we will take our fires
to light the stars
and paint the horizons
with its flames of red

and from the ashes
we will rise again and again
with phoenix wings
to soar the heavens
searching for the real meaning
of love.

We will take our fires
to the icy polar winds
if we ever feel the chill
of not knowing
what love means.

we will take our fires....

Author Notes

Simple and adorable, trying to create imagery opposing each other.
Indian Poets did a great job of poems like this.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 18 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11569677-We-will-take-our-fires...-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.TJvWEH­7g.dpuf

The splinter  pain
it just sat there, tingling

as if, unconcerned
small and below deck

like fibreglass invisible
I could not do a thing

until I removed the sensation
of a sting from its new home

stray words stick deeper
to the bone. I struggled for a week

a walk in the woods solved
the sensation the tingling
replaced by tingling.

Author Notes

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

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11557971-Tingling-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.snFFe3Fn.dpuf

Glass walled reflections of citadels of fantasy
merge in the moment of reality
Who are you locked in the ecstasy of vampires
and werewolves, scouring the night for its mystery
blasting ******* of thoughts
yet trancelike delving into the souls journey
from thought to thought.

Behind the facade
who are you? I see
prose and poems that speak a language
seeking freedom. Maybe not.

Yet I read those writings and decipher
what it is that melts the dark and light
in a crucible of molten red hot verse,
that sears to the touch and taste
and scars come unscabbed, line
by line as each fragment falls
away to reveal a whole person.

The raven and the rogue
mix delectably in this dish.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 10 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11588305-The-Raven-and-the-Rogue-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.wmrGkKhU­.dpuf

You leave Haast in the velvet valley where the bras
hung just before, dangling ******* of mountains
rearing their ******* of snow at your watching.

The road licks the mountainside as I climb
high up her  body  to gaze at her beauty
as she succumbs to my wonder and awe
at such balanced beauty
hidden in jurrasic worlds
away from city made concrete wonders.

High up
a slender waterfall that gathered
all the mountains thin ribbon streams
gracefully spills over in a flush full
****** of satisfaction
as we held hands and watched
the tourists more interested in pictures
than passion racing to a finish.

I slid my hand around your buttocks
to remind me
that you too were blessed with mounds
and softly rising mountains
which I will devour when we settle
into discussions on love, later.

And of course, every single time you read
my new poem you ask:
' Do you always have to bare you soul
and my body is such a way
as to make your readers think
that all love-making was dressed
in mountains and valleys?"

"Yes" I replied to the laughter
between those apple bites!

The giant beast sat straddling two highways
legs apart and thin cobwebs of power for miles down
a street as far as the telescope could see,
at each interval a bulb burst bright  dangling
in the dark where street lights cast a yellow pool
around the thin pole
reticulated at each junction.

So do powerful men
cast shadows instead of light
across the nations pools of people discussing
dreams of freedom with electricity and water
and food and clothing

The presidents palace came alive at dinner
at dusk under glass chandeliers
suited and booted, gold plated walking stick,
just two kilo-meters from the seething slum.
Diners and hangers-on stood to toast the success
of themselves and the power they ****** out of electric
dams and bridges and diamonds from the dust
of backs of workers toiling
in the pitiless depths of mines
straddling another highway
where the rows of buckets, mud and slime
and grit mingled with the sweat and pain of daily work
for a two dollar night.

Oppression depression counterbalance.

Sipping champagne while the workers
squelched in grime
did not make a difference to the people in power
as all they wanted was to keep the lights on
in the national interest of greed.

Will someone pull the plug please
will someone pull the plug
will someone pull
will someone
Will?
Nothing left of it?

In every sequel to the barstool sits an evening philosopher
chugging beer and crisps dreaming of a damsel
in distress to recue and carry over the raging waters
of a lonely evening. The froth in the next glass
confirms the frenzy of waiting patiently.

I suspect beer drinkers are adept at making plans
to snare the right woman with catchy bylines
and brisk one-liners. Mostly recycled ones work well.

How easily some evade the trap and the cobweb,
sticky as it may seem to, draw the best ****** ones
into the nectar laden larder of niceties.

They have their  own connecting sentences
which, safely guarded, like intellectual property
gets them zooming into a net of naughtiness.

Author Notes
Browsing.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

bend blend  isps
dollar dogs selling
dots and dashes
swollen checks
moving tech
managing bytes
bits of signals
captivating conscience
insufferable desire
fleece skin off bone
burst in the turbo jangle
of just reason

wheres the world
facebook fallacy
the twitter tornado
linkedin longing

communication dig
dangers of disaster
lurking in fields of
phantom moments

real people with unreal
expectations.

we are trapped
in this whirlpool
of wonder tech.
digitheism approaches
rapidly.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 24 days ago

We are but streams of atoms
saturated with strange beliefs
rituals and rants, circuses of  meaningless blather

yet we follow trodden footpaths
to the same end
once gone, gone for good.

all the crap that comes with afterlife
all the books and mementos gone too
'gone for good'

so this is life
live it in abundance
dance where you must
become a borderline personality
write meaningless drivel
so what

religion exists because people exist
did god make man or man make god?

bury me with no mantra or magic
or shoot me into space
once again into the stream of atoms
of nothingness.

Author Notes

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

Good Morning



Good Afternoon



Good Evening


Wherever you are!

Author Notes

Ha ha.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 9 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11589464-Greetings-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.ty0gGsqL.dpuf

around the ring of fire
continents burn
in the blistering logic
of claims to islands and air spaces,
waters lapping on wrong shores
cultures and creeds
unearthed from a hazy past

The crew-cut dictator
still stands at attention
at a starving army decorated like peacocks
for a world watching

rockets out of fuel and fire
damp squids plonking in nearby oceans
decorated with plastic medals
sycophants
saluting goose steppers
with polished ironies
and propaganda to hold power
within themselves

the bonfire burns bright
as people perish without bread

crew-cut is unable to see them die
myopic vision and overseas education
he will also have to die one day
with porcelain soldiers
guarding his tombstone.

sad. anyone crying?
**** the ones that don't.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

As deep and rounded as the entrance
to a vast cave receding into emptiness
of the minds magic, the corridor stalked,
stalked the living and the lost with its presence

swerving into the undergrowth where
demons existed with magic potions
and mystical visions of an unknown hell
surrendered, we, to its vicissitudes
of wanton lust, nights of passion,ignoble strife
wandering in the mists of reason
searching for the souls location
in an unkempt place
where nothing reasonable existed
in this inferno of hate.

There was darkness, dense and deep
with screams reverberating
chilling spectacles of loss
as each one clambered over the others
mistakes
repeating the same, twice over.

There was a thin ray at the far end
and piecing the darkness like a
laser stab, this light found us huddled
in a network of nothingness
devoid of all senses, stripped of all sensation
afraid even to look at its glare
completely ignorant of who we were
or why we were located in this hell
of no mercy.

We searched for the  ray, blinding
in its beauty, and we held on to it
like a rope of discovery
struggling to find its source
in some far off kingdom
where the electric, supernatural power of mercy
emanated endlessly.

Leaving aside all that we carried
as heavy baggage
materialism and magic
raging hate and loneliness
pain and poverty, injustice,
everything that weighted us down
in an unwanted space

we struggled free from the chains
that bound us to our greed.

God stood at the entrance.
He had no face
no necklaces of gold or diamonds
or even a loose garb
He had no blonde hair
no angelic eyes
nothing in fact
adorned in the scriptures
nothing man like in making

The entity stood there
clean as the light
and we surrendered in haste
at this complete abandon.

The corridor closed behind us
as we walked into the light
of day. This was the moment
when levitation made sense
and we rose up on judgement day
to face the consequences
of our actions.

Author Notes

A metaphorical meeting of Heaven and Hell.

Contemplation 8
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

Housed in a walking stick
the King stuck a feather duster at the top
fancied his fourth wife and tickled his fifth.

Ten mutton chops later
a gourd of red blood wine
two scoops of brain cutlets
he was feeling better.

With a bowl of imported shrimp in hand
battered and buttered
with chilly powder ,a chilli *****
he was getting excited at the prospect
of knocking his seventh wife
but a flagging spirit ruined his *******
and he commanded the courtyard maidens
to dance like Queen of Sheba
on the High Priests entrails
as the music beat a violent end
to heads rolling in the dusty desert sands.

Done.
He counted the bowed heads
and picked the odd number out
to even his court ****.

The cradle of all creation was found ten yards
away in fossilised rock after five years of
guessing it must be around here.

Author Notes
Parody of procreation.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

listen people, profits attract milestones
bar graphs and charts of shareholders
catch no fish, only stones prevail
speak no parables of numbers
i know two fish,five loves can and will feed five thousand.

who said, the birds and the bees have 4o hour weeks
and summer holidays in the sun
six weeks of laziness and gym routines?
go fishing instead. make no fishy business of it.

i say, directors, loose garb is better than pin-stripes
tithes better than fat bank balances full of fat.
would you give an eye to your supervisor? No
so watch your manners. no point in being
the undercover boss handing out peanuts for
poor employees and ******* dollars from their cheers
and less hours on the last floor shift!

I know tv does a lot of good, but so do bibles
and psalms and rock anthems and mary magdalene.

no point in raking in money singing
jesus christ superstar!
im just two thousand fourteen years late
on this board of whingers. AC- DC/BC?

get a life man, the next train to eternity
is only here on a whistle-stop.leaf your clothes behind
and head to the first **** beach
around the bend. lucifer is red hot there. times
have changed, man. whats next on the agenda?

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11693097-Jesus-on-the-Board-of-Directors-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest­#sthash.NyZSTkRp.dpuf

The matrix maneuvers between
shades of grey and blue striped
waves of emotion
as we scuttle between messages
of hope and longing.

In the stillness of the night
of pure intelligence
the words return
in multi-dimensional meaning
broken down into fragments
to make sense of single word
replies.

How do we know what
was meant for what was written
when words have forked tongues
licking the air for understanding.

Love has a way of being precise
and priceless.

Author Notes

Contemplation 10. Multi-dimensional love of all things pure.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

There were these poems
hashed together in haste
insipid limp and lifeless
devoid of dare, unable to stir the mind
into frenzied ecstasy
no sparkle no lustre
no meaning to extract.
daily fluff

They were enjoyable too
***** linen on a laundry line
unpegged and nonrhythmic
unmetaphoric, unnamed
first liners
homeless words with unhappy visuals
floating in a sea of ****
just sitting on a page
dead

so many of mine are exactly like that
unwanted, homeless little beasts
cooked up in a frenzy of  haste
pompous and pretentious
lying like a cold corpse
on a concrete slab in some strange mortuary
name tag on a toe
waiting for a quick burial.

Ive decided to write better poems now
leave the fluff to be vacuumed away
and spend long hours thinking through
the magic that rises from mists
of intense thinking.

once a month
with twenty nine drafts.
no more mediocre for me.
goodbye readers
see you again next month
take care while i work up a froth.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 11 days ago

The solstice sun emerges from behind a cloudburst
of emotions, sweeping the vales of isolation with light.
Unbeknown, within  the shadow of questions
lie impregnable fortresses with insurmountable odds
making every step a conquest of arduous insight.

We arrived at a point driven by relentless
unforgiving  forces.
far beyond the journeys we ever undertook
cascading in 33 waterfalls of knowing
yet unknowing of meanings and symbols.

In the silence of night before sleep captures
our imaginations and tumbles our dreams
in the dishwasher of sanity: I want to know this?

Did you, for even a split second kiss
understand
that our lives are turbo-charged with horizons
that hyperlinked to the beyond where nothing
can be explained as easy as it happened?

We were bruised and beaten in some
raging  fiery furnace on an anvil
where our silk-like flames merged and moulded
our thinking into a cartwheel of meaning
that rolls on a road to somewhere.

Yet we have no map to plot the next journey
into the Twilight Zone!

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 11 days ago

as sure as every morn when the rays wade into the nights receding
the traffic lanes build up closely
and from all streams one  by one they crawl
on their four round wheels into spidery webs of white lines
heading to the city where their lives have become entangled
by the frailties of living.

Little kids crying and scrubbing butter on test testing
patience and time and reluctance to head to school
that boring daily task of learning little
from tired teachers, working towards an overcrowded
weekend mauled by paper tigers and red tick marks.

I too, join the spilling  web towards city
where scholars who know everything that
should be known from the wider world
invade the cafeteria with frizzy coke and custard pies
and armed with massive heavy books saunter
off to numbered classrooms and halls
to get educated. I dread the latecomer
who looks askance at me and with disdain
when I question punctuality.

The day unfolds as we weave in and out
of technological wonders, bringing sense
to  the complex throb of learning that entraps us.

I race home at 3, checking my phone for all
the days signposts of my location and living.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11594853-rush-hour-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.itJTgZiN.dpuf

and it was quiet
the air still
thoughts racing
the feeling demure

what brings this tranquil ocean
to my doorstep
impending pain?
the cusp of happiness
life and its solemn slivers?
what?

I wait for the crackle
of the phone
the twitter sounds
birds chirping
whistling wonders

nothing happens
is anyone alive?
where is the world?
where is the noise and humdrum
the bustle and rustle

why is it so quiet?
should I be afraid?

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 8 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11685092-tranquil-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#sthash.VIJnmj7V.dpuf

The first  time we met we recollected
many other recollections
of how things would work out
touch and taste, tremble at the thought of knowing
that physical conquests were now possible
and emotional rollercoaster rides real.

But we stayed within the boundaries
waiting breathlessly to clamber
over social boundaries and bask in the sunshine
of our togetherness. It was that calm.

When you left you took a chunk
out of my memory bank
and left back some chewed up bones of discontent
and sheaves of paperless poems
that suddenly looked as hollow
and soulless. Empty caskets.

Now I wonder why you walked away
from three other lovers
in the same way, leaving behind burnt fragments
at each destination.

Author Notes
Everybody moves forward. Some leave a lot of baggage back.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

systems of all kinds collapse and crumble
under the stress of painjoy fumbling
at the seams of life.

take time to feel fear
in a world conquered by the mighty
for their power is extruded from within false walls
that are thick skinned and faulty
to the touch. One push
and the system they so delicately carved
around themselves in citadels of falsehood
will also collapse
if one small ***** lets the light into this
thick darkness.

Look around you
at the gravy trains that roared on one way
tracks to destruction in quarters
of the world
where blood built empires
let lose vampires  to ****
the energy of life
but succumbed themselves
to the same blood bank. The system
closed in and choked them off
even as they struggled to stay afloat
in the approaching maelstrom.

all will perish
in the system
where greed is gilded in gold
temples of power.The Middle East
will become fertile by the black gold on the outside
and the crushed bones of the inside

History has a long list of such
flimsy empires
with terracotta temperaments
and hieroglyphic heros

hidden in the eyelashes
silk and silicone implants
weeds grew in abundance
weedkiller did not work
nor did steam cleaning. washing
down ever

the lies surfaced
through soft tissue face
and the eyes of glass glittered
in abject rage.

done
i was by the justice system
seeking solace in its open arms
winners walk away with
victories of deceit.

stood alone in the dock
waiting for the sunshine
to emerge unscathed
from this battlefield
of deception.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 days ago

Buried in the birchwood camps where wood rot
and leaves trace many summers of being
Lies the old skeletal remains of a frisky deer
Silently sleeping eyes, glazed and stricken tongue
hanging out of of lucid mouth
pellet covered with heart muscle and frozen sinews

Hunter ravaging the forest for fresh meat
struck at the dawn of reason and aiming
pulled a perfect shot at grazing deer but struck
the one that wasn't looking directly. The others
sped into the thicket down the hill away.

Life and death intermingled in the gloom
of wanting and not wanting. The hunter walked away
rather than cross the valley for quarry
and burden his strained back for his prize.

Further down in the sparse sandy gorse and shrub
other smaller prizes waiting undisturbed by the
crack of death higher up. Life benign

Again he lowered rifle to his squinting eye
and squeezed the trigger. The sound echoed
across the valley, through the birchwood  trees
and quiet calmed the pulsing  racing hearts.

The hunter picked his carcass from the gorse and soil
and headed home. Guilty of of greed, two deaths for one small
meal of roasted meat to share his whisky thirst.
The night descended with its blanket of black
and other  predators shredded their prize uphill
thankful for lazy  hunters.

Life and death balanced itself in the wilderness
nature spoke with  an even tone.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 23 days ago

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.

The serrated edges of the arc of reason cut deep
into the normal daily fabric of living
and strange unwelcomed thoughts spill over
into the uncontrollable urge to be
medicated and managed by those
who do not understand the demons
that reside within-
people not invited  stay longer than dinner time
and that which was once normal
becomes a cascade of fear.

It was time to take the pill
keep the cages locked
control the fright and frailty
walk in the sunshine yet feel the ice
wake in the morning and feel night
dance in the town hall-feel the distance
and wear my heart on a sleeve.

I know
She will survive the strange voices
worship after the sun and sand
and walk in the light from the shadows
and sleep in the arms
of tenderness and love
fly with the angels of happiness
when life is ready to accept her
into arms waiting for  the comfort
she so deserves.Be blessed.




Author Notes

To a very special friend, who fought these very demons, everyday, and is now rising from the ashes of a long, long nightmare. I just want to say to you-that there is hope in everything. You are blessed.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 13 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11577005-Trauma-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.f7Vpmdgv.dpuf

In the subterranean channels
of the giant coliseum lurks a breed
of predators that only need a finger
to cast a vote for power.
Push a button, stab a voting paper
signature on a rung of ladder
that climbs to the top
where roosts other successful animals
that have crawled up from the dungeon
of deceit. Vote now or lose your head
in the lolly scramble for power .

Your reward is a brass plated door
with many secretaries and heads permanently bent
in obeisance at the masters command.

I will be the chief of all
of the land and economy
so come to me with heads down
arms for alms
and go silently without turning left
or right.  Your silence is
my authority. Take heed. Don't cross
the line in the courtyard
from whence I came here.

Author Notes
Politicians in Power?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The ground appeared level, but no
minor bumps eroded the sanctity of evenness
at odd pockets where the soil sustained repeated injury
there lurked creatures of all sorts.
Few were long nosed, impervious blood suckers,
others like two horned underground creepers that snitched
and larked on fellow mates found solace in company.
Further down racists blended with the beautiful
and both white and dark temperaments moulded
together, as if, sustained by a creed and greed.

Further afield there were hangers-on who ruefully
were iron-****** and aplenty, lurking amongst the poor
and wretched, ******* solar power from the weak,
fiddling with the filth and holding back on sustenance.
These were the parasites of the field.

Turning to the left of centre, the holy melted in the crowd
of doomsayers, prophets and penitents, preaching
a word distorted to draw attention to themselves
under the guise of royal purple robes and stolen sceptres
pompous idiots who claimed to own the field, but
wore egoistic hot air and lead balloons of pride
and prejudice.

On just the one small section of the field you could play
delightful soccer, kick the ball or backsides and feel proud
you played a fair game, in spite of the pale bellied creatures
that roamed the tunnels and turrets of the level playing field
ready to draw you in for dissection. Of course, they smiled
benignly, when you passed by them, watching you slyly,
but all the time with hands at the back of them
clutching razor sharp daggers to shed your dignity
and lay waste to your humanity.

All of us are listed on this game. Some play, some referee, some refuse,
mostly spectators, watching and cheering, unaware
of how the level playing is set out in layers of deception.

Have you purchased your tickets for the next game?
Author Notes

A huge metaphor for injustice and greed. Play the game as you are expected to unless you want to be part of the underground network of deceivers. Pick a part in this game, which involves everybody. The colour of your skin dictates the price of the ticket to the game. Please take part. If you are a spectator
in this stadium with bright lights and pom-pom dancing girls, you will know what I'm talking about.

The game begins everyday at sunrise!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Behind the gate that pretended to be locked
lurked in the half shut window
a sage
solitude soaked and driven by impulse
to look away when questioned.
He was a lone man with lifetime wisdom.

Patch on  lakeside worshipped the ****
grew in grace and abundance
tendered tenderly, as if, the soul
invested in the soil  spirit would
rise through  pipes  produced to ****
lungfuls and sit back and watch
the sky bend in ecstasy.
The surge climbed  nerves
settled  pumping heart.

He said he saw the Christ
cry on  the cross stifled by the nails
and thorny weeds akin
to smoke and sustenance he now bequeathed
to silence.

The greater sorrow
nursed being unable to float
free from the injustice that lay  thick bark
on  magnificent tree. He ran as fast as his conscience could take
him to the outer reaches of society
where nirvanas  quiet life of contemplation opened.

an evening listening to him profound
the lectures the worlds knowing
learned his talk of the next kingdom.

Quiet in the night of haze
and damp sweet smells
he dreamed a patch in afterlife too.

Author Notes
We all know this man.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

For a man who held fire in his homilies
and set the souls aflame with hell
he was gentle at the apse, smiling, smiling
warm hands and crisp cuffs and collars
no burns or bruises
nothing to give away his belief
in kingdoms buried in the clouds
of scriptures that he could quote
adding references to each little parable
like he himself, managed the manuscripts.

Come Easter, and the darkness would settle
on his purple robes and sceptre
as he walked down the aisle resplendent
and roman as Pontius Pilate
with a cleaner soul.

Christmas was different, he patted children's heads
blessed the old nanas who dropped off those chocolate
cakes and port wine, fortified with ***
and brandy biscuits. He was always thankful for the spirit.

But the day he looked at me long and hard
the spark of hell ignited my guilt
at not going to Mass for a whole summer of sun
and without a twitch of his bushy eyebrows he said:
"Been busy getting a suntan? Hell will make you black!"
but he grinned that extra-sip of wine grin
and I entered the church to repent
for all the sins I did not commit!

Bless me Father.... blah blah blah....

Author Notes
I know him well. He once called me an 'outstanding Catholic' because I stood outside most of the time!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

Around the pool of chandelier light the movers and shakers gathered
in tight knots, unwilling to untangle from the policy books
intent on pushing fences further out into the Caspian Sea
across the Black Sea and encircling the whole Artic Circle
from latitude whatever to wherever.

The chief fence maker arrived with a pair of pliers
and rolls of barbed wire twenty thousand posts
and a battalion of unnamed soldiers all hiding
behind masks of make-up

" Now listen, people, roll out that spikey wire starting from here
to eternity and keep going around the globe until you return
five hundred years to meet the beginning with the end!"

A few bald heads bowed but wary of  cross-hairs
hiding along the ceiling behind sharpshooting
shapeshifters.
They knew instinctively, that unbowed head may be bowled
over and transported to Siberia in a meat wagon
for permanent freezing with the mastodons.

"Go Now, do not turn back, ever, or you will become
a pillar of salt."
The band played The Last Post
as the last post rolled out.

Peace began as soon as the war ended
and the fences were built around the entire
Northern Hemisphere.  

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Bullion stacked against a window sill
piled high enough to watch the street parade
from behind bullet  proof glass panels
wives and children safely ensconced
in upper rooms closer
to the helipad on standby.

He watched the streets burn
Moloch madness known
ego blown and ballooned
on taming the nightskys own fireworks
with the stars in attendance.
with God as his butler.

The man on the street did not think so.
The bills mounted high
and his power was cut for the presidents party.

with a loaf of bread to feed six children
he lost his soul to the furnace in his brain
molotov cocktail in hand
he marched down the alleyway
to the highway of the presidential palace
to set fire to his anger
on the parapets of broken promises
to lay waste to the promised kingdom
to break bread with his brethren
until his message was written
on the politicians plate of plenty.

The helicopter rose
straight into the molotov smash
and the fireball consumed the palace.
The rising ashes replaced the starlights
in the sky and the gold bullion melted back into the earth.

Author Notes
The Revolution has just finished in one place. It will start again in some other.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

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.

Break bread
as wood
set the table in symmetry
serve wine in decanters
sit, pray
eat to remember

the ark of the covenant
kingdoms in biblical times
unscathed testimonies
time tested rituals
follow through

to eternity
forty days of flooded alcoholic nights
blind stupor
fall in love
die slowly.

is there a kingdom
waiting?

Not sure yet.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 days ago

She was  smart and as clever as the piles of documents
she worked behind
cutting through the paperwork like a tornado
insistent, hissing and answering the phone
even before the second ring
how she did that was beyond me.

A million facts later
court cases. dates of judgement
clent's names, dates of birth
the moles each one had
tax history
mistress mystery
golf mastery
domestic violence history
everything. everything

skirts tight, a round behind
wiggling to wobbly eyes
she controlled the office
better than a judge with a gavel.

I was terrified of every move.
splendid woman.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

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.

The numbers generate ecstasy
even as the cliff hangers succumb
to decipher the drop from high citadels
to lower domains

magic numbers that evolve
and translate into feedback feedforward
the impulse designates time
follows through to understanding

social media
ROI? whats that
innocence offered
for momentary meetings
in cyberspace

a face
instant  tactile recognition
few profiles last longer than milliseconds
the ones that do stay forever.

i met my soulmate
on one such platform.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 8 days ago

As delicate as doom the imagination flutters
in a closed space where strange aliens
hobbits and men with muscular women
inhabit caves with endless tunnels
travelling from one end to the other.  
Stop I must in this vaporous realm
unable to struggle free, trapped

Who am I that waits for the eternal
longing to come full cycle, take me into
its open arms and surround me
in delicate gossamer finery
silk brocade and lace, vague eyes,
strong faces. blue venom
bursting as I scamper into the undergrowth

unafraid of demons and spirits
evil or splendorous  beings, cascading
through the nightmares of knowing
that every journey must meet Olympus
and Greek gods like Minotaur's
carry the golden fleece to us mere mortals
escaping the claustrophobia
social norms
even as we tumble into the dead
end of a never ending roadway of rules.

Author Notes

Abstract and inescapable. At times it feels like this when you cannot do what you really want to do. Escape.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

We packaged our dreams in spiked boots and razor sharp axes
willing to chip the mountain away to get to the top
of things that bothered us for a while
as we lazed in the summer sun
and wished for winters comfort
and high mountains and snow and ice and sherpas
tugging our dreams upwards
into a blue everest
where other dreams gathered
under colourful flags and photographs.

Our guides knew their goddess well
her whims and fancies
and bells tinkling as she allowed them
to climb upon her back
still tugging our dreams and us
our limited oxygen and pickaxes
and walking ropes.

Off in a line we went
holding on tactfully to our practised steps
and foot by foot we planned to conquer
the mountain of our ambitions
and write ourselves into the record books
as adventurers of conquests.

The goddess gently sneezed
and a gap in the long line of climbers
disappeared forever.
caught in the fist of avalanche fury
our dreams became dust.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

She was fluffy like a cotton ball, as cute as a summer salad
but she had a vicious bark. It rang out loud across the street
and got your teeth on edge, all the time.

My cat played innocent. She was cute too.
Somehow she had learned to walk along the fence
uncaring little beauty
got  this shrieking, frisky little pom
jumping up and down and snarling
at poor little Tiggy. My innocent Tiggy.

There was nothing I could do
to train Tiggy to behave.
She hated dog biscuits, hated being disturbed
while she steadily walked along the fence
and never came home until she did the same trick
a few time each evening.

That's what you call a catwalk.
Brave, majestic, brutal! ****  Tiggy.

The day I went over to complain to the neighbour
about the dog barking. She looked at me long and hard.

"It was your cat that was barking"
I scratched my head and walked home defeated.
Lesson number 1: Never argue with a womans logic!
PomCat, TomCat or RomCat. They always win.

Author Notes
www.amazon.com/Chrysanthemum-Trilogy-Part-Transition ISBN 9781493137848

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

Just gone into the blue sky cascading
down below into oblivion where
the water is cold, yet ready to douse the fireball
spiralling downwards to outstretched arms.

Think. Before you board.
You. With the warped vision
of life and death and agony.

Nothing will save you from the hell
you have created taking your own brother
and sister into your short circuit
of  idealisms bent and bruised
in the cunning radicalism
of your masters mania.

Just as the stars burn for ever
You too will burn in that endless dynamo
of time unmourned , ungrieved, forgotten quickly.

The waters will not wash away your sins.
You have been baptised in a cauldron of hate.
Go alone. Leave others.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Slice the city into two parts
rub  salt into open wounds
break down the armoury, shell out the sickles
and spikes and bamboo arrows dipped
in poison berries ripe as raspberry juice
and arm the tribes with tentacles
that search for other tribes
lurking in the shadows of the camouflaged blackness
pull 'em out and punish them in broad daylight
take an arm a leg -cut a tongue loose
so words uttered will sound like jungle anecdotes
in a litany of lies.

I will come swinging
with a mascara maiden
and two henchmen trained as axemen
intent on cutting policies of power
into shreds of excuses to remain seated
on a throne of oiled skulls and feather dusters

Take heed, brother
I buy guns for a slot of land infested with rhino
and elephants and diamonds
as big as hippos dipped in strange ****** rhythms
a thousand years old brewing quietly.

We own this land
The white man came in and took it
"He got the land we got the bible"

We must take it back somehow
and sacrifice all of ourselves
in due process.

Slice the land into two chunky pieces
You take one
my mistress takes the other.

breaking waves splintered
fragments of hope across
faceless emoticons
messages of no meaning
name those apps
show those abs
smile incandescently
attract the bees
lay honey traps in a vast network
take control.aim digital

big brother watches
every stroke digital

did god create man
or man create god?

the internet created
the sinternet
we are subscribers
we have all subscribed
with our souls

the underground junkies
of a social world
connected permanently with cables
leading into hell.

Author Notes

The horizons dark horse looms across the skyline
shadows gather under silent storms
grey skies lower their mantle
time chips the day into pieces of patience

I wait for the doorbell to break the silence into action
alone, just writing and writing
thoughts in a flurry, everyone gone
Quietude has a soft  language stirs the past

journeys milestones flow past
and I see moments of relish slip and slurp
even as I savour the best for last

my mind is moving from poetry to prose again
and the story takes on an urgency
of raging fires, lost loves, longed-for newness.

Full circle.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 5 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11690072-dark-horse-looms-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#sthash.wZ9BzJB­3.dpuf

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.

22%. take it or leave it
wanna  car?
payback is on the 10th of every month

*** is this identity?
is this you man?
you look drawn with charcoal anger
black as sin, beady eyed.

go away
take the money
i'll come around on 9th
just to remind you to pay next day

now leave
customers are waiting.

these losers

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 7 days ago

Gold plated taps
dispense gold plated water
baths with gold plated soap suds?
yet producing the same
**** of green back arrogance
and shine.

The blue black lambhorgini
controlled by road signs and speed limits
but the ego driving the wheel
cannot understand
four wheels and an engine
bursting its brain in the undercarriage
collecting accident  cold hard stares

All those lovely women
don't love you - lover
its the cars and the feeling
the shades of pink and purple
that drive their own ecstacies
up the wall of your waiting

Tonight
you will sleep alone
wondering where your woman went?
Don't ask  me. I don't know.
a ******* from a man-eating tiger.

Author Notes
OK.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ag

Backed by a belief that  butchery
is part of a survival strategy to cling
to the edifices of power blackened by the bomb
and bunker smoke of fighting in the trenches of hate

Hidden in hell holes beneath the barren  browning landscape
scattered across the fragile face of the desert
soldier rats rush into pock-marked craters
as the planes overhead search them out with infrared
points to demolish and bury them
in the graves the enemy nation
carved for cemeteries
unmarked
in the battlefields of bourgeoisie.

War brings  the drones of mercy
raining  from the skies of hate
piercing through the armament of commands
from Generals decorated in medals of honour
from the Boys Club and  green mossed jackets.
Sit, daddy,  in rifle ready barricades
awaiting the crackle  command
from higher up the food chain.

Those who make those decisions are unaware
a child sits at home playing with a little toy soldier
"Made in China" from printed plastic moulds
of mass production and extermination.

"Daddy is my hero.
He will come home for Christmas."

He wont. This time round, son.

Author Notes
The Toy soldier.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Tyres and trash climbing to four long stories high
burning the dynamo of governments made
from variegated beliefs in sharing seats
unspent people divided by calculated fear
and farm implements from backyard fences
to break the back of steel helmets and
rubber truncheon policies.

Piled high on the side-walks of history
they gather in tight knots yet untangled
before water canons and formations
of advancing barricades of brutal regimes
seated around, round glossy tables
of disagreement.

Nothing works right if a lone spanner
finds its way into the giant machinery
that rolls over people down a roadway
of dissent. Freedom is not plugged
into any powered source if unaccepted
in the lone man's spark of will.

Soon the doorways of flight
will open and haste will chase
the suited gentry of harsh cross-hair policies
into pockets of safety within
other brutal regimes.

Fly now while you can
the plugs will be pulled shortly
and the day will descend into darkness
Hellfire will close in around you
if you wait to cling to power
that is not yours. Run now. Run.
Fly. Disappear. Kaput. Finito.

Author Notes
We go West now. Just coming from deep South.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Time spirals like a stairwell through an infinite
Space where the beginning and end are never understood.

In the gravitational enigma of atoms and particles colliding
in perfect symmetry against a backdrop of forces
that we attribute to God and his  Mind over matter.

This is, for ‘something’ greater than god himself,
gave Him
the power to possess such awesome precision
that we still do not comprehend. Never.
Try as we might. Who or what then
exerted so much energy to create a man
comprised of infinite possibilities, deviations
and standards in a  controlled mind
to surpass all of creation?
And  and and  
attempt to understand its inner workings
from every angular dimension
yet never give up until he has found
the microscope pin-hole in the universe through which
he can see the face of the creator himself!

Is this a way
to tease this simple mans
understanding of his immense power?

The Body is the temple of God
No doubt about it. You were born
in a thermo dynamic quantum furnace embedded
in the very pulse that the Creator distributed
through another Creator
Another Creator, Another Creator
etc etc.

Accept it on your knees.
Author Notes

Exploring an afterthought. Infinity is the Creator himself.
© 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 years are numbered on the measurements
at your waist like a palm tree with rings
the tyres driving nowhere sane
but hugging you firmly round and round

sagging at the knees the weight
brings you down
to the next level up
as you puff your chest out
and **** your guts in
to no avail. The tyres collapse
when not properly inflated
and being unable to meet the racetrack
of a wife head-on.

The crisis looms when the *****
slumbers you to sleep early- alone.
The deep snore is not a jet engine whirring
but a dream dissipating.

Come another ten moons and thick glasses
of fruit juice and health tonics
still keep the tunic tight
as we all battle a world without walking sticks
and false everything else.

The slide from here on
is slow and steady
to a quick finish
at the doctors clinic
and mounting medications.

Soon gone.

Author Notes
Happens like this all the time.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.