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360 · Jun 2014
Postcard from Paris
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
The wine waited and the flowers wilted
chocolates got soggy, limp and listless
the Eiffel dreams of standing tall and *****
slumped to side
and the Champs De Elysees gathered its circumference
and went around in circles.

You did not come as promised

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

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

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

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 19 days ago
360 · Apr 2014
The Four Seasons
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
The sun played its usual tricks on the leaves
putting colour and composition into autumns grandeur
but winter lurked just underneath this cosmetic skin
waiting to burst starflung into every crevice
where the ice remains as cold as a frozen temperament.

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

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

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

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

I took my dog, Petals for a walk yesterday. She always stops at one particular flowering bed and ferrets out-whatever. That's when the poem came to me.
Hope you enjoy the poem. To those caught in blizzards and ice and snow wherever, remember, there is beauty in that too! Just gotta love it-which ever way. Its nice to be alive.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
360 · Jul 2014
Coin
Marshall Gass Jul 2014
The other side of joy is pain, the dark shadow that lurks
As joy resonates its fullness and draws you into its embrace.

Joy flourishes in abundance unknowing of the meanings
while pain waits patiently to bring you down when not watching

So is Love, that soars above all other reason and rests in clouds
of ecstasy, mindful of the elation and splendour and euphoria

aware that pain stands nearby, watching and waiting ever for slight
tumble that he may walk in and toss his horns about your wonder

and unsettle you as much as he can. But Pain also makes Joy
feel better, more fulfilled and last longer and more understanding.

So it is with life and love and longing all sides of the coin
that we toss high into the air to clasp and cuddle, waiting anxiously

to see what surrenders. Heads or Tails? No matter. The other side
stays underneath waiting passively for the next toss.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 24 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11561422-Coin-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.HeNufYzd.dpuf
359 · Feb 2014
The Answerphone
Marshall Gass Feb 2014
There is no one to take your call at this time
Please leave a message
and I'll get back to you.

Oh yeah?

Your call is important to us
Please leave a blah blah blah

Oh yeah? you are not important
to me though.

The number you have called
is currently unavailable.
Please try later.

Can you give me back
my 20 cents please
you twit!

** ** ** and a Merry Christmas
to all our listeners!
Mine.

I never got a postcard again.

0000
debt collectors
are usually born in foxholes
from grubby mothers
and wayward fathers
Thats why they have four zeros.
They want to know you
but don't try hard enough
with those four zilches!

Please leave a message
in my comment box.
I'll call in later.
Happen to you. Comes with the frustration for free.!
358 · Jul 2014
33
Marshall Gass Jul 2014
33
through the fog
the headlights of awareness
search for eyes approaching
maybe brown and bursting
dark skin hues
of continents unknown

i stand here
counting galaxies
in an endless sky
where your numbers
come up 33 times
through mystical forces
draw me down to earth
where i once planted a seed
to grow, reach and search
beyond  all arcs of reason
and bring back meaning.

illusion still remains
undeciphered in the thirst
of waiting.

where are you?
who are you?

Author Notes

Mystical and metaphysical. The number 33 seems to pop up at unexpected places, dreams and people and I don't understand what that really means or why it is so. Someone will comment.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 16 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11571008-33-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.vDtOeybV.dpuf
355 · Apr 2014
ash wednesday
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
Big bang dust that created fifteen billion years ago
still courses
through our ash wednesdays.
nothing escapes the recycling of resources
or theories of our origin.
From a spark in the universe travelling through time
to today where you stand as  a conglomerates of atoms
molecules and mind, fused
into one pulsing, vibrating being.
A recycling bin of beauty

Look around you and dust walks in cooperate entities
managing themselves, often unknowing
of a beginning or an ending
back into the same billions of years of making.

Did Christ come before the first spark
or after the initial fireball that burst and blossomed
into infinity? question and ponder
the implications of being everywhere
nowhere.

Today
is a reminder
of how we began with the universe.

Author Notes
Ash Wednesdays began with the Big Bang. Is there any other way to explain creation? Try me?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
354 · Jun 2014
This is a Family Show!
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
This is a family show

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

Jeez! what kind of abnormal family is this?

Author Notes
Getting crazier by the minute
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
353 · Apr 2014
Just a sec!
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
Just a sec
Ill be back.

Hold this for just a sec

Can you wait please
for just a sec

Wait a sec please
Ill get it for you

Hey what the heck?
What's happened to that
new relationship you were in
Just a sec. I'll be back.

Eternity in fragments?

Author Notes
Happen this way?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
353 · Oct 2014
Flight
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
There are highways that lead
inside  into yourself
walk on one until your reach
a vast open space
where you have rested in wait
for everything to fall into place.

Watch for the shooting star
that comet blazing across your sky
play your numbers right
find peace in patience
share the weight of the heavy load
contemplate

in a brief moment
the implosion will cleanse
your innermost desires
and once again you will walk
into the blinding light of knowing
that, at last, you have escaped from a cage
and you have set yourself free!

Author Notes

Self-knowledge is critically important to set yourself free from all *******. The first Key to Contemplation and Peace is to know who you are and why you exist on this earth. Listen to yourself first before you listen to others.

This is the second poem in the series on Contemplation. The first one was titled: Solitude.

These poems will appear in my 8th Book: Keys to Contemplation. Comments on your understanding ow what the poem means to you are highly appreciated.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago
350 · Aug 2014
Flame & Fire......
Marshall Gass Aug 2014
As endless as the clock that ticked
in tune to our heartbeat,
you reflected, the beginning of time
like the universe of our love,
for thirty five  long exhilarating years.

I collected stardust from your stars
you collected memories for both of us.

Even as the children arrived bearing gifts
of beautiful smiles and late night restlessness,
we still turned to each other to put the nightlights
down and count our blessings above the hustle and bustle.

Wrapped in the finery of love and longing,
thirty five years later
the song we played at our wedding
never stopped playing.

As I watched you
and you watched me
God watched over all of us
keeping the fires alight
for us for ever. That  is love.
Yet we have just started out......

Author Notes

True love has no boundaries or fences and never dies down. True love burns
forever and is made better by all the ups and downs. Love that lasts for one day at a time, eventually adds up to a lifetime.
Happy Anniversary. Read this again when you touch your 50th. It will mean a whole lot more!

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 9 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11589902-Flame---Fire......-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.imOlt1hC.dpuf­
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
Light a fire, set the stage aflame
go through loops, rings of glass
dont worry if you scrape your ***
But please dont do this at home!

Swing on the trees,
Dance with the bees
Straddle an ape, with his face agape
But please don't this at home!

Throw me that dagger
Cut out the swagger
Walk on tight rope
Unbalance the Pope
But please dont do this at home!

Show off your ****
And those dangly bits
Cover up sin, tuck it all in
But please dont do this at home!

The Birds and the Bees
Have their own trees
With ritual dances and sing song romances
But please dont do this at home!

Im sorry to say
That this is the way
To stay out of stress
And any old mess
But please dont do this at home!

Author Notes
Ha ha!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
The deep throb of silence filters the thoughts
that rise to the surface, like delicate air bubbles
bursting and boiling in spherical silvery orbs
of sustained thought.

At first, the fear of being alone overtakes
the humdrum of daily life
all too soon, the silence invades the clutter
of the noise and the heart beats
like a butterfly, as the mind descends
deep inside into cavernous labyrinths
seeking those little nagging thoughts
that elevate stress platforms of impatience.

There is a serene solitude
and all of life flashes before me
in hyperstring  neural networks of memories
which bubble to the surface
of unconscious thought
and dissipate into nothingness.

I am alone.

Author Notes

Contemplation-6. Another key.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
345 · Apr 2014
Next
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
Just after the ebb and flow
of staying locked for a lifetime
in an earthly connection

comes an unknown
spectre
we can only guess

all those theories
from holy books and men
untested

we go because
we have to
your time is done

and the pulsating final
flourish
leaves behind a memory

shackled to those we love
until they too
must let go

of who we were
when we lived here.
once upon a time.
Author Notes

Fairy Tales come to an end too. "And they lived happily ever afterlife!" who knows?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
Reading and Thinking today!
Today it was cold and blustery and the wind chime
was busy with the same crisp notes tinkling away
unsure of which tube to twang first, but it did sound good.

My dog Petals curved up like a huge comma
rolled his soft eyes in his head. She watched me
walk around, just shifting his eyes following my movements.

She knew I was thinking serious, but not about dogs
but something more like cosmic nothingness and
our own existence in this genetic soup.

Dogs know when we get loopy. They whine and whine
telling us to STOP IT and go vacuum the floors instead.
We usually don't understand pet philosophy. Some do though.

After writing a whole new chapter of my new book
It was time to let the grey matter rewind back into reality
and just doodle around thinking silly thoughts.

Several poems in todays reading were truly uplifting:
Imprint ( by Catniss), for one, was superbly crafted
in symbolic language that soared way above the ordinary.

I wrote drafts for several poems but crunched up the paperwork
and aimed for the paper bin- four misses, one in!
Next I read some poems by Mary Szybist:Incarnadine
and loved the exactness of the wording.

Finally, I sat down to write this poem and discovered
it wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to read
and said: Heck! thats the best I can do today!

I looked at Petals, she wagged her tail just this much
and so after that approval I decided to publish it.
Dogs understand us better than wind chimes?

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

An older poem..........
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11601537-Reading-Writing-and-Thinking-today.....-by-Marshall-Gass­-noguest#sthash.sFL0Xaqj.dpuf
339 · Jun 2014
The moment
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
Spell binding tick tock
words in animation slowed down to drip
drop- candy coloured emotion
hello is it you?
yes it is
your accent is strange! ha ha!

Please put the phone against
your heart
I want to hear the universe of your love
engulf me in its embrace

ok ok. im driving
let me pull up
here you go
kaboom kaboom kaboom........
(petals falling into place
the mind dances a dream)

can you hear it?
can you hear it?

yes I can
it beats the same as mine

Are you crazy
man of magic?
Wow!

love you to bits and bits and bits.....

Author Notes

This little anecdote cannot be explained any other way. Magical moments like this happen ever so often. We just have to be there to know it and relish it. I could write an entire novel based on this one split second moment. Its hard to describe, yet it happened this way!

I guess, poets are constantly sifting chaff from the grain.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 18 days ago
338 · Oct 2014
Explosion
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
stand in the marketplace right between the throng
think of only right and not what is wrong
search the horizon for those seven virgins
watch for others who may barge in

stay close to killing as many as you can
your god desires that you be his best  fan
tighten the belt around on your waist
its a one second blast, make no more haste

when you reach nirvana that we promised you
take all you can, my brother, your vows renew
what you do will make your masters  so proud
thats why, we now in secret  do shroud

the Book you worship is your one way joy ride
just pull the cord and to heaven you glide
we'll watch you from a distance afar
make sure you are safe, with heaven ajar

once gone, my brother, we'll look for a start
for another sucker with a dream to depart
this earthly kingdom for heavens reward
you be the leader to take it all forward

the land that we want, will for ever be ours
you get a tombstone dressed up in flowers
don't worry no more for the people you ****
its written in blood, that its all gods will!

Author Notes

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

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11578863-Explosion-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#sthash.bQt5XuMb.dpuf
323 · Apr 2014
The Meeting Place
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
The invisible hand that stretches across
Oceans and  barbed wire boundaries
has more fingers than the streams of light that cascade
from the heavens into the darker recesses
of your magnificence.

There are moments when all seems lost
but the shadow of darkness is dispelled
and replaced by this glimmer of hope
that softly and subtly invades
your magnificence

Even as we explore the faint avenues
that wound their way into our consciousness
we clearly seem to understand how our journeys
criss-crossed over exotic landscapes
and stark desolate realties
to merge into a moment of  mystery.

We have finally met.

Now more human than before
the pages  of our past turn slowly
the notes we compare are cryptic and careless
but what we share seems to have been sculpted
by the same pen filled with the same ink of wisdom.

Author Notes
for MJH. Thank you.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
322 · Jun 2014
The Waltz.
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
Lips and kiss don't rhyme
but neither does love and hate
Sorrow and pain seem elegant
and together accept their fate

Love and laughter have elegance
a waltzy unified dance
an embrace of happy togetherness
not left to anyones chance

Meetings and partings are similar
they stand in opposite twirl
It takes but a little adjustment
to keep it all in a swirl

Whatever the reason or rhyme may be
Two people are waltzing and free
One must be careful to keep to the tune
for the other to swing in with me!

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
321 · Oct 2014
crossroads
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
If you stand here
at the cross-roads
going left or right.

which one do you take?
take one first
turn around and look back
what have you walked past?

Return if the road is strewn
with endless rubble of broken dreams
and disasters.

Take the other other one
what do you see
The same?

know that every road
was built the same way

Don't ever make the mistake again
Never ever reach a cross-road.
Build your road before you start your
journey!

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11596380-crossroads-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#sthash.xHSZTFRJ.dpuf­
321 · Feb 2014
Solitude
Marshall Gass Feb 2014
The fear of being alone causes the explosion of strange
sensations to surface from the deep
denizens of an inner cauldron where
settles a sense of imperfect calm.

Deceptive volcanoes of anger
lie dormant for centuries
waiting to blow star flung.

Just when the conquests of years of thinking
through the destruction
you arrive at a tsunami song
that needs tuning.

Some  more bruised bodies
scattered minds
with pieces lined up in perfection.

Walk on into the blistering night
unafraid of solitude.
321 · Feb 2014
Hate and Anger
Marshall Gass Feb 2014
Spilling blood in the dead of the nights
mind
is easy.

Getting caught is the hard part.
Hate carves a language
where you wilt in its acid tongue

Enemies invade  when you least
want them to
reside in your best thought.
Parasites. Bloodsuckers.

Keep clean
the page you write your life on.
Go prepared with light
into the dark tunnel
where you love and hate.

Tomorrow
can be worse than today.
319 · Apr 2014
The Ultimate Metaphor.
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
No rocks or boulders nails or spears
Romans hidden behind plumes and fears
of reprisal. No high priests or Jews or gentiles
could hold back the history of the Written Word
spoken through the megaphone of time
Nothing  holds back body and spirit from rising
to believe. Faith

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

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

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

Author Notes

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

The Resurrection is the greatest metaphor  for all believers in eternal life.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
318 · Nov 2014
These things you must know
Marshall Gass Nov 2014
Each of the little words you wrote
placed in a prefect location clinging
embracing, drawing other words in
into a glowing hug-were important
to keep this bridge between us
permanently reaching out
to each other.

You must know that morning roses
and evening perfumes were kissed
by your complete tenderness
and all I could do was wish upon a star
your universe and mine would mingle
in that eternal oneness
that we created from each others souls.

You must know that all this longing
was born in a distinct realm
which we understood so well
and yet we have never met.
How do we know these simple things
without  any explanation?
There must be  a heartbeat
that we shared in some other lifetime?

You must know that simplicity
is a combination of complexities
and all that we say and do
revolves around the others living moments.
What else is there for us to know
in a lifetime of discovery.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
315 · Apr 2014
The Seasons
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
The scorching season pulls its shades down
in blinding light, raising temperatures
like tantrums. Uncontrolled desire for iced
drinks and sunhats, brown skinned beauty
unfolds in flowered dresses seeking attention
in round bottomed, figure hugging comfort.

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

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

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

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

Author Notes

The seasons correspond to the life cycle of all human beings.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
315 · Oct 2014
Decison
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
what was more important
the horse or the house
on a horse I could ride away
in house I'm there to stay
Id need to look after the horse
but not the house
Yet I need to look after the house
and the horse

One is all about the insides
the other about the outsides
Its funny how we need to look after the insides
to make the outsides so much happier.

I'm asking you to help me decide
I love both equally, want both
don't want to go without one or the other

The last one I owned I sold away
and on leaving the paddock gate
he never bothered to look back
to say even 'thank you.'
I was the ***!

The house still stands
meaningless without the horse!

Author Notes

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

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11627056-Decison-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#sthash.URXOmsDF.dpuf
314 · Apr 2014
Once again.
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
Through the waterfall cascade of hope comes
a misty spray of miniscule memories
of the a time when we surrendered to impulses
and walked through a 3 phase electric shock
of departures.

I never saw you again
although I looked through every window pane
for a brief reflection of a time we understood
as our own. Decades blistered past us
and now a number, a recollection arrives
unexpectedly
and I am unsure, if I should call
or just forget that you would even remember
how I longed for your touch
of a long ago moment.

The words you now speak still tingle
and tease as I collect all the pieces of a past memory
and my solitude reaches out for your  laughter
and laissez-faire as a reminder of how much
I missed in these intervening years.

Author Notes
A fragment of the past.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
To find yourself, lose yourself
inside the cavernous mystery
that exists within you.
Self-reflect and remain silent
as you course your own veins
savouring every spectacle
touching every muscle
strolling through platelets
and rbcs wbcs, nerve knots
and cortex malfunctions
kidney pies and testosterone inspired
stimuli surging mountains
spiralling into decaying depravity

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

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

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

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

Be special.

Author Notes
Outwards- looking in!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
312 · Feb 2014
30 years from now!
Marshall Gass Feb 2014
Thirty years from now
no one will know the colour
of your eyes the car your drove
and the sound of your voice
or the house you lived in
Even the times you swore
you denied bread
to the outstretched arms
milk to the baby
wine to the wise
and love to the unloved.

Unless

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

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
311 · Jun 2014
Satin Words and Visuals. #1
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
The green willow grasses
splendid symmetries
lurks the unknown number
spatial dimensions of intelligence
bonds of chemical attraction
where we met at the cross-roads of age.

Welcome to my world
where your eyes can feast or falter
at the impenetrable gaze of knowing
when we collide in coalition
of  strange dialogues.

I ask you a simple question
How come you see far beyond
the intricacies of words
and into the reaches of my thoughts
as I circle around your sun of loveliness
like a planet in motion in this pristine universe
where you rest-calm and controlled.

Dispel all fear of who we are
and step forward into that velvet night
bring your starlight with you.
We will share the dream forever
in the visuals in what we can write.

Author Notes
Notes to a special friend.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
309 · Apr 2014
Solitude
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
Lost in the lofty mountains of the mind
Memories reverberate and resurrect in splendour.
Nothing happens outside the circle of light
blazing inside. God, you wouldn't even understand
how luscious silence is until you have soaked
in it syrupy fortress of  day dreams.

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

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

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

Author Notes

This is the birthplace for poems that spring into creation when alone and silent. The greatest works of literature, painting, poetry, music and all of the arts have happened best in the solitude of the mind.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
308 · Jun 2014
The Desert of Dreamsmiths
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
They said the world was paved with opportunities
oh yes it was. Businesses of all kinds
Both good and bad, sliding in and out of your conscience self
effortlessly. Writers of all kinds gathered in a pool
of subscribers, hoping for their craft to catch the eye
and gain the comments that so elevated them to pedestals
of happiness. Pain was ignored. Pain creates joy?

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

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

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

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

Author Notes
Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 days ago
Marshall Gass Aug 2014
Spilling ink on daily fluff is a credible past time
one never knows when gems are unearthed in rambling
along on a slow lane watching as the world cruises by.

poets do this all the time, just tuning into the deep caverns
of the mind, searching for those hidden trinkets that were
probably stored away  in a lifetime of looking
sometimes intentionally, most times unconsciously.

then strike! the words and its magical meanings
come together in a wet, juicy kiss
and the fires jump alight in the darkness of the mind
and  roar with  the pristine clarity of metaphors
similes and poetic nuances that rarely appear
in normal  insipid conversation.

Everyone who writes, experiences this torrential surge
of raindrop-like writing sometimes with hailstones
often with snowy winds and chill structures that
weave in and out of unexplored tunnels somewhere
deep within the muse.

Write if you must.....did I just write that?

Author Notes

Backdrop to continued writing. Watch the world go by but take from it the best you can. Be aware.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 11 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11584264-On-writing-as-a-habit.......-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.PBt­DtRDm.dpuf
305 · Jul 2014
Changeover
Marshall Gass Jul 2014
Autumn has slowly left
Winter just jostled in
Rusty leaves reminders.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 20 days ago
305 · Apr 2014
doozles
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
Doozles dream in a weird state
usually backward thinking forward
the script is  mirrored upside down
with female counterparts imported
in containers made of woollen blankets.

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

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

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

Author Notes

fantasy.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
304 · Oct 2014
Diary Notes....
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
The night closes down its comfort zone
drowning in the dusk of musk scented sleep
alone with wild energies seeking solace
in strange arms, unknown banter
as we leave behind the dancing day
busy footsteps in a race to finish at five

heading home, the day trails behind
heavy footsteps locked inside a casket
of memories for tomorrow, will surely
bring its cold chill and diary notes
to keep us pushing on.

Yet the evening has its own secrets
wine and wishes, sip by sip, as we unwind
our stories of a stressful day, people we met
spoke to in brisk tones, carried briefcases
of lecture notes, and walked the corridors
of learning, always mindful of the clock
and learners grasping at straws as I,
deliver the technological wonders that
unfold in young brains, still unable to grasp
how society heaves and sighs with wanting more.

Someday soon I will leave this job
walk in the wilderness of the country side
smell fresh earth and newly mowed lawns
watch sunrise and sunset and cows
grazing blissfully unaware of my presence.

Age has its own miracles meeting new goddesses
from distant lands, who see deep into the simmering
beauty of what I create in words and visuals
and who give  all the praise and glory tenfold
with unselfish sharing and caring.My heart beats for them.

I wish, I wish for those young and folly days
when I wandered a strange wilderness
writing and reading and sharing and knowing
that life itself was engineered to be like this evening
of velvet smoothness and silky toned romances
that few knew drove me to write like this endlessly

Back to the night which has just waved goodbye
to the last lingering twilight for today and pulled
its subtle robe of shadows and faint lights around itself
and enclosed me in its delicate grasp of wonder.

I see my lover, far far away, as if, she were here,
reading and feeling and knowing that she is my muse
and all the temples that I build with my words and visuals
are solely for her enjoyment.She draws me in a circle.

Good night, my love. I will rise with you
at the dawn of the next day!

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
304 · Apr 2014
Fast Forward.
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
That's the way it is. Try as we might we still falter forwards
into an abyss, where the ground below deceives us
to understand that we can stand upright-but cannot!

The deception is translated into life too.
At one time the complexities purge us clean
and again, without even questioning we spring headlong
into  an unclean state of mind.

We write and writhe in a  godless void
because it is a safe place to be unnoticed
and unknown. A much better way to reduce us
into complete humility. Lose the voice
and still that wisdom. Speak less, listen more.

That's how we must be as we race to a finish
taking with us all our internal struggles
and external dominance imposed suddenly
on us by a society intent
on keeping us within its crushing embrace.

The answer lies wholly in contemplation
and subdued understanding of the unfolding
universe. The moment of birth and death
inextricably intertwined, until we leave
noiselessly into that unknown space
where we all belong.

Author Notes

Philosophy.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
Like love
the river bends with a mind of its own
brutally, beautifully
slowly disdainfully, in no hurry to go places,
everything must succumb, no compromises,
no ifs and buts
and all else must stand aside
as the Grand Canyon mind
cuts its swathe through the hardest of emotions
and divides the great expanse
into rivulets of meaning

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

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

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 4 days ago
303 · Oct 2014
Come, Come.....
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
Come , come into the daybreak of the dawn rising
from the mists of the mind and its sacred numbers
clasped in the twilight  womb of knowing,
punctuated itself into a sob of joy.

Reach, reach the long dusty road we have traveled on
and walked the miles searching for respite
from hours of loneliness and pain
distant lands beat like drumbeats in the desert
of the journey we took
to find shade in the sweetness of oases
as we trudged along under scorching sun
seeking each others hand for comfort.

Maybe we've reached, maybe not
its hard to finish a journey with no end
or no beginning-bathed in hope
standing still at the horizon of meaning
we understand what it is that put us on this
pathway to pages of poetry

Read, read, whatever message you can get
from this cryptic verse. packed with sounds
and movement of changing moods
acting out the step by step
conclusion to a bright beginning.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
303 · Jun 2014
Reading and Thinking today!
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
Today it was cold and blustery and the wind chime
was busy with the same crisp notes tinkling away
unsure of which tube to twang first, but it did sound good.

My dog Petals curved up like a huge comma
rolled his soft eyes in his head. She watched me
walk around, just shifting his eyes following my movements.

She knew I was thinking serious, but not about dogs
but something more like cosmic nothingness and
our own existence in this genetic soup.

Dogs know when we get loopy. They whine and whine
telling us to STOP IT and go vacuum the floors instead.
We usually don't understand pet philosophy. Some do though.

After writing a whole new chapter of my new book
It was time to let the grey matter rewind back into reality
and just doodle around thinking silly thoughts.

Several poems in todays reading were truly uplifting:
Imprint ( by Catniss), for one, was superbly crafted
in symbolic language that soared way above the ordinary.

I wrote drafts for several poems but crunched up the paperwork
and aimed for the paper bin- four misses, one in!
Next I read some poems by Mary Szybist:Incarnadine
and loved the exactness of the wording.

Finally, I sat down to write this poem and discovered
it wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to read
and said: Heck! thats the best I can do today!

I looked at Petals, she wagged her tail just this much
and so after that approval I decided to publish it.
Dogs understand us better than wind chimes?

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
302 · Aug 2014
oh yeah?
Marshall Gass Aug 2014
hey you
up against the wall
keep your hands behind you back
walk now nice and slow
ok ok
down on the floor. you *****.

what's this you have under the seat
smoking paraphernalia?
you know what the law says about drug use?
no sir, officer,
shut up I didn't ask you to answer.

where's you dad
wait till I get some details on you
you been in this business for awhile- uh uh

no sir
see this packet here my boy
one press of the trigger
and you are history

wheres your mama boy?
dead sir, dad too, three brothers
and my granpappy

what happened
accident
police chase rammed into them

oh yeah?

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 5 days ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11593131-oh-yeah--by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.kfLIO49n.dpuf
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
The wind whistles past the songs delicate trumpet haze
sizzling between words of wonder, awed at love
and its any splendored languages, cruise control
step down hard, the pulse races, I reach for your hand.

Oh my God, your hair is free and floating in the liquid light
of this great summer day
Are your eyes always blue? They sparkle deeper today.

Your hand is warm and griping tight. Message?
Yes. I slow down, pull over, park.
Hands around you I pull you closer to the kiss
Hmmmmm. Cannot let you go now!

What is it in the way you look dreamy
snuggle  in this sequence?
There must be a much deeper connection
with our lives entangled in some distant past?
That's the mystery that baffles us!

We kiss again and drive into a future
of unknown territories.

Stay with me Love.

The trumpet tones down into dulcet soul.

What are you thinking?

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 20 days ago
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
The sparks flew the moment I read your poems
and the way you split everything
into bits of laughter. It was a quaint kind of giggle
that spilled out each time you got nervous
about some thing metaphor or something
assonance. It was a pleasure to see you jump into
a group and suddenly take flight with bejewelled
words and images that soared across the page
in perfect poetic nuance.

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

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

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

Author Notes

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

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 7 hours ago
296 · Jun 2014
Skin
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
Last summer, the first of sunshine days
I walked the dusky dawn, down memory lane
searching for those strawberry nights of lust
and longing that lay captured in a jar

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

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

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

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

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

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

Author Notes

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

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 days ago
295 · Jun 2014
Conflict
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
Both seamless in their searching
the inside and outside
my mind is bitter and bold
should I or should I not?
perpetually.

Seamless it only seems
Vegan or Bogan
this decision rages
milk or cocktails tonight
Is she shapely and ****
or sad and drooping
the curtain of watching shuts
abruptly
the mind sizzles with answers
nobody watches

Should I go now or stay
should I write now or tomorrow
should I enter or not? what

Should I call or not
Chocolates or frocklettes
dinner or dancing
is he/she -man or woman?
whats this?
why am I always in indecision
at war within myself.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 22 days ago
294 · Jun 2014
Its the knowing....
Marshall Gass Jun 2014
Its those little things so sweetly said, the firelight
captured in a moment and bringing a twilight
into sharp focus as the evening spills its wonders
on our day.

Its those things we knew that existed between us
not spoken, not proclaimed or shouted yet
the signs and symbols, gathered day by day
until we were sure we were reading the signals right.

Its the way we understood how we were inextricably
intertwined in some strange magical spell
that came upon us unexpectedly and drew
us into that same circle of knowing.

Maybe it was the voice, the words, the visuals
maybe it was the differences that found solutions
in the knowing, because it seemed built
on  a mountain of moments with memories
that spiralled us into whirlpool of love.

Even now, as we hold tight together
in this knowing we look back at the journey
we undertook in the knowing.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 11 hours ago
293 · Apr 2014
Poet/Poetess....
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
My time in the shadows has darkened me to pale yellow
words that sing in the jazz moment of knowing
how the rhythm undresses the silky smooth curves
of the rhymes that bloom and blitz in the moment
of writing.

Bright light stuns my eyes as I try to squint
at the  luminescent blue visuals that step into place
as gingerly as the last woman I seduced
with an open hand upon my heart.

I am a lover of beauty and brains. It is
but natural to be magnetised by the mind
of the other person who sees 3 D drawings
in the fragment of a captured moment.
Why do women sensualise feeling that much more?

There are many on AP that tick the right boxes
with their artistry of the spoken and written words.
Naming them all would expose their flawless skins
of pristine poetry to public gaze.

I am also selfish wanting
to roll and tumble in their mastery of liquid  language,
just to caress their velvety words with my fascination!

Write on my beauties. Write on.
My heart flutters for you a thousand times
more as I bathe in the silky soap suds
of your sensuality.

Author Notes
Ode to Inspiration.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
286 · Apr 2014
Gone
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
The lines were drawn in zigzag
just as energy ebbed and flowed precariously
balancing between coming and going
clocking only forward to waiting.

All the prayers cannot change the course
of the final calling
the trumpets sound in single file
as the last post plays
a melancholy tune and the brass cymbals bounce
up and down
in synchrony with the shifting lines
a drip drop slow chipping away at life
will stop soon for sure
as the tears roll down and the wailing
rises to meet the silence of forever.

As those unspoken memories
and connections into  world where
umbilical cords attached to people
are now broken
the body remains  back as the soul
dissolves into an unknown dimension.

Waits there the history of belief
you can report back
the truth or untruth
Its best to go unprepared.

Author Notes
That one last minute.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
282 · Feb 2014
The Poetess
Marshall Gass Feb 2014
In the stillborn night the feathers of a frantic day
tickle the fancy and spill out
into sheets of dreams dreary

for tomorrows spellbinding faucet
of words to capture
explicit images of feelings
rushed to the tone of lone dreaming.

Hark the wind whispers secrets
to the trees waiting with leaves
to dance in the accepting arms of whispers
as it washes through the waterfalls of sound

Once in a while the heart stops short of racing
at the sight of an old lover
complicated by time and temperament
the poems roll off a press
invented somewhere in the chasms of the mind

I write because I am compelled to capture
words that pass by within reach
to entertain the wondrous pictures in my brain
that seek to form into slim fabrics of ecstasy.

Often I dance, dance in rhythm beating
a wicked bending salsa  that brings my lover
to me on bended knee. Love and poetry
dance together.

Any day give me a woman that bathes
in the soap suds of poetry and I will have
found me the rhythm of a fulfilled life.
Is this the way it happens for you?
278 · Oct 2014
Everything swirls........
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
Silence kills the poetry in me
just as much as create it.
I must  hear the softness whistle through the words,
of my love, even as the leaves rustle,
just as much as I long for those delicate pauses
that stir  each heartbeat with a shiver.

What a thing love is,
it draws you into this big circle of knowing
giving flight and fancy to the smallest word
magnifying whispers into raging fires
and warming in the sunshine of acceptance.

No matter which way we turn
the desperation to close the distance
is an urge that compels
us into an ever tightening embrace.

Everything swirls with pleasant beauty.

Author Notes

Optional
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
275 · Oct 2014
Solitude
Marshall Gass Oct 2014
heartbeat drumbeat rhythms
split second splinters
within empty spaces weeds germinate
seeds of contemplation
fill the world into yourself
walk tall, take time out
'reach the unreachable stars'
every journey an epitaph to solace
soar within where  layers
need peeling. empty your pain.
leave aside all attachments.

find the one pathway
that will consume you

take up your pilgrims pole
wear sackcloth
create intense focus on the goal

just go.
go -go- go!
never stop until you've reached
twilight where homecoming
waits with trumpets in tune.

don't ever stop.
just go and keep going.

Author Notes

It is like this.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11616417-Solitude-by-Marshall-Gass-noguest#sthash.XMYG8FHV.dpuf
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