i.


monet's passion written in
whispering tears.
the still lake smoulders
in ripples, all shadows and smoke.

a dragonfly presses the air
into whir, memories in my
pocket saddled to fire.


ii.


the air murmurs with death-shouts.

is this to sink, deep in a dungeon
of opulent blue

or to shimmer, iridescent
like a moon-lamp, empress
of ocean green and river blue
beyond the stilling light.


iii.


this is a bed of decadence
drowned moment of golden fire
in the sipped leaves that trumpet
to the clouds, that this is their day to
die.


iv.


water lily, white light of the pond
following the drowning dark,
flower of drifting quiet,
flower of dream.


v.


root treading past
the stillness of dusk,
utter existence,
daughter of the moon,
daughter of the silence.

Ah Consuela! Invoking vast vistas for visions of green Spanish eyes,
I discern them again where she left me back then,
                 as we kissed when she parted, my friend.
Through those ruins I tread towards the footlights, now dead,
                 where I’ll muse as her shadows ascend.

                  .
                          .
Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she teases the mirror with green Spanish eyes;
her serape entangles her brooches and bangles
                 like lace on the sorcerer’s looms,
and her cape of the night, she drapes tight to excite,
                 and her fan is embellished with plumes.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching as spectators savour her green Spanish eyes;
taming wild concertinas, the dark ballerina
                 performs on the music hall stage,
but she shies from the sound of ovation unbound
                 like a timorous bird in a cage.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she quickens the pit with her green Spanish eyes;
as the cymbals shake, clashing, the floodlights wake, flashing,
                 igniting the wild fireflies,
and the piccolo piper’s inviting the vipers
                 to coil neath the cold caldron skies.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the shimmering shadows in green Spanish eyes
as I rise from my chair and proceed to the stair
                 with a hesitant sip of my wine.
Though she doesn’t deny me, she wanders right by me
                 with neither a look nor a sign.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she looks to the stage with her green Spanish eyes,
(for her senses scoff, scorning the biblical warning
                 of kisses of Judas that sting,
with her pierced ears defeating the echoes repeating)
                 and smiles at the magpie that sings.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching faint embers a’ stir in her green Spanish eyes,
for a soft spoken stranger enveloping danger
                 has captured the rhyme in the room
as he slips into sight through a crack in the night
                 midst the breath of her heavy perfume.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she gauges his guise through her green Spanish eyes
– from his gypsy-like mane, to his diamond stud cane,
                 to the raven engraved on his vest –
for a faraway form, a tempestuous storm,
                 lurks and heaves neath the cleav’e of her *******.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the caravels cruising her green Spanish eyes;
with the castanets clacking like ancient masts cracking
                 he whips ’round his cloak with a ****
and without sacrificing, at mien so enticing,
                 she floats with her face facing his.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the vertigo veiling her green Spanish eyes,
while the drumbeat pounds, droning, the rhythm sounds, moaning,
                 of jungles Jamaican entwined
in the valleys concealing the vineyards revealing
                 the vaults in the caves of her mind.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching life’s carnivals call to her green Spanish eyes,
and with paused palpitations the tom-tom temptations
                 come taunting her tremulous feet
with her toe tips a’ tingle while jute boxes jingle
                 for jesters that jive on the street.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she rides ocean tides in her green Spanish eyes,
and her silhouette’s travelling on ripples unravelling
                 and shaking the shipwracking shores,
as she strides from the light to the black cauldron night
                 through the candlelit cabaret doors.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she dances till dawn flashing green Spanish eyes,
with her movements adorning a trickle of morning
                 as sipped by the mouth of the moon,
while her tresses twirl, shaming the filaments flaming
                 that flow from the sun’s oval spoon.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she masks for a moment her green Spanish eyes.
Then the magpie that sings ceases preening her wings
                 and descends as a lean bird of prey –
as she flutters her ’lashes and laughs in broad splashes,
                 his narrowing eyes start to stray.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching fey carousels spin in her green Spanish eyes,
and the porcelain ponies and leprechaun cronies
                 race, reaching for gold and such things,
even being reminded that only the blinded
                 are fooled by the brass in the rings.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she shepherds the shadows with green Spanish eyes,
but as evening sinks, ebbing, the skyline climbs, webbing,
                 and weaves through the temples of stone,
while the nightingales sing of a kiss on the wing
                 in the depths of the dunes all alone.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the music and magic in green Spanish eyes,
as she dances enchanted, while firmly implanted
                 in tugs of his turbulent arms,
till he cuts through the strings, tames the magpie that sings,
                 and seduces once more with his charms.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, the citadel steams in her green Spanish eyes,
but behind the dark curtain the savants seem certain
                 that nothing and no one exists,
and though vapours look vacant, the vagabond vagrants
                 remain within mythical mists.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching as lightning at midnight in green Spanish eyes
kindles cracks within crystals like flashes from pistols
                 residing inside of the gloom
as it hovers above us betraying a dove as
                 she flees from the fountain of doom.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, distilling despair in her green Spanish eyes,
and the bitterness stings like the snap of the strings
                 when a mystical  mandolin sighs
as the vampire shades **** the life from charades
                 neath the resinous residue skies.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she looks to the ledge with her green Spanish eyes,
for the terrace hangs high and she’s thinking to fly
                 and abandon fate’s merry-go-round.
At the edge I perceive her and rush to retrieve her –
                 she stumbles, falls far to the ground.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the sparkles a’ spilling from green Spanish eyes.
As I peer from the railing, with evening exhaling,
                 I cry out a lover’s lament –
there she lies midst the crowd with her spirit unbowed,
                 but her body’s all broken and bent.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she beckons me hither with green Spanish eyes,
and I’m slightly amazed being snared in her gaze
                 and a’ swirl in a hurricane way,
but the seconds are slipping, my courage is dripping,
                 the moment is bleeding away.

Ah Consuela! I touch her - she weeps tender tears from her green Spanish eyes;
as the breezes cease blowing, her essence leaves, flowing,
                 in streams neath the ambient light,
and the droplets drip swarming, so silent, yet warming,
                 like rain in a midsummer night.

Ah Consuela! I hold her, am hushed by the hints in her green Spanish eyes,
while her whispers are breathing the breaths of the seething
                 electrical skeletal winds,
and the words paint the poems that rivers a’ slowin’
                 reveal where the waterfall ends.

Ah Consuela! I’m fading in fires a’ flicker in green Spanish eyes,
as she plays back the past, she abandons and casts
                 away matters that no longer mend.
           .
                  .
And she reached out instead, as she lifted her head,
                 and we kissed as she parted, my friend.
           .
                  .
                          .
Ah Consuela! I’m tangled, entombed, trapped in tales of your green Spanish eyes,
in forsaken cantinas beyond the arenas
                 where night-time illusions once flowed,
for the ash neath my shoulder still throbs as it smoulders
                 some place near the end of the road.

As a Sports Illustrated model it's no secret that she has the ability to turn heads.

So as Hannah Ferguson marked day 30 of LOVE magazine's video advent she did so in smouldering fashion to ensure her debut was not easily forgotten.

Showing off her moves to the sound of Drake's Hotline Bling, the 23-year-old owned the shoot as she cavorted in a slashed corset dress.

Whipping her hair back and forth, Ferguson appeared to forego underwear beneath the daring form fitted number.

Becoming the definition of sensual, a pair of sheer stockings and Giuseppe Zanotti black patent leather lace-up stilettos completed the cover girl's look.

With her hair worn in its natural state, the beautiful blonde's striking blue eyes are lined with kohl liner while her pout is coated in a shade of **** lipstick.

Preened to perfection, the two minute clip is formatted in slow motion as the Texan beauty, who resides in the Big Apple, seductively gyrated on the floor.

In the film Hannah also displays her comical side as she flashed her pearly white while attempting to do the 'Stanky Leg' dance.

Ferguson's debut sees her join the likes of Kendall Jenner, Cara Delevingne, Rita Ora and Adriana Lima who all featured in the 2015 edition of the online countdown to the new year.

The LOVE magazine advent calendar, now in its fifth year, has seen an influx of 8.2 million views since launching on December 1.

read more:http://www.marieaustralia.com

www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

Lisbeth stands watching
The artist as he prepares
To sketch. Her elder sisters
Stand in shadows whispering.
Her younger sister plays
With her doll on the floor.
Their father said to do as
The artist instructed and
Don’t misbehave or be rude.
The artist stares hard his
Dark eyes searching their
Every move and expression
And body gesture. The elder
Girls mutter in shadows
Their hands over their mouths
Their blue eyes like shallow
Pools. Ready? The artist
Asks putting charcoal to
Paper his fingers blackening.
Lisbeth says just as we are?
The artist nods. His grim
Features express do not disturb.
The youngest sister plays
Ignoring the artist her eyes set
On the game at hand. The girls
In shadow turn their profiles
Set to mystery their hands on
Their abdomens like guardians
Of virtue. Lisbeth wonders as
She watches the artist’s stiff
Moustache and beard the slow
Movement of his mouth as he
Mouths words and stares hard.
The last artist employed some
Year before younger and less
Brutal in expression and manner
Had drawn them each in private
Rooms and set them down on couch
Or bed and kept their images inside
His head. He was dismissed and the
Drawings destroyed and nothing said.
Lisbeth had thought it just a game
Something done as lover might in
Private corners or lonely spots on
Quiet nights. The artist sketches.
His blackened fingers move and
Made their mark. Their images
Captured. The scene set. One sister
In the shadows yawns the other
Stares in still contempt. Lisbeth
Poses as young girls do. Nothing
To show of interest and nothing
Hid no secret self no other you.
That’s it the artist says we’ll begin
The painting another day maybe
Next week if all is well. The girls
In shadow look away and resume
Their secret games. Lisbeth studies
The artist’s blackened fingers as
He rolls the charcoal sketch and
Puts away. He gazes at her standing
By herself a glimpse of smile and
Glimmer in her eyes like small fires.
He closes the tired lids of eyes
And smoulders down his old desires.

in ashes hidden, smoulders god of love
from matted dancer's focus conflagration purely come
continues still perhaps in empty homage
of a sa ta na ma
personage of ((Shiva))

white bones pierce the sky
in upward curtain-seethes of heat
beyond imagined burning hells...
the triad ventures into zero-zones of anti-life,
sands of absolute defeat.

shadow trust imparts
a silent teacher's mantras;
soothing psychic words,
"Bala" and "Adi-Bala"
carry over dunes of morbid thirst--
the gape of ancient serpent-maws
choking dust of frightened, elephantine skeletons
fissured by immobile sun--
their inner sound become cool water of a summer stream

in timeless desert, traverses strain of royal line:
god-fated tutelage of seedling savior,
lightning skill with bow and virtue sinew
shining arms horizon's arid form:
despite begrudging honor kings expect
when offspring given after years
in hard-earned sacrificial grace:
yet still obeisance ends in facing demonaic rage
to which is pitted youth to slay--
despite allay by symbol feminine,
as if to question her abode would conjure her
in dire storm and quake announce gigantic step and hairy gulf--
with arrow sprays destroy Thataka's trident, curdling throat
the slitting of, rejoicing pantheon proclaims heroic,
forever railing under epic breath of tacit page theodical:
"we gave you progeny, now grant us our theocracy;
before your son our asthras lay their weaponry"













.

She is ours, part of the family to be loved and cherished and later to play with, my connected love, now we were two cuties, my sister and me, you always had time for me, explaining, sharing, helping and learning, what discussions we had! Stories related, retold time and time again.
Little man off to school, you and the babies close behind, be brave, through the tears I played shop, I smelled old milk and cheesy feet, lots of  kindness and felt understanding, but I had to go again!
Music and drama, fainting and headache more like, fresh air and playing seemed like the answer, big gates, streams of parents and kids all in my way, wait at the crossing, mad rush to get across.
Home with Jacques Cousteau and underwater swimming, the reading adventure began, to swim like a fish with just the bubbles for company amongst the depths was my daydream, Tea time already, how time flies in dreamland, everyone’s there except dad, easy time!
Bath time for me imagination overdrives submarines and divers, how long can I hold my breath? Dark outside, my siblings breathing and the background hum of the downstairs TV is all I hear. lights off, time to find the torch and read under the covers, a few pages before the creak on the stairs.
Torch off, pretend to be asleep as the door opens and dad checks we are all “dead to the world”, sometimes I manage to stay awake and find my place, often I wake up, rub my eye, its  daytime already!
My brothers and I shared a room, bunk beds for them near the window, me opposite the door. Little privacy, but fun nevertheless, occasionally difficult sometimes interesting, but mostly annoying.
A largish family sharing a small space, the art of compromise often stretched to breaking point, We children grew, vying for position and fighting for existence and recognition such is our roles.
Protected me from harm, allowed me to grow even when I was being stifled by others, convinced me that Policemen were there to help and not there to be afraid of, but respected, understood my concerns and provided solutions to my childish concerns and worries.
Stroked my fevered brow and rubbed tired muscles, supported me through conflict and disappointment, you taught me to understand both sides of the argument; you taught me empathy and compassion.
You taught me to stand my ground when threatened, to show strength in the face of adversity, how intelligence is a path to knowledge, that intelligence wasn’t everything, but learning is!
People are human whatever the colour of their skin, or their religious beliefs, fairness ruled, whenever I needed you, you were/are always there for me, always ready to provide a shoulder to cry on, some advice for me to consider, away from all the madness, a sanctuary from the world.
All this you do for me because I am your son, your blood, the product of biological creation of you, I  give you worry and concern, interspersed with pride of an achievement at some splendid thing.
Oh mother of mine, understand my sadness and my darkness even, the light is still burning deep within  my soul,  however small, the flame still smoulders, awaiting the breath that fans it to burn brightly again.
My quietness may seem austere, but I mean no malice, it’s my way to deal with the disappointment. never forget, my love for you is deep, adorned with gratitude and respect for all that you give me.

The rain roars like fire
  As rubble smoulders
And two nations take stock
Of one copper's blunder.

  This is my Tottenham -
  My home and my heart -
Where fried chicken and Spurs
Unite communities.

  A father was shot
  While holding a gun.
He'd injured a PC.
He'd tried, and failed, to run.

  But then we heard cops
  Say 'We can't comment
But we know he was mad,
Mental and unstable."

  With no evidence
  To back-up these claims
As long as he's guilty
He's also fair game

  To be slandered by
  Those who should serve us
But anger the public
Who met at the station

  To voice our concerns
  But...

  The Met ignored protests.
  A wall of silence
Hit our vocal worries
And led to the kettling

  Of innocent fears
  And beaten youngsters
Demanding answers and
Justice but getting none.

  So houses were raised
  And lives set aflame
With passion, emotion and
Righteous authority.

  Who can we blame for
  These acts of aggression?
Twitter? The young? Maybe
The poor disenfranchised?

  No.
         Blame our police,
  Our ignorant chiefs,
Our public school leaders
And populist news briefs.

  All we wanted was
  To speak to the boss
And Nero said, "*******!
I'll fiddle while you burn."

Have you seen my granny?
She shoots like Johnny Wayne,
Smokes cigarettes like Garbo,
Sings like Kelly in the rain.

She's doubtless at the movies
Watching Audrey zip 'round Rome,
And wishing she were young enough
To run away from home.

My nana laughs like Rita,
Plays chess like Steve McQueen,
She smoulders like her heroes do
Up on that silver screen.

Have you seen my granny?
She loves Bogart and Bacall,
And in her dreams forever
She is blonde and six-foot tall.

And when the days grow on the soul
like a shadow at noon,
the night sets in deep, after
the stars retire,
the winds go silent in the valley,
there yet comes a time,
when that throb
of nameless pasts comes alive.

You have everyone,
yet, I know, you have no one:
is this how I love you?

I see you disappear:
the last bird into the swallowing
cloak of the fast-setting night.
After the rains, you disappeared
into the pond, hopping on lotus leaves.

An anger at my lapse,
smoulders on in winter's moist depths;
An anger at yours, hovers over
like the last cloud of the late monsoon.
Yes, when the sky weeps her
agony out,
all the hidden embers glimmer.

Now I open the window and sit longing
for the mellow autumn rains.

I stood pretty as a picture
In the full-length mirror.
Eyelines painted black
And traced like a cat
‘Round the pools and pigments
Of my icy blues.

My hair smoulders with gloss of youth.
A fire left untamed
With scorched red wine lips
Oh! Such rare delight,
To embrace my image
And not decorate

It with scorn.

I imagine pupils pouring
Over me. Men turned
Boys upon my wake.
Skirt hitched demurely,
Landing with subtlety
Above my opaqued knees.

I comb the heaving, damp dancefloor.
Search out for Beta-***.
The kind to pin me
With softened kisses.
To love for the night and
Then like fireworks

Perish by day.

The music though, it takes me with
Skill. Oh! It knows the sweat
That clings upon me.
The rhythm takes me
Beyond the tooth and nail,
The attempt and fail

Of every boy to come before.
Sweet ***! How it lifts me
And the mere presence
Of youth is enough.
I go home alone in
Absent knowledge of

The plight of women.

You stop me in the streets. You say
“Where have you been tonight,
Where are you going.”
But - not a question.
For, you dictate answers,
Scurry my body

With your eyes, soon hands.

You tower me, masculine height.
Oh! Such dizzying peaks
For my giddy mind.
I say “I must leave”
You say “Where” once more. I
Wonder, do questions

Ever line your lips? Catcalls and
Footfalls now so long gone.
We are alone and
We both know the case.
Your vast darkened hands clutch
At my belt buckle,

Draw me in.

Reeled, I kick up in death throes,
Mouth open but soundless,
Lungs devoid of air.
Laid out on the block,
I’m your catch of the day,
Your squalor by night.

Regardless how much give out,
How little I fight, we’re
Both in the knowledge
I am your’s tonight.
Your lips, they steal my neck.
Paralyse me, not

With softness
But with fright.

I stand pretty as a picture,
No look in the mirror.
A reflection of
Shame and submission.
Pools and pigments devoid
Of life. Emptied lungs

And icy blues.

How is the night treating you? I am asleep,
but not. Half awake, but not. I am hope,
but not. I want to scream, but don't. In this
half-morning, I want yesterday, but don't.
Tomorrow has poured in, but hasn't.

Now these itchy feet. Itchy tips of hair
that rub the cheeks. Itchy heart where
love smoulders. Some sweeter itch:
but, itch, nevertheless; itch in my sleep.
I want to know if this is an itchy night?
The rain falls like an itch on the rooftop.

This is some funny farce of a farcical night.
Tonight, I love the teals more, but don't.
Coots seem darker than the sky, but aren't.
In this deep night, I am love, but not. In this
last 'but not', the 'not' part is small, I mean.

Ruddy and worn,
Dusted by turf and salt,
Sun rose cheeked and blue
Clouded eye spurt in a gait
Ended by mute journeys and toil.
He breaks the long day with a shove
As the old pocked door is waiting to be
Opened.  At the crowning stand of the bar
He orders his Craic, some froth of tar, his black
Medicinal and when the tales of tall pints grow, sinking,
Live, flickering light slows and smoulders, shoulders with moist
Embers of smoke trailing by with an impromptu céilí and all is brilliant,
Blind, awful and right, cast in the sprite, spirited dance of the verbal swirlings.

Ruddy and worn,
Dusted by turf and salt,
Sun rose cheeked and blue
Clouded eye spurt in a gait
Ended by mute journeys and toil.
He breaks the long day with a shove
As the old pocked door is waiting to be
Opened.  At the crowning stand of the bar
He orders his Craic, some froth of tar, his black
Medicinal and when the tales of tall pints grow, sinking,
Live, flickering light slows and smoulders, shoulders with moist
Embers of smoke trailing by with an impromptu céilí and all is brilliant,
Blind, awful and right, cast in the sprite, spirited dance of the verbal swirlings.

Thinking back to the first fast days when our hearts burned with the indigestion from the chest to chin,
Butterflies flying high and wild in our stomachs at the touch of our skins.
We ran quickly into the lives of one another that May Day that first brought in our summer.
Under the sun that smoulders and scorched our shoulders, we walked into the flames that burned we were younger.

Twenty years down the line our hearts have grown colder.
A blockage has come between us, but we can’t move the boulder.
I’ve even tried to dig up our love’s old grave and shake the corpse back to life,
But try as I might it lies limp, it’s body as frail as its owner.

We’ve tried treading water in the cold blue seas.
Though our arms tired and we drifted to our knees.
The current dragging us down stream and beyond the river,
Nothing will reprise our best years gone by and the time that I have given her.

I still hunger for those days when we didn’t fight.
Those days that kept blazing on and on golden bright.
Those long summer days that never wanted to turned into night.
But maybe one day under the sun that'll smoulder and scorch our shoulders, we will once again walk into the flames that burned like they did when we were younger.

I would ask you out to a movie or so
But the rules of respect mean I cannot.
I see your face and I am caught out,
Dry mouth and a lack of words,
Fewer thoughts in return.

I hear your voice and I stop,
Held in spot, lingering in your waves.
All I want is to turn and gaze -
To look you up and down,
To look and return to gaze on your face.

As its always been,
Those amber eyes hold me fixed
As those fields of silk
Meet with waves of red,
That kiss of milk
Overlaid by the lash of ink
- the way I wish I could grace
the surface of your body
and learn you the way I know mine,
To feel you the way you're on my mind.

Then to ponder the inside;
To learn you, to study you,
All of the wants and wishes hidden behind -
Behind those gorgeous liquid eyes.
Iris flare, a sparkle there,
And all of the encoded meaning
Of that smile so genuine:
Sometimes so coy,
At other so wry.

Your words and voice
- to taste those lips would be my delight,
oh so sweet, the forbidden fruit -
Slithering so smooth,
Deep inside to the hidden recesses,
Feeling that whisper soft skin
Unlocking every trigger of my mind,
Kissing me back,
Hinting at the secrets that
Leave me dumb and blind,
Leaving me immune to any and all
- except you, except you.
Secrets that I could only imagine,
Though that's only where it begins
As I fall to you, again and again.

After that last fall,
I never thought to feel this way again,
Wishing to get lost like my hands,
Now tangled in you hair
Having caressed up your back,
Tracing every inch of you without a care,
And those soft waves of flame
An echo of what smoulders inside -
I can see it, behind those eyes,
As your scent permeates my nose, captivating sight,
Pulling my eye to yours,
Calling without a doubt
To find your eye in the crowd,
Afraid of what mine will give away.

You're the last girl I expected to lay me out,
But you've dropped me, laid me low.
From here on my back,
The mind pleasantly going slow
- recollection doing double-time,
retracing every detail.

The burning of the incense bowls.
Anointing of the oils.
The fruits brought from the forest.
The harvest from the soil.

Fires, that bring warmth to hands,
burn brightly on the hill.
The bounty from the hunters toil,
smoulders, blackened on the grill.

The thoughts that guide his dreams at night.
Resting with an open soul.
The fears that sometimes darken days,
are never his, not his alone.
The fear that sometimes darkens souls,
never fed with thoughts to grow.

The beryl high land smoulders….

Where skinny manes of cloven trailing, cuff
the rake of jumbled scree,
a porous crux of timbered carol
matins from the mossy shrine
to urchin on the bluff and draft
in nooks of birch and bilberry.

On that high dais, Corvid tribals
potter on the reeks of gale.
Fell boatman of the troubled storeys
quarter in some sleet cabal
to throw their onyx gauntlet down
a slating arc of fallow sky.

Feel my breath adorn your stiffened shoulders
Now your cloak, as thick as heavy satin
Beneath ruby black sleeves your skin smoulders
From tattoos inked in my red-lipped Latin
Our songs are pressurized into jewels
I place the lovely earrings on your lobes
That stern gaze I taught you won't suffer fools
Nor entertain hissing genophobes
My precious mineral complexion acts
As the speckled fur underneath your crown
Tenuous heart strings of mine set their traps
And from my throat queue the trumpeting sound
Hold still, stand up proud, bare that throat fresh blue
Take the steps - and thus I coronate you

Gray sky-smoke smoulders;
cuts off morning sunshine.  Good
thing I pack my own.

Ruddy and worn,
Dusted by turf and salt,
Sun rose cheeked and blue
Clouded eye spurt in a gait
Ended by mute journeys and toil.
He breaks the long day with a shove
As the old pocked door is waiting to be
Opened.  At the crowning stand of the bar
He orders his Craic, some froth of tar, his black
Medicinal and when the tales of tall pints grow, sinking,
Live, flickering light slows and smoulders, shoulders with moist
Embers of smoke trailing by with an impromptu céilí and all is brilliant,
Blind, awful and right, cast in the sprite, spirited dance of the verbal swirlings.

You were hard as nails,
so cynical.
Love doesn't exist,
it's just a social construct,
you would spit with venom
then flash a coy smile.
It's an abstract concept,
you hissed as you twisted
the end of your hair
round your finger and you thought it twisted all the boys too,
to wonder how someone so cold
could look so sweet.
Like the apple in the orchard of Eden
crushed between the jaws of Eve.
It gave you a kick to think that your rare kiss turned them to smoulders
while you sat there like frost on the cusp of a Monday morning.
Never feeling anything,
you were untouchable.
Young puppy dog eyes meant nothing.
It gave you power to know you wouldn't be held down by them.
You never wanted to be.

And even after you first kissed him, touched him,
a thought was not spared on him.
Until then you looked into his eyes
and realised he was an angel
in disguise.
All at once you noticed where his wings touched the crook of his neck
and how the glow of his halo eclipsed the sun.
Eclipsed your whole world.
It was all you could see and they told you to stare at it would damage you,
but oh you couldn't look away.
Not for a second.
And you fell for him,
Like falling from heaven.

But he caught you on your way down.
Because it wasn't like they said,
it wasn't all heart break and lies,
another girl, like those other guys.
It wasn't all blackmail and force
with no love, no remorse.
It was feather soft
and tender.
Small kisses peppered on cheeks
lips and noses
all over.
It was fast, it was quick
with so much feeling it almost hurt.
But he made the masochism you preach.
With you,
he made heavenly sin,
on his knees he worshipped you
like the ancient gods,
he had never believed in.
But he had faith in you
and he gave you wings
like seraphim.
Like him.
He made you fly.

Oh and now you love him
like nothing else,
more even
than you love yourself.

...penned sleepily, my my! the title was illegible when I looked at it in the morning...sigh



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCDLII)


Blue skies are fragile twixt these icy, dense
White clouds, morn's eye uncertain in betrayl,
That glimpse half peering keenly through as pale
As Febry, though leaves dance for all intents
On maples tinged by ghostly yellow's sense
Of yonder, and they're trimming bushes, frail
Hours stacked like to those clustered houses, bail
The navy racks in tow where warmth's gone hence.
Tweed kilt in purple herringbone and fer
All that tights and a hooded shirt will do--
In grey, with nigh fluorescent yellow's cure
For lack of colour, I watch shadows to
Effect on golden washed green lawns in tour,
And sunset smoulders where dusk swallows blue.

11Oct18b

And I wonder why we do these things
As we sit in silence, the decaying affection mouldering
between us like a canyon.

As you look at me and I look to you
with no way of unseeing
The deficit held within beloved brown eyes

It’s too late now and the sadness has settled
and you have already left
Taking with you the colours from the light
As the ash from your last cigarette smoulders  
and goes out.

Ruddy and worn,
Dusted by turf and salt,
Sun rose cheeked and blue
Clouded eye spurt in a gait
Ended by mute journeys and toil.
He breaks the long day with a shove
As the old pocked door is waiting to be
Opened.  At the crowning stand of the bar
He orders his Craic, some froth of tar, his black
Medicinal and when the tales of tall pints grow, sinking,
Live, flickering light slows and smoulders, shoulders with moist
Embers of smoke trailing by with an impromptu céilí and all is brilliant,
Blind, awful and right, cast in the sprite, spirited dance of the verbal swirlings.

I came from nowhere into the sunlight bright
staring harsh at the way it looked when released
from the thick of dark  dank  open spaces
of the mind like skyscrapers
looming in awe at unopened alleyways.

Writers and Poets with dark and dense language
lurked on every page offering
wisdom and wonder at all that existed
and I was taken aback by the grit and gristle
of their tongues in torture and bonehard
determination to say things real and true.
My first lesson was obedience
at the citadels of learning.

Soon the words began to form and fix
in the minds eye, each picture drafted
in the souls eternal fire of seeking solace
from within a lone slim space of knowledge.
We were wild then, travelling in jungles
where beasts roamed with hookahs and chains
and belted the night with rabid beats
of rhymes and rhythm bongo drums
that cascaded through waterfalls of lust
and loneliness.

woodstock soon came around with a growl
from Hendrix and a soulful guitar solo
that lifted our energies beyond mud
and music into higher ground where
love and peace co-existed with boundaries
and lines of policemen with batons.

Soon we loved each other on the streets
of shame uncaring for the masses that lay
strangled by traditions of the old
and battered regimes. Our music carried
us into a universal song which started
then and never stopped four decades gone.

what we started in those freedom years
still parades the streets of our individualism
today with a different costume.
The shackles that we unchained
were replaced by those who felt burdened
by the guilt of freedom and excess.

Even today the Capitols burn with angry mobs
tearing political fences and building barricades
of stone hard determination and raised fists
in defiance of subjugation and slaughter
as they race towards a wide open gate
where walls and ****** windows do not
get them down fast enough.

The cities will continue to burn
to mark the decades  we bled loose
the power from dictators armoured carriers
and concubines of greed and injustice
as we ourselves built shells of steel
around our embattled homes and liberties.
Freedom is a right. It will be fought.

In every continent there burns a bonfire
lit by few that smoulders and shudders
in the rubble of military might
but that will not deter the protection
and peace. The bonfires are fed by the few
who boiled their blood in their thinking
for all the others.

Over the radio and tv promises will
echo hollow and insipid as the faces
of the masters who seem impervious to pain
and unwilling to smear the ashes of their own born
against their foreheads of power.

A time will come when peace will settle again
and the rousing reception of rain bearing
clouds will cool the tempers of the trusted
and the untrusted.

We will soon be gone but we leave a legacy
of will that will course through the veins
of our children and grandchildren
and for years to come the poems
we write will stand testimony to the demons
we locked back into the cages of the past.

The power to pen will return to the people.

I came from nowhere into the sunlight bright
staring harsh at the way it looked when released
from the thick of dark  dank  open spaces
of the mind like skyscrapers
looming in awe at unopened alleyways.

Writers and Poets with dark and dense language
lurked on every page offering
wisdom and wonder at all that existed
and I was taken aback by the grit and gristle
of their tongues in torture and bonehard
determination to say things real and true.
My first lesson was obedience
at the citadels of learning.

Soon the words began to form and fix
in the minds eye, each picture drafted
in the souls eternal fire of seeking solace
from within a lone slim space of knowledge.
We were wild then, travelling in jungles
where beasts roamed with hookahs and chains
and belted the night with rabid beats
of rhymes and rhythm bongo drums
that cascaded through waterfalls of lust
and loneliness.

woodstock soon came around with a growl
from Hendrix and a soulful guitar solo
that lifted our energies beyond mud
and music into higher ground where
love and peace co-existed with boundaries
and lines of policemen with batons.

Soon we loved each other on the streets
of shame uncaring for the masses that lay
strangled by traditions of the old
and battered regimes. Our music carried
us into a universal song which started
then and never stopped four decades gone.

what we started in those freedom years
still parades the streets of our individualism
today with a different costume.
The shackles that we unchained
were replaced by those who felt burdened
by the guilt of freedom and excess.

Even today the Capitols burn with angry mobs
tearing political fences and building barricades
of stone hard determination and raised fists
in defiance of subjugation and slaughter
as they race towards a wide open gate
where walls and ****** windows do not
get them down fast enough.

The cities will continue to burn
to mark the decades  we bled loose
the power from dictators armoured carriers
and concubines of greed and injustice
as we ourselves built shells of steel
around our embattled homes and liberties.
Freedom is a right. It will be fought.

In every continent there burns a bonfire
lit by few that smoulders and shudders
in the rubble of military might
but that will not deter the protection
and peace. The bonfires are fed by the few
who boiled their blood in their thinking
for all the others.

Over the radio and tv promises will
echo hollow and insipid as the faces
of the masters who seem impervious to pain
and unwilling to smear the ashes of their own born
against their foreheads of power.

A time will come when peace will settle again
and the rousing reception of rain bearing
clouds will cool the tempers of the trusted
and the untrusted.

We will soon be gone but we leave a legacy
of will that will course through the veins
of our children and grandchildren
and for years to come the poems
we write will stand testimony to the demons
we locked back into the cages of the past.

The power to pen will return to the people.

Author Notes
I come from a generation that tasted freedom from traditions in the best way possible. Four decades on that unshackling still unfolds.This poem talks of that transition. It is long and will continue on and on until that bonfire subsides!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Sun on Shoulders,
Tingling sensation smoulders,
Sinks into skin,
Golden glare- Serendipitous sin.
Rippling rays-
Meanders, and plays
On waves of melody-
Moves on water like electricity.
Switched on.
Winter is gone.
Raa has control
Straight thinking on school-
To teach the waves to lap
Lazily and playfully, map
The ebb and flow
Of breezes that blow
The ship to the middle,
Raise anchor and kindle
Magic, eternally
Float majestically

To sun kissed Golden shores.

The pain rots and sheds,
as it smoulders her bones
and burns her skin third degree.

Loss and jealousy enwrap
her scorched heart into ashes,
while lava flows off her tongue
as it promises vengeance.

She becomes a vortex of emotions
engulfing her own life,
dwelling in the
merry go round thoughts.

Until she picks up the pen
and tucks the rage and ache
within the 26 alphabets
stringing words,
to sentences to paragraphs.

Ashes and embers stain the paper
as they ebb, blot and flow,
crafting the cathartic relief
until the paper stains darker
than the shades of her mind.

The blues that would pour,
become the budding flowers
in her chest.

She remodifies
cobblestones into steppingstones,
amplifying her narrative.

She tosses the losses
into words
and crosses beyond the horizon.

A candle flame burns deep
inside her solar plexus
as she transmogrifies the shards into a mosaic;
the strings of the web she was entangled in
weaved into embroidery to embellish her soul.

The cries and lies,
made her wise
as she built from the same sorrows
she was drowning in.

She put her ache on cadence
and turned up a brain wavelength.

She finally found her salvation
from abandonment
a dive deep and wide into
the depth of introspection
pulling from the cronies and nooks
the parts built and undiscovered.

She armed herself with
empathy fueled passion
as she has burnt, learnt
and learn to yearn the better
while she steers forward
with a transfigured mindset.

For the people who came,
now leave as poems.

I espy
Three people wandering around
through the busy hubbub
Of the Old Town
They have four parrots
Perched, upon their shoulders
I hope they don't poo
Anything that smoulders
"Give me a gottle of geer!"
Said an invisible parrot
In my right ear
I leapt from my seat
Much alarmed
And checked myself
But remained unharmed
Not wanting to be seen
Talking
To an invisible parrot
That was now squawking
That no-one else could hear
This invisible parrot
Squawking in my ear
"It's okay" said the parrot
"I can hear what you think"
"I like you in blue"
"But prefer you in pink!"
"Well" thought i
Feeling a little shy
"There's nothing i can do"
"As i have no pink dye"
"And besides, i prefer rainbows!"
"From my head"
"Right down to my toes!"
"Including your pinkies?"
Said the parrot in jest
I laughed out loud
in front of a crowd
So i left the Ille Cafe
As was now to embarrassed to stay
As the invisible parrot
Simply flew away!

by Jemia