behind our mask
are priceless celebrations
and faces we carry
from the past
they mean the world to us
besides who or what
has occurred they mold us
into who we are
shimmering images
with mouths and hair and eyes
that gaze back - pondering
we grasp and resuscitate
them over and over
in open tracks
where they float by
in slow moving trains
expressively staring  
with their hands and the side
of their face pressed against
the glass
uttering something
we pause to lift our head
to catch that special
glimpse again
of their beautiful
subdued expression
that fades away
into the distance
only to return cold still
at another time
and all we can do then
is look down at our hands
and notice the lines
that have become
more intense
each time
the train
goes by.

I watched the old
gray haired
*******
approach my fence
in the back yard
today,
he - looking up at the
beautiful work of art,
a brilliant Magnolia
that had just flowered
like a proud yawning
lioness at sunset,
his gilded tool
with it’s dangling rope
to hang a miracle
because it had spilled
into his yard
like pink paper leftovers
everywhere,
he decided to repress it
bordering the fence
it was annoying him
and his domain
Rousseau was dead-on
about my chained freedom
the manacles were dangling
and I could hear
him severing and slicing
her arms
it somehow made him
feel better
and he moaned
his wretched realm
on his side of the trellis
and he walked away
after the limbs had fallen
to the ground
to make his cheap ***
ground chuck on rye –
it smelled like ****
the amputated Magnolia
and grease spinning
around my head
I stood there, quietly
thinking how this was
so unwarranted
and what a waste of time
this was,
the tree crying out to me
and somewhere else on earth
another yawning
with laughter.

the Chicago headlines
this morning read:
thirty-two wounded
and nine dead,
my thoughts moved
slowly sinking
into my dark coffee
so simple and reassuring
me and my cup there,
for now –
then back to the
violent banner
of pulling triggers
on irrational and
divided spots
that burn out existence
with deadly power
settling the look of the other
existing and struggling
for status and spurred turf
and resources
in a hastily forceful system,
where chambered rounds
are shot from
cracked windows
like ordinary memos
by windy city herds
that graze on concrete
and charge with their swords
held high in waxed cutlasses
while the mountain cloud
and blue sky turns
pale in response
rains ultimately come
to wash the chalk
and blood away
from the open pastures
the audience hesitating
with indifference
holding their
little crosses
waiting…waiting,
and nothing
to be done.

by: W. A. Marshall

I can not speak
for or about
others,
their conditions  
their faults
their ambitions,
for myself  
I sit -
with my mediocrity,
shining and whining
through my impulsive
forest
minds labor in
unison
and this landscape
stays
the same.

by: W. A. Marshall

tight juicy yumness
this crack huge
game’s on point
you had me at that bass
**** homie,
u r too good wit it
run the sick trap
my dude doin work
loving the awesome switch
so paralyzed make love
nicee smooth as buttah
you went in dreamy
way too dope
swoop feels mane
nice flip
caught up on point
my dawg’s cramming
dem hats smoove
fresh cream zonin
fire float’n like puddin
my dude always killin
way too good sir
bro so sophisticated
**** can’t get enough
stunning blend
dope ******* sick
turnt up atmosphere
in that ending tho

I sat in an obscure local library
for a second it reminded me
of an assisted living facility
a kind of base camp
I counted them – six distinctly
those senior men with battle scars
and sun spots that were earned
on family trips now forgotten
each had a story and a long life  
almost gone now they sat quietly
inside their gray hollow heads
a few had discolored Goodwill hats
that nobody else wanted
cheap and tired looking
slurping up the papers news
three inches from their **** face,
they were clotted blue
while the chapel asylum
and town monument
across the street beheld us
there under the same beautiful sky
my green and brown bivouac
suddenly raged about my own
circular inventory
that will come
like theirs when what is left
of my forest is no different than
anyone else.

I often misjudge the distance
between me and the world,

this morning the distance
was more like looking
through a keyhole
and seeing the
arrows wreckage,

a woman was walking
in front of me at the
university union
where oversized portraits
of past torchbearers and
victors hang grandiosely
on neat corn rows
like kings and queens
with branded jewels
we watched her fire storm
together - just me and the group,

she came through the peaceful
passageway that normally
reminds me of a quiet library
but not this time,
her pace quickened as she
disputed her case brashly
to her lover on her cell,
something about being seen
somewhere with someone  
so furious and unbending
and persuasive, out there
in a swirl, and I thought,
“****, why?” such chaos
and anger over an
appearance, over an
inquiry - over a nothing,
there was no autopsy
but she rambled onward
stomping her black spiny
pumps loudly on the marble
creating a demanding rap
it couldn’t wait
tossing her hair back violently
as if it were on fire
she stunk up the joint
with her, “no time for that,”
front,

the distance between me
and the world grew smaller
this morning,
I stopped to look at it
at her retching, it wasn’t
a fire and I did not
misread this,
what I felt there peering
through the key hole
tenderly reminded me
of my own adultery
with absent mindedness
and irrational fear
and messes that protest,
else they lay down under
lily-livered puppet strings
and bed springs.