Gabriel Gadfly :: Poetry

Liferaft / Loveraft

Gabriel — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:28:38 +0000

I am afloat
In the white rift
Between the ragged edges
Of your torn paper heart.
This is a floodplain
And your wet red ink
Bleeds over the levy wall:
I need you to blot this valley dry.
I don’t want to be swept
Out of you.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 23, 2009

The Leopard and the Moth

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:54:20 +0000

You’ve got snow leopard eyes.
I’m an
Oldwife Underwing
Perched on the last wheat stems,
Sunning myself
Before the cold world sleeps.
Frostbound tigress,
Prowl under the bridge of trolls:
The toll is a knife in your mouth,
And I’d break my heart on your
Headstone
If I could just find the perfect
Elegy to sing for you.
The ice on the reeds
At the river’s bank
Melts beneath your breath.
I want that breath on my neck–
Sandpaper tongue–
And teeth to reap
The red grains from it.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

I Hold Your Heart

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:54:56 +0000

I hold your heart.
A pilfered key to
A box of thoughts and secrets.
I’ll unlock doors inside you
That you never knew were sealed.
I’ll suture wounds
You never knew weren’t healed.
A key, a needle, a knife:
The scalpel with which
I’ll save your life
Or take it.
I’ll make your life,
Or break it.
I hold your heart in my hand:
Intact and beating,
Or broken and mosaicked.
I hold your heart.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

Kitty is a Dancer

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:55:20 +0000

Kitty is a dancer.
She steps a pirouette
A cigarette tucked between
Her bristled lips.
Her hips wear the weight
Of fifty-eight years,
And the hoops in her ears
Whirl like golden suns around her head.
She is a diner diva:
Empress of the chrome palace.
Kitty is a dancer.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

Burn

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:55:43 +0000

She kissed me.
Kerosene tongue under a charcoal sky,
And what could I do
But burn? But yearn
For more of that
Thistle fire tingle on my lips.
She kissed me.
I could melt glaciers with this.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

Prometheus Appeals To Zeus

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:56:06 +0000

Isn’t the eagle a little
Unnecessary?
I mean,
Maui did it too,
And no one gnaws
His liver.

You know as well as I do
That my gift is more a curse
Than anything.

So I gave them fire.
Yes, they can bake bread,
And that offends your
Sensibilities,
But they’ll burn their daughters
Too,
And soon, their smoking world
Will smother them.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

Death

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:56:28 +0000

Yanomamo women
Drink the bones of their
Broken husbands,
An osteomemorial,
A final body-body fusion
Sex-hunger copulation
He will live on.
There is no birth and no cessation.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

Phoenix

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:56:55 +0000

The phoenix, dead
In your ashtray,
Waits for the warmth
Of your breath
Between her wings.
Lips parted,
You could exhale embers
If you could just
Remember
The taste of lighter fluid
On your tongue.
But you doused that fire long ago.

The burn of your heart
Gave way to heartburn
And still-cold TV dinners.
Among sinners,
You’re a lukewarm saint.
And you couldn’t wait
To stand at Peter’s gate,
But that halo you’re expecting
Is a consolation prize.
Heaven’s not a last reward:
It’s fireflies behind your eyes,
The spark that leapt
From her lips to your thighs
The fire that burned
When your heart beat the skies
Your phoenix once flew through.

Here’s a secret:
You
Are a match,
Waiting to be struck.
So scrape yourself against the floor,
Start with a spark
And burn to a roar.
Your phoenix can fly,
Your phoenix can soar,
But only if you remember
What your life lives for.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

Young Beowulf Learns of Love and Rejection

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:57:21 +0000

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,
sung beneath her window,
would win his lady’s love.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

Luigi, In A Drunken Moment, Tells a Secret

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:58:20 +0000

You, bro,
Are my very best friend.
Nah, I’m serious!
I mean
I really look up to you.
You got it all:
Fame, money, the works.
And,
You know,
I’m not bitter.
Sure, you’re the popular one
(Short fat fuck that you are)
And sure,
At the end of the day, you get
To go home to that Princess of yours,
But it don’t beat the time
She and I snuck out to
Yoshi’s Island
While you did that plumbing job
In World 4-3.
I tapped
Her pretty little Fire Flower
All night long, bro,
So you can take
Your toadstool,
And shove it.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

With Friends Like These

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:59:10 +0000

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.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

Academy Awards

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:59:28 +0000

You are a film,
Dubbed in French,
With Spanish subtitles,
And I speak only this
American techno-jargon.
Still,
You’ve got pretty visuals:
A special effects budget
That makes the boys sweat,
And I can at least divulge your tone
From the rhythm and sway
Of your orchestrated score.
Look for me in your credits:
I’ll be listed under
Dumbfounded Moron Without
A Word To Say.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

A Love To Die For

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:59:58 +0000

Darling,
in the event of a zombie apocalypse,
I’m gonna marry you.
I know, that romantic testimonial
isn’t quite the matrimonial proposition
you were expecting,
but I’m projecting a lovely future for us!

You see, when the dead break free,
I’ll come save you.
I’ll be your knight in shining Kevlar,
your cranium-crushing crusader,
and safe in our barricaded bungalow,
we’ll match moans for groans
with the shambling horde outside.

We’ll make love ’til death do we part,
or at least til we start
to run out of supplies,
and if we get in a pinch,
I’ve got a surprise:
see, I’ll paralyze them with poetry,
'cause if there’s anything
a zombie understands, it’s desire.

Meanwhile,
you lay down suppressive fire
and we’ll take out as many as we can.
If in the end we are overrun,
I’ll let them take me
so you can get away.

They can have my brain--
it’s my heart that beats for you.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

Heartbeats

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:00:53 +0000

I’d buy your smile
For a dollar.
And no, that’s not much,
But it’s one hundred copper
Heartbeats
That you and I will share
Between now –
The moment we meet
And then –
Your final breath or mine.
And like the coins they represent
Those heartbeat moments will
Shine or not
Will gleam or not
But lusterless or brilliant,
They are ours.
And when they are gone,
I’ll ask your two cents worth
On silly things.
Just to share another pair of heartbeats
With you.

This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Mar 24, 2009

The Book and The Street

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:01:14 +0000

The book says to the street,
I am smarter than you:
My academia surpasses your
Idiosyncratic methodology:
In fact,
Ample meditation on my disciplines
Precludes from necessity
Your meager knacks.

The street says to the book,
Say that to my face.
I’ve got a crowbar that will make
Your academia cry.

Better This Than Barbarism

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:01:38 +0000

One by one,
The faithful gather by the river,
Gowns against their knees,
And one by one,
They drown their children
To save them.

Elsewhere,
They throw infants from the
Edifices:
Better to drop from the sky
Than fall to one’s vices.

Others
Scrape their
Offspring’s flesh:
Excised genitalia
To prevent excision
From God.

Civilization requires religion.
How civilized
Our faith makes us.

Happenstance

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:02:08 +0000

If you were a random house
On a random street
In any given town,
Somewhere in the world,
I would want to be a postcard
Sent from the San Diego Zoo
Delivered accidentally,
Anonymously,
To your front door.

Cherry Stems

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:02:25 +0000

Cherry stems tie knots
Around your tongue,
And that’s a fancy trick,
Sexy in some ways,
If you were making love
To a cherry tree,
But I’ve got a better one:
I can tie you in knots
With a thread of secrets
And whispers.

Movie Titles

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:02:48 +0000

Somewhere in Time,
The Last King of Scotland
Dances With Wolves
Under the Tuscan Sun.

The Day The Earth Stood Still,
The Ghost and the Darkness
Saw
A History of Violence
In the Company of Men.

The Madness of King George
Bewitched
The Girl With A Pearl Earring
Into the Wild
Empire of the Sun.

In the Name of the Father,
We Own the Night.

While Wiring a Socket

Gabriel — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:03:10 +0000

Burnt ozone aroma
Sparks memories of sparks.
Chiaroscuro.
Lights and darks–
Flashbulbs in my eyes
And bells in my ears;
Electric tinnitus through
Years and years.
There’s buzz-hum paralysis:
There is no shake,
There is no shudder as
The circuit closes for a heartbeat.
I lose that heartbeat
Forever.