The streets were paved with hawkers
Flamboyant sunshades
two dollar sunglasses discounted from
twenty thousand pesos.

I couldn’t walk past the conversation of skytowers
Underwear hanging precariously
Off high ledges where it was hard to read
The designer labels

A man with a small monkey
Was reading fortunes
With an ape like face
He certainly saw the future!

A delicious woman with pushed up
***** beckoned me away from boredom
I walked into a valley of sinister looks
For looking away.

At night the sky shed its diamonds
On the sidewalks of ecstasy
And the digital signage
torched the front of buildings
With blue and red flames bursting
Invitations to your wallet

I carried a six pack Lion
Home to watch the night sky
Dance till dawn with necklaces
Of neon.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 7 days ago

They
told me
“Go out and
meet new and different people
called strangers,” but I asked, “Where do
I meet them?” They shrugged
so I gave
them a
Mirror.

In the transition between water and ice
I spoke my words inside an air pocket
and let it freeze over

The ocean knows.
Fill the world's largest container with it,
Or a shotglass. A thimble.
It will not care. It cannot care;

Nothing is ever removed

From anything.

Thirty years from now
no one will know the colour
of your eyes the car your drove
and the sound of your voice
or the house you lived in
Even the times you swore
you denied bread
to the outstretched arms
milk to the baby
wine to the wise
and love to the unloved.

Unless

you make a mark of man
in the footsteps to the temple
where lives an invisible being
resplendent in mercy
forgiving
and infallible to all
and accept
that your own universe
was crafted by this creator
with your name
scrawled in calligraphy
on a special page with your name
and number embossed
b?
d?
who am I?
What should I do?
to leave behind the best of Me?

Author Notes
Recognise this reflection?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

Sometimes I talk about you like you're away on a trip and you're coming back.
Throwing you into casual conversations as if the people I was conversing with felt everything you make me feel.
Pretending they understand the depths of my heart
and how deep you've fallen into it.

But not even I understand the intensity that is you.

Like gravity you pull me back and hold me down.
Trapping me in an illusion of a story never told and never to be told
but forever read in my head.
A never ending dialogue between love and loss, let go and hold on.

A love story.

A tragically beautiful love story.