-- when I have the tenderness of a writhing dragon,
he will paint flowers across my throat

as though to remind me that fires are indelicate,
and that I writhe in a prison made of open space.
-- this man will not smother me with his skin
when we sleep.
-- this man will unhinge the door of my mouth,
and kiss out the bullets stuck under my tongue.
                                                                ­               ---
whatever thousandth day I awaken beside this man,
realizing I have become the flowers he painted
across my throat, by braving my throat,

I will, unchaining myself from the draconic worry,
bring him his coffee in bed, with a smile.

it has been exactly since ~3p.m.
                                                            yesterday...
                                       through to
3p.m. today: that's 24 hours +
                                      4 o'clock, 5 o'clock rock,
          6 o'clock,
                                          7, 8, 9
                     10, 11 and the upcoming twelve
         24 + 9 + excess passing the 36th hour...
oh this is just target practice -
                  what used to be
   serotonin has become adrenaline:
   spawning cobweb shadows with
   a mere arm-hair aligned with an itch:
i say to my cohabitants -
        i'm too poor to rent an apartment
with my contemporaries,
         and i can't be bothered to look cool
for 10 years... before the money starts
coming in... a day before a tongue spoke:
and see you in 20 years...
         and see you in 30 years...
the people born prior to 1975
       and after 1969 came out to earn
£57,000 a year... while those born
after 1979 and before 1985 had a wealth
*** of £27,000...
                            who are the landlords?
quick digression, i love how the idea
of exiting the bloc (it used to be designated
to the eastern bloc, now anything east of Calais
if a bloc... the European bloc -
        my my... ain't it love-ly?
   they wanted an Australian points system,
so first came the Australian plastic currency,
boy, i was happy, cashing in my first Churchill
miniature that i could dip in baked beans
and use as a spoon) spread beyond the old
stereotype... and the points system?
you know who's smoking the hookah of
panic here?            
                            the freelancers of nationality...
   they haven't fitted in...
don't worry... they'll keep you,
but after seeing you they just thought:
once the cheeky chappy, now a chavvy chappy...
  we love the E2 dialect, it's hardly Coccers
or bonkers... but after my day
(i'll relate to it in a moment)
       i heard to prop'ah Cockneys giving it
all the guv' and n'ah and
        what's Kilimanjaro in Cockney slang?
all the Cockneys are living in Essex,
   Romford, Chelms and the Essex lads
from Ireland are a bit shy, never talk to
the old people who used to live on
the Isle of Dogs or the Wharf -
              East London moved, and i'm in
the thick o' it... you ***...
                       i'm here,
open ******* spaces and hedgehog counts
to mind... never the next Susie from
Whitechapel doing the runner from Jackie,
             and funny that,
the day began during the night,
sober, i tested the idea: if you gonna go
nocturnal, stay sober...
                  fast... drink coffee in the morning,
and what some proper bollocking
        on the box...
                               i say: revivals never
sounded more like bells, the 1970s
had Patois... the old parle with dread-lock Sam...
             i squeeze in a bit of Norse
and hey presto... Ahmed's your uncle...
                     'cos we all like a bit of
way-hey banter, the: back in the day
   when the 1966 squad was best known
for West 'am...
                               am i sensing the idea that
i'm licking off the prop'ah beef burger 'ere?
                    what the **** rhymes
with Kilimanjaro?
                                wait! got this one:
apples & pears - stairs...
                          you gyro?
                        no! wait... the two Cockneys
weren't from south London,
this ain't Peck'am talk... this is proper grub...
         jar squared: verb, meaning?
     i know my neighbour, heard him
lecturing his wife over the wall about
the diminishing concept of family in the "west",
           to me that's
the Cockneys meant by guv'nah:
                           aw right der geezer,
   stop that fidgety: don't be late tomorrow,
let a man eat his plums and wear his trousers...
       i swear: the only good cinema these days
is English cinema...
                                 i said! the only good cinema
these days is English cinema...
               if i didn't watch
       we **** the old way during the night,
after spending my day as i did (i'll get onto it,
hold your submarines)
                               i would have pricked my ears
on the two Cockneys next door
   at 4p.m.                  finishing some job...
but given the "guv'nah's" attitude: 'aving
a laugh at coming early tomorrow, if at all.
     my day?
                 i wished i could say i woke up
early...
                            the entire spectrum
of sunrise...
                            epileptic shock from the sun
after smoking a cigarette at 5a.m. when
all the constellations where out...
                          not enough sleep,
as the Russians say: no good to live but to
not have seen snow.
                               it shivers with enough
hours under your belt...
                                      i'd love those
Soviet torture chambers of sleep malnutrition...
gents? when the ***** and the cards and cigarettes?
    i'm currently the most loathed
  person in America... which technically makes me
more than simply unemployed...
        anyway...
cut my hair... two millimetres off the helmet...
off the cranium... not crew cut, not skin on side
and some ***-fluff on top...
in the night, when the moon is bright,
   my two millimetres of hair look like skin...
oi! Skinners! the shame would have really been
to have protruding ears...
                                    come to think of it,
i love the contorts of my shadow more than
the body my shadow disdains...
                  i decided to visit my old school
after that...
                     ...............................
do you know the feeling of getting onto a bus
when you having been on any other form
of transportation (other than your legs)
for a few months?             surreal...
                   and even that's a bad way to describe it...
this is where words simply fizzle out...
                            they just did the white rabbit
trick and you're felt with nothing else to
do but squeeze into the top-hat and hope
that some other magician will pull you out
rather than another: white rabbit.
                          so the 499 from my house
up to Romford (sunny! glorious day!
   shirt, sleeves rolled up,
           denim trousers, navy suede shoes,
azure shirt, headphones, bus ticket,
wallet, packet of smokes, and the ride -
smile all you want - when you smash a sports
car you don't have the view of a dozen
horrified passengers there with you
to practice your ultimate Buddha gimmick -
Ching-Chong Eyed and smiling)
                oh yeah, the insurance... huh?
   off at Romford central, and onto the 86
courier from Bangladesh to Ilford...
                    what did i miss in the list above?
ah... three copies of poetic optometry...
written by? moi, n'est pas? oh come on,
let's not get the ruler out: mangetout and manage trois...
                           (only fuel is horses)
           the 86 is a double decker, the 499 isn't...
sun in my eyes behind the glass the enhanced star
gleamed: what privilege -
               by day the star
                                           by night the star in
   a mirror that's the moon -
                                         selfish helium
giggling into a hydrogen Hindenburg fury!
                 or that's what the scientists say...
how they worked it out, i'll never know...
                            but apparently the sun
is a H-He           something or other...
            H because of atom bombs,
   and He because we giggle like idiots when we see
it: never the thirsty horse in cowboy movies.
   got off at Seven Kings...
in between school girls eyeing everyone and everything...
just my luck... schoolchildren...
                               everywhere on the bus...
just there...
                                    and also just nowhere...
         so i got off at Seven Kings and went into my
old catholic school...
                                  waited at the reception for a good
5 minutes (good to know they're still teaching
people manners with regards to the uttermost
productive necessity of bureaucrats)
               -              i asked about my old English
teacher: does Dr... er... does Mr. Thomas,
        er, does Mr. Bunce (Thomas) still work here?
   yes, he does.
             you see, i'm a former pupil of this school
and i wondered if i could have a meeting with him.
oh, that's impossible, he's currently teaching.
                     Kafka... note this in your afterlife...
         well... in that case, could i leave him a message?
oh sure, just write your name and your contact details
and he'll get in touch with you.
   well... i need a bit more than a scrap of paper,
can i have a notepad?
                 sure.
                                    so i took  the pen
and the notepad and sat in this grand refurbished hall
of the school that used to remind me
of chemistry labs stinking of old wood and sulphur,
of the old ways... of being beaten and Pink Floyd
escapism and all the hippy crap...
                               what a grand place this has become...
it's no longer known as C. P. Catholic School...
but the plus version: C. P. Academy...
  but you still walk into the plus surroundings and there
are still pamphlets written by Father Ted
about *our Lord and Saviour christ Jesus...
          or Hey! Zeus! in Spanish... same ****...
different cover...
                               but i was well dressed in my
Indian summer wear that's Indian summer:
English September and October...
              i'd move the calendar up a bit...
get the kids off anti-depressants...
                           anyway, i had my three copies
of the "first edition", try tell that with the internet
breathing down your neck... it doesn't, matter...
             but i did write him a lovely note:
unchaining me from the straitjacket of grammar!
                  i wrote from what year i graduated
2002 (g.c.s.e.) or 2004 (a-level),
                        and blah blah and one more blah
later                    walked back to the reception
  and asked for a rubber-band...
                   then i bundled the whole thing together
and asked if she could give it to him...
                    of course, she replied.
                            p.s. if you don't mind,
Mr. Thomas, you can always shove one of those
copies into the school library...
                         p.p.s., someone stashed
the book about the Gnostics by some German in
there once... maybe i'm thinking along the same lines.
      the journey back?
i walked.
                                 i walked from Seven Kings
to Romford...
                               taking a stroll
with one hand in my pocket (left)
because holding a cigarette in the other is never
exactly great when it's not doing something...
that's what the pockets are for...
not exactly suited for your wallet... but your hand...
when you're strolling in the green-belt fields
segregating the outer-most London (wannabe
Londoners / Eastenders) and the Essex inheritors
of Cockney... Kilimanjaro?
                                  Kilimanjaro?
                 ­                          me, i don't Essex
either...           most of the bankers chose this
district for the scenery, i.e. standing in a field
that isn't a hill or any sort of elevation
and beyond, yonder, the glass shards of their
former institutions...
                                        4.7 miles... not bad...
  a stroll... and that's without any food and solely
on coffee and a sleepless night...
           a butterfly fluttering along the way (only one)
and a fresh ripe auburn conker lying beneath
an oak tree (also, only one)...
            but what hit me was walking back...
it was truly like reading the book of revelation...
13:7... all the way from Seven Kings through to
the Romford: the street vendors, the bookies,
the Muhammedian car dealers...
                  the bewildered ones walking into
mosques, Sikh temples...
                                       one man cleaning the patio
entrance to a church from weeds...
                           cheap Kentucky chicken from America
         (if you think, that they don't synthesise
the meat in cat food and call it tuna or beef
but rather use actual meat... you're grossly mistaken,
    it was on the news...
                                         they are already
capable to synthesise meat...
                                     they do it in the perfume industry,
they're doing it in the food industry -
    a childhood memory of asking why they were
smearing lipstick on the frogs they caught...
they replied: they burn easier...
                  and they did... paint a frog lipstick
pink and boy... that's a French marshmallow, right there)...
           but if you ever walk that stretch of road...
               revelation 13:7...
          i'd like to see the Evangelists wriggle out
of that one...                       oh sure...
i treat religious television like some meathead
might watch football... it's game on after 5 minutes...
but anyway... that was my day...
           all 36 or so hours of it... how was yours?
                                                          ­                        g'day!

-you rip up your coffee cups after you're done with the drink just as an excuse to stay and talk longer yet the thought of spending time unchaining your fears fights the red in you to conquer them in groups of 2
-did you forget that you were once an artist who could move mountains into valleys just to brush the snow off them?
-whoever set fire to the blooming flowers you holistically grew in your heart was only doing you a careful favour because you never liked orange roses and now you're watering glowing daises that suit your vibe anyway
-brick walls aren't as blocked off as they seem but the cement keeps them together like the sky is willing to do for you
-stop picking apart the petals on peonies and maybe the stars will stop picking pieces of peace off of you

Lately,
my words have hit the trash can
rather than decorating
the wall of fame.
My mind is on a constant frown,
deeply obsessed with you.
I wanted your life to be perfect,
not flawed with worries
about tomorrow.
I wanted you to reach the height
of unlimited potential.
But lately, I’ve been the one
delaying your deliverance,
creating treason and misery.
Making you less
than you were before.
Lately...
...my words tainted your soul
with disappointment.
Unmade your dreams
and disrupted the prosperity
of your wants.
Young titan - no longer mine,
Letting you go,
unchaining your heart
making you soar...

Equates...
unsurmountable  measures of pain...
...and alcohol.

Diary confessions

last night, the same woman from a previous night prior to last night, walking with shopping bags into an affluent area of the town, giving me the ultimate evil stare of all famous superstitions. the second time, last night, the same woman, the same diseased stare, and this poem - as a result of being impregnated with too much evil; call me superstitious, but not all witchery is softened by psychiatric reasoning and antidepressants.*

and then i hear of my parents meeting a friend of mine's father,
an "antique" dealer for the tourists
slander me for drinking too much and not glorifying marijuana
while insults were thrown like snowballs
before my mother and father entertaining guests from canada,
i talk a bit more with him in a pub a few weeks later,
he tells me of the topic of conspiracy to commit ******
with haemorrhage symptoms like nothing: but how do you know
he says; i offend him with courting: but how do you know
whether i'm telling the truth or lying? in silence.
i raise my hands upon parting, we part:
diana wanna hugs? no, diana wanna scrap metal.
his father made our friendship less by not including a monetary
exchange of power, i'd flex a bicep my way had i a necessary
drinking partner; but i don't: the chip man sold whole potatoes
deep fried in the shape of fabergé eggs... his father sold
traffic cones in the shape of trombones at a higher price, only
because all the buyers were tourists.
socrates was wrong though: poets are not rhetoricians
or sophists, what we are we are because we use rhetoric and sophistry
to insult people, trying to remain in tact: better that
with any army, we're more armadillo word-to-word than the hoplites
shield-to-shield; idiots never known an insult for a gimmick
unless a chess-precise knuckle is utilised on unchaining linkages;
but like the saxon i too, on the vibrant islands of celt and caramel,
the second wave of saxons came, the scot and irish celts worried
about lambs of isaac, but lessened their concerns
with the norman landing - so i too originated upon using
my tongue to a disadvantage, and it worked, for hastings and for all,
"lying" myself abrupt with a burp for the sparrow to ease lighter spacing
of the advantaged footstep.
we were poets, word-to-word tighter than the hoplites shield-to-shield
for what the gladiators called armadillos of a farm.
socrates didn't get it, since he reasoned: i to noun, equating it only
as questioning pro to the guise of inquiry, but among the native nobility of greece,
poetry survived, songs and jests supreme, park bench hollows
for the termite lisp in sounds of the multitude,
had but the termite song bore a chair to rock a baby blue,
i'd too rock a baby in suffocating termites song,
but we known nouns are not delicious "out of time"
in the adjectives, for we know nouns as static insurmountable objects,
and given the unitary subjectivity of sport statistics,
they are only worth a passive commentary of nodding and passivity
to please - i.e., never was sloth a gamble to ease a fission of gambled lessening;
but if philosophers corrects poets, then poets end up correcting furtherance
with philosophy simply plagiarised for academia's salary bogus;
wishing that socrates only took the bribe rather than the poisonous brine.

i start the night off reading *the offence of poetry, by an emeritus prof.,
hazard adams, gets me ******* to the point where i forgive the culprit
of rotten *** and jealous ****** born lute worthy out of wedlock...
why the violins i ask, chopin played a few dirges on piano,
why the sentiment to imagine Dickensian paupers?
a violin dropped from the sky with frogs & lepers didn't **** anyone,
but a piano did, once, in bad key.

i started the night off reading a book: the offence of poetry,
got *******,
walked off into the jiggle night starry for some beers,
walked past a family: mother, father plus 3, a boy and two girls,
headphones on, hushed, then my hairpiece the attention,
walked into the off-lice, picked up 8 cans,
stood there imitating conservative *******,
spotted the mother eagerly brushing shadows with me,
tilted from my eye corner into her face
and spotted a ****** up face of smiles:
girls talked about me like zoella,
i donned my pseudo self-inventive chonmage,
hair too thick;
but i egged them on in rugby, loving the tetragrammaton geometry of
two H, y for threes in dimensions and
all the tactic being: // \ for the w.
pardon me wrong but was it: eager eagle's nest the jester in clown's face paint
**** of splash in conversation?
but don't you just love a married woman with three kids
putting two wine bottles on a counter looking at you
after her children said something noticeable about you only secondary in dreams?

well... there's the rude story of a friend's father among many
to claim the accent in jealousy,
father ****** no. 2, hide his ***** in a ******* prior to the girthed birth
experience of: "rising to the top of law and commerce."
idiotic ******* the load of them;
happened in leicester sq. i have you know,
irish was blazed in ginger that day too reminiscent of celtic,
but as you know, intelligence and the irish swing into the maxim:
a man walks into a pub - they delivered the concrete!
the pub is emptied, the irish run out for hands on prayer missing -
in shakespearean metaphor of folding monks giving prayer to ****
the ***** and lips the kiss, for whatever reason was worth a rhythmic suffix as towed into -ed, -ed.

At her first touch,
the flesh scattered
into ethereal fragments,
unchaining an immortal soul.

Without you, what do I have?
In you, my mind has settled,
In my eyes, my dreams are imprisoned.

Day and night, in unbearable anguish have I waited,
But, just the bitter pain of separation, you have brought.
Never did you see what my heart yearned.
When all I wanted was light from you,
It is only darkness that you have filled me with.

Open my inner colors with your ray of love,  
And bring hopes of life into my barren heart.
Release me from this anxiety by unchaining me,
I will have a new life with you,
I will see a new world through you.  

~ Translation to English by Bharathi
From Kannada: "ನೀನಿಲ್ಲದೆ ನನಗೇನಿದೆ?" by M. N. Vyasa Rao.

My agent for apeiron appeared standing
In classical grey coat stopping me by one
Palm reaching toward ninth heaven nine

Such is the gaze poetics, astonished thing
From the shinny reawoken dynastic ring
From my mind I call you on n' on dreamy
My uncatchable personal erudites library

Many thorough smiles unchaining liberty
Of bridges forms n' our humming colours

Above erased reliefs, wave waters mistery

coldness wraps my body and scoops me up in a tight hug
the feeling of nails scratching on metal , run up and down my skin
unchaining my self up from the monster hosting my head
like a disease has taken over my entire body - a parasite
i try to conquer my fears
but these tears , running down my cheeks tell their own story
so i don’t fight back and listen to the ocean on my face
trying to understand why its so hard for me to live in this place
my tears ventured into different places,  traveled the universe and beyond
looking for something or someone they could call home
they try to come out of my eyes because they can no longer hold on
they build up then fall down
waterfalls then create a stream
lumps building up in my throat , i can’t speak
but these tears they like to form their own way of speech

Walking too many miles,
Carrying your weight on my shoulders,
Hand in hand, we watched all their smiles,
Months turned into years,
Invisible and unnoticed by the eye,
Friends? We never were,
You whisper reasons for me to cry,
Slipping away every single time,
running away…
Two,
Three,
Four…

Unchaining and breaking off, yet still clinging on what’s left of me,
Let go, Let go, Let go,
I can’t.

The reality
of who we are resides
in this word..
It may seem as loneliness
an ungrounding of roots
frightening perhaps..
Or an unchaining from the
hold of a place
a dislodging into a
space-like fullness
a non-local experience
of real freedom...

you cant stop the rain from falling
too many drops
you cant stop freedom from unchaining itself
too many links

you cant stop the road from extending
into the sunset
its too connected
you cant stop dreaming of free flight
locked in a cage

you cant wear red
in a sea of blue because
you will stick out
you can hope for greener grass
walking in a desert
you can count your blessings
when you have little
you cant count your blessing when you have
too much. The difference will not be noticed.

you can be free
inside yourself
and you can be free
alone.

I know that much.

I've tested all these cans
and cannots!

Author Notes

Contemplation 7. Freedom
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

I collect every
one
that resides within,
memories
that need unchaining.

Never letting rivers
flow
away your happiness
ebbing
emotions saturating inside.

I'll inhale every
sorrow
that needs release.
Hues
of sentiment painting within.


Never letting you
drown
from tears descending down.
Vessel
of your dejection, I'll never fill up.

Running on instinct
And adrenaline
And a lust so deep that it's irresistible
The fall
Feels like flying
Downward fast
Stomach dropping
Heart racing
Craving more
Roughness
Balanced with gentleness
Kisses in the heat of the night ...
Back scratching, hair pulling, gripping sheets and the back of your neck and caressing your chin
Growl at me as I watch you until I can't help but close my eyes and enjoy you exploring the forbidden places inside of me
Finding and Unchaining the animal inside of me
A beast not from Earth
A beast so beautiful so graceful
So in tune
the rhythm of bodies against each other like wise hands to the djembe
Synchronized heart beats and breaths and *******
The savagery

My boyfriend was a lyrical majesty,
rainbow magic, musical tunes thrumming
deeply in my soul, a vessel of untamed
designs reigning supreme streets, his ebony
eyes a man of vast horizons.  Upbeat swag,
bright chiseled cheeks, dreadlocks dangling
behind his back like a suspended tree limb.
His bulging chests blossomed the way rushing
rivers flowed past flourishing crop fields
and huge houses, the veins rising and falling
in supersonic rhythms, his abs a prism
of powerful inventions turning the keys
in my ignition on, making my bones float
on spinning Saturn.  And I was in love
with his complex mind, how he was able
to change the equations of life into mind-blowing
mazes that challenged your existence,
how the fabric of fascinating foundations
sparked my flesh, his thoughts and feelings
entering my lips and ribs, the chamber
of my brain, unchaining my heart
as I embraced the boundless mountains
in his arms.  He was my enchanting king.
And as I ran my fingers around his muscles,
the sublime symmetry slipping in my skin
like gushing water, his smooth notes a beautiful
world that I adored, a majestic frequency,
a shimmering wavelength, a destination
making love to my mind.

You think you made me
The fact is
You have no power over my dream
I dream discipline
You sell religion
I dream vegetables
You dream of no beef and sell chicken
I dream today I will survive
You dream of riches tomorrow
I dream of hugging her
You dream of kissing the grim reaper
I dream of unchaining the heart
You already have the thrown the key
To dream once more
If we die as cowards, we will be never be remembered
Like a dream forgotten after poor sleep
At least I lose sleep over my future