Tag Archives: gabriel gadfly

Today, I Am Godzilla

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Today, I am Godzilla.
I step: the earth shakes.
Coffee shop customers steady
their mugs. Somewhere,
a small Japanese woman
shrieks in terror and flees,
arms flailing, for shelter.

Today, I am Godzilla,
hunting for a 52L sports coat,
blocked in the city street
that is the men’s wear
section of J.C. Penny’s
by a battalion of 48R’s.
I dash them aside,
lumber off, half-defeated
and half-conquering.

Today, I am Godzilla,
backtracking in the stacks
of the Hoover Public Library
because there is a young woman
browsing mystery novels in my way
and that aisle is too damn narrow
for the both of us.

Today, I am Godzilla,
writing poetry and thinking
of what to eat tonight.

Prometheus Appeals To Zeus

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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 was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

The Leopard and the Moth

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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 was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

The Boys of the 39th Come Home

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The train is not far
    from the station now
    and finally
    we chug on home.

The sergeant says
    there will be pretty girls
    to hug our necks
    and kiss our cheeks,
    there will be old men in hats
    to slap our backs
    and say “Welcome home, son,
    good job, good job!”

There will be ticker tape
    and a big brass band
    and a parade right through
    the center of town

but this train is
    so much emptier than it was
    when we left for the trenches
    and none of this fanfare
    will fill it up again.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

Cherita: Stars

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You probably think I made a pact with the stars too.

But I don’t know why they fall.
Maybe they are visiting their lovers.

Maybe they tired of their lovers.
Maybe the stars get wanderlust like you do.
Maybe they are trying to light someone’s way home.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

Cherita: Birds

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I made a pact with the birds when I was a little boy.

I fed them crumbs of my grandma’s cornbread
and memorized their colors and their names.

I promised to pick up their fallen nests and put them back,
if they’d just pop in and pipe at me from time to time, 
when I am sad, when I am in love.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

These Are The Colors Of Your Love

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These are the colors of your love: your lips
part from my mouth flush claret, your teeth beneath
my ear clip pearl, your hands wander blue

beneath my clothes. Your voice is citrine and daffodil,
your skin scours blush by desire’s rag,
you peak and shudder through saffron and indigo;

you give me a palette of lights and ask me to paint.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.