"walkabout" poems
Nan,
I wrote this poem for you to keep
As you lie peacefully asleep
To share the stories you once told
Sat in your chair growing peacefully old
I will always remember those days
When I sat up to the table studying the maze
Of thousands of puzzle pieces in my gaze
However I was never fazed
Because you were always there to guide the way.
I will always remember your trips out and about
Although never adventurous I felt,
McDonald's and M&s; without doubt,
Were you favourite places to walkabout
I will always remember your creative flare,
Your knitting needles and you cross-stitch squares,
how you could sit and chat, yet knit with care
Always seemed so unfair
But most of all, I wrote this poem to say thankyou
Not just from me but from all the family too
For the wisdom and knowledge you once shared
For showing you loved us and that you cared
I wrote this poem to say goodbye
As you watch us from up high
I remember all the fun times we had
As my friend and as my Nan
And I miss you more than words can say
I hope we can meet again someday
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 5:37 PM UTC
It was not, by any means, a loss of faith;
Indeed, her devotion was a boundless, unfettered thing
Beyond proscription, beyond rote chant and catechism,
And what she found as a novitiate
Were shuttered gates and gossipy confessionals,
Standoffish priests, pig-eyed and pinch-lipped
Sisters who thought life’s commerce
No more than mechanical prayer and spotless linens,
The whole enterprise
Smacking of the exclusion of Heaven’s bounty.
So she demurred when the time came to take her orders,
And she returned to the world of pavements and lesser pieties,
Free to seek God on park swings and barstools,
In pleasures of the pastoral and the profane,
Though her faith is no Dionysian walkabout,
As she is passionate to the cusp of maniacal
When it comes to the Book of James’ admonition upon works;
She is often found among the sisters she once tiptoed alongside
At food pantries and clothing drives
(She is scrupulous about ministering to only secular needs,
As the Bishop is not happily disposed towards those
Who choose not to take the veil,
And the specter of excommunication is a prospect
Too awful to contemplate)
Afterwards clambering onto some vaguely roadworthy MTA bus
Back to her studio apartment in Green Island,
Where she often walks down to the Erie Canal lock nearby,
Praying for those who have travelled near and upon the water,
Convenience store clerks and ragged Irishmen fleeing famine,
Feral kittens and insufficiently mourned mules.
Nov 16, 2017
Nov 16, 2017 at 10:39 AM UTC
one day the giant teacher
walked pupils round the world
some small giant boys
some small giant girls
jimmy giant stick your hand
down through the cloudy mist
tell me our location ...
his methods had a twist
think we are in india
triumphant in his call
i can smell the curry
and feel the taj mahal
julie giant,tommy, joe
***** stan, and sid
egypt was the answer
they touched the pyramid
china, shouted sally
i can feel the wall
chinese folk in paddy fields
i can touch em all
tiny taffy last in turn
came trailing from behind
dai stick your hand down through the sky
and see what you can find
BLAENAVON, shouted dai
while clutching at his crotch.
can you feel the big pit?
no,.... some **** stole my watch
Mar 7, 2010
Mar 7, 2010 at 1:39 PM UTC
Winter's unsteady weather
cold, cold, hot desert
on this walkabout with severe angles of sun
icy mornings drip into the sweat of day
the impasse of giant stones the gods have laid
to stop or climb another way
egos travel irretrievable, sink into what is real
here we scale thorny towers of denial
revealed, peeled in layers - to cry, to smile
meanwhile awakened, shaken
from the sleep of our amnesia.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 9:24 AM UTC
I found quiet reflection
in the city tonight,
quieter than any dirt road
we have back home.
Bus brakes squealed
over bar patrons carousing.
Life in a snapshot vacuum,
solitude in the sound.
I found myself on a
stone wall tonight,
I could see through
the years to the end.
Footsteps w/ghosts
mingled w/ those present.
Life in self-discovery,
comfort in realization.
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 4:01 AM UTC
an animal never commits an injustice
-a dog
-a cat
they are true to their nature, and that is quite a lot
what of Man?
the slaver?
the one with all the modern ideas?
the one with the white skin?
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 7:39 PM UTC
“I’m still in awe of words” (in life, as in poetry, timing is everything)
objects, humans, surprise and interrupt our
daily modalities, knocking us, yo! to the ground,
we, pounding it, for the word void appears,
the frustration of incapacity incarcerating,
accompanied by the loudest silenced scream,
of no poetry available, try again later!
in life, as in poetry, timing is everything
we walkabout, thinking of the scheduled eventualities, or
the dates calendar-circled, though some questioned marked,
in pencil inserted, will I be a mother, find me a husband,
a human grander grandee, fit to be with me a noble progenitor
of more than our generation, watching the sidewalk cracks for an
inkling of when, on or about such and such an alteration,
a seam undone,
a stumbling, seeing a realization as we fall, hands extending,
a notice of arrival,
all needing reconnoitering, commemorating, a poem prepared,
but none to no avail
in life, as in poetry, timing is everything
so we are in awe of words, so necessary, everybody knows,
the awe in awesome, a description for the pixels encapsulates
in I-phone photos,
the where and the why of when, I was grinning like a stupid fool,
the inability to deliver precisely when required the covering of
an appropriate description, your words, use your words, will
fail you spectacularly and so we remain awed, realizing
in life, as in poetry, timing is everything
but awesomely awesome word worlds, near and dear, held forever
in scrapbooks, the literary overlay of the treasures of everyday life,
are the still life of our longevity contextual, the celebratory,
the unexpected losses, largest to smallest, in size order,
kept fresh when you flip through those poems in dusty binders,
in oversized sewing boxes, yellowing in concert with our eyes,
graying with follicles of past pluperfect,
recalling not just the when’s, but the more important, now, the
wherefore and whereupon, the words marking the conjunctions,
recoding the recorded synapses firing sequentially, brain to fingers, the ah so of the poetry of lifetimes
“I’m still in awe of words” (in life, as in poetry, timing is everything)
<>
Saturday
September
21st
2019
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 1:31 PM UTC
A dutchman in dusty brogans
Hill and gully.
Walkabout dreamer mastlless ship
Hill and gully.
Raggamuffin rover.
Hill and gully .
Phoenix scattered in the sand
Smoldering embers.
Hill and gully
Shimmering in the distance
oasis in the heat..
Hill an gully walkabout
Waltzing all about
One day he walks up to himself
And ends his walkabout.
One climbing uphill
One trodding down
Tuckererd out and out of tucker
Waltzing matilda
Endless walkabout.
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 11:16 AM UTC
Tales told to me by my grandmother of the Duende.
as the campfires danced . The black leopard
stood far back in the trees
A ghost in the machine as we describe it today.
Jettisoned by the sun gods
for knowledge of self one little elf.
Now Boogeyman
Hobgoblin.
Troll. A manifestation of all men fear.
To walkabout and scurry in the pale moonlight.
The Duende awaits the ship in the night sky
lift him up away to the
end of time.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 2:51 AM UTC
It's ninety degrees in the shade back home
And September brings no relief I fear
From sweating and fretting, oh, no, let's go-
We'll be riding on the Rocky Mountaineer
Expecting the best, we heard the "All aboard!"
To the sound of bagpipes whining
Longing to see mountains, trees and streams
But it's for sighting of bears that I'm pining
The meals keep coming-no one stays hungry
With our hostess, Holliday, we haven't a care
By the end of the day we spied osprey, geese and ducks but
When pulling into Kamloops, no one had spotted a bear
A walkabout, then sleeping so deeply
Whisked back on board by our competent crew
I remembered my dream of a bear in a stream
With her cubs-how I wish it comes true
The Monashee Mountains are so peaceful
We spy snow-capped peaks from afar
The leaves on the trees changing gold and red
But rolling into Tumtum still no bear
Soon we crossed the Columbia River
Salmon tantalizing eagles for a bite
While passing through the town of Revelstoke
A family of bears-all plastic-came in sight
"Look out!" came a call from the front of the train
A signal to us who pulled up the rear
We "Red Line" passengers ready with cameras
A false alarm-no bear or moose is near
The Selkirk Mountains promise some glaciers
And Stonycreek Bridge is followed by lunch
The Kicking Horse River showed spirit it's true
But no bears will show up is my hunch
And so surely to see that elusive bear of my dreams
I'll just have to return come next year
Til then I will dream salmon-filled mountain streams
And the all-aboard call of the Rocky Mountaineer
Oct 23, 2015
Oct 23, 2015 at 12:54 PM UTC
It'll all be over in about eight minutes,
Give or take, depending on your side of the Earth,
Plasma therapy for the masses.
Just like that, we're all crispy critters,
Pork rind skins flavored with dehydrated sea-salt.
That beautiful aurora-generating magnetosphere,
Shrinking daily, as the planet's poles reverse,
Will puncture like a too thin prophylactic.
The Christians will have just minutes,
Reminding us that we were prophesized
To all go out in fire and overlooking
That we're actually being ionized with radiation ---
A mere trifle to the True-Believers.
Will the Dow-Jones sell off in those final moments?
Will the Russians attempt to launch a Soyuz?
The Brits will take it all in stride with another pint;
Aussies venture on their final walkabout.
As for me, I'm gonna saddle up a pony
heading straight out to greet the Joshua trees.
I want to meet annihilation on my own terms.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 2:28 PM UTC
intending Walkabout
with personal creations all acrumble as we move
our long held sacred stories shown untrue
but let us go
the dreaming muscle will sustain
beauty consciousness entrain
unknown need not submit to fears
the demons not to rule
with baggage left behind us
we can swing a freedom dance
lessons need not bear a whip
we may just ride creatorship
trust love to rise above the mask
and find we're worthy of no task
and suffering just may not after all
be the chosen path
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 4:56 PM UTC
spring has sprung
or haven't you heard
can't you tell
by the singing of birds?
winter has gone
and it's not too late
but there you exist
behind a closed gate
sat at your desk
no listening to birds
how you don't live
I find quite absurd
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 4:31 PM UTC
I was bathing in the sterling, fawning light there dimmest be when I came upon a phenomenon unbeknownst to me.
Quiet, bluish lights dancing in the pale, blinking every time -again and now but a chorus faithfully throughout.
What was this, a faerie funeral?
Perhaps a will-o-wisp walkabout?
Fly, oh, the Valkyrie, I feel you may 've missed you two or three.
What is this hovering, waving sight -harbingers of ancient light?
Stole one from a widow clothed in black, turns out they're bonny baby fireflies, imagine that.
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 12:25 PM UTC
I've missed the late train of thought to catch the long haul flight of fancy on the first leg of my voyage of discovery.
I'm running wild on a walkabout seeking adventures abroad without a reliable plot vehicle.
I've worn through my home truths and need to leave to be able to return my gaze with fresh lenses and a new perspective on my soles.
But right now you'll find me left on the platform of potential motion.
Sep 19, 2016
Sep 19, 2016 at 8:00 AM UTC
What do you say to a man
Who has lost his heart
Because his dream of life
Was so torn apart.
What do you say to the flowers
Whose petals and odor so sweet
Left a man begging love
At her feet.
What do you say to the world
Where love and peace are so void
Of any connection with religion.
What do you say to the political king
Who rules with the mighty button
And dreams of everyone knowing
Who is Boss.
Well, I probably say zilch
And go my walkabout way,
Waiting until the day I will
Mark an x within a circle
And try again.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 9:15 PM UTC
Sits between twin bluffs burrowing into neon souls
long to be seen in a future frame of corpses and flipping
through the lenses of the kaleidoscope 1916 or there abouts.
Mr Edison took full advantage of the moment transitioning for all time the boundaries.Maybe Muybrige in1888.
The here and now. The real and surreal. the equation is now unbalanced.
Is seeing now believing? or is believing a reason to see.
The proof is in the putting.
Dead men long digested in soil and ground can still emit sound and point a blame-full finger
Linger if you dare in the baleful stare of the science.
quiet, silence, desist. No
even virtue can not still the burning light.
cellulose spirits on walkabout lookout from the past again and again
flickering things they be. conjure you as well as you conjure them.
The end is sight at the bottom of the hill
steel rails to nowhere still squeal to silence,
The riders swing free and lite on Italian loafers and
skulk away. padded shoulders conceal weak wills and
weaker hearts still.
Silver screen visual refraction
once there for all to admire must now bow deeply.
Curtsy?
Vanish and still remain at the pointed end of it.
Jul 7, 2013
Jul 7, 2013 at 9:48 PM UTC
Why ya come around,
Knockin on my window?
Rain rain go away,
Come again another day.
Little walkabout
Roll in, Storm out
Whistle Whistle, Windblow
Grit teeth, Tin-foil
Humble Rumble
Sunshine Spills upon the soil
Cotton sails away
Safe in sound and I'm still,
Making Noise.
La Da Da Da's
Well wisher, wish bigger
Grave digger, dig quicker
Cuz it's all in the statistics.. right.
Les't ya missed it
Then it's really all quite,
Insignificant!
Now if you wish to catch a fish, ya simply need to sink your hook
Impaling bait on anchor weights, take a break, read a book,
Take a look, inside yourself, remind yourself to check the knot you tied yourself
It's gotten loose, your food is on the move,
You're singing
La Da Da Da's
Rain, Rain
Go, Away
Rain, Rain,
Go, Away,
Why ya come around
Knocking on my window?
Knocking on my window
Knocking on my window
Why ya come around?
Why ya come around?
Why ya come around still,
Making noise.
La Da Da Da's
Da Da Dum.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 2:41 AM UTC
Fantasizing everyone
Sexualizing everyone
And why?
I am alone
Fantasizing everyone
Sexualizing everyone
Again.
I'm alone
And I
Devote myself to life as if to keep
The stars promised of our destiny
Safe and strong and confronting
Their mirrors with the proper self applause
Alone.
I contain a fire, the raging heat
The signal pyre, Autumn and the Spring
For heat, I chill with my demeanor
For cold, I prefer to warm your
Goosebumps with my open mouth
If permitted take the walkabout
To linger with my fingers down your leg
If permitted, take the hidden way
To kiss your heart and light your path
With the source of all your worry
Nurtured between my lips
Fantasizing everyone
Sexualizing everyone
And why?
What connectivity is left to crave?
The men who back their friends
Into corners after arranging
Clandestine ******* after
Clearing out the place to have their way
The men who stand with ****
In hand, pathetic and commanding
Limp of love, and targeting
The the light they view as weak
I was made just for that
Assembled in a factory
As an indentured guide
To lead to the promised land
They drew up my design
Schematic with *******
And motherly empathy
Perfect for abuse
And a ***** perfect
For dysphoria
For when I learn to love myself
It reminds me I'm
Armed with alarm
And filled with the fluid
The learned are simply right to hate
Alone.
Apr 12, 2018
Apr 12, 2018 at 3:42 AM UTC
Digeridoos are back in stock
Said the notice in the bric-a-brac shop
Are the West of Scotland Numpties
On their own Dreamtime quest?
Are they contemplating their navels
Through the holes in their stringvest?
Could they realize their chip-papers
Hold the answer to their havers
And the Buckfast in the Hand gripped
Tight is causing calluses in the brain.
Corks dangling from their hats
Swinging like disorientated bats
In ryhthm to the dance of delirious tremor
The adrenaline is pumping.
Mossies no, but midgies, aye,
A stark contrast to the Kappa motifs;
Are the natives going walkabout,
In the local run-down mall?
Calling everyone mate,
In an accent you love to hate
Walkabout, lost in the wilderness
Wandering through the bush.
Outback here there ain’t no
Crocodiles, only quilted, padded cells.
Hand to wall a red imprint,
Not paint, my boy, but blood.
This lot would embarrass any Aborigine
Because they havnae got
An original thought.
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 5:56 AM UTC
I'm going walkabout
It's time to get away to the outback.
I've been here for years.
It feels like I'm seeping into the seams
of the stitching of yesterday's dreams
And I've got to go.
No one will notice,no one will know
If I don't turn up for the show they'll just think that I passed.
My turn has come to get on the road and to run as fast as I can.
You can't catch this man he's to quick.
Tied to the past though I maybe
I am no baby when it comes to a race
I set the pace
And I'm off.
Walkabout
Talk about a jape
This jackanapes is making his track
And he ain't looking back.
I am gone as soon as the sun makes a face
In the morning this place will be history.
That's me.
Gone in a flash.
Now I must dash off and pack my walkabout sack
With a brolly and boots,two suits and a pair of old jeans.
That seems about right.
This time tomorrow night
I'll be far away.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 2:36 PM UTC
Being found is not a concern
spirited truth bring wonderous burn
Not asking much in satisfaction
To walkabout break down my load of doubt
Long before it made you blue
I was born in love with you
I was born in love with you
I was magnetized by you
Proving parallel with time and polar scars
I was equally born to be spurned by you
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019 at 12:39 AM UTC
She creeps into the corners of my mind,
I find her there waiting where
she builds our nest.
I rest my eyes upon her face,she faces me,I long to be a little nearer,don't know how to make this feeling clearer,but I try,
she wants to fly
I want to nest but
she knows best.
There is time enough for all of that,time to kiss and hug and chat and time to love a little more.
Tonight she wore a cocktail dress,not to impress,but just to show that she knows what I want to know and I know too,
she waits for me,
I wait for her
somewhere in the corners of my mind.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 5:44 PM UTC
again, this thing about the cartesian res cogitans
(thinking thing), substance and extension...
i’m pretty sure the darwinistic expression
of early model does not suit this model,
my own version i wrote once, res vanus (empty thing)
fits the gig better - we who can now snuggle in duvets,
who housebound the wild boar,
who milk cows with technological octopi tentacles,
who switch hot dogs with popcorn in the dark,
who ice-skate at somerset house at christmas,
who take diamond bling and christmas tree bulb bling
to equal the same credit on plastic,
who with polystyrene foam beat nature
by showing nature it couldn’t digest it on whatever
level of insect and parasite,
well have all the luxuries now, and we found them
not so much from thinking but from emptiness,
there is more chance of the eureka in res vanus than
there is in res cogitans - it’s the spontaneity you see,
and less need to narrate: love, lost love, aching love , ex lovers.
what else is there? it’s the easier assumption to have
with the niche topic in relation to kant’s noumenon (thing in itself),
i don’t know why i want to mention this orientation
to further the explanation -
early man was defined by res vanus - the sensual overload,
the prime, being empty and forced into the heat and the cold
and the mystic tiger hunger -
and still as defined by res cogitans, we pause and feel empty,
not so much in terms of emotion, but in terms of thought,
however we no longer gather at the campfire,
few people crowd by a lightbulb to talk fables with a
memory of achilles ajax and hector...
we need neon rainbows to huddle -
whether that be by eros shooting the neons of piccadilly circus blind,
or by televisions or computers,
rarity a fire that crept into the ribcage and gave way to
a macaw song of cross-dimensional sophistication off mayan jungles.
Nov 21, 2015
Nov 21, 2015 at 12:11 PM UTC
this debt, this book, this tort,
so overdue, uncivil wrong demanding reconciliation,
that the librarians sent the hoodlums
to remind me of my obligations
there must be unfinished, three or four Gebbie precursors,
lying about awaiting further final definition
unmarshaled me, unable to see them through to completion,
but my hindsight, my guilty plea, aided by an assertive,
rear self-kicking, offers me some motivation immediacy
When I see the Auckland Sky Center in photos,
a hard hatted man with softest heart always,
is on top, doing his native Aussie global
(in place) walkabout, better to see,
the cubature volume of the global poetry underneath his feet,
the poetic underworld, needing a
Gebbie supervisory drilling read down
Enough!
unsatisfactory above this ditty notation for one who
tenders unto me comforting words that
drill down so deeply, keeping,
"the night shall not disrobe you,"
that only a single rhyming word
is satisfactory but yet too,
is insufficient to capture
the audio of innards weeping
surely aware, the nighttime, is when I best my own analytics,
disrobing in a room of black letters on a white background
for all who stumble by moonlight on the bards of "perchance,^"
giving pieces of me to the those who not only read my verses,
but those who ken
that the unspoken spaces in between,
containers of what is not writ,
but only modestly well hid,
is where lies oft the more important script
and he gets that...
where the skills when most needed?
his precision will deserves artistry, not sophistry,
and I am flailing, failing inadequately to pay my overdue
it is early morn in Taranaki,
perhaps he will see this lackey's lacking insufficiency,
before he goes climbing man-made towers
that bear witness
to mens bigger dreams,
perhaps when he returns later tonight,
in a snifter of old malt scotch,
his "last one for the road"
he will see it floating,
and think of me,
this time, happily,
disrobing mine soul's own nighttime,
trusting him to keep all safe,
entrusting it to him,
and to Janet,
my best,
red and black,
sweetest dreams
<>
https://hellopoetry.com/marshal-gebbie/
9/5/17 13:55pm
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 1:53 PM UTC