Gabriel Gadfly's Blog, page 20
February 7, 2017
Build the Soil
I’ve been thinking of how to fix the earth.
The front yard of this house is only sand,
an acre of desert where nothing grows up.
Rain runs off, elopes with the foundation
of the earth of my birth,
a river that eats
from doorstep to driveway,
and I wonder how long
before it takes this house with it,
how long before it takes me with it,
how long before we are swept into the street.
Today, I read a book about compost,
about eggshells and nitrogen,
about humus, pine straw, rotifers,
how broken things decompose
to bind themselves back together,
how decay has a health in it,
a secret science of lignin and bacteria
to rebirth the earth of my birth.
The book tells me patience
is the earth-tender’s friend —
take the slow years
for redworms and food scraps
to grow the soil before you
grow the seeds of grass and flowers —
but the only patience I have
is reserved for my own molder.
Anyway, rich soil won’t help
without a way to keep it in place.
Landscape is just as important:
gird the property line with stone and log,
tuck the trees into their beds of mulch,
clear storm drain and ditch so maybe
the next downpour won’t drown me out.
Erosion control takes retaining walls
just as much as it takes healing.
The post Build the Soil appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
February 6, 2017
Family History
Lately, when I cannot sleep
I catch myself trying to inventory injury:
My mother as fracture and seizing,
as the snakes beneath her belly
that hissed holes in themselves,
as weariness that never seems
to leave her even after rest.
I log my father
as sunken lung and lacerated brow,
as miniscus gnawed by a wolf of bone,
as arthritis and achilles,
as apnea,
brother as gout and tension,
sister as cracked calcaneus
in her tiny foot,
as body and brain
betrayed by birth,
and further back
the lungs of grandfathers
and a grandmother’s heart.
Here are my own contributions:
gallstones and poison
that ground up my gut,
panic wails in my throat,
wheeze and night sweat,
and under it all, a deep unsettling,
a squid in the murky gulf,
suckers fanged into my ankles
until I grow tired
of kicking towards shore.
Here is why I record this witness
of wounds: I remind myself
that even all these traumas
cannot frighten off laughter and love.
The post Family History appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
February 3, 2017
$7 Sevenlings for Valentine’s Day!
Valentine’s Day 2017 is just around the corner. This year, I’m offering a special promotion for my readers — commissioned sevenlings!
For $7.00 USD, I will write a personalized Sevenling Valentine’s poem for your loved one.
Poems will be delivered by email by February 13th, so you can give them to your loved one on Valentine’s Day.
What are Sevenlings?
A Sevenling is a short seven-line poem, consisting of two stanzas of 3 lines each, plus a final conclusion line. The first stanza contains three similar or contrasting elements, such as a list of places, objects, ideas, etc.
The second stanza also contains three elements. The final line provides a narrative summary or interesting juxtaposition. I’ve written several examples, which you can find here.
What I need from you
When you place your order for your personalized Sevenling poem, please use the available fields to include three (3) details about your loved one that you’d like me to include. They can be any three details. For example:
Three places you’ve visited together
Three physical details you love about them (the shape of their hands, the way their hair curls, etc.)
Three habits you find endearing — or frustrating!
Three goals you’ve worked on together
Or anything else!
You can also use the optional notes field to include anything else you’d like to mention.
What you get from me
You provide three elements to incorporate into the sevenling; I’ll provide the other three, so this piece will be a collaborative effort between you, the one who loves, and me, the poet. When you give it to your loved one, they and you can know that you had an integral part in crafting this piece of poetry.
Single? No worries!
If you’re alone this Valentine’s Day, let me make it a special day for you! Include three details about yourself, and I’ll take care of the rest.
Order now!
This is a limited time offer! I’ll only be taking orders through February 12, 2017, so get yours in today! Payment accepted through Paypal.
The post $7 Sevenlings for Valentine’s Day! appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
Cherita: Morning
I wake craving coffee
and you, warm cupful of you,
wakeful pot full of you,
daybreak you, stirring you,
integral step
of my morning ritual you.
The post Cherita: Morning appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
February 2, 2017
Cherita: Harvest
Tonight the moon is a scythe.
She reaps
the stalks of stars
from a field so spacious,
its harvest refuses
to be weighed.
The post Cherita: Harvest appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
February 1, 2017
Sevenling (What I Found In The Earth)
What I found in the earth at Brierfield:
shards of white china, a deer bone knife,
a slave mother’s beads carved by hand,
and what I found in the earth at Tannehill:
two thousand iron nails, door hinges,
hearth stones still scented with rain and earth.
In the clay, I even excavated myself.
The post Sevenling (What I Found In The Earth) appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
January 31, 2017
Young Beowulf Learns of Love and Rejection
Obviously,
the woman lacked brains.
How could she not appreciate
the personal attention to detail
inherent in a bouquet of limbs
torn from the shoulders of trolls?
Yes, the oath to out-drink
the entire lodge in her honor
might have been ill-professed,
but couldn’t she see the tender heart
his ripped frame concealed?
Unperturbed,
he prepared to try again.
perhaps a rousing war song,
bellowed beneath her window,
would win his lady’s love.
The post Young Beowulf Learns of Love and Rejection appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
World Cup
The World Cup is close
and someone asked me to
write a poem about soccer.
This is as close to the game
as I’ve ever come:
a girl kissed me in the center circle
of the campus soccer field,
thirteen minutes after midnight,
under a rainy summer sky
in my sophomore year,
and for the minutes
and seconds of that kiss
the world became a rush and a roar
as if there were
ten thousand flashbulbs
alive in my veins
and my heart couldn’t beat any faster
even if she’d asked it to.
And then,
and then….
she walked away
to let someone else hold her
and I learned what every
player on the field learns:
the World Cup is yours
and then it is not.
The post World Cup appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
With Friends Like These
A boy, buried to his neck
in the sand by the surf.
His friends laugh,
pack the sand
smooth it down
snap a picture
and await the rising tide.
The post With Friends Like These appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
What Loving You Was Like
Like the taste of wind escaping my hands.
Like tea gone cold, too steeped, unsipped.
Like letters, writ large upon a wall, such that
they can be read only one at a time
and the complete word never grasped.
Like time-travel science, sabotaged by itself
and terminated before it could learn its own extended secret.
Like a fat cat’s dream of gazelle in savanna grass,
interrupted by the creak of a tuna can lid opening.
Like graffiti on train cars, constrained to tracks,
observed and forgotten at the momentary
crossing of paths, but remembered,
perhaps with regret, by its artist.
The post What Loving You Was Like appeared first on Gabriel Gadfly.
