Even if the season of lust blankets loneliness in a tight wrap
smothering those fragile emotions in the winter months
of a lifetime of cyclical wants and needs
waiting for the summer to send its life giving mantras
deep into the ****** soil of waiting,
the hibiscus waits ready to grasp the first finger of sun drenching
warmth to burst out into beauty
above ground and spread its dense green leaves
with crimson flower and trumpet shape
into the minds eye of acceptance.

Soon the valley changes hue as altogether
the trees spring to life shedding their softness
into every nook and corner, crabbing into crannies
and leaping wings of delight into welcome air.

The hibiscus will soon take ownership
of the entire valley bringing to the forefront
our own wanderlust.

Author Notes
Changeover between summer and sunshine.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.

Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark
On the horizon walking like the trees
The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
Of the star-gestured children in the park.
Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,
Some of the oaken voices, from the roots
Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
Some let me make you of the water's speeches.

Behind a post of ferns the wagging clock
Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning
Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning
And tells the windy weather in the ****.
Some let me make you of the meadow's signs;
The signal grass that tells me all I know
Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye.
Some let me tell you of the raven's sins.

Especially when the October wind
(Some let me make you of autumnal spells,
The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales)
With fists of turnips punishes the land,
Some let me make of you the heartless words.
The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds.

There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. Dorothy's Kansas never looked so comforting, her black and white world never so safe--never so flat, so barren.

Didn't she learn her lessons? She caused such trouble! She gave Auntie Emm such a fright! That bump on the head must have caused her brain damage. After the "big storm" was only a memory, and the terrible twister only a town tale, Dorothy did it again.

She ventured out on her own.

Yet Mrs. Gulch was still a witch. And Dorothy's "nasty, little dog" still got into the garden. The sheriff was ready to track her down and clamp down on her for good! Running home frantically for help, Dorothy realized that Auntie Emm was still too busy ******* at her shiftless farmhands, henpecking tired, old Uncle Henry,
and he was just too cranky to care. The farmhands were supposed to be her friends, but they just started crabbing at her again.

They soon gave her what for. "Dot, didn't you learn a thing in life?" "Didn't we rescue you once from a pigpen?" "That heart of yours leads you in the wrong direction! " "Where are your brains, anyway?"

Heartbroken, naive Dorothy realized something that was quite profound. Her heart was always in the right place--she just needed the courage, the courage to know she was smart enough to make it on her own. So Dorothy packed her bags, especially remembering her red ruby slippers. She would never forget her loyal friend and sidekick, her beloved pooch, Toto. If she was going, he was going with her.

So there she stood, suitcases in hand, in her bleak, little, colorless world. Terrified, she stood upon the precipice. Fear or faith? And all of a sudden she was noticed again! Just what was she doing? Who did she think she was fooling? Was she crazy!?

"You'll never make it!", they all warned. "You don't know the first thing about how to live in a Technicolor world!"

"Sorry, I do love you", Dorothy answered back. "But I disagree and I will forward you my new address". So off she went finding the path down the yellow brick road.

In Whitby I noticed the teenage girls
who lined the long, Bank Holiday quayside.
Amongst the noise, their young faces serene,
they stood with siblings, step dads, always mam.
The sun shone from their hair - some dark, some blonde,
they wore makeup they did not need.
For the eye is always drawn towards youth.
I noticed too a kind of uniform,
skinny jeans, leggings, flesh revealing tops.
Though it was the lines they held that caught me.

The orange lines that ran from their young hands.
Bright, twisted twine that vanished in the depths
of the inky harbour waters that lay
before them like a still, unlived future.
Crabbing at Whitby, their faces were set
in concentration and female patience.
The patience their grandmothers had needed
when the glass fell and the wind rose at night.
Today though they tended their baited lines,
silent, awaiting the unseen quarry.

Quarry they'd keep in water-filled buckets
of brightly coloured, cheap, cheerful plastic.
To me the whole thing seemed somewhat pointless
competing to see who could catch the most,
catch the biggest of these vicious creatures.
Who'd attack them at every given chance
drawing the blood from their innocent hearts.
Until the metaphor revealed itself.
The girls' lives were now turning like the tide,
the boys like ***** were circling the bait.

On opening a can of inspiration
I find it's all chunk white words
in spring water .

It comes with a waring not to consume more than one can a month . Something about the mercurial thoughts that can spirit you away .

Jellyfish . . . I dont't think they go good with peanut butter on white bread . I was raised on peanut butter and bread . Without jellyfish . In the summer there were a lot of them in East Bay , Panama City , Florida . We went swimming and fishing so we got stung a lot . Crabbing too .

I used to get these huge acorns and stuff my pockets with them then run down to the pier with my slingshot made out of surgical tube rubber and shoot jellyfish as they floated by . Most were small but some were huge , more than a foot across . Those I would pump a whole pocket of acorns into . Actually through them . My slingshot would shoot an acorn through a galvanized garbage can .

Winter's were bleak . Well not compared to the rest of the world . But the water was too cold to swim in . All the fish migrated away . Birds too . Except for the robins that had migrated from the North to spend winter there . All the white birds had gone . Gulls , cranes you name em .

Winter brought moody storms full of tempestuous emotions and gale force winds . Their overbearing attitude dominated life for days . But eventually everything turns back into Florida . The land that has always been a pushover when it comes to the weather . You name it . It probably has had the most unfavorable weather of any other state . Hurricanes , tornadoes , lightning strikes , on land and people .

Tuna , we used to go off shore tuna fishing on a boat named "Tuna" . We  caught Spanish and king mackerel , dolphins (the fish) and cobia which I grew up calling ling . But never any tuna .
Sometimes we would fish on the bottom for red snapper which if eaten fresh caught is the best tasting fish in the world .

Toads ! There used to be toads everywhere just before dark . My little brother and I used to catch them and put them in a cardboard box until dark then release them . One night I heard my mother scream and I ran to see what was up . My little brother was in the bathtub with about fifty toads . I hear there are hardly any toads there now . Same for the fish . I wonder how the jellyfish are doing .

So I know it's late but I need to vent. Sometimes getting held to higher standards kills me. It's like I'm on this pedestal and I can't breathe
I'm my mom's baby boy and my dad's therapist
I'm our friends' secret keeper
a sponge that soaks up all the stuff no one wants to remember
I'm summer and I'm winter in the thick of December
the ember in the fire and I'm burning low like I'm the fuel for peoples' furnace
and maybe I just imagine it
maybe I make it up in my head
but it feels real to me
Half of me wants to be the one people confide in and trust
but half of me wants to disappear
to just leave and join a crabbing ship
somewhere out at sea
so I can prove to myself that people will live on
that with me gone they will end up ok
maybe it sounds like I'm full of myself
or that I put too much weight on me as an anchor
but that's what I feel like
an anchor cast out into the ocean to keep everyone from drifting, safe on their ship while I
sit at the bottom
with a mouth full of sand and cold salt water seeping into my skin
Even anchors
need a break
a reprieve from their duty.
Even anchors need to surface
for a taste of
fresh
air

There once was a man
who lived on down da bayou
went crabbing for his amors etouffee but before he got to dat bayou
he picked up his bon amigo
then dey headed down highway 41
Well the trip was going smooth
as the wind be blowin til they stopped at the station for some pane upon arriving to dat station it was being robbed for its payment and now they got a 3rd in company
Its been a long time coming, who dat cajun running, said he must've lived on down the road. Ain't stopped for no crawdads ya know they dont know where dey at, the ole creole man be ramblin again. Dey been back and forth, up and down, fought like a mule, acted a clown, dont think dey known theys right from left. Mason jar of daniels, open road in the high beams. Ain't no telling the cajun man's dream and his podners sceme.

I’ve decided to never be a grandmother:

to never wear grandmother hands
or simper in grandmother clothes.  
I won’t stand
in a grandmother kitchen
baking grandmother bread
and pull crabgrass in the afternoon,
crabbing about my grandmother back;

dying my roots
to a color other than grandmother
just so I don’t look so grandmotherly
in these shoes
with this gait
and gardening silly-faced flowers
to spread on the ocean

like my grandmother did.

I refuse to play bridge or hearts
and any other grandmother games;
to smell like moth *****
rolled in the hems of grandmother cardigans
and broomstick skirts

or heap salt on my broccoli
because my grandmother tongue only works
to chide my daughter
time and again
about how seldom she visits

or to buy a grandmother clock on QVC
so that I can await the stillness of its hands
buried deep in grandmother exile,

like my grandmother did.