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.

The alleyway was dark and dusty
plastic wrappers clinging to corners
of depression , escape trapped by wind shifts
swirling in the tunnels of hope,
desperate drips from broken pipes
beating a soulful click, click
breaking into puddles of slime.

He lay there motionless
unmoved by the activity around him
devoid of all sound and sense
asleep in his gutter of dreams
still
eyes shut.

Asleep he was unmoving
Christ himself
crucified on the cross
of an alcoholic society.

His only resurrection
a few drinks away. .......

Author Notes

AA?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

Between bullets and policy planks
between boundary lines and front lines
between to's and fro's and diplomatic tussles
pin-pong, ding- ****, right-wrong or otherwise
between threatening noises and patient posturing
between reasons why and why not
it belongs to us and nobody else.

We sat here from the dark ages
under lamplight, streetlight and flares
and fires from revolutions of evolutions
creating a culture of claim
to establishment of our rights
as indigenous people.

And so who are you?
walking into this quarter of globe
claiming you know better on
what belongs to who and why?

Between round tables
and square tables
round people and square people
beautiful women marching up on stage
books open and ready,

we will place our signatures
to seal the argument that
nothing belongs to nobody
until the signature sits
comfortably on an uncanny page.

" Please sign here, Mr Prime Minister!"
Author Notes

The Revolution continues. A signature seals the fate of all arguments. The first man to get his pen out and push a signature wins the argument.

The pen IS mightier than the sword.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

This is a one way journey, take heed,
as splendid as you may be of body
girth and mind, in perfect union with your god and demons
this is your ticket. Take it.

Travel safe. Through the cataclysmic darkness
where you soul may question its origins
or through the blinding light where you have
faced your maker, stay seated
and tread softly as the night approaches!
Always stay seated.

You will never ever know when the day is over
and the curtains close
or the  velvet shifts to give you a glimpse
of that stage where you acted your own part.
Breathe deeply.

And go. Go. Go!
You will never ever return.

Leave behind your book of memories
that all others who read those pages
and understand the language
that came with you. Be spoken again.

Do not turn back. Never.

Author Notes

Life is a one way ticket. No matter who you are or where you came from you have a ticket on this ship that will take you through countless channels, rough seas, blinding and beautiful horizons, through all of your family and friends, through pain and glory, but in the end your journey is one way.

The ticket will be clipped at every entertainment centre, at every pub, at every church meeting and at every birth, death and celebration.Finally you will get off the big ship of life. Your ticket will be collected and you will go alone.

Who waits for you at the other end? Better to have their address and their phone number. Dont be stranded on a strange shore!. Be prepared.

Remember. And please always remember- this is a one-way journey.

There is no return. Go quietly. Say your goodbyes now.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

six decades later i'm still saying
i've read the bible
not really. it was too big a tome
to start with and to read along like a novel.

yes, there were lots of little stories
that were drilled into us as guidelines
to a better life
but now at the *** end of life
these stories have worn thin
with the changing of the times. thank god.

all of us are prodigal sons in some way
wallowed with pigs
spread our wantonness
swore and cussed
been adulterous
broken every commandment
(except ******).
and lived unholy lives
when measured against biblical yardsticks.

so be it.
imagine a world without sinners.
can you?
me? for sure, i am  a sinner
my yardstick is eternity long.




Author Notes

Yep.I own up. I was grinning when I wrote this poem. Just this morning I had two lovely people wander up to my doorstep, telling me where I was so wrong in my belief. I listened for a while. Then gave up. They had a colourful magazine, nice colourful ties and pink rosy cheeks too! But they were trying to change my pagan ways to their side of the fence of thinking.

I thought it was too late. As someone who knows how long his biblical yardstick is, there was really no point. I could argue till the cows came home and it wouldn't work. So, blah blah.blah.

They said what they had to say, i listened, now more convinced that the world is full of jokers like me!

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 months ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11437496-the-yardstick-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.6P7TaJez.dpuf

Lisping along  in the bravado nights
of banquet halls bursting with chandeliers
red carpets and butterfly maidens
serving delicacies of ordered neatness
tested in kitchens of manicured chefs
waiting in breathless expectation
of acceptance from a guest list
of the countrys best men and women

the chief gobbler looked at the lovely wife
of the chief guest
and gently slurped his birds nest soup
as the waitresses on wings flitted by
watching in delight
as his ******* showed clearly at the thoughts
raging in his bald head.

He wanted this woman?

and they all approved willingly
that someone must lose his head
to the heavyweights lust
and for the upkeep of the national pride

before he picked up his chopsticks
and gold embossed napkin
he flicked it twice
and the chief gobbler was whisked
behind a red bleeding curtain

and his wife was taken
on a candlewick bedspread
of green and gold
draped with the crescent moon
and scimitar.

ask no more questions
on where we are
or lose your tongue forever!

Author Notes
Despotic and dangerous.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

To the centre of city, its a four laned highway
with cars zipping up on the southbound lanes.
I am northbound towards the sun
where it streams down watching us racing
to early morning appointments

I wonder
How many people must be watching the road with one eye
and next door drivers with the other
and the ones on the right, by instinct,
always in a hurry to grab those 3 meters of vacant
space, only to get stalled a little further up
by an old lady following
the intricate road rules of speed.

Cruising along is a survival thing
one wrong turn or twist
and the ambulance will need to scrape
the remnants of you from the road
police sirens wailing
and rubber-neckers keen to see
who was the *** that didn't learn
to survive in a race to the finish!

Thank God  I've survived
another journey to the centre
of the city
(not the earth!)
If I don't keep my attention on the road
I may be the one
being scraped off the road.

Author Notes

Happens everyday at 7am and 3pm. Each day going down or returning is a lucky day. All it will take is one small mistake.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 months ago

At first, pimply faced and shy to look and touch
you took the stars from the sky and implanted them
into my crisp clean English Essay as if the words
were silhouetted in the embroidery of the night.

I was struck by this teacher who lived in a space
that filled his skull cap with beauty in everything.

Soon the floodgates opened and my own words
mingled with ecstasies and rituals of writing,
danced across the page in rhyme and reason
and spilled over into vast tracts of books and
writings and thousands of printed pages
all with your signature hidden in the prose
and poetry of teaching me to search for meaning
in every single word. What a journey.

Today as I shift some words and visuals
into subtle pictures I remember the first ones you spoke
to a shy little boy, afraid of others seeing his writing:

" Go dance with the delicate, spin magic with
every sentence and dress those pictures in tailcoats
and ties, so others may know that your pen is
dipped in poetic polish of a special kind"

Thank you Bro D'Arcy.
Author Notes

A tribute to Bro D'Arcy, my English Teacher at St Josephs College, Coonoor, who first recognised that my writing was different. The good man never ever made  a negative comment and each time he looked at my schoolboy writing, he would delicately carve his calligraphic handwriting suggesting how better I could improve the language.

Sometimes, I would write and re-write a poem dozens of times until it merged into the best poem possible.

"Every word spoken or written with part of you in it makes you a better person"- Bro D'Arcy

I owe Bro D'arcy, a lifetime of learning to write better.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

All it takes is two words spoken with eyes of wonder
finding its way to the sublime.
How only some could understand the vastness
of its poetic meanings -is amazing

Yet it spins whirlpools of countless words
that silk and sing in wondrous unison
making sense of itself all the time.

Such is love, the look askance,
the touch felt through great distance
understood clearly
as if skin melted against skin
in some ethereal furnace
moulding beings who
'are on the same page'
every single time.

There must be the four seasons
written into their genetic make-up,
as if,
they were moulded in the same crucible.
Permanently.

Author Notes

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

filigree fibres
networks neurons
splitting hairs
pumping digital maniacs
across countless spheres
connecting wise and wanton
split second messaging

we live in the eternity
of  answers
we have forgotten how to sharpen pencils
fold paper
communicate
face to face

all inwards
we create islands of loneliness
the minds mantra
to isolation weirdness

hello people
hear me?

Author Notes

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

She was all that, tall and filled
with mathematical curves and points
in languid poses aware
that male eyes grew bigger at her *****
welcome.

*** her legs never stopped growing
and barely touched the ground
poised and ready to pounce
panther like grace and beauty
to wrap around adventure
beckoning.

She wrote poems too
insipid though
moonbeams and roses
love and languish
imaginary lovers, unfulfilled dreams.
That sort of stuff!

I had her figured one whole summer
and my numbers and curves vastly improved
to the touch and taste
and her eyes swelled dolefully
at my cryptic poems

When she went back to hubby
She offered just one comment
on those vast tracts of writing:
Sounds good, but what do they mean?

Honesty makes your heart flutter.
I know that for sure. Winter arrived.

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.

life on a desktop
wound in cables
chased by errant mice
unreasoning keyboards
follow my grammatical errors
dramatic mirrors
that reflect shining
on a faceless society.

where are the gentlemen
that doff hats
wish the world good weather forecasts
and carry singe roses
clasped by pearly white teeth?

not possible from inside
a cabin caged
like a prized animal
punching numbers
dishing dirt
conquering the world
in imaginary victories
of body and soul.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 25 days ago

It was, after all, an internet rose,
selected from google images,
carefully placed in a pool of succulent words
vanilla bean and gooey smoothness
bordered with delicate lace on the pages
a small bleeding heart stapled
to the top of the page

But oh! how she loved its beauty.
She smelt the heady aroma, licked the chocolate
and converted to vanilla slurp
and juicy apple kisses.

We slept well that night
ten thousand miles apart.
Romantically ready
for the journey across oceans
with towering waves
and saw toothed sharks
piranhas and nirvanas
all jumbled up and waiting
for this togetherness.

Author Notes

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

This early in the morning shrouded
by the negligee of night it feels
a bit silky silly to be working
partly dressed
awaiting for the dawn to push its way
into my strong coffee smell
tasks ahead. So many cups later
the light filters through the nets
and criss-crosses patterns of flowers
on a waking day.

Soon the rush and rustle
of things to be done will invade
every live moment
with acupuncture points of pressure
and to still the raging fires
of tasks undone I will
retreat into small pockets of sleep
to slow the blood rush and tumble
and cut the remaining hours
in frenzied action until
most of my diary completes its watch
over my progress
towards  a jaded evening where
a ***** and orange juice will answer
the leftover tasks asking
to be finished.

Another day. Another night. Gone.
So much yet to do.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Its winter here and clutching at warmth
and woollen jackets that once seemed silly
when the sun conquered the day, I recall another winter
not so long ago when the mood was mixed
up in happiness.

The lady was back from her sojourn to warmer places
and suntanned and *****
she arrived at the office in a summer swirl
with  the rest of us beaten down with low temperatures
rates hikes and interests climbing over budgets.

The swirl  lasted long all winter and regaled
by stories of men with brawn and fat wallets
we listened quietly as the tales
unfolded.
Winter set in when the wallets crumbled
and the interest rates chewed up next holiday.

We worked all winter
for a week in the sunshine of the family.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 20 days ago

The centric force subjugates  all things digitally
a belief transmits with impunity unspoken
transmuted into faith nothing  impossible

reproduction splintered into pixels
**** into poetry
poetry into ****

we stumble from satisfaction to satisfaction
communicate in digits
connected by dots and dashes
transmit ideas through light
controlled by digits
until at last shaped in the world of
electronic precision
we fuse into the new religion
god replaced by binaries
unholy alliances
that work well in the mechanism
of subterfuge faces reality dismembered
touch and sensory stimuli
burnished through copper cauldrons
undersea cables reaching each other
mind to mind untouchables, harijans of fancy
split second relationships
walk on into the wilderness
where your body frazzles in passwords false protections
numbers in a mechanical clock
that runs on nano seconds
vanish in the nothingness of unreality

we remember others
only for their photoshopped faces
and eyes of wondrous invitation
a blank soul beckoning
for rejuvenation, thirsting for real feelings
real places and real emotions

welcome to the new religion
digitheism.

escape the trap
return to wonder.
You are either one
or zilch. Take your pick.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a day ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11695729-Digitheism-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#sthash.FWLt61f5.dpuf­

Mask and metal mould as one
We lock into permanence
Take from me the blood and ******* you  deserve
And I will cherish rust and polish
we both can shine!

Author Notes
An exchange of body and soul to the bitter end.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 5 months ago

You are born into  a gps place where pinpoints of  religions,
rituals and romances have been inbuilt into the waft and weft
of the world from the fabric was rolled out in rolls
of generations that went before you? Think back.

There is little  you  can change abruptly but slow
careful threads woven into the final pattern will reveal
how you wish to include, direct
and introduce a new pattern of thinking
into the new curtains you may hand hang on the walls
of a society that needs new furnishings!

Soon you will find yourself in the middle
of a movement shifting between traditions
that lay suppressed and controlled
by a segment of society that deemed
belief in change impossible without
tick marks from the elders of
a stagnant culture unable
to understand change and consequences!

I say to you. Go change traditions
to make society adapt better
to what lies ahead
not back! Change now. Its your time.



© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 days ago

In the infinite zero gravity of nothingness
comes a symmetrical cylindrical formation
alpha and omega baptised
circumferences spirally downwards
into abyss
breaching cataclysms of illusion
reducing giants into mirages of magical
creatures harvesting the mind
and all its hallucinations of depth and dreams.

Once in a while the outer skin
is breached and broken
and the telescope seeks inward resilience
as the topsy turvy weightless objects
roll and tumble
in precise formations
cascading through tunnels
of energetic figurines
appearing and disappearing
seamlessly into reality and out of it.

So it is with us
creatures trapped
in prisms of dimensional space
unable to comprehend
metaphysical existence within a sphere
of a simple lifespan.

we move from point to point
mere dots of insipid reason
ruled by simplicity.

Author Notes
The binary digits are just 1 and 0. Zero is nothing and 1 complements it and gives it value. All of the digital world revolves around this mathematical understanding. Without the 1 or the 0 the entire world becomes a useless unexplained theory ( or so I think).

The matrix revolves around this simple theorem. There is a nothingness and there is a 1 or an I ! Within this context , all of the action takes place. You cannot have just the I because you have to have the 0 to make sense of reality.

I see this as a philosophical spiritual understanding of existence and compare this equation of Everything/Nothing, On/Off, This/That, Alpha/Omega,Beginning/Ending as different understanding of the basic theory of existence.

My poem plays on the the infallibility of the 1 and the 0 together. Metaphorized as a spiralling staircase descending into nothingness it goes up and down at the same time in a perpetuating cyclical, cylindrical form. Infinity does the same thing.

We are all 1s ( I's) and the 0 or O completes us a 10.

We are the Matrix.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

One little sparrow rounded the corner of the house
and tweeted its way down the electric wire
until it came close to the spilt grain patch.

its undecided fluttering swoop an inch closer
dancing on its slender legs curled tightly around
the wire, ti balanced with its tail flaring in the breeze
head bobbing this way and that but

one eye firmly fixed on the morsels of grain
the other watching competition. Joined by
another chirpy companion our brave sparrow
suddenly found herself with strength building.

Together they flitted  in the down draft
and announced their seed war on humans
with loud chirps and flutters, but bent at the knees
in case urgent flight was necessary. It wasn't needed

I ignored them completely looking away, but
the corner of my eye, absorbed the terrain completely.
I  conjectured that the second chirper said to the first:
'yeah, I know this guy. He sits here looking at things
in his free times, and watching birds all day!

He has that cellphone that deceptively tweets
bird sounds, and whistles  when he gets emails.
Come on, girl, lets grab a feast, while he's busy
writing about us. He will leave us alone for a while'

Author Notes

Bird-watching is a great hobby. Sparrows know?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 9 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11583510-The-lone-sparrow.-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.G14ILmff.dpuf

Beneath the dark foreboding heavy print there sits
a sullen moment when the worlds problems are inked
in black lined language that skittles across the page
in a hurried beat informing
all who would care to read
how the world is shaping itself to explode
in the fireplace of disagreement on such things
as land and water and elements and boundaries
and rituals of culture and creed
that caused the great divide between
location and dislocation.

The day that barter was invented the troubles
started and multiplied for all. Enough was never
but invasion of another's territory was ingrained
in the psyche of all man, irrespective.

To travel and take by force was inbuilt into the minds
fences and protection was guaranteed to all
through evolutionary dynamos of the inner
workings of a space and time that kept all people
in a society of linked cobwebs through social structures
that tightly bound them into networks.

Once the unwritten laws of social structures were tested,
it let loose the insidious desire to take
without asking what was rightfully not yours.
The birthplace of all who ascended the throne
of comfort through the discomfort of others
can be traced to this malady.

Stay within your own blessed boundary.
Stay within the headlines of decency.

Author Notes
The Territorial Imperative drives all mankind.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The air breathes silk and soft
the table is crowded with crap things to do
my mind falters in the gutters running criss-cross
the pages of poets dreaming love
where is the *** and sin and late nights
in the bottles of doom
which race through my thoughts
down to the last drop

Where is this  woman I met last week
spilling her ***** out on the table
for us to gaze upon-untouchable
because her man flexes his muscles
while he appears brain dead.

Why do I write such stuff
Why do I see with blinding eyes
Where do the words come from to express
pain and loneliness and the poverty
of patience. Who really reads these snippets

I am rambling into the night
where the shadows make walls
of visions that dance silhouettes
of memories from times ago
and the hustle bustle of beauties
that I once knew are now fragile old women
tending to grandchildren
in the dusty courtyard of life.

Even as I write an endless stream
of rivers cascading into waterfalls
of words my mind bends beautifully
this Sunday mornings sermon of hope.

Just now I heard a youngster write
of what poets and poems do.
Nothing really. It metamorphoses
the body and soul into exquisite
melancholy or madness, pain or purity
but never ever makes sense
when you want it to.

Who ever said poems should be short
with miniskirts and make-up
parading the twilights of ******
and hopelessness
unable to find clients of hope
unprepared to shock  listeners
into jumping off the cliffs of nonsense?

Thats only a snapshot
of how I work
writing endless reams
of the bad and the beautiful.

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

The walled -in city imposed upon the reason
to stand so tall within the minds slum
People gathered in networks discussing nothing.
Even as the sea split into pellets of rain
The waters squished together to form puddles of delight
where children played with bare toeholds in the dirt.

I saw Jericho fall as trumpets went out of tune
and tunics hitched up on Roman Generals
marched with full venison bellies
slaughtering people like pigs-making bacon!

As desolate as this **** dream  visions
of wasted emptiness, slowly filling at the edge
with landscaped gardens of garbage
the gates opened and Trojan Horses
unleashed terror on the people.

Prophets roamed the Western world
preaching doomsday and scimitars of radicalism
overtaking the civilised. Insanity finds
its origins in reading between the lines.

I tell you it will not happen. It never will.

Author Notes

Dare to decipher this?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

Starflung into strange abodes
galaxies collide like minds
central cores disintegrate to recover-
atoms form into gigantic stars of wisdom

Within each word lies
the essence of meaning,
unpeeled it bursts into awareness.
we are drawn to mysteries
that never make sense

what is it?
that drives destiny down unknown paths
filling each movement with a subtle piece
of the jigsaw, falling into place,
one by one in a fulfilling way?
What is it?

The body and soul sublime
will unite with its counterpart

All the prophecies of time immemorial
will come together in perfect sync.
We discovered each others magnitude
and magnificence in a split-second moment.

Author Notes

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

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.

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.

A 3 point turn heading opposite ruins
the direction first taken. Manipulative maniac!

Remove the spark and power from your connections
and you slip into thick darkness
without props, from where you first came to the light
collecting heads dangling on a political belt
blood gushing to your temples with the excitement
of ladders built with opponents ribs
and maidens in your harem dancing to a dirge
of stolen energy from ball-less *******
who catered to your swords sharp language.
palpitating fear of adding their own heads,
to your prized totem collection
on rancid streets. Amen Amin.

The power cut plunged the dark continent
into an abyss of bottomless economy
where the price of bread surpassed
the goldmines and oil dynasties
into deltas of doom.

Even now the sword and sceptre
intertwine to carve society into slabs
of lean meat in the markets of the madness.
Rise people rise! You do not carry
shepherds hooks blessed with a question mark? do you?
Quietly sharpen those question marks into spears
of liberty. Start now.

Author Notes
The Revolution continues. Where are we?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The bishop knew his bounds and his curved sceptre
swept like a serpent up to his face
elongating his brows into wisdom beauty
but his eye wandered to the lady up front
with bubbly buttocks
and tight skirt.

Even his scriptures wobbled against
the power of adrenaline rushing
down his swollen
veins into his vesicles
where he still remained a bishop
with the diocese backing his holy grail
on the road to heaven.

With all those thoughts behind the mitre
and the dash of plumage purple
the bishop often wondered
what life would have been like
with the same spoils the church offered
and a warm woman in bed.

Sob wrecked agony as the knots folded into themselves
and caught in between a burst of emotion
spilling out onto the sheets of pain
as life ebbed out and the heartbeat stilled.

For one
last grasp at life she burst to beauty
eyes closed to a heaven only she could see
and left  a legacy of what could be
a ray of light, in a blinding moment of hope
when all we wanted was a little finger to grasp
in glory, but never. She just came to wish us a goodbye
and she was gone, her mark on our memory forever.

Even today her spirit grew its wonder
in our own fertile minds as we questioned why
she lived for such a whisper of hope
in our hearts.

But we gave her the love she came to collect
and left us her love to carry
all our lives.

I named her Maria.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The silence was sinister, as if, sound had lost its vocal chords,
the days arrived and sunsets painted the sky in crimson
and gold leaf ensembles of artists dreams.

While they sat around a table, document drivers ran around
pushing agendas, translating armageddon scenarios
if the other side raised a finger or pulled a trigger.
So the sulky diplomats sat like doormats where
the national feet were wiped upon and trust was invested
in their stupidity. Harvard education, pin-striped suits
with loud aggressive neckties announced their status
to TV crews and intrepid journalists, hanging on every word
like guillotines, to ravage the leading newspaper stories.
Headlines were deadlines. Diplomats drummed
up side angles for photographic faces  to appear firm
and responsible to the taxman's money.

Here they gathered
with their policy whisperers awaiting for a signal
to open their loaded dialogues of positions and
policy shifts. Yet no one said a word.

The silence, for once, kept all the mouths shut
( one wished permanently!)
no one said a word for 3 long hours,
but they sipped chilled water, took notes of nothing
glared at each others sides and took notes
again of what was not said.

At the stoke of two, when the clock belted
a twang and the echo bounced through
many empty heads, the diplomats rose
to call it another day of negotiations.

The cold war had just had its 9th meeting.

Author Notes
The Revolution says little, but the war take sides. Diplomats are busy 'discussing' how to end the war, and find a solution. Their policy positions are so entrenched, that little happens. The silence is as loud as could be. Meanwhile, the guns boomed and little childrens playgrounds were pock-marked with cluster bombs. Lines of refugees, walked up the mountains seeking shelter in neighbouring towns. The cold war complemented the heat war that was raging on the battlefields of doom. Please stay indoors.
© 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

The crisp and crafted sounds of the singers rasp
and dazzle with its spiralling tremolos and subtle
sensual silences will bind us in a bond where
the music will fuse its way into our own
symphony and we will walk away from the crowded
bar into a quiet corner of our lives
taking Rockland into our visual and verbal gallery.

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

Burn. Burn. In the firelight of dawn when the sun sets aflame
those of us who awake to the clamor of day
unfinished tasks still holding up a traffic jam of events
on a scale unprecedented. Mind-blowing.

Work. Work. To break the list down into manageable machinations
Hoping that one by one the tasks will take flight
The page will be blessed with red  bloodied execution
and the ****** taken, will settle into substantial maturity.

Try. Try. New tasks germinate and populate the columns
and there is never enough time to juggle between starting
and finishing all those noble intentions. They crowd me out
pushing for space in an already jammed tight list of things to do.

I try to get on top of it but it wont surrender to my flirting,
and pampering and pushing, dressing and *******
and will not yield to my best one-liners.
Tasks come with a stern face and stare back at you
if you dare do something else instead.

The battle of boldness continues day in and day out
and I move on into sunnier climes where the beach
beckons more than another day at the desk
plodding through plots and summaries and shaping characters
line after line.

Sometimes I wonder what internal turbo charged engine
drives me to keep going-without looking back
at all those unfinished, abandoned tasks that never
helped in taking me forward.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

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.

Going astray was easy in those heady days
rocked by Woodstock and groupies
lazing in the limelight of nothingness
I felt liberated from cagey traditions
and floated free in beads and baubles
unkempt, unwise and soaked in sin and ***.

That's when I met the Master himself
at a midnight rendezvous in a quiet chapel
the night of January 7,'73
It rocked my world with wonder.

Here was an escape route from slow descent
into darkness and I took it. The return was slow
but steady upwards, even as I mended
all the broken parts of my life.

The before and after of the same coin
still cha-chings on and off but
sensibility returned and once the fences were
fixed and the lights switched on
the journey to recovery was quickened by reason

Today as I look back, the dark side of me
still beckons but the bright side draws
me into a place that has more meaning.
I am here to stay.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 26 days ago

Blue before birth
to spark red and flushed
slapped straight to life
the organs begin to burst into beauty
thumping pumping until rhythmic
flows combine in combination with
senses to create an exquisite form
of life
you.

Take charge of the day
moment by moment
grow and flourish
in the bow of beauty and life
and spread you wings
on the the thermals of each moment
lift high, soar,sweep down and settle
where the your flock rests
waiting for you to arrive
to take part in the ritual
Take Part now

Once the night spills its stories three shots down
the wives are always *******
and 'he' the prefect one. How come?

Little did he know his drinks
were earned on the backstreets of ******
and the greasy twenty was to keep his mouth
shut the **** up. But no, he blathered and blathered
of his own inadequacy, on the home front,
and the two children he never knew
ignored his weakness
to sell crack on the doorstep of doom.

The day he went to investigate
this moral uprising in his mind
they found him filleted like a big fish
in the factory backyard where the
slabs of ice kept him frozen for a whole month.

He was shipped on a container to nowhere
frozen with the tuna.

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

At the gate  between exit and entry,
stands guard a symbol with no spears, daggers or keys
no words spoken or written, just a mindset.

If you go inwards into yourself you will pass a quiet place
where  no  emotional sentries stand guard while
you seek solace in the silence of empty spaces

This is where you pause awhile, take stock and retreat
into inner spaces where reside completeness, and repair kits
which you yourself left there as a child.

Once the mystical journey is complete
return to the world of living, healed and wholesome
leave your baggage  at the exit point
leave a tithe for the  realms, return happy and simple.
uncast yourself from the mould of materialism
and wear this new skin of spiritualism
which will clothe you in perpetual warmth-
be among the worlds whole people
a renewed person.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

Why was it that I searched for symbols in  every line
looking deeper than the surface for fragments of you
scattered diamond like in the dust of words?

Why was it so easy to understand the platforms you stood on
and stayed calm and quiet as I climbed the stairways
to your heartbeat seeking its warmth?

What was it in the artworks that you painted that I could see
splendid universes of meaning, jiving through the brush strokes
of knowing and colours of contemplations
that soared above the ordinary?

What was it in the waiting for your letters and calls
and the racing adrenaline of knowing it was you
calling out to me, in an equally excited tone
about a summers sun, a long bus ride, a beautiful
moment in the night sky and a feeling of togetherness
that engulfed us in a vortex of unstoppable energies
as we circled around in the sacred
awaiting a new resurrection?

Why are my questions one verse long
and your answers so short?

We must be soulmates
baked together in the same fiery furnace
that burns within us at such a searing
flame of understanding.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month 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

I live in an iconic space
devoid of all sound and voice
seeking an inner temple
where resides small fragments of an old self
a journey once taken
a heart once innocent and plain
unpolluted and clean childlike
metaphysical being with no wants, simple needs
no columns of materialism
a nihilistic existence.

It exists no more
as days merged into the nights
and the light of the next day bought with it
a slow and invasive society
that rendered me numb and meaningless.

I am now awash in a rapidly filling vessel
that needs to be better than I ever was
and all too soon the walls
build greater  heights and gates of enormous size
allowing no free access to no one.

I was now held a prisoner in my own  cemetery
casting about to shake out this network
of social chains  that hold me captive.

Where is the God I once spoke to directly?
Where are the angels that I knew existed?
Why did Santa Claus become commercial?
How did brother get to **** brother
and who created gigantic religious dogma
to herd people into cages of conversion?

Please set me free from this new society
and allow me to return home
to my once beautiful emptiness!
Please, please!

Author Notes

Contemplation-6.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11624947-I-live-in-an-iconic-space...-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#st­hash.4Vp6DbuR.dpuf

Flick a long lash
even accidentally
and a world of lust arises
Flick a false lash
purposefully
and watch what happens
Her entire personality
power passion and promise
is compromised by that one single
prompt!
Author Notes

35 words.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

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

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.

Ok-God, I've landed here 3 suitcases
full of charred memories
nights in the ***** house, late night revelries,
poems soaked in syrup, roses that never got delivered
woman that kicked my
donkey to thy kingdom come
gfs that became ex-gfs over the weekend
all those naughty books and movies stacked high
and an old pen that wrote English Literature
full of lies.

I followed your words
thankfully only the 75, they said, you said.
Once I knew the other millions were written by mean men
in beards and with two mistresses each
out the window the books went
and real life in the real world of real
people began. Oh, its been fun!

Imagine Sir,
just before that last tequila
squirming at the bottom of the bottle
I was dancing with this bombshell
and it exploded in my face:
Go to hell! she hissed, fangs out and wobbling
So here I am master with the only baggage I have
and one slim green gideons bible
never, never, ever opened.

Nobody, nobody ever told me, sir
you yourself had
4 suitcases of the same stuff.

'Welcome home, son, take the back row please
there are others with larger suitcases upfront.
Don't ever go back and tell 'em
heaven is made of these people.
Enjoy your stay!'

Author Notes

Have just been to the devils workshop!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a day ago

Equinox  pulling nights shadows
back over bright days. Swallows head home
where the sun grows stronger. The garden, slows down
packs up it belongings and bundled into seeds
awaits the pickers and packers.
Autumn takes on its rouge
cosmetic sedentary demeanour,
as leaves drop off into shades
of brown and bark, burnt from beauty
in the summer caress, now yielding
to the cusp of cold winds taming the
North and East, slowly changing the landscape
into a damp squid waiting for harvests of
last fruits and flowers, before winter comes
softly in with icy winds and blanket mist coloured
morning and evenings,
fireplaces roar  life and laughter.

Winter settles like a city smog
shading the last gasp of warm sun
under a duvet of dainty dreams.

We look out for the coming Christmas
of family, friends, and greetings cards
that will burst upon our sense of beauty
with a carol honed in honeytones of harmony
practised over weeks of preparation.

Another year will drop on the calendar
of events that we carry forward
to every season.

In the  sculptors dawn when the sun breaks the mountains into rays
and my head swings like a pendulum cut loose
from its bearings of the night before

I am burdened  by the slow tongue and bruised buds
of the binged night drowning.
home is  solace.

What is it that brings pigs of desire
to straddle boundaries of destruction, laughing
at spirits.

that let lose will wander loose in a melee of like minded
pub crawlers, unable to draw from brink
of  no return

Creativity is an excuse
done, wobbling and ill–mouthed ranting
rambling unsteady.

What is it?
that brings us on our knees
in supplication for more.

Trapped in a cage that goes round and round
unable to change course
we stay within its liquidating comfort
until destroyed.
Author Notes

Many have been to this desolate place and many have returned broken. Is there a way to break free?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.