, otra vez, y de viola de gamba y de recorder,
de sacabuche, otrosí (de dulzaina - otronó) y en casaciones y serenatas y albadas muy especializado.
No es cierto que yo fuera -es impostura-
revendedor de bulas (y de mulas) y tragador defuego y engullidor de sables y bufón en las ferias
pero sí platiqué (también) con el asno de Buridán y Buridán,
y con la mula de Balaám y Balaám, con Rocinante y Clavileño y con el Rucio
-y el Manco y Sancho y don Quijote-
y trafiqué en ultramarinos: ¡qué calamares -en su tinta-!,
¡qué Anisados de Guarne!, ¡qué Rones de Jamaica!, ¡qué Vodkas de Kazán!, ¡qué Tequilas de México!,
¡qué Néctares de Heliconia! ¡Morcillas de Itagüí! ¡Torreznos de Envigado! ¡Chorizos de los Ballkanes! ¡Qué Butifarras cataláunicas!
Estuve en Narva y en Pultawa y en las Queseras del Medio, en Chorros Blancos
y en El Santuario de Córdova, y casi en la de San Quintín
(como pugnaban en el mismo bando no combatí junto a Egmont por no estar cerca al de Alba;
a Cayetana sí le anduve cerca tiempo después: preguntádselo a Goya);
no llegué a tiempo a Waterloo: me distraje en la ruta
con Ida de Saint-Elme, Elselina Vanayl de Yongh, viuda del Grande Ejército (desde antaño... más tarde)
y por entonces y desde años antes bravo Edecán de Ney-:
Ayudante de Campo... de plumas, gongorino.
No estuve en Capua, pero ya me supongo sus mentadas delicias.

Fabriqué clavicémbalos y espinetas, restauré virginales, reparé Stradivarius
falsos y Guarnerius apócrifos y Amatis quasi Amatis.
Cincelé empuñaduras de dagas y verduguillos, en el obrador de Benvenuto,
y escriños y joyeles y guardapelos ad-usum de Cardenales y de las Cardenalesas.
Vendí Biblias en el Sinú, con De la Rosa, Borelly y el ex-pastor Antolín.
Fui catador de tequila (debuté en Tapachula y ad-látere de Ciro el Ofiuco)
y en México y Amecameca, y de mezcal en Teotihuacán y Cuernavaca,
de Pisco-sauer en Lima de los Reyes,
y de otros piscolabis y filtros muy antes y después y por Aná del Aburrá, y doquiérase
con El Tarasco y una legión de Bacos Dionisos, pares entre Pares.
Vagué y vagué si divagué por las mesillas del café nocharniego, Mil Noches y otra Noche
con el Mago de lápiz buido y de la voz asordinada.
Antes, muy antes, bebí con él, con Emmanuel y don Efe y Carrasca, con Tisaza y Xovica y Mexía y los otros Panidas.
Después..., ahora..., mejor no meneallo y sí escanciallo y persistir en ello...

Dicté un curso de Cabalística y otro de Pan-Hermética
y un tercero de Heráldica,
fuera de los cursillos de verano de las literaturas bereberes -comparadas-.
Fui catalogador protonotario en jefe de la Magna Biblioteca de Ebenezer el Sefardita,
y -en segundo- de la Mínima Discoteca del quídam en referencia de suso:
no tenía aún las Diabelli si era ya dueño de las Goldberg;
no poseía completa la Inconclusa ni inconclusa la Décima (aquestas Sinfonías, Variaciones aquesas:
y casi que todello -en altísimo rango- tan Variaciones Alredor de Nada).

Corregí pruebas (y dislates) de tres docenas de sota-poetas
-o similares- (de los que hinchen gacetilleros a toma y daca).
Fui probador de calzas -¿prietas?: ceñidas, sí, en todo caso- de Diana de Meridor
y de justillos, que así veníanle, de estar atán bien provista
y atán rebién dotada -como sabíalo también y así de bien Bussy d'Amboise-.
Temperé virginales -ya restaurados-, y clavecines, si no como Isabel, y aunque no tan baqueano
como ése de Eisenach, arroyo-Océano.
Soplé el ***** bufón, con tal cual incongruencia, sin ni tal cual donaire.
No aporreé el bombo, empero, ni entrechoqué los címbalos.

Les saqué puntas y les puse ribetes y garambainas a los vocablos,
cuando diérame por la Semasiología, cierta vez, en la Sorbona de Abdera,
sita por Babia, al pie de los de Úbeda, que serán cerros si no valen por Monserrates,
sin cencerros. Perseveré harto poco en la Semántica -por esa vez-,
si, luego retorné a la andadas, pero a la diabla, en broma:
semanto-semasiólogo tarambana pillín pirueteante.
Quien pugnó en Dénnevitz con Ney, el peli-fulvo
no fui yo: lo fue mi bisabuelo el Capitán...;
y fue mi tatarabuelo quien apresó a Gustavo Cuarto:
pero sí estuve yo en la Retirada de los Diez Mil
-era yo el Siete Mil Setecientos y Setenta y Siete,
precisamente-: releed, si dudaislo, el Anábasis.
Fui celador intocable de la Casa de Tócame-Roque, -si ignoré cuyo el Roque sería-,
y de la Casa del Gato-que-pelotea; le busqué tres pies al gato
con botas, que ya tenía siete vidas y logré dar con siete autores en busca de un personaje
-como quien dice Los Siete contra Tebas: ¡pobre Tebas!-, y ya es jugar bastante con el siete.
No pude dar con la cuadratura del círculo, que -por lo demás- para nada hace falta,
mas topé y en el Cuarto de San Alejo, con la palanca de Arquimedes y con la espada de Damocles,
ambas a dos, y a cual más, tomadas del orín y con más moho
que las ideas de yo si sé quién mas no lo digo:
púsome en aprietos tal doble hallazgo; por más que dije: ¡Eureka! ...: la palanca ya no servía ni para levantar un falso testimonio,
y tuve que encargarme de tener siempre en suspenso y sobre mí la espada susodicha.

Se me extravió el anillo de Saturno, mas no el de Giges ni menos el de Hans Carvel;
no sé qué se me ficieron los Infantes de Aragón y las Nieves de Antaño y el León de Androcles y la Balanza
del buen Shylock: deben estar por ahí con la Linterna de Diógenes:
-¿mas cómo hallarlos sin la linterna?

No saqué el pecho fuera, ni he sido nunca el Tajo, ni me di cuenta del lío de Florinda,
ni de por qué el Tajo el pecho fuera le sacaba a la Cava,
pero sí vi al otro don Rodrigo en la Horca.
Pinté muestras de posadas y mesones y ventas y paradores y pulquerías
en Veracruz y Tamalameque y Cancán y Talara, y de riendas de abarrotes en Cartagena de Indias, con Tisaza-,
si no desnarigué al de Heredia ni a López **** tuerto -que era bizco-.
Pastoreé (otra vez) el Rebaño de las Pléyades
y resultaron ser -todellas, una a una- ¡qué capretinas locas!
Fui aceitero de la alcuza favorita del Padre de los Búhos Estáticos:
-era un Búho Sofista, socarrón soslayado, bululador mixtificante-.
Regí el vestier de gala de los Pingüinos Peripatéticos,
(precursores de Brummel y del barón d'Orsay,
por fuera de filósofos, filosofículos, filosofantes dromomaníacos)
y apacenté el Bestiario de Orfeo (delegatario de Apollinaire),
yo, Beremundo el Lelo.

Nada tuve que ver con el asesinato de la hija del corso adónico Sebastiani
ni con ella (digo como pesquisidor, pesquisante o pesquisa)
si bien asesoré a Edgar Allan Poe como entomólogo, cuando El Escarabajo de Oro,
y en su investigación del Doble Asesinato de la Rue Morgue,
ya como experto en huellas dactilares o quier digitalinas.
Alguna vez me dio por beberme los vientos o por pugnar con ellos -como Carolus
Baldelarius- y por tomar a las o las de Villadiego o a las sus calzas:
aquesas me resultaron harto potables -ya sin calzas-; ellos, de mucho volumen
y de asaz poco cuerpo (si asimilados a líquidos, si como justadores).
Gocé de pingües canonjías en el reinado del bonachón de Dagoberto,
de opíparas prebendas, encomiendas, capellanías y granjerías en el del Rey de los Dipsodas,
y de dulce privanza en el de doña Urraca
(que no es la Gazza Ladra de Rossini, si fuéralo
de corazones o de amantes o favoritos o privados o martelos).

Fui muy alto cantor, como bajo cantante, en la Capilla de los Serapiones
(donde no se sopranizaba...); conservador,
conservador -pero poco- de Incunables, en la Alejandrina de Panida,
(con sucursal en El Globo y filiales en el Cuarto del Búho).

Hice de Gaspar Hauser por diez y seis hebdémeros
y por otras tantas semanas y tres días fui la sombra,
la sombra misma que se le extravió a Peter Schlémil.

Fui el mozo -mozo de estribo- de la Reina Cristina de Suecia
y en ciertas ocasiones también el de Ebba Sparre.
Fui el mozo -mozo de estoques- de la Duquesa de Chaumont
(que era de armas tomar y de cálida sélvula): con ella pus mi pica en Flandes
-sobre holandas-.

Fui escriba de Samuel Pepys -¡qué escabroso su Diario!-
y sustituto suyo como edecán adjunto de su celosa cónyuge.
Y fuí copista de Milton (un poco largo su Paraíso Perdido,
magüer perdido en buena parte: le suprimí no pocos Cantos)
y a la su vera reencontré mi Paraíso (si el poeta era
ciego; -¡qué ojazos los de su Déborah!).

Fui traductor de cablegramas del magnífico Jerjes;
telefonista de Artajerjes el Tartajoso; locutor de la Esfinge
y confidente de su secreto; ventrílocuo de Darío Tercero Codomano el Multilocuo,
que hablaba hasta por los codos;
altoparlante retransmisor de Eubolio el Mudo, yerno de Tácito y su discípulo
y su émulo; caracola del mar océano eólico ecolálico y el intérprete
de Luis Segundo el Tartamudo -padre de Carlos el Simple y Rey de Gaula.
Hice de andante caballero a la diestra del Invencible Policisne de Beocia
y a la siniestra del Campeón olímpico Tirante el Blanco, tirante al blanco:
donde ponía el ojo clavaba su virote;
y a la zaga de la fogosa Bradamante, guardándole la espalda
-manera de decir-
y a la vanguardia, mas dándole la cara, de la tierna Marfisa...

Fui amanuense al servicio de Ambrosio Calepino
y del Tostado y deMatías Aldecoa y del que urdió el Mahabarata;
fui -y soylo aún, no zoilo- graduado experto en Lugares Comunes
discípulo de Leon Bloy y de quien escribió sobre los Diurnales.
Crucigramista interimario, logogrifario ad-valorem y ad-placerem
de Cleopatra: cultivador de sus brunos pitones y pastor de sus áspides,
y criptogramatista kinesiólogo suyo y de la venus Calipigia, ¡viento en popa a toda vela!
Fui tenedor malogrado y aburrido de libros de banca,
tenedor del tridente de Neptuno,
tenedor de librejos -en los bolsillos del gabán (sin gabán) collinesco-,
y de cuadernículos -quier azules- bajo el ala.
Sostenedor de tesis y de antítesis y de síntesis sin sustentáculo.
Mantenedor -a base de abstinencias- de los Juegos Florales
y sostén de los Frutales -leche y miel y cerezas- sin ayuno.
Porta-alfanje de Harún-al-Rashid, porta-mandoble de Mandricardo el Mandria,
porta-martillo de Carlos Martel,
porta-fendiente de Roldán, porta-tajante de Oliveros, porta-gumía
de Fierabrás, porta-laaza de Lanzarote (¡ búen Lancelot tan dado a su Ginevra!)
y a la del Rey Artús, de la Ca... de la Mesa Redonda...;
porta-lámpara de Al-Eddin, el Loca Suerte, y guardián y cerbero de su anillo
y del de los Nibelungos: pero nunca guardián de serrallo ni cancerbero ni evirato de harem...
Y fui el Quinto de los Tres Mosqueteros (no hay quinto peor) -veinte años después-.

Y Faraute de Juan Sin Tierra y fiduciario de
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2018
grow a beard...
buy a jazz double-bass...
start stroking it...
attempt to look
pensive...
and then write some
Cockney
comedy... and?
   **** Oxford.
      **** 'em good;
can't be,
*******, arsed...
          where's a *******
jazz double bass
the kind i need to stand up
to play?!
where?!
    gone, "nowhere"...
        Achilles would sooner
find a tortoise,
you ******* half-whit
bull bullock base catcher...
yummy yummy...
no ******* double whammy
if there ain't
a greasy dough nnnnnnnn
in my mouth oozing a squid's
mating call...
from the Jules Verne estimate
of how...
big the ******* could become...
oh please...
   **** is a conjunction
word...
akin to and...
     spew effect,
regurgitation, founded upon...
so...
so... farting in a public place
is less offensive than
uttering a word of oath?!
**** me...
    more ****:
less ***** images...
i guess that's how you
habitually attack Christian
h'america...
**** **** **** and impose
a curb of a ***** show me the puppies
kitchen *****, Kentucky style
****!
******* wankers...
dreaming up some ****
in long lost Cockney rhyming
slang for some:
willkommen zu verirrt amstetten...
....................
...................................
..............
................
SCHMILE...
boorish ******* gnomes dancing
the leprechaun gamblers' dance...
skivvy *******...
sure...
censor the words...
but god forbid you censor
showing all the *******...
   because... if you do?
guess what...
i might forget my farming impulse...
of imagining a
    a cleavage to also imply
a pork buttocks...
           funny...
how a show of cleavage is synonymous
with a show of pork
buttocks...
and then i begin thinking of
milking...
which throws a ***** **** out
with the baby and the bathwater
and... i'm shinging...
what's that name of the place?!
   New Orleans!
yeah...
      like some minstrel in that
part of the world that
part of the world that's
a ****-hole...
what?!
      you spew on me...
i spew on you...
         we can at least exchange...
what we "love" about each other...
but i implore!
i implore!
   visit Warsaw!
       alone... no, not with other people...
ah-loan - a-l-o-n-e....
             i'll be your companion,
when you peer at your shadow,
and attempt, to pretend,
to disappear.
Geno Cattouse Jun 2013
1.complete th bridge to the moon started by
Jules Verne and raise the Nautilus..

2.Rebuild the colossus of Rhodes to spec.

3.Take a trip to John Gotti's summer home and split a bottle of Boones
Farm apple wine with him and Emelia.

4. Pull a small sample of bone marrow from Hitlers shriveled corpse for a
Little cloning project that I have been working on.

5.get a head count on all the politicians in the capital who don't consider
Their position a life long free ride with no accountability to the masses..

6. Resurect the cold fusion argument.

7. Run a sub 2 minute mile.

8.kick Tysons but with my right hand tied.

9.mix the perfect martini

10. Start all over again.
Tom Gunn Jun 2012
Man and mouse holding hands, beholding

what they have done together.
A magic Marcelline, MO:

a portal to lands that beckon, but never compel.
Trees, silent water, castle walls dividing

off magic gardens and sacred
spaces.Tiki torches leading in

to a real rainforest with fake animals,
fedora'd adventurers and no dust

or hunger or poison. A whilring, infernal
rocket sprung from the mind

of Jules Verne, raisng your hopes that
one day you'll own that jetpack,

flying car, ticket to the moon.
A fairytale castle, draw-bridge down—

a glittering carousel inviting from behind forbidding walls.
A fort with wide open doors that fear only animatronic

Indians and where every frontiersman is a hero to be
emulated by your children.

You need not choose right away.
No need to be hasty. If you wish, you may

choose to stay here, to linger, the aroma of the popcorn
cart competing with the fragrance

of the popcorn blossoms on the sheltering trees
and the flowerbeds decorating, protecting

Walt's silent, inanimate memorial,
until the stars come out and

the crickets chirp in the voice of a
conscience content, and popcorn

lights form haunting outlines, constellations
telling whispered stories and seductively

suggesting that tomorrow you stand
in line for a new ride: falling in

love, signing the papers, applying
for that loan, giving it just

one more chance. Here, you cannot
sleep, but you will dream.

And rest in the heart, in the womb.
This poem is part of a cycle of poems in progress inspired by Disneyland. Substantive feedback is more than welcome.
Donall Dempsey Jun 2019
OFF THE COAST OF WRANGEL ISLAND

The room was a frozen
block of silence

the out-of-love lovers
like two hairy mammoths

trapped in the ice
of their shared hatred.

Thousand of years had passed
since they had last talked.

Preserved like two rare
artifacts in a museum.

This the "invisible land"
an island of mists and fogs.

They looked like bad
caricatures of who

they used to be
and who

they could never ever
be again.

*

Wrangel Island is an island in the Arctic Ocean, between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea.It lies astride the 180° meridian. The International Date Line is displaced eastwards at this latitude to avoid the island. Wrangel Island may have been the last place on earth where mammoths survived.

The island is subjected to "cyclonic" episodes characterised by rapid circular winds. It is also an island of mists and fogs and is known as the "invisible land."  In literature Jules Verne has his characters trapped on a floating iceberg near here and Cassandra Clare makes it  the seat of all the world's wards, the spells that protected the globe from demons and demon invasion.

She was as it happened was reading Jules Verne's novel 'César Cascabel" whilst he as it happened was reading Cassandra Clare's "Mortal Instruments: City of Heavenly Fir", both entirely different books but both featuring Wrangel Island. I delight in such happenstance and synchronicity. I only knew of it because of the mammoth found there with hair and muscle tissue and blood intact. I was fascinated with photos of it and there was one where a scientist was bending down looking at it on a bench and they were nose to trunk as if having a chat about the years in between that separated them. When I originally wrote the poem I was looking at them in the mirror of their big fat room with the thinest of windows when they thought they weren't being observed and it looked as if the mirror had painted their emotional state and that time hung suspended forever in that one moment. They both could dispute angrily or peevishly about their state whether it be in the voice or even in silent thought. I called them THE WRANGLERS after the mirror's painting of them. Or indeed THE WANGLERS because of their persistent arguing or manoeuvering the other into the worse position so that the other could take the lowish of moral high ground. It was a bit like observing trench warfare back in WW1.

And so it was through all this happenstance that I placed them off the emotional coast of a stormy isolated island...in some limbo "invisible land."

And as to the right or wrong of my two too human artifacts where right or wrong are not all that easy to place? As Michael Pollan puts it "… morality is an artifact of human culture, devised to help us negotiate social relations."

All I knew is that I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in their peculiar shoes or that particular hell.

The room was a frozen
block of silence

the out-of-love lovers
like two hairy mammoths

trapped in the ice
of their shared hatred.

Thousand of years had passed
since they had last talked.

Preserved like two rare
artifacts in a museum.

This the "invisible land"
an island of mists and fogs.

They looked like bad
caricatures of who

they used to be
and who

they could never ever
be again.
Wrangel Island is an island in the Arctic Ocean, between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea.It lies astride the 180° meridian. The International Date Line is displaced eastwards at this latitude to avoid the island. Wrangel Island may have been the last place on earth where mammoths survived.

The island is subjected to "cyclonic" episodes characterised by rapid circular winds. It is also an island of mists and fogs and is known as the "invisible land."  In literature Jules Verne has his characters trapped on a floating iceberg near here and Cassandra Clare makes it  the seat of all the world's wards, the spells that protected the globe from demons and demon invasion.

She was as it happened was reading Jules Verne's novel 'César Cascabel" whilst he as it happened was reading Cassandra Clare's "Mortal Instruments: City of Heavenly Fir", both entirely different books but both featuring Wrangel Island. I delight in such happenstance and synchronicity. I only knew of it because of the mammoth found there with hair and muscle tissue and blood intact. I was fascinated with photos of it and there was one where a scientist was bending down looking at it on a bench and they were nose to trunk as if having a chat about the years in between that separated them. When I originally wrote the poem I was looking at them in the mirror of their big fat room with the thinest of windows when they thought they weren't being observed and it looked as if the mirror had painted their emotional state and that time hung suspended forever in that one moment. They both could dispute angrily or peevishly about their state whether it be in the voice or even in silent thought. I called them THE WRANGLERS after the mirror's painting of them. Or indeed THE WANGLERS because of their persistent arguing or manoeuvering the other into the worse position so that the other could take the lowish of moral high ground. It was a bit like observing trench warfare back in WW1.

And so it was through all this happenstance that I placed them off the emotional coast of a stormy isolated island...in some limbo "invisible land."

And as to the right or wrong of my two too human artifacts where right or wrong are not all that easy to place? As Michael Pollan puts it "… morality is an artifact of human culture, devised to help us negotiate social relations."

All I knew is that I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in their peculiar shoes or that particular hell.
Diandra Pratama Jul 2016
I remember when I saw you on top of the hill; hand in your heart, mouth curved into a crescent-shaped smile.
You looked surprisingly placid for a boy whose mind was like an exploding star.

You couldn't have been more than south of fourteen,
and yet you had the imagination like Verne in revolt;
laughs that akin to an uproar industrial machinery;
and nerves of steel.

And together, you and I were like loose cannons of catastrophic ideas and eclectic dream of travelling around the world in eighty days.

You were my best friend; my confidant,
you were the reason why life was like a waltz to me.

But better yet,
you were my safe haven.

You were my home.
spysgrandson May 2016
in blue depths beyond our sight
day or night, you flagellate flawlessly
as if you had not a care

dare I say you're fleeing
a predator we're not seeing?
or perhaps just at play

in a world Verne created,
a space ahead of its drudging time
perilous, yet sublime

loligo forbesii, I can only imagine
what watery waves you whipped before I had you,
deep fried calamari, on my plate
Proof not all my verse is morose--just most of it!
he had folded photos of Anita Page above his cot,
and a melancholy little crucifix,
and, of course, a long-winded letter from his mum.
he dipped tobacco and always tried to spit it on the barrack’s ceiling.
he would squander half of his canteen on his hair, if it got too muddy in the trenches.
he whittled a bar of soap into a horse one time,
and then washed himself with it right afterwards.
he always put on his cap at this saucy sort of angle,
even though there never was a lady around to woo.
once i saw him read Jules Verne, and I asked him about it,
and he said “Who?  You know I can’t read for squat.”
he was a funny man, you know, a guy that makes life feel good.

two days ago i saw his lungs throb against the walls of his ribcage,
i saw his adam’s apple swell up rotten, and his neck grow thick and veiny.
his muscles spasmed and his orifices emptied and all i could think was
how worthless it is to carve a horse out of soap and then soak it to nothing right after?
it makes me wonder why someone would bother
whittling in the first place.
© David Clifford Turner, 2010

For more scrawls, head to: www.ramblingbastard.blogspot.com
DracoTalpus Mar 2018
Phileas Fogg,
On a brigantine sledge,
Braved the Omaha wind
As it twirled.
So, Jules Verne might say
That a full eighty days
Is plenty to travel the world.

Amelia Earhart
Crossed the sea –
The quickliest feat
…For a girl –
In twelve hundred forty
Short minutes, you know:
Others failed, but gave it a whirl.

Rosemary Doyle,
Our wonderful mum,
Exceeded these
Feats of grand scale!
She has crossed oceans faster,
Breezed over Great Plains,
And – without perspiration – prevailed!

Carefully, casually,
She raised five kids:
‘Neath our burden
She never collapsed.
Loving and giving
Us lives we are living.
Have there – really – eight decades elapsed?

Octogenarian?
Silliest word:
It sounds like
A sea creature’s vet,
But if you want true fun,
Then just orbit the sun
Eighty times, like our mom:  It’s no sweat!


© 2Mar2018 DracoTalpus
For Rosemary N. Doyle
On the occasion of her 80th birthday
I love you, Mom.  Thank you for creating me.  Thank you for including me in your family.  Thank you for loving me right back!  <3  :D
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2016
Sarah and Solomon married at Foxglove in verdant Taranaki…a magical time for everybody at that beautiful, beautiful occasion.

Dear old Grandpa Verne Bell passed from this mortal coil and went on to the next with his typical strong eyed fortitude and open curiosity.

Major earthquake shatters the top of the South island and is felt with trepidation from one end of the country to the other.

Trump hauls votes from the impossible and manufactures an improbable US Presidency…. Much to the embarrassment, alarm and discomfort of the majority of the thinking American population.

Oceans continue to rise and atmospheric temperatures climb…..and nobody really cares enough to try to do anything much about it.

Russia and China flex their military muscle and snub their sabre rattling noses at the West.

Interest rates and the price of gas started to escalate upward again.

Friends and relatives have been rocked by ill health, hardship and misfortune.

Key calls “Enough” and passes the Prime Ministerial gauntlet to a (thankfully), very capable Bill English.

Janet and Marshal both reach out and find new jobs, fresh horizons & new avenues to explore.

Syria slides into chaos and anarchy with absolutely no regard for it’s ordinary, civilian population languishing in the dreadful ruins of East Aleppo.

The Hectors dolphin numbers dwindle to 87 living animals, surviving  globally.



But….We, friends, live in a peaceful oasis…forgotten at the very end of the earth.

We live in a land of plenty and opportunity, a land of rare green beauty where individuality is prized and freedom valued.



May we pause for a moment this Christmas…and appreciate just how ****** fortunate we all actually are?



MERRY CHRISTMAS FRIENDS

M.
Hamilton, New Zealand
20 December 2016
From when I was a little child
I picked up on thought and sound
It isn't always visible but it is still around.
It's the talent and the beauty
The poetry of life
You find it in a sonnet
Or the colours of Monet
In Pavarotti's voice
The world just melts away.
Shakespeare's words? They drip like honey
And illuminate the stage
It sends shivers up the spine
What Wordsworth scribbled on a page.
Jules Verne could tell the future
Da Vinci saw what was to be
Their vision shaped the world we know
Now that is great to me.
Does it have a name?
What Rembrant found within his art?
That secret, silent something
That burns within the heart.
As a child Wolfgang Mozart
Drew everybody's gaze
He serenaded Europe
Wrote music to amaze.
Was Bogart such a legend?
Now, don't speak before you think
Not everyone can breathe life into
A person made of ink.
The passion is alive
It lives inside the soul.
When pen is put to paper
Or the bow goes to the string
When that magic is embodied
We hear the angels sing.
Copyright © 2010
Third Eye Candy May 2013
In the First Kingdom, you find the following... a wave and a cataract for swallowing
and shabby hats.
In the Second Kingdom, Jules Verne hates broccoli and the moon is made of lost keys.
In the Third Kingdom, God knows why you keep breathing while He holds His Breath.
In the Fourth Kingdom, there's nothing There.
In the Fifth Kingdom, Nothing comes after Four.
In the Sixth Kingdom, your hands have a score to settle with the Architect, but you have no hands.
In the Seventh Kingdom,you're naked all the time and every one makes love to you.
In the Eighth Kingdom, the Devil is a Nancy Lad with no agenda
and a distorted corona. And Applebee's are Orange-hornets, thank you very much.
And this poem haunts your spleen.
In the Ninth, you were there
but then
we lost
you at
the
Fair.

and that was sweet.
A un niño, a un solo niño que iba para piedra nocturna,
para ángel indiferente de una escala sin cielo...
Mirad. Conteneos la sangre, los ojos.
A sus pies, él mismo, sin vida.
  No aliento de farol moribundo,
ni jadeada amarillez de noche agonizante,
sino dos fósforos fijos de pesadilla eléctrica,
clavados sobre su tierra en polvo, juzgándola.
Él, resplandor sin salida, lividez sin escape, yacente,
juzgándose.

  Tizo electrocutado, infancia mía de ceniza, a mis pies, tizo yacente.
Carbunclo hueco, *****, desprendido de un ángel que iba para piedra nocturna,
para límite entre la muerte y la nada.
Tú: yo: niño.
  Bambolea el viento un vientre de gritos anteriores al mundo
a la sorpresa de la luz en los ojos de los reciennacidos,
al descenso de la vía láctea a las gargantas terrestres.
Niño.
  Una cuna de llamas de norte a sur,
de frialdad de tiza amortajada en los yelos,
a fiebre de paloma agonizando en el área de una bujía;
una cuna de llamas meciéndote las sonrisas, los llantos.
Niño.
  Las primeras palabras abiertas en las penumbras de los sueños sin nadie,
en el silencio rizado de las albercas o en el eco de los jardines,
devoradas por el mar y ocultas hoy en un hoyo sin viento.
Muertas, como el estreno de tus pies en el cansancio frío de una escalera.
Niño.
Las flores, sin piernas para huir de los aires crueles,
de su espoleo continuo al corazón volante de las nieves y los pájaros,
desangradas en un aburrimiento de cartillas y pizarrines.
4 y 4 son 18. Y la X, una K, una H, una J.
Niño.
En un trastorno de ciudades marítimas sin escrúpulos,
de mapas confundidos y desiertos barajados,
atended a unos ojos que preguntan por los afluentes del cielo,
a una memoria extraviada entre nombres y fechas.
Niño.
Perdido entre ecuaciones, triángulos, fórmulas y precipitados azules,
entre el suceso de la sangre, los escombros y las coronas caídas,
cuando los cazadores de oro y el asalto a la banca,
en el rubor tardío de las azoteas
voces de ángeles te anunciaron la botadura y pérdida de tu alma.
Niño.
Y como descendiste al fondo de las mareas,
a las urnas donde el azogue, el plomo y el hierro pretenden ser humanos,
tener honores de vida,
a la deriva de la noche tu traje fue dejándote solo.
Niño.
Desnudo, sin los billetes de inocencia fugados en sus bolsillos,
derribada en tu corazón y sola su primera silla,
no creíste ni en Venus, que nacía en el compás abierto de tus brazos.
ni en la escala de plumas que tiende el sueño de Jacob al de Julio Verne.
Niño.
Para ir al infierno no hace falta cambiar de sitio ni postura.
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2015
Well you buggers,

Here we are, spread to the four winds of the globe.
No chance for a peck on the cheek or even a Christmas noggin.

But curiously, I think the Christmas spirit flows between us all nicely, we have all had contact this year, some meetings happy some sad but the important thing is we have registered with each other as FAMILY…and therein is the vital living bond.

Time runs between our fingers like sand, we all get bound up in the imperatives of the day. One minute we are kids playing in the back yard, the next we are busy, busy adults tied down by mortgage and commitment…. and then suddenly we slip to the twilight years where, some will say, it is the time to reflect and ponder lost opportunities

We have, all of us, let the urgencies of the day cost us in lost opportunities. We are all guilty of it…..So Janet and I determined this year, not to let this happen….
Not to let this opportunity slip.

Darling Janet and I are having our first Christmas without dear old Verne, Janet’s father; the kids are elsewhere and we find ourselves alone
At the farm in Taranaki. We are going to pack a simple picnic lunch of sandwiches and fruit and toddle down to the black sand beach and the pounding surf at the bottom of Pitone Road and there in the dunes,we are going to raise our ice cold glasses of pinot gris and loudly bellow a toast to all of you to the West wind ….and wish you all, where ever you are….a loving and happy,
FAMILY…..
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Cheers Janet & Marshal
(Please spread this message amongst the troops for us?)
Our family is spread all over the globe.
using the medium of social media
we have gleaned an excellent way to spread the message
Indeed, not just to family, but to our wider family out there in our warm & wonderful community of poets....YOU!
Ken Pepiton Aug 2023
The grand canyon runs between
the part of Mohave County blessed
with coverage
after the fallout
from the fifties,
and the lower part, south of the river,
east of the bend, there at Topock swamp.

Cancers above the line made by the river,
were rewarded, cash in some cases,
class actions and such, after the bloom
in GI Bill Law School Degrees…

leukemia in babies,
Downwinders in Mojave County,
just ended, dead, of northern afflictions.

Things like that and Julia Roberts,
got the voters to agree,
Lawyers should advertise,
- leading to what we have today
free speech, facing a true Kuhnian shift,
Directly presented, plain
for all
to see,
What freedom of the press was
to the owners of all means of exploitation,
freedom of speech, after internet, aight, is to any.
Any who, even you.
Who,
should any ask what Marshall McLuhan
continues to do, through 'is link to all you know,
text in context, denoting informed consent, you
think, as you read, and so
doing you do the deed, done so. We read,
thinking back
only one long mortal lifetime ago, we mostly did not.
On the whole,
have you never imagined
how many more of us know,
what was against the law for beings of the baser sort,
to learn, long
a tradition among the power elites, owners,
of all the national resources,
in a global syndicate,
entities, interests, trusts 'n'such, which
follow the pattern of the jewel merchants,
control the sources.
Restrict library cards immediately,
Carnegie is laughing from his grave… his will
- he did appreciate his Kipling
written in Indian Ink, under the Raj, If inspires yet,
as does Gunga Deen.
Film. Yes. Won't last. that medium,
too much trouble to watch it again, when
one can read a play, or a novel, or a poem per
haps forever, if the terminii are all out of sight.
As a lad, I was allowed to watch all the television,
I wished, and I wished I had a thousand channels,
in 1955, when Wyatt Earp got his life and legend
projected

into the worth cube at the core of mankind…
for all American boys, pun is there, naturally, all
of us American boys, no matter what our mommas were,
we, 1955, had been pledging five days a week, aliegiance,
we were sons of soldiers who had won the last war,
the one in all the inspirational Hays code cleared war movies.

Realist mind game art, in context, humbled,
by the giants tuned into, before the contest began, Truth
who dares, all comers. Common mental trope, all comers
come on, oppose my point and fall across my edge.

Little children, keep your selves from idols, such as
hold I role in all active avatars at any given point
in time, in tyranny over your bit in the mind of man,
taken to play mind games that are crafted for enjoying
the peace of selective reality powers we all can attain.

Write your self a tower to watch from, and watch,
Carnegie reading Kipling
by kerosene Rockefeller sold… meld into if

if you wish, imagine lampblack ink, or better,
squid ink, infused with carbon so pure, it seems
invisible, finest dust of diamond waste, used once
to shine a patterned steel san-mai blade.

Imagine the very smartest, not Einstein, person
alive when decisions were being discussed, crossing
swords with science use and useless social controls,
e.g. you know,
gra-acious example, interesting times, sifting selectors
goodness gracious, we have, in point of fact, too much
to filter with no reason,
why should one care to know why secrets are de rigueur,
poor soul asked what is going on, replys,
regular stuff, I suppose… ah, ag me on, suppose,

I invited Ben, Voltaire, and Nieztsche to cheese,
as I morphed into the Disneyified U.S. Certified myth.
The mouse in Ben and me, was the voice of the NPC.
- we had Verne's spinning disc libraries since
- drop a name from the hagiosphere of AI and IT
- Grace Murray Hopper… she's a memory.

Such books, we hold, as factual data, they hold words,
we, the current people, the fluid factor through which
CG NPCs pass in movies and games and entertainment,
- each pass think
who notices other people?
All the time, I mean, who cares, most of the time?

Crazy edgies, mad folk, filled with insights some time
passing left as artifacts, if you can believe this,
your world view shall encompass all one need know
about
why
we speak of the fall, and of original sin, we allow
priests and politicians and attention pimps, to lie.

Today, own self, and whole self,
declare adaptive lettering tech, publishing far and wide
art insisting, dare do,

think it through, couple thousand words,
what if you learn one cool new way
to think unthinkable things good
to know… post hoc.
We live as loudly as we must... life is simple, not too simple, more is sublime,
not empty of all hope that any thing you believed was a little bit true. Hard to think, but after all easy to get past... life, as a whole.
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2020
Gumballs
from Jules Verne's
mental dispenser
got blown out
of proportion
and popped
his internal clock
now there's never
enough hours in the day
so before global unrest
bursts his bubble
he'd better stop
chewing on ideas
and actually
come up with
a solution
that will stick
I'm just being silly here and not attacking poor Mr. Jules Verne.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2017
and at the end of this session, i'm going to gorge on homemade banana cake, and a glass of milk; hmm, so that's that.

hannah hallysem, chloe vevrier, rosalia verne, dakota skye, nadine jansen, milena d., katrina jade, alison tyler, sasha foxxx, noelle easton, shay fox, kourtney kane, aletta ocean, lexi belle, aria giovanni, maritza mendez, silvia loret, laura lion, ashley graham, latex lucy, alexis texas,  dana dearmond, abella danger, karmen karma, jezebelle bond, keisha grey, karmen grey, jelena jensen, carmen croft, aneta buena, ines cudna, ewa sonnet, emma green, louisa marie, ivy nedkova, karolina pliskova, emma green, louisa marie, ivy nedkova, rooney mara, claire forlani, kelley scarlett, malina may, amirah adara, phoenix marie, foxy di., kenya lust, kiera winters, christy mack, paige delight, faith nelson, darya klishina, sand morris, alysha newman, silvia saint, adele stephens, deven davis, ewa wyrwal, tanya song, synn wagner, christina lucci, hunter leigh, lynda leigh, gemma atkinson, mulani rivera, sarah harding...
        
   all those "expectations" mingling with a *babuska
...
gotta have a babuska after a list like that...
      looks nice, doesn't it?
         see how honest other people can become...
      that's as honest as you're going to get:
i'm hardly an out-of-the-closet gay / intellectual...
and this is hardly the most desireds genetical "encyclopedia"
worth reciting...
      but at least there's no closet,
and certainly no skeleton in it...
  to be honest, i'd love to see a compendium of
a woman's favourite *****,
   oh sure, i can switch off...
    i just start thinking about cow *******
and milk sacks; not that hard;
  ugh... furr... itchy... stroking a cow is like
scratching your skin after the barbers...
milking a cow: ah... another subject
of investigation...
                        why do men not bother being
breast-fed, to out-compete the babe?
seems a shame to leave a vacuum for
capitalism to not investigate, don't you think?
Geno Cattouse Apr 2014
Whenever I can't write it feels like the bucket is sitting at the bottom of the well dredging for sludge..I pull the rope taught and up she comes with a hopefull thuddding sound.knowing full well I will harvest the dregs..Down she goes again.
Muddy thud.

Jules Verne shoots me to the moon as a sit silently in the desolate belly of spherical crater listening for truth or dare....but. just dead air .
Prevaricated Forth Write Declaration!

As most every girl and boy
     taught back in the day,
     or more recently going to Zerns,
     a golden age of story telling,
     when rapt listening ears
     willingly leant eager attention

     to a riveting speaker
     such as this jolly shop
     o' horror keeper learned,
     modest, and non
     establishmentarian obliging self,
     ( who even now doth still yearns)

to spin a tattling tale), this ole codger,
     who today more frequently, keenly,
     and patiently plods along
     memory lane then yesterday
     (along one, whose pathway,
     could be trekked blindfolded

     so often by foot thee trail traversed,
     (yet without ever feeling
     a sense of duff fete) over hills
     and thru woods thick
     with wary, scary,
     and Rem: markably hairy

     muppet like monsters,
     the author, who wrote
10,000 Leagues Under The Sea,
     (and other suspense filled stories namely
     the prolific writer Jules Gabriel Verne's),
vivid imagination,

     would undoubtedly have experienced
     a field day in seventh heaven
     taking wooded rough hewn
     rudimentary walkabout by turns
clear cut versus creepy simply to reach
     a one classroom per grade school,

     where masters did teach
     being apprenticed asper Art Of The Deal
     (latent within power
     to sound convincing, though "FAKE,)"
but convincing legendary
     personal myths repeated to bolster appeal

such as larger then life "Founding Fathers"
unquestionable brazen, brave, and brass
     daring deeds across the Lake
(Atlantic Ocean, whose worsted weave
     sub woofer - did make
the 6:00 o'clock news the evening

     of July 4th 1776, and thus didst spake
(perhaps with the help of Zarathustra)
yet,...the under belly
     of such bravura involved take
king (by subtle or obvious force) lands
     revered by Native Americans

leaving a trail of tears, destruction, and death
     (more accurately genocide), thus my
     (expected patriotism) moored
     within wicked wake,
hence aye avail muted tone deaf
     emotion on par with a charade

particularly, where deportees
     of late awful treatment
force me to a give a low
     (Failing) grade,
where home of the brave
     land of the free do masquerade

(or visa versa) makes a mockery,
     travesty, sham parade
AND this chap feels as if,
     he too partook of
     murerderous indigenous raid!
Y está tu corazón
próximo prójimo
hermano a borbotones
ensimismado dócil triste exangüe
con terribles secretos en tu fondo
con tu ebria soledad acompañada

próximo
algunas veces lejanísimo prójimo
cuantos rostros me diste
me estás dando
sobreviviente atroz sobreviviente
de esta herida sin labios
de esta hiedra sin muro

qué maga
qué sin trenzas viniste
ah prójimo-muchacha la primera
a instalarte delante de mis ojos de niño
que no sabía nada
que no sabía nada
mi dialecto era verte y anunciar para siempre
entre diez compañías de soldados de plomo
mi gran amor deslumbre
mi pobre amor a cuerda

vino el amigo absorto
sin percances
y no se habló de muertes
en su cercado limbo
tan sólo se jugaba
al más allá
y el sábado
era una bruma pero sin reloj
sin llave urgente ni contradicciones
amigo nada más
amigo muerto

los padres
claro
como un gran suburbio
amor congénito en mansa barbarie
subordinado e invasor
amor ciego o miope o astigmático
aún puedo abrigarme en sus imágenes
están aquí al alcance
viejo
vieja
un poco sordos para su propia incógnita
pero siempre pendientes
de mi nueva llegada

venga maestro
no lo olvido
usted me abrió los cielos
colonizó mi alma
con el meñique se alisó la barba
y miró el mundo
(yo estaba en el mundo)
con un desprecio cruel
no le perdono
SU vocación de estafa
ni aun ahora
que está bien muertecito
dios mediante

prójimo
hermano literal
quién sabe
dónde quedó el momento en que jugamos
lanzando al aire nuestros ocho años
de diferencia o de encadenamiento
duermes y duermo
el sueño y el espanto
viajan de tu fatiga a mi fatiga
y viceversa vuelven a viajar
hasta que al fin también
ellos se duermen

prójimo mí enemigo
que me conoce y finge no saberme
y en su tedio descubre
ese rencor enorme y tan minúsculo
por cierto no lo envidio
cuando pronuncia vida y piensa muerte
cuando repite cristo y piensa judas
a esta altura tal vez ya esté oxidado
su resentido embuste didascálico
quizá contemporice y diga ciencia
por no decir conciencia

estás en el pupitre
como yo desterrado
en tanto que en el patio
llueve diagonalmente
el alemán rechina y tú divagas
hasta que la trompada
ese viejo argumento
cae sobre tu oreja que es la mía
y tu alarído estalla para siempre
y ahora la lluvia es sólo vertical

mi mujer está aquí
pero antes mucho antes
se acercó por un patio
de baldosas en rombos
y allí empecé a tomar tremendas decisiones
entonces fui a mirarla desde buenos aires
yo era su prójimo sin lugar a dudas
volví y le dije
piénsalo
pero ella dijo
no necesito pensarlo

prójimo el admirable
el cándido
el impuro
te vi una vez pero nunca me viste
no capitularé ni capitularemos
tan importante como julio verne
vas tripulando una nave una isla
un cuerpo extraño inverosímil nuevo
pero en un lustro apenas
será el cuerpo de todos
ojalá y cotidiano

prójimo en que me amparo
tu compacta amistad
tu vida un tanto mustia
tu faro de confianzas
tus vísperas de solo
son para mí el contorno imprescindible
prójimo-muro gris acribillado
prójimo-pasamano en que me apoyo
cuando desciendo la escalera y temo
que algún peldaño pueda estar podrido

rostro herido heridor
ojos que lo supieron
aduana de la dulce simetría
olvidada presencia inolvidable
estás en algún sitio
en algún tríptico de resignaciones
yo pienso en ti cuando la noche clava
para siempre qué suerte para siempre
otra lanza-nostalgia
en mi costado
y está curazón
próximo prójimo
no te avergüences de su llanto.

la cabeza hace trizas el pasado
fríamente coloca sus razones invictas
divide en lotes la melancolía
negocia cautamente tus acciones en alza
desorganiza para siempre tu magia
te despoja del cándido futuro
amuebla los infiernos que te esperan
después del provisorio desamparo
te hace lúcido y hueco
cruel y lúcido
voraz y pobre lúcido

pero también
por suerte
está tu corazón

ese embustero
ese piadoso
ese mesías.
Childhood Campy Chimera Curtain Call

Arctic bitter dead of winter cold
polar vortex deep freezes each lovely bone
excellent existential prized memory
swimmingly recalls boyhood

listening to drone
of various and sundry
en deer ring fauna
extant amidst greensward,

where imagination hath flown
to imaginary Eden lifting
uber a maize zing ears
cocked towards
Mother Nature's petsmart crafted chorus

flushing out soundcloud
queen of happy campers
with bees zee winged
wonders as they hone

suite tracks unstinting
well crafted aural presentations
intended to entice
a mate opposite jejune

targeting their search
nsync with one or another
favorable counterpart, this buzz zing
destiny could favor a loon

or some other apropos biological entity
(or perchance if desperate to mate) **** sitter
another species including the manifestation
of microbes on the moon

whereat boys and girls bounding,
exclaiming, and yelping
joie de vivre asper when counselors
blow whistle call at high noon
hour of day iz lunch, thence resuming
their made up fun and par lore games
such as knight in shining armor
dashing off to save

damsel in distress signaling
sans SOS and favorite ring tone tune
of potential prince
where young love doth Flickr
oblivious to a similar situation, aye lichen
to avast Marcy's playground

such panoply a prediction
forecast by Doctor Punxatawney Phil
a blue oyster cult meme burr
thus, in lay person terms
six more weeks of winter for 2018 -

so stay warm to stave off feeling offal
bodes ill for species who clamor for warmth -
supposed tell tale shadow
spelt "N+I+L+L"
and remain in hibernation
if opportunities allow,
and be thankful for not bing forced to mill
around seeking warmth
(case in point a street person),

but ye and the big or 'lil
body of warm flesh adjacent to thee
(this day and age -
gender preference a moot factor),

or take stock, stock and barrel,
how other creatures great and small
burrow underground under a hill
or reef amphibians, mammals, reptiles...

instinct can remain 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
a fictitious place evoked by Jules Verne,...
hm...maybe he might breathe
courtesy of an atavistic gill
who would downplay brouhaha
to avoid any cavil.
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2009
Hatchet nose and hooded brow
A wisp of white hair, wind blown now,
Two hawk, blue eyes which see within,
Bush bred, gaunt and pig hunt trim.
Old now in his senior years
Missing June with hidden tears,
Saw Hiroshima's atom death
With tommy gun and sake breath.

A legacy on freckled brow
In melanoma's tumors now,
Lives alone on simple fare
With Smoky cat and favoured chair.
In Wanganui, coastal town
Loves fish and chips and Tui brown.

Hard hands reflect a life of graft
His good firm grip in handshake grasp,
Trialist of some All Black fame
Bread maker in the baking game.
Shearer,farmer, fencer, Dad
White baiting always made him brag,
A dead shot across hills of green
Where hinds would pause to graze unseen.

Daughters fair pursued by some
Who walked the gauntlet of his gun,
Taught the grand kids natural skills
Like setting traps for possum kills,
Shoot a rabbit, catch a fish,
A fry up of my favourite dish.

Missing mates who chose to die
Requiring friends to mourn and cry,
Missing Brian, his only son
And June, his wife,the special one,
Leaving life a vacant space,
A colourless and pallid place,
Except in his emphatic way
He looks at me and stands to say...
"Life must go on my son"
Go mount your bike and pack your gun
And head up to yon wooded hill
To stalk the stag and make the ****.

Staunch, *****, a man of men
Is Verne Bell who I call my friend.

Marshalg
Tauranga
8 November 2009
- From Watching the Ripples Radiate
Are you ready and waiting for this kiss
the sweet kiss
the kiss that I've waited so long for?
I am.

'Twenty thousand leagues under the sea'
and Jules Verne is still waiting for me.
prevaricated forth write Declaration!

As most every girl and boy
taught back in the day,
learning base sic life lessons,
when going to Zerns,
(now permanently closed,
but once upon a time one
bustling, flourishing, thriving
Farmers Market formerly
a year-round farmers' market located
in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania.

It was located along Philadelphia Avenue
near Bartman Avenue,
close to Pennsylvania Route 100.

Two buildings located on the property:
a lowercase "t" shaped main building
and an "L" shaped enclosed
flea market building,
where characters across
all walks of life congregated
gabbled, regaled each the others
akin to golden age of story telling,

when rapt listening ears
willingly leant eager attention
to a riveting speaker
such as this jolly shop
o' horror keeper learned,
modest, and non
establishmentarian obliging self,
(who even now doth still yearns)

to spin a tattling tale, this ole codger,
who today more frequently, keenly,
and patiently plods along
volatile memory lane
visiting woebegone yesteryear
scores of orbitz ago,
those well worn pathways,
could be trekked blindfolded
so often by foot thee trails traversed,
(yet without ever feeling
a sense of duff feet) over hills

and thru woods thick
with wary, scary, nerdy,
and Rem: markably hairy
muppet like monsters,
the author, who wrote
10,000 Leagues Under The Sea,
(and other suspense
filled stories namely
the prolific writer
Jules Gabriel Verne's),
vivid imagination him,

would undoubtedly have experienced
a field day in seventh heaven
taking wooded rough hewn
rudimentary walkabout by turns
clear cut versus creepy simply to reach
a one classroom per grade school,
where masters did teach
being apprenticed asper Art Of The Deal
(latent within power
to sound convincing, though "FAKE,)"

but convincing legendary
personal myths repeated to bolster appeal
such as larger then life "Founding Fathers"
unquestionable brazen, brave, and brass
daring deeds across the Lake
(Atlantic Ocean, whose worsted weave
sub woofer - did make
the 6:00 o'clock news the evening
of July 4th 1776, and thus didst spake
(perhaps with the help of Zarathustra)

yet,...the under belly
of such bravura involved take
king (by subtle or obvious force) lands
revered by Native Americans
leaving a trail of tears,
destruction, and death
(more accurately genocide), thus my
(expected patriotism) moored
within wicked wake,
hence aye avail muted tone deaf

emotion on par with a charade
particularly, where deportees
of late awful treatment
force me to a give a low
*** slant (Failing) grade,
where home of the brave
land of the free (or visa versa)  
do masquerade makes a mockery,
travesty, sham parade
AND this chap feels as if,

he too partook of
murderous indigenous raid
venal business complete,
when every once proud
“Red man” violently slayed
or displayed as token showpiece
bartered analogous
to bustling art house trade
unless demise snatched
uprooted human property
subsequently conveniently waylaid.
Childhood campy chimera curtain call
subsequently hinting (based on accuweather)
the approach of blizzard squall
so burrow under quilted cover y'all
until warm temperatures arrive when springtime
ushers social media platforms
buzzfeeding earthlinked instant karma
jump/kickstarting linkedin outlook
twittering romance in the air that's zall
mother nature holds in store
after Old Man Winter
(lame as a duck this year)
attempts to make one last hooha.

Arctic bitter dead of winter cold
ice sole ace shun finds solitudinarian
to ******* (not prematurely)
shiver me timbers
cursing fate (and diagnosis of
schizoid personality disorder) for being alone
while polar vortex deep sub zero temperatures
freezes each lovely bone
excellent existential prized memory
swimmingly recalls boyhood

listening to drone
of various and sundry
en deer ring fauna
extant amidst greensward,
where imagination hath flown
to imaginary Eden lyft ting
uber a maize zing ears
cocked while doodling towards
Mother Nature's petsmart crafted chorus
flushing out soundcloud

queen of happy campers
with bees zee winged
wonders as they hone
suite tracks unstinting
well crafted aural presentations
intended to entice
a mate opposite jejune
targeting their search
nsync with one or another
favorable counterpart, this buzzing

destiny could favor a loon
or some other apropos biological entity
(or perchance if desperate
to mate) **** sitter
another species including the manifestation
of microbes on the moon
whereat boys and girls bounding,
exclaiming, and yelping
joie de vivre asper when counselors
blow whistle call at high noon
hour of day iz lunch, thence resuming

their made up fun and par lore games
such as knight in shining armor
dashing off to save
damsel in distress signaling
heroism asserts itself really soon
sans SOS and favorite ringtone
(emulating Fisher Price) tune
of potential prince
where young love doth Flickr
oblivious to a similar situation, aye lichen
to avast Marcy's playground.

Such panoply a prediction
forecast by Doctor Punxsutawney Phil
a blue oyster cult meme burr
thus, in layperson terms
six more weeks of winter for 2023 -
so stay warm to stave off feeling offal
bodes ill for species who clamor for warmth -
supposed tell tale shadow

spelt "N+I+L+L"
and remain in hibernation
if opportunities allow,
and be thankful for not bing forced to mill
around seeking warmth
(case in point a street person),
but ye and the big or 'lil
body of warm flesh adjacent to thee

(this day and age -
unlike stereotypical storybook account
about Jack of all trades and Jill
exhibiting traditional garb
many kin did instill  
gender preference a moot factor),
or take stock, stock and barrel,
how other creatures great and small

burrow underground under a hill
(shaped like an upside down pineapple)
or reef amphibians, mammals, reptiles...
instinct can remain
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
a fictitious place evoked by Jules Verne,...
hmm...maybe he might breathe
courtesy of an atavistic gill,
who would downplay brouhaha
to avoid any cavil;
nevertheless any objectionable content
forward complaint to yours truly
stating point of view
before the end of April.

— The End —