Most days I'm ok.
I get up in the morning
Happy to go to work.
I eat my lunch under the pine trees
With a little lizard I've named Bob.
I get home at night and throw on
Smooth bluegrass while I make dinner.
I've got my routine and hardly vary.
But on the days that stray
From my habitual cadence
I also find my thoughts wander to you.
And even though you've been gone
For some time now, and we've both moved on,
I can't deny the existence
Of that small hole in my heart
You left behind.
And I wonder,

*Do you have one too?

The door it opened slowly,
my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
his blue eyes they were shining
and his voice was very cold.
He said, "I've had a vision
and you know I'm strong and holy,
I must do what I've been told."
So he started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
and his axe was made of gold.
Well, the trees they got much smaller,
the lake a lady's mirror,
we stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over.
Broke a minute later
and he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
he looked once behind his shoulder,
he knew I would not hide.
You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
your hatchets blunt and ******,
you were not there before,
when I lay upon a mountain
and my father's hand was trembling
with the beauty of the word.
And if you call me brother now,
forgive me if I inquire,
"Just according to whose plan?"
When it all comes down to dust
I will **** you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I will **** you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform,
man of peace or man of war,
the peacock spreads his fan.

Today I told a doctor that time heals all wounds
he said no that’s aspirin
and if  you have have allergies
you’ll need epinephrine

Today I told a priest that time heals all wounds
he said no that’s God
also prayer and hope wouldn’t hurt
if I was no fraud

Today I told a psychic that time heals all wounds
he said to get a reading and I’d be fine
and he’d throw in a magic ball
for only $9.99!

Today I told myself that time heals all wounds
as I looked in the mirror staring my body down
It better I whispered
because in this pain I soon will drown

Like love
the river bends with a mind of its own
brutally, beautifully
slowly disdainfully, in no hurry to go places,
everything must succumb, no compromises,
no ifs and buts
and all else must stand aside
as the Grand Canyon mind
cuts its swathe through the hardest of emotions
and divides the great expanse
into rivulets of meaning

So it is with those  we love
we move grains of sand
out of reach and slice through the toughest
facades to express this desire
to belong to  the ocean
breaking into waves at the end
of its wandering

And yet in
these are rivers of love
people reside on the outside
looking in
at this constant connection.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 4 days ago

The bristles on the boulevard clicked and clopped
splattered into flat rain drops
sped to join bodies with other playmates
now rushing to the rivulet gathering
into a big bang of floodwater
which nobody watched
with physics and formulas.

The pin-striped drops that caused
a rising revolution, spears dangling
for brief seconds in  a war cry of splosh-splashes
finally raced to lower ground
to bring down the dam and city
and invade peoples front porches
and backyards
armed with mud and silt
and strawberry colored slime.
The night was camouflaged
with raindrops on the roof
all with the same intention.

Children went to sleep
as parents drank whisky and prayed
for such a thunderous night
of rhythmic staccato symphonies.
Tomorrow the rain would recede
and the fields would be fertilized
down to the roots. Or so they thought.

The flood crept up to their toes
and emptied the refrigerator
of its half-eaten sandwiches. The carpets
soaked up the spilling sauce
and ironically the windows locked
tight to keep out the rain!

As the floods subsided
the newspaper got their headlines:
ONCE IN FORTY YEARS!
it shouted for a dollar and twenty
Everyone read the papers
on how the  neighbors got caught.
Cruel *******
always poking into other peoples business.

Two days later the sun returned
to cause a heat wave.

And everyone prayed for rain!.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago