Three Poems by Geordie de Boer.

Bless Us All

from Chants for the Fellaheen

Bless the hide-and-seekers and the snide sly peekers who see them hide,
            the aged cheese eaters, the wild egg beaters and the cakes they bake,
                        the takers, the cheaters, the bare leg spyers,
                                    those who wear their hair draped across their eyes,
and the I-don’t-knowers and what they know…

Bless the wall-eyed laughers and the ballsy grafters who give people the shaft,
            the easy-to-fool pleasers, the crankcase greasers and the gears they ease,
                        the breakers and broken, the squeakers, the lonesome,
and those who can’t be left alone…

Bless the ticket-holders, and those getting older waiting to have their tickets punched,
            the drinks instead of lunch bunch and those too often out-to-lunch,
                        the loud tie wearers and the solemn bearers of their palls,
the cracked columns of the freedom hall…

Bless the fair weather flyers and the doomsday criers and the missed dates they call,
            Bless the I-never-see evil, the never-been-seen and the nomad fellaheen…

Bless us all.

 

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Resume

from Chants for the Fellaheen

Tree planter, rant chanter, wine decanter,     
            Free booter, petty looter, rotten-fruiter.

Cone picker, chicken flicker, fricassee licker,
            Lone wolfer, fool proofer, back road hoofer.

Hard head stomper, dark room romper, hot dog chomper,
            Beer drinker, late night thinker, log house chinker.

Agitator, crock o‘ gator,  it’s too later, bigot hater,
            Mashed p’tater, onion grater, licked clean plater, alligator.

Not so bolder,
            gettin’ older,
                        lily holder…

 

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Trekking to Texas, 1970

And the war was over, almost.
                                    Robert Bly

We may as well have been crawling to Morocco
with Crosby, Stills, and Nash as we sang along
to Marrakech Express and Suite:
Judy Blue Eyes, which Judy assumed was about her
and the friends she'd had to leave behind.

            Y qué triste que no puedo. Vaya!
                        O va, O va, va.

Remember driving across the desert
trying to ignore the sun? In Needles it goaded us
to the side of the road to find scant shade
under the pathetic fronds of a palm
as we tried and failed to calm Judy.

At Sweetwater, where there was no water to see,
we settled for grease-laden burgers and fries,
which lay unsettled on our stomachs
for the tedious hours of the trek.

How were we to know our trip would never end
and the war had not even yet begun?