Even as the neon lights lit up the street with seductive winks
of blue promising colours I slid past the tonne of a beef burger
doorman, muscles tensed in conversation with his power.

I had no identity, no number to call to confirm
my foray into the ****** of sincity doom
but my adrenaline turbo was greater
than all the indulgences laid out by the church.

Soon the show started and it was neon
seven course  greasy meals of delicious
red rosette ******* and bulging cabbage
bums that were only found in naughty books,
so against my catholic upbringing
of saints in halos, sinners in chains-
all collecting at the ankles.

My eyes were young and  untrained
to the slow naked lights and movement
so I had to stare
through the shadowed light and dancers
throbbing to the music of  savage drums
gyrating to  the  pulp of night.

That's how I mixed up
poetry and lechery
in one single escape from innocence.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 5 days ago

They said the world was paved with opportunities
oh yes it was. Businesses of all kinds
Both good and bad, sliding in and out of your conscience self
effortlessly. Writers of all kinds gathered in a pool
of subscribers, hoping for their craft to catch the eye
and gain the comments that so elevated them to pedestals
of happiness. Pain was ignored. Pain creates joy?

I was different. I came with words, worthless in themselves
staccato butterflies that grazed the slim lines of poetry
and migrated south of the border to lie in a wasteland
of dead pupae and broken wings. Yet I was not afraid
to say so. Words are worthless-no matter how you look at them.

But sing them out, dance them in a dream, play
the orchestra with its flawless symphonies
and magically those worthless words take flight
couched in the wings of music soaring above
the desperate denizens of waste paper baskets
into opportunities of hope and lust and longing.

I love words. I treat them carefully, dress them in silk
and satin, paint their fingernails, don eyelashes and
red berried lipstick and kiss them into rhyme and rhythm
walk them down the street, heads turning and
store them in books, songs and minds
in a library of conquests of body and soul and when the day
is done. I forget them. Not one of the thousand poems I wrote
can be recited. Butterflies migrating to the swamp of reincarnation
where lie millions of other poems that never saw the opportunity
of musical flight.

I  love words and I hate them. Its a relationship
like Jekyll and Hyde. Two shadows, two voices,
one sound with too many accents, yet they mean so much.
I could write the music for every poem but I'm tone deaf.
I need to see the eyes of reader sparkle in the frenzy
of reading and then I know my opportunity to write
was not wasted, loved not littered about
not defeated and languishing in another dry desert.

Author Notes
Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 days ago

Blistering between the false hope of liberty
and the dream of a destiny
beyond the stars and the cosmic intricacies
of filtered rituals of nonsense, I stayed stymied
on the crutches of traditional customs
and conventions of writing.

Even the telescopic vision of a faraway
fantasy did not change rapidly
until the burning smell of a laissez-faire life
drove me into  the strange new highways
of poetry.

Before too long I re-directed my attention
to writing, reading and contemplation
all of which came together
in an implosion of thought.

I wrote my first poem at the tender
age of twelve
and never stopped racing down the
roadways of writing
tyres burning
and speedometer ticking

Who can stop a getaway wordsmith
from breaking vocab records
for daring the unimaginable fantasy?

Author Notes
Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 8 hours ago

This is a family show

There should be no swear words
Nothing to do with *** and laughter
No racist comments
No political satires
No throwing pies at each other
No peeing on the fence
No graffiti
Nothing
No watching TV after 7.30pm
No snide remarks about broccoli
All must eat their carrots and peas
And work off those calories
No playing games
Complete your homework
Go to bed ( alone, mind you) at 8.00pm
No driving without a license
No staying out late at night

Jeez! what kind of abnormal family is this?

Author Notes
Getting crazier by the minute
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

I am a cube in a dark chocolate bar
seasoned with a milky white
continent of courses
collision of cultures
chili and chill wind season
in overcoats of global ambitions.
Born in the barracks of colonial masters
who took their women from tribal backwaters
of empire. These beauties succeeded
in conquering their Masters
in the art of warfare in bed and beyond.

say what you will
I carry the cost of all completion
and show the combination of colours
on my skin
burnt in the sun of these wars and conquests
all six of us soldiers.

we took his language and her complete
abandonment to beauty grew in the night
of knowing the white ruled the rainbow
and hard liquor while the dark bred the boldness
or so. (Mama said)

we, as children of different cultures
in a  potpourri of pertinence
got licked, kicked, bruised and burped
cooked and laid as chocolates always do.
But we grew in mamas wonder of the world
at large, while Dad knew all the blends of single malt
maidens from the highlands of his birth.

as happy children, aware of hard work and toil
we rose faster than the fumes of spirits
and set about travelling the shores of net profits
and university empires instead.

Mama laughed when we told her
of the worlds and wonders we had conquered
and how the colour of our skin spoke for us.

Dad knew all about peg measures
and pork chops, fork, spoon  and gunpowder conquests
as hollow as his casks of wine
and maturing as slow as his wisdom.
Mama only knew the meaning of knowledge
with no degrees.

God bless them both
as they sit around a table
in that great place in the beyond
and discuss chocolate bars
skin and colourful wrapping
of all six cubes!

I am Anglo-Indian.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

Black and controlled  in the corner
eyes piercing the arc of reason
talons out twitching
staring emphatically back
into my own terrified corner
she continued to stare past me now
at something I could not see

She  rose into morning sky
tinted with the dawn of day
flew past the electric imagination
fear of a  silent pocket where
talons retreated into sheaths
eyes glassed over with glory

The Chief stood majestically
as dancers pounded in the pow wow
invoking Black Eagle to return
to its sublime nesting. Magnificent
mighty omen shared a dream
I never expected.

Still the visit binding brilliant memories
of what it all means
to be part of a strange magnetic
spectacle haunts my day
with wonder!

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

We are here in a secluded circle
listening to the tone of tension
in others poems fraught with livid lines
laying thin layers of onion skin emotions
on love hate and energetic romps
of madness
electric stimulation
of the mind bending magic
words as brittle as bone
laid in technical verses
so sensitively sweet to the ears
tuning fork.

We applaud gently
afraid to be left out
even if not fully comprehended
of the verses so read.

Whatever keeps us stuck
like magnets to ritual bloodshed
as flesh and blood coerce
these rites of passage. We are slaves
to convention.

Even as I defy the dance
of technical wizardry
my mind frazzles at the meaning
that some modern poetry
exhibits
and numbs me into silence.

I clap hollow.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 29 days ago

downwards
brave seed
soaked summer sun
clutched winters wool
stay calm
sperms approach
turbo engine
grasp hands
slid tentacles
through autumns
open arms
burst open
brazen
bloom
die
again
and again

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 26 days ago

Wow!
Eyes closed mouth open
I love dark chocolate!

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 22 days ago

I am a great cook, you said, casually
switching between the phone and knife
cutting conversations into small slivers
dicing lettuce, add patties, mustard
the phone smearing your make-up.
balancing between your neck and necklace
and long spiral ear-rings.

I am a great cook, you continued,
head tilted at a rakish angle
knife still dancing in mid-air.

( It’s a technique you mastered
over the years)
Cutting, calling and stalling.
I watched those big brown eyes
join the talkative salad and burger
now taking shape on the table

I shrivelled in fear
when you laughed and said:
I am a great cook and killer
of lettuce, stray ladies and flirty men-
Ha! Ha!
( oops!)

Do you want a beer to go with your burger?
did you joke?

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 22 days ago

The wine waited and the flowers wilted
chocolates got soggy, limp and listless
the Eiffel dreams of standing tall and *****
slumped to side
and the Champs De Elysees gathered its circumference
and went around in circles.

You did not come as promised

Never mind,
Hope is  a cobweb through which we weave
spidery webs of deceit
sticking delicately to daydreams
fruit bowls of Eves apples
and candlelight caresses
that turned the pages of our ******
conversations into imaginary paragraphs
for  bestseller voyeurs.

We both made the same mistake
of getting the date wrong
and the timing out of daylight savings sync.

I will plan again for next summers
Postcard from Paris
to myself.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 19 days ago

It all looked clean, crisp, picturesque postcard promise
The river reflecting skyblue shimmers
Mists rising wisps of secrets
Trees and plants glossy, full bellied, nutritious happy
The birds practising new song and twitching wings
of fancy in the bright 440 volt sunshine
Filtering through
the senses to settle softly.

All was really not that clean and crisp.
The photographer could not zoom in
On a dead kea choked on a 1080 trap
Dropping from the sky like a manna treat
Four fish gobbling pellets pulled upstream
Mouth agape as poison shut the fluttering gills
Two other magpies lost their raucous tone
Deprived by early morning bait
Possums slept softly high up in the tress
With last nights buds bursting in their full bellies

The photographer could not see beauty and ugliness
Together.
The lens could not question the crystalline view
The click was not from gun
digital film rolled irrespective
And his dream of a pristine forest
with no pustules told one side of the story.

The other side
Balanced the books
And tore the heart of the very creatures
That spoke beauty with being there.

The picture was captioned;
Clean and Green.
Was it?
A picture speaks a thousand words
Sprinkled with three hundred lies and lives.
Author Notes

This poem accompanied a lush photograph of forest with a little stream flowing through. In the same area where the photograph was taken, helicopters bombed the forest with 1080 poison pellets to knock off the possums which were eating through the fresh shoots and leaves.

The end result was more than the possums going to thy kingdom come.

There are serious environmental undertones in this poem.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid;=11260667
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 18 days ago

The words fall into place, the race to get the rhythm of the lonely night
in sight, as we saunter down the velvet images of life
one by one, we gather beads of memories
and string them in a ring, surrounding the flight of sight
and sounds  jangling with verses and decibels
of dreams that we master in a magical essay of lines.

The sense follows, dense meaning as we write with a crutch
of pain, polish  and much for all that we demolish will
stand, oh so grand, when finished, be replenished
carving the content with careful intent
into substances of delight  insight!

Once more the anthem that I sing, will bring
us closer together in any sort of weather
wind, rain or shine, cold damp or distress.
hold, lo and behold, even as we carve symphonies
of stanzas and bonanzas of poems with some skill
that you cherish, flourish and thrill.

Lets write with the might and that inbuilt body of
words that soar like the birds o'er ocean and sky
and deep down into chasms of despair and doom
the sadness and the gladness, the pain and the gain
all within the sin, and the song the lust and the bust
that are tools that we use, we cannot refuse to
play in this way, every day until done with the fun
of a poem each day- any which way.

Begin.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a day ago

Last summer, the first of sunshine days
I walked the dusky dawn, down memory lane
searching for those strawberry nights of lust
and longing that lay captured in a jar

of firefly nights, chill wine and meaningless dreams
that wrote itself in our own language of caresses
and touching the stars, we stumbled into night
unaware that this-was, after all, an affair.Tomorrow

we must return to sanity, and take with us
our suitcase kisses, pretend nothing happened.
How quaint to feign when saturated in ecstasy
keeping it under wraps, quiet and carefully.

Yes, of course, I was tempted to teach the cellphone
new tricks of deceit in numbers, names and meanings
my tickets torn between a memory of wild nights
and wanton words, silk and satin sensations

Oh yeah, I reached home and its familiar welcomes
'The deals done,' I said to the unsuspecting wife
and kept a straight face, like any office memo,
and put my shirts and new ties into place

along with that knowing smile that lurks
in all marital mayhem. It was only when
the phone bleeped, my pulse raced, number familiar
'He knows', it read, and Judas welled up in my chest.

Summer came to a close, the sunshine left early
and winter set in quickly, as the leaves turned
dark rust with tinges of fading gold and blood.
Every snake must shed its skin now.

Author Notes

This is fiction. I'm just trying a new technique I learned this morning.
I've shed my skin too.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 days ago

The sound was switched off
to my  imagination
but you sauntered in that cascade silk of light
with sure steps,touching this,
tousling your hair, touching that
resplendent. Seductive in the setting.

You knew I was watching the sun dance
through the shadows
causing your smile
and mischief to glow brighter.

It was when you leaned over the balcony
my pulse raced with fear
and my heart stopped racing anymore.

Its only when you switched the sound back on
did I realise
your heart was also beating
between 'the agony and the ecstasy'
of the distance between us.

I take a  step forward.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 days ago

Oh he's lovely, bedecked in ornaments from the $2 shop
resplendent in gold and silver brocade
high up and mounted, majestic
barely balancing his bank accounts.
I like the looks of him. Nice teeth,
nice shape-oh momma, what a good choice
you made for me. I know you love me.
You are wonderful parents.

See, that fat bellied politician approaching
He is looking at the ladoos and the ladies
Thank god I can hide behind my veil of virginity
( I met this politician before- or did I?)
He makes a namaste-and reaches for the jelly-babies

I like the shanks, Papa, the look
the pulse races. my body quivers
What a lovely creature he is.

Oh Yes. He has his mouth open
and He sees me here.

The priest arrives pompously, people
what a thin priest?
He lacks the ladoo to marry
me to the horse!

Sorry Grandma.
I don't want the man.

Begin the bonfire.

Author Notes

In good humour. Must go with link. Cheers.

http://media-cache ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d2/37/c4/d237c4aa6f167fd382ea3d7aa9007cdf.jpg.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 11 days ago

There's the whisper  of reasoning
skies eyed  for answers dripping down
each pencil pointed at that pinnacle
where the recent lecture sits
awaiting dissection into assignments
for next weeks five thousand word essays.

I marvel at this resilience to learn
to stumble upon grand new theories
of emerging technologies and the world beyond.

I ask some quiet questions
what do you want to be?

Sadly most of them want to  stalk Einstein
without working for it
Some want a ladder to the Fortune 500
others just want those two extra marks
to climb over the paddock fence of education
to a trench board, tassels and a degree
a job and free airline tickets
to strange destinations untraveled.
Only one quiet girl (with braces and a beautiful smile)
wants the assignment sheet. Others treat it like leprosy.


The day closes with her dream
intact. She will rise with the dawn.
Her brain sizzling with solutions
hair unkempt
her manners polished with progress.

I walk away each day
humbled by the same mould that
produces clones of Bill Gates. Always.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 9 days ago

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

The sparks flew the moment I read your poems
and the way you split everything
into bits of laughter. It was a quaint kind of giggle
that spilled out each time you got nervous
about some thing metaphor or something
assonance. It was a pleasure to see you jump into
a group and suddenly take flight with bejewelled
words and images that soared across the page
in perfect poetic nuance.

Within a short burst of time, your inner voice
spoke splendid verses and symbols and soon
the poems took on a shape and simmer
that drew me into the deeper insights of your mind.
It was amazing what understood from the sheer
gossamer finery of your perceptions and the desire
to break free into the world of writers and poets.

Now I watch you grow, as tall and beautiful
as your writing and I'm taken aback
at how easily you can verse any emotion,
no matter how different it may be.

All of these creative impulses
must have been stored inside of you
awaiting somebody to unlock the latches
to your creativity
and set you free?

Author Notes

This poetess was reserved when I first  observed her writing a long time ago. The words were so purely artistic, but written with unsure steps in the direction to take. It is remarkable how quickly she took flight in a free world and how splendidly she writes now.
There must be hundreds of similar writers who would like to step out and soar high above mundane stuff?

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 7 hours ago

I'm not brave, never was and never will be
any scars I have are hidden in deep dungeons
somewhere in the vast open spaces of my mind
They are too deep to dig out and analyse. Even try.
There are no medals blistering my breast pocket

No  name shouted from pulpit or podium
No one cheering  academic prowess
scars of poverty or pain or orphan splendour
at tender twelve Christmases
all those scars buried under the skin, and swept out of sight
on the watching life. There were many watchers.

Not brave pushing boundaries
I learnt my  visual language off
graffitied walls and bart simpson.

No I was not brave, when I arrived here
with a shirt on my back and a two dollar back pocket
bus ticket. Come on you got to be joking,
for switching countries, continents and communities
to earn a square meal.

See what I mean? I'm not brave, riding morning evening traffic
with ten thousand automissiles coming at me daily
I'm not brave when I scoff a whole chocolate
cake without counting the calories or checking that waistline
or watching Dr Oz rave on about nuts fruits ***** and berries.
Its on the rare occasion I get brave and take notes!

No Im not brave at all. I'm a coward that hides behind brave people
who have 9-5 jobs, wear white skins to work, white collars
and smile behind white sparkling teeth with red ties
dripping in  ****** racist jibes of inequality.
No I'm not brave being 65 and hiding 65 thousand racist comments
under scars covered by moisturisers
white shirts and dark glasses
in the searing heat of society.

I am brave when it comes to using
words that hide behind lace-like feathery
curtains of verses and rhythms
that sing along to everything I write.

Author Notes

A critical look at society and how it functions between the layers of immigrants. Look under the skin to understand why we write poems, like we do. The harsher the social climate the more rugged are the desert rats it produces. History is full of such examples. This hierarchy will never change.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Suffused in silicone glass houses grows light
compressed into shades colours shapes
unmagnified the belief stays compressed
until freed from ******* and chains
in the prism

Rainbows burst forth in exuberance
flickering and wavy waltzing into imagination
captured glory in invisible naked sheets
spectrum energy of thin ribbons
strings of creativity locked
in a universe of time
with no beginning and no end
prism eternity

through the looking glass alice
may form a rainbow rabbit maybe a tunnel
through which she could splinter nano particles
into wavelengths of magnificent feeling
upside down meanings and magical memories
prismatic understanding

Baked in a wondrous mathematical formula
the numbers crunch into meaning
rotund and robust explanations
of cuboids and half triangles
unionised but separated entities
profoundly simple
in its complexity of metaphors
visual harmony
embossed in a prism

Why the light shrinks away from sight
into walls that bounce it back in rays
and colours capturing sky and raindrops
proclaiming weather and wonder
we will never know gods creation
and the magic he invests in simpler things
for us to unravel and behold.

Author Notes

We can see more than what the prism holds in its heart only if we care to look deeper.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Blessings. How discreet they lurk uncalled
unexpected and blossom, flower like, slow
sweet abundance, waltzing between wonder,
hope expanded wide-eyed heaven sent
settle feather like on clean sheets
of meaning. Always useful.

Thanksgiving  makes lists of lucky stars
and reasons spring from forgotten places
where we watch in amazement, as
the placement of benefits grows
adding shape to all welcoming arms.

We name them exotically. Feng Shui,
numerology, astrology, numbers and games
dice spun out of control, six sixes
whatnot.  No luck and randomness
is called as explanation. Gazing into empty tea-cups,
stones, shells, skulls and bones
shaman-like, magical lotto numbers
yet cannot see how lady luck
plays her hand. ****** into a whirlpool
of unknowns we still embellish our minds
with constant waiting.

Author Notes

Lady Luck is dressed to take your hand. Did you ever win without attributing the blessing to pure luck?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

of course the sun peeled another layer of my onion skin
barbecued and burnt to a crisp finish
like lettuce in a deep dish of saucy
spices and herbs, coriander and cumin parsley and pain
thyme and rhyme, sage and age
beer and blue bottle flies
all in the name of  nature.

soon the dialogues became dialects and grandpa
guzzled too much ale so he went off to nourish
a rose bush discreetly behind the party pack
of people, swirling about in champagne glasses
and tight skirts tempting us slowly getting drunk voyeurs
with glimpses of heaven and tight buns
packed with ham and cheese and spikes of hot
chilli *******
all in the name of the great outdoors.

as the son set in the evening sky old dad
was eyeing up a guest on her third bubbly
her thinking swerved quickly to burnt sausages.
I was still enjoying the barbecued chick
with the two toned honeysuckle skin
and 34DD sized mushroom concockion
and that, my friends, was purely my nature.

when night came around in a flimsy dress
which showed figures of mountains and sparkles
the ideas in my head bruised by too much *****
buns, bottles and bronze conquests
had to answer the call of nature.

I returned to a field of many victories
grandpa was tending roses head down in the dirt
dad had disappeared with his 34DD mushroom delicacy
Mom was busy discussing politics with a horn-rimmed
gentleman, who this minute would take off
his spectacles and put on his testicles
and I went to bed with hot buns waiting.
all in natural instinct!

Author Notes

An evening party on a  nice barmy day with guests gathered to enjoy nature and all its offerings. Nature is to blame if things went a little astray. Nature does that!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The Creator looked at the elephant and said:
I made you big so you could be gentle
To the mouse he said: I made you small
so you could walk tall
But over millions of years you two could exchange
places and one become the other.

I know I shoved the lot of you in an Ark
Because Noah was being a pesk asking for rain
when his washing machine ran dry
So I had to fill the oceans to stop that old man
from complaining all the time. Besides I needed the bark
from the trees of the Ark to make me  a small tug boat
to carry some DNA samples of my own, in case,
the lion ate the cow, the tiger chewed on the cat
and the fox tricked the rest with his cunning ways
You see, my friends, there was no grass, or snakes
or bird cages, or trees for the monkeys to swing on.

I thought of many things before I gave the building plans
to Noah and his sons. Only one was a builder the rest
were bums, who never held a hammer or learned how to
tie two bits of trees together, leave alone building
an ark to hold the worlds whole creation.Thankfully
there were no real estate agents pushing the price up
or bankers charging interest. The mafia thought of charging
an entrance fee for each pair, but before they could do that the rains came pelting down and the tickets got washed away in the storm.

So you see the Ark was a joint venture between
The Americans and Chinese and Indians
because they were willing to multiply quicker
than the rest once Mt Sinai rose up to meet the
oak leviathan from underneath.

And so my dear elephants and mouse
and fox and snake and bird and
lion and tiger. Noah and his wonderful Ark
was a script written well ahead so that Russell Crowe could get
a part playing Noah in a computer generated extravaganza
where only the actors and actresses who could afford
to pay a price to be in it - were involved.

The rest of mankind be ******.

Author Notes

Quirky.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Dear family and friends
At last, my son is walking the long gangplank
to a happy married life. God bless his final journey to sanity.
I'm sure his beautiful bride has learned how to
cart a whole box of beer bottles out to the kerb very tuesday
**** socks, ignore those **** posters on his walls,
collect all his Penthouse Libraries
and tie ties. It will be a happy life together.
I was lost for words the day he came over to Mom and me
to inform of his final adrenalin rush into matrimony.
( or was it matrimoney?)
I was happy for him to be happy
and even offered to escort him to the gate!
We looked at his budget for the big do
and quietly froze our bank accounts, shut down the
family jewels and booked a holiday to Paris
a day after the wedding.Confronting the bills
was a frightening prospect for his mother and me.
I am sure, honourable guests, you will have enjoyed
the invitations of recycled paper?
He offered to return my tie and brocade shirt the day after.
But he was a good guy after all. So much like his father
chip of the old block. Like father, like son
blah blah blah
He has a lovely wife, and she is smiling too
at the catch she made.  God bless that girls cunning.
As a parting gift,my son, I have left you
a legacy of lust and happiness.
A supply of ******, so that you too, my son
could walk around
with a stiff neck!
God bless the happy married couple!

Author Notes

Ok. Its not serious. So what.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Its that time of year again when the fires rage
for romantic nights and warm sensations wrapping
around you like a mink blanket. The candles
flicker a heartshaped flame and the table embroidery
clean and white like our new beginnings.

I just want to to hold your hand and read your eyes
glow in its sparkle and soak in its warmth.
What more can I ask for?

As Valentines Day counts down to its private
messages,  I like
to start my own message build up
for that special day when our bodies and souls
will melt into moments of complete
splendour.

We are one already.
Heres a dozen rose kisses to confirm it!

Author Notes

A dozen rose kisses for you!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Between the haze of being in a particular place
knowing that distances could be distorted
we still rush to dead-end destinies
unable to change gear or get off the accelerator
of unknowns. Our journeys have been mapped
long before we even knew how to wander between
our emotional mish-mash of dreams.

Once in a while a comet rushes across
our sensational universe of unions
and we scuttle and scare at the cross-roads
if a slight aberration disturbs the tranquility
of our plans.

When we finally part, taking with us
all those things that collected memories
we soon discover that real and unreal moments
turn to distasteful mangled dislikes
of each others onetime blistering
companionship.

Such is the shadow of love
known and unknown. That which once gleamed
and glistened in our first meeting
now lurks in old dusty corners
waiting for new resurrections. Nothing
will bring back the life it once held.

Heartbreaks can be healed
moulded and mended
in different furnaces.
Set fire afresh each time this happens.
Author Notes

The changing attributes of relationships.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

No rocks or boulders nails or spears
Romans hidden behind plumes and fears
of reprisal. No high priests or Jews or gentiles
could hold back the history of the Written Word
spoken through the megaphone of time
Nothing  holds back body and spirit from rising
to believe. Faith

Even as the witnesses stood at the threshold
the earth opened to the sky's arms
and He transcended physically
in an eternity of being.

Did He rise from the dead? He 'was' always.
Just as we who die from the moment born
he too was born and died forever
in the crucible of time. Believe.

Yes, of course in the atom of the minds
eye, boulders and bricks only hold
words and visuals which explain as best they could
what permanence means.
God needs no explanation
Man does.

Author Notes

The Resurrection is the core of the Christian faith. Without the belief in the Resurrection the entire belief system of a third of the world would fall into pieces. That belief has been held for two millennia and long before the Word was encased in meaningful dialogue. That wont change. Belief in resurrection existed long before the Crucifixion and Rising from the dead and never embodied in the richness it deserved except in the Christian faith.

The Resurrection is the greatest metaphor  for all believers in eternal life.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Two people lurk in everyone
the star and the scar
born from building high citadels of power
and cascading into smithereens
when the switch is tripped.
Maybe the voltage ran low
or the circuit breaker was poorly constructed?
I dont know.

I operate on a three phase armour
of emotional stabilisers
that spark and twitch when overheated
with too much energy. But I return
with black faced integrity
collars up and smoking
to fight on another electrifying moment.

'Thats life' I hear
the rollercoaster ride
built into the system
going around in circles
always facing the sunrise
and sunset. We scream and tumble
into the guts of the incline
the switch and roll of events
swerving around corners
holding on ******* knuckled
until it finishes its rumble
and we walk out wobbly and vomity
until the better side takes over.
The darker side recedes
into an unknown pocket.

Author Notes

Thanks to Cinderley13 who wrote about Catfish and Lydia and Lyda and made me wonder what the hell was being alluded to? It now makes a bit more sense.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The seesaw can swing up or down
we are hinged to life and death
like love and hate
good and bad whatever.

In the middle we have a choice
to swing either way. Stay up?
For how long. You must come down.

Live forever? You cant
Try as you might.
Love forever-possible
but hate follows close behind.

When God made man he was surely
seated on a seesaw!

Author Notes

Its obvious God was upto something
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Within walls the humdrum echoes
footsteps magnify into monsters
so do journeys untaken, unplanned.
Step by step conquest is mastered
in real motion forward
mountains climbed
distances measured with hard muscle
counted in steps -one by one.

Nothing impossible
to the journeyman

No yardsticks to measure success
even God is a step closer.
Meditate dreams in sequence
until nirvana nears
at the journeys end
and reincarnations materialise
step by step.

Walking on the wild side
lengthens the shadows of darkness
until we fail to see the light
that will lead us back to the beginning
to the first step from where we started.

Step by step
in rhythm with the heartbeat
we all work through life
and onwards into eternity.

Author Notes

Step by Step. ' He who wants to walk the whole world must take his first step'
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

No matter the colour of the skin
the shade of eye and the silver Mercedes
parked in angular arrogance
or the pin-striped suit and embossed briefcase.
This is all external. Internally lies a rot
that seeps through your emotions and spills
out your conversation of stocks and shares
and deals awaiting in the forest
of your investment. Money kills.
The lines jangle and rise with regular
asterisk displays of sharebrokers
meetings with profound number crunchers
all racing to the billionaire list on Forbes
unaware that at home the little
boy is playing with matches
and momma is looking out the window
watching a man across the street
meddling with his mistress'
bra straps. You would never ever know
how she feels in her own narcotic ecstasy.

Each day you are missing
she is rowing a boat to a
nowhere shore
where weasels wait to devour
her destiny !

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Carrying an in-built GPS
Dancing to the suns direction

*** with pollen, honey
Its a way of life. You try

Jumping on a super fat slug
wiggling her body parts, laying

millions of little wonders
soaked in nectary hexagons.

That's my privilege
perversely pollinating

thousands and a queen mother
all in a days taking.

You watching. Cannot even dream
such luxury and for safekeeping

an arsenal exists on my reverse.
for those who question integrity.

Author Notes

Couldn't b said better.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The heat of summer sizzles
to  seek the embers of the heart
to nurse and nurture those feelings that rise
and burst-star flung into distant galaxies
dense, crisp  memories of the past
where poems fizzle and burn
through the summer solstice
until we arrive star struck
at Valentines Day. Warm and delicate.

Who  now,
waits to hear those succinct words
that untangle all the years waiting
into a warm embrace, naked  in naughtiness?

Roses. Flowers. Chocolates.Kisses
Symbolic of deep red lust in scented secret gardens
where the dark chocolate, lies licked and limp
until the kisses awake the senses.
You are special
and Everything.

Its the day of eternities compressed
and solidified in a moment
which we share together
to  look forward to anothers years waiting!

Begin today.

Author Notes

Valentines Day!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

There was a time when the world seemed
an easy spoil of conquests
within reach-and we were young and blinded,
sure of our steps in every wrong direction.
We were free and unspoilt, unchristened
in the many facts and figures that took us
down a long road to destiny.

Who cared about the roofless sky
the waters rage, the waterfalls incessant spill
and magnificent spray that baptised us
in wonder. Who cared about the drumbeats
at the dead of night
and nightmares that gripped the soul
in its tangled knots. We were Woodstock
and Glastonbury, full of Vietnam wars
and journeys to the Moon and Nixon and
FlowerPower. We were filled with everybody
else but ourselves. We were free
from the chains of society.

And then the cells closed in, the ranks faltered
Moguls took over the stockmarkets
and the jobs were dismantled and monopolised
the riches were ransacked and the free love potions
that came with cannabis and upside down waterfalls
bleeding chairs and rock music
beads and baubles and denim fantasies
became tagged with slave labour and oil spills
and mountains of rubble stored in giant cities
of concrete boxes. All the worlds cities were locked
in invisible borders that shot people down with laser beams
and synthetic drugs and coloured t shirts.
We were locked back into our freedom cubbyholes
that were now governed by empty heads with dark glasses
and steel rimmed belts that zapped you into line.

Four decades of smouldering in the rubble left us
limbless and mindless
technology does our work now
and our brains are frozen and hacked with strange numbers
of which we know little. We cannot love again freely.

The remnants of those decades still linger
on the borders of the soul where butterflies
once flew and songs were belted out one after the other
into giant stadiums where  people danced with bare skins
coated with mud and magic. The pink stripes never really
vanished, but our bodies still alert to joyous music
that the whole world clapped and rattled to. Gone.

Our world was taken from us
and the poor ******* that now stretch down the clogged
highways of the mind and roadways of
consumption without work will never understand
how we lived and learned and laughed
in that free open world.

Author Notes

Nostalgia. Thousands will agree to what I write of a time gone by. We  are now trapped in a sterile world where automation and technology have overtaken our will to be ourselves once again. Soon we will be gone into that other world where freedom exists again.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

We met on the morning when the sun waded
through the window
mopping up the nights shadows as it invaded
every corner of my working space.

I was ready to react to other poets at work on AP.
She came along with a blistering title
and abundance of words, beguiling
and packed with imagery, dark and dense,
laced with succinct and sinful metaphors
wolves and watchmen, ****** energy swirling
around in thickets and primroses
promises broken and bleeding on the threshold
of their hearts, but gone, each on their own
sun and sin  sprinkled pathways to other partners.

Only she wrote poems
He wrote her off!

Who was this stranger, tearing her heart out
on these pages, soulful and sinful, unheeding,
unashamed at being beaten and bruised
by her lovers tantrum now
migrated  to a new nest of instant *******.
She bled her words out in rhyme and rhythm
Holding on to fragments of a dream
fast fading at the edges.

I wrote her some lines of happiness
instinctively telling her to calm down
and think about what freedom meant
and where it lead  in the rocking horse world
of thin relationships.


She replied with two words
in acid structure: *******!
I never heard from her again.

The sunshine continued to invade the day.

Author Notes

True story. Old story. Love story are born and die this way. There are hundreds of poems on this site that used just those words when either gets dissed. Bad luck goes good luck comes. The sun continues to invade the day.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Doozles dream in a weird state
usually backward thinking forward
the script is  mirrored upside down
with female counterparts imported
in containers made of woollen blankets.

You find doozles in poems
defying punctuation and form
shapeless sponges of stray thought
that form and splinter at will
when not watching!

So thats how I doozle you
with these clever verses and lines
that often read well but mean nothing.

I could also dazzle you
with other devices like strong muscular
rhyme and bongo drum rhythms
but theres not much fun
in letting the mind go free
into a vast uncontrolled space
where doozles wander about
waiting to be be plucked and packed
into four meaningless verses of fun

Author Notes

fantasy.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The scorching season pulls its shades down
in blinding light, raising temperatures
like tantrums. Uncontrolled desire for iced
drinks and sunhats, brown skinned beauty
unfolds in flowered dresses seeking attention
in round bottomed, figure hugging comfort.

Soon the sun will slow its brazenness
and give away to autumns roll
with  splendid colours and shapes
wilting and withering landscapes that
lay blankets of brown views
for winters rapid descent to claim the earth
for its own cold attitude.

Like this, the three seasons challenge
each other for attention. Overlapping transitions
from one to the other.

But spring returns, bursting with bud and green
fingers, pulling the heart of the resting root
into a warm embrace
and showing off its many coloured array
of flowers and fruit and fantasy.

No matter how you look at this seasonal change
there is an arrangement between themselves
that moods must change and accept
that creation and mind and matter are all
intertwined inextricably.

Author Notes

The seasons correspond to the life cycle of all human beings.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

It is  a numbered  milestone
through days of skirting
dozens of poems, getting under writers skins
seeking pearls of inspiration to polish
and grow in my own writing. Diving deep
was not easy, especially when the weight of the poem
soaked in sadness, soulful, the words rolling off
so many wonderful writers, putting their souls down
in verses and visuals deeply human, some disturbing
I loved them all.

The delightful ones were misty mornings and magic
encounters with snow and icicles
driven by sheer sharp focus in the beauty
it abounds in. How satisfying it was
to sit back and wander with in the bright glow
imagery that each poet crafted from a single sight
Amazing and enriching.

The sparks of humour that flew from some
kept the heat of the day and the chill of the night
under wraps, just me giggling and happy
at the strange and exotic way some things were said.

Then again the rumbles of war and hate
sounded through some verses. drums cussing the air
bugles blowing, feet stomping rhymes and rhythms
that tore the battlegrounds with blood and bone
and bayonets ripping gut and muscle
from enemy lines. Bravo to our heroes
who wrote with such marching orders.
They were soldiers in command.

So many young mothers spoke of haunted
youth and broken dreams that wrenched their
love and hollow echoes in their bruised bodies.
That was sad. I could hold out a hand to them all.
The medals were theirs to clasp and cuddle
even as they fought their way to being whole again.

In sections where god and angels dwelt in
heavenly abode was pleasant. Like a safe house, I felt at home
in these poems, sheltered and warm, sharing what little belief
lay in me to be part of a choir of poets singing
in harmonious song.

I watched as contests came and closed. There were so many.
Each one had a purpose, some were exotic. others
mundane, some silly, some inspiring, some space fillers.
a few testing their wings, some falling by the wayside,
some rising to the majestic occasion with rigid rules
but  all defining a purpose.
I wondered why some contests even existed
seeking absolute control over topics and braving
icy, polar winds of meaninglessness.

The newcomers were always a treat. I read through dozens
of newcomers work, searching for the one poem that
would sparkle in a dump of words. The one that would magically rise
and smoulder in its pain and agony or lilt with seduction
and sensuality. There were many new poets testing the waters
unknowing of the talent they possessed, waiting for someone to read
and comment on their masterpieces.

Finally, I wrote my hundredth poem summing
up all of the little bits and pieces that make
this a worthwhile past-time.

Author Notes

This is my 100th poem on this site. Its been fun writing and commenting and reading and enjoying the works of so many poets. Perhaps no other site has this many poets putting their work on display.

Its been a pleasure being here.

Two hundredth poem - here I come!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Lost in the lofty mountains of the mind
Memories reverberate and resurrect in splendour.
Nothing happens outside the circle of light
blazing inside. God, you wouldn't even understand
how luscious silence is until you have soaked
in it syrupy fortress of  day dreams.

Wandering in valleys where lushness
allows grass and flowers to bloom at will
braving minus forty temperatures outside
ice floes and white ribboned roadways
stretching into the blindness of snowflakes
the gardens still bloom inside the vivid imagination
of the minds solitude.

No matter where you are and what you do
you can be alone, even in a crowded room
just watching the world go by at leisure
allowing the clock to beat at unhurried pace
as the measure of your words not spoken
scatter people away from the racing imagery
of your silent and soulful solitude.

Poems are born in this complete non-interference
where reason rhyme and rhythm coagulate
and burst into bloom on pages awaiting
to take into its arms the creative perfection of meaning
only the poet could understand and share
with those he feels worthy of his magnificent
escapades into solitude and writing.

Author Notes

This is the birthplace for poems that spring into creation when alone and silent. The greatest works of literature, painting, poetry, music and all of the arts have happened best in the solitude of the mind.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

We can arrive at the huge gates
with tickets lost and fumbling
for an explanation. Not many slur off the tongue
like new found ****** escapades, but
we still want to taste the heaven that exists
in unknown wonders
in the twilight zone!

I am but human, dream human
explicit at times but real
taking you in waves, surfing on a shore
where the waters create a new baptism
and your moans unleash a symphony
lost between the covers of a lifetime
in the twilight zone.

Tomorrow I will come again renewed
refreshed and wanting
to take you to a special place
in the twilight zone!

Author Notes
An Unknown destination with the lover of your dreams.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Forever racing down the highways
of madness in the mind
I scuttle and scare at the engines roar
tossing the needle into overdrive
red bursting at the seams of gravity.

Fully entrenched in  the fast lane
I swerve to avoid articulated trucks
filled with layers of reason on why
I should humble myself in this societies
black hole of boundless depravity.

Given the delicious curve of the racetrack
and the one hundred reasons for delectable
togetherness, I shift to a slow rhythmic pulsating finish
savouring every moment I spent in your clockwork
seduction.

Fuelled and fantasy driven  I polish
and promote my car with all its grunts and bruises
and speeding tickets, near misses
and conquests as a dangerous drivers
logbook of mysteries and miseries.

This model is old and antique
but oils well and grunts its way to stardom.
Price tag-negotiable!

Author Notes
Is this a anything like a fancy car?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Remember the wine that was stirred
with cherry red words
in a highball glass that looked back at us lazily
with one eye winking seduction?

Remember Paris and London
where the pages turned slowly and the tourist
buses zipped past the Champs D Elysee
and London Tower and Soho
framed in  a window of opportunity
never undressed before?

Remember the postcards with glossy
pigeons and castles and 'nights' in shining amour
that balanced long lances and ladies
and charged on steeds of grey metal four poster beds
that creaked and groaned under the weight
of  many escapades?

Remember that we are poets who play with words
rousing and rustic, that embark on the imagination
and course through the heart searching
for ventricles and valleys that glisten and glow
with newly discovered meanings
each time we lift the skirt of its greater
idiom and chuckle with laughter
at being caught out?

Author Notes

Just another poem for DML who makes the nicest comments and meets me on a level playing field - all the time.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ag

Walking through the desert of loneliness
wading through sands of solitude
stay upright against a burning sun
for oases spring unexpectedly
offering fresh water and dates
for your destiny. Be brave and replenished.

Watch out for rattlesnakes rats and
scorpions-creatures of the cold night
that sense your feeble steps
and win you over with their vast predatory skills
magic in their mouths
blood mixed with venom and soft words.
Their skills have crystallised
over millions of years
hunting for the lost and lonely wanderer.

Stay strong at the waters edge
where lurk people with crocodile skin
clawed feet and long forked tongues
to **** your sapping spirit
to garnish their own feasting. Stay strong.

At the outer circles
when you crawl out from your loneliness
reach out for the ones that stood
scimitars drawn and headhigh
to scythe through  the wraggle of followers-on
who journeyed a step behind your
mountains of misery, wanting you to fall
under dunes of destruction.

At the journeys end look back at the stars
that sparkled in the nighttime of your dreams
and navigated you through  the pathways of pain
to a welcoming circle of friends.

Kia kaha. Stay strong forever
You are now a child of the universe.

Author Notes

Loneliness is the most fearful of all human emotion. Everyone gets caught in this desert storm once or twice in their lives. It is a painful place and the thousands of poems on this site is a testimony to what destruction it causes.


Yet there is hope to those who seek it. One step at a time you can reach that oasis where the water is blue and the date palms replenish your wounded spirit. Look out for the doomsayers. Theres lots of them around.


The final outcome is a journey back home.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

To find yourself, lose yourself
inside the cavernous mystery
that exists within you.
Self-reflect and remain silent
as you course your own veins
savouring every spectacle
touching every muscle
strolling through platelets
and rbcs wbcs, nerve knots
and cortex malfunctions
kidney pies and testosterone inspired
stimuli surging mountains
spiralling into decaying depravity

until you arrive
at a conclusion of who you really are.

Look back at the millions of systems
that grind and churn your life into meaning.

Never ever forget that like you
billions of others function in the same
mould of magical, mystical formulas.

You alone have a choice to make
to be different and special

Be special.

Author Notes
Outwards- looking in!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The storm on the eastern  coast will descend
into a grey day bringing showers
and thunderstorms
filling your picnic basket as you go about
finding shelter under trees and shrubs
gone on holiday to the south of france.

bring your brollies
raincoats and gumboots just in case
you day darkens into a cyclone
and your lover leaves you
abandoned with the sunrise
emerging in your life

take care as you meander through
the floods as the gates open
and your emotions spill out
in poetic metaphors
all over the page
******* readers into the whirlpool
of hidden symbols and mechanisms
that can choke you out

as you watch the weather swish by
without you noticing.

never be deceived by the weathermans wares
at times he may play god
with your days diary entries
but all he can do really
is work like a fortune-teller
using guesswork as a device.

Author Notes
One giant metaphor for what happens in your life if you believe in the weatherman!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Its not easy to cross an invisible bridge
with a friend on the other side asking you
to step over an taste what lies beneath
the flowing water of rapid emotions.

Lost worlds collide and collapse
in the thinking and knowing
the excitement that wraps itself
around your own safety harnesses
as you step into the void of trust.
One step and the pyramid of pleasure
will come crashing down into fragments
of excruciating pain.

But try we must - to span
the wide divide to reach out and touch
the other hand when the bridge
suddenly becomes visible.

Sometimes the bridge may lead to a nowhere place
strewn with broken dreams and feeble attempts
at crossing the vast expanse between
knowing and unknowing.

Author Notes
Real time experience. Happens once in a while. There are no reasons why it happens this way. The best ever poems are written just trying to figure this one out.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The infinite dot in the noosphere
hung in  non-gravity  space
between timeless universes
burst into bloom within blooms of galaxies
threaded together with hyperstrings
with no points to ponder on.

how did the mind form itself
from this precision
into a zoosphere?
we will never know or fathom how all things
came to be in our time
and atomic coordinates of god
man and object with a functional
meaning to be here.

look deep within yourself
and know that answers don't exist
for all the questions we have accumulated
for complexity and the biosphere.

instead verge on simplicity
as the creative force
that cobwebs all things
in a network of mindful physics
for the Now!

Author Notes

Thanks to Tielhard De Chardin for putting these thoughts into my head!
I am on a cosmic journey to ask some questions. So the writing will border on concepts that swirl around in a small head! That's all it is. Don't be afraid.
This is just a summer phase! It will pass and I will return to moonbeams and roses.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

I climbed the high mountains
of her body  tip by fingertip
and slithered down valleys moist and melting
under slow slides
along smooth beautiful buttons
until I stopped and caressed sighs that
slipped and silked
into memories of magic.

The alphabets I read were sheer poetry
unspoken and unvoiced
of its own beauty
as I ran the rose red petals across
pink and petulant lips to be kissed
and cuddled as we joined forces
as strong and sensitive
as our closed eyes.

As we lay back looking into nothing
but our own darkness, sensing a pulse,
a rapid heartbeat, a stifled sob of satisfaction
did I realise that we were made to feel with our fingers
and speak with our haunting skins and kisses
our own beauties hidden within and open
to the touchtone sensations
of our minds.

This was the way it was meant to be
my love. It will be.
We hold our secrets inside ourselves.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The sun played its usual tricks on the leaves
putting colour and composition into autumns grandeur
but winter lurked just underneath this cosmetic skin
waiting to burst starflung into every crevice
where the ice remains as cold as a frozen temperament.

Deep within the earth the heart
of the seed will rest embraced by the long wait
to be ****** out of the earths womb into spring
where the soft sun and wind and rain
will reach out and grab the arms of the emerging shoot
claw it above ground and set it free into
the wide world of evolution.

Welcome the rain, remnants of noahs ark
that bloats the soil and sand and pulls the roots back
into the ground while coursing through the veins
of the resplendent tree reaching for the sky
and wind and wonder of life
and dressed in foliage and flowers
the kingdom of believers will arrive
to set foot under shade and succulent tube
to nourish themselves in bounty and beauty

Autumn will return from its journey
to touch a clock and take the baton
of beauty back again. A year gone.
Older. Wiser. Smarter.
Author Notes

A journey through the four seasons. It summer in New Zealand and sizzling. Its not the best summer to write about. Soon it will fall into the next cycle and all that I write about will repeat.

I took my dog, Petals for a walk yesterday. She always stops at one particular flowering bed and ferrets out-whatever. That's when the poem came to me.
Hope you enjoy the poem. To those caught in blizzards and ice and snow wherever, remember, there is beauty in that too! Just gotta love it-which ever way. Its nice to be alive.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.