Best Poems Written by Gabriel Greif

Concrete Cliffs

No form, no organization, no verse.
A crescendo followed by silence and screams.
A wooden home locked inside of a concrete tome,
With a world collapsing while we keep relapsing
And again the past resurges; what we bury tends not to stay that way,
After all, the piper must have his pay.

A dark closet and we’ve seen fit to rot in it
The Devil in the details told me to be his advocate.
And El Dorado’s gone because a city of gold just wasn’t sustainable
But if it’s attainable then you’re damn right it’s going to be painful.
And death isn’t an option for those of us who feel compelled to keep walkin’
On the sand-- or is it ash? It doesn’t really make a difference while they slash
Their prices by depriving kids of rice and pin open their eyelids
For their twenty hour shifts ‘till they try to plummet themselves off of
Concrete cliffs.

And Macondo is Columbia, unless it’s in the Gulf of Mexico, 
but you already knew that, Mr. Critic.
But what are you going to do with it?
Frankenstein was the man, not the monster
The confusion first came when our blame ceased to reclaim 
An association between dissociation and our relation
To whatever the truth may have been
‘Cuz it certainly isn’t the truth anymore.

Blank pages in our textbooks and you ask me to memorize it
Regurgitate it and tell you what you want to hear--
My foods teacher says no eating in her class
And sees fit to harass her students with her utter lack
Of discernible knowledge while we cook some Kraft Mac and Cheese.
But who can blame her with the pay she’s getting?

No Telemachus on the television—Nor do we see Stephen
Not while the Situation is breathin’, cuz that’s what’s loved by the station.
Where’s the frustration? The indignation with the ignorant elation
That comes with living in a used-up world?
Dig a treasure map out of the trash and get it unfurled,
You walk to the ‘X’, but it’s been dug up—no wonder it was in there in the first place.

And the esoteric is what they find hysteric ‘cuz they’re all in on the joke
That they find so funny ‘cuz the system is broke.
Politics in work, in life, in marriage, in LIFE,
The wall of separation was torn down it seems, and soon you’ll find them tapping your dreams.
Enjoy watching your people’s nightmares, O Creators.
Tell us it’s what we want.

Copyright © Gabriel Greif | Year Posted 2012