The Gorko Gazette

Daily Humor

thegorkogazette

9.8.2025 7:00 AM

The Savage’s Sonnet and 2 more by Sam Kerbel

The Savage’s Sonnet

The man in his underwear across the street
Buoyant like a doll come to life
Looks just like me apart from his physique
Green-gray face, long hair, but the same knife-
Edged eyes, which shine down 95th
With some piquant ragtime insouciance
That prides itself on the stillness of wheat drift
Backwater low-bred prurience.
Our Smith & Wesson spring
Has a number on you, devil fetch.
How do you consider yourself Sundays? The thing
I’ve asked no one many times, the wretch
I am, I only wonder whether we’ll ever meet
In a manner of speaking.

Song for a Cracked-Out Season

The prairie curves like a harp
And rings with songs of old
From Monteverdi to Natalie Imbruglia
And all I learned in any class
Was given with a single prick
Herds of children pulled on leashes
Talked down to
Well? Break bread anyway
The cherries are cold
Just as you like
And every measure counted
The bay curtain folds have a nice plum darkness
I always like, when night comes early,
And everyone is down
And I’m still up

What Makes a Man?

A light-up sign in daytime, the end of
The memory of a friend
Is man

And when the flag is raised
The blade raised
When all

Those little hands be saved, those little
Boys who one day will be come
Little men, that too is man

When they all die motherless and sad and God
Comes beating her drum don’t be surprised
When their little throats squeak

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sam Kerbel was shortlisted for the 2024 Oxford Poetry Prize. His first chapbook, Can’t Beat the Price (2025), is available from Bottlecap Press. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Anthropocene, Apocalypse Confidential, Cleaver, Lana Turner, Libre, and South Florida Poetry Journal, among other publications.