"auditoriums" poems
i should have known that when your hands crept around me and i did not pull away
i should have known when the particles in my neck yearned to have your fingerprints tattooed upon them
that you could not possibly wash over me as anything more than acid
for my eyes have always sought out people that have cliffs inside of them and empty auditoriums echoing full of a thousand empty ***** and a habit of leaving things void
objects in the mirror are more broken than they appear and the car wreck that is the mess of my heart burns white hot
in the aftermath of the inferno that was our time together
i was left blinded by the sight of a closed door and the sound of the lock clicking behind you
robbed me of my hearing and i wish for once i could have a love that did not leave
i wish i didn’t caress the mouths of broken bottles i find on the beach like i was looking for a pair of lips i could put a name to
and kiss the lips of glasses
filled with whiskey and regret
before letting a man’s breath pour over me like liquid courage
and yeah, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,
so is it really a surprise that my attempts to get over my ex lover depression and my
drunken **** suicide and my friends with benefits anxiety are usually a direct route to a city
whose bulbs are not broken and whose skyscrapers will hold me tight enough to squeeze out the insanity
if only for a night
because the only times i can forget my ex lovers face is when i’m gazing into the bottomless eyes of a bottle
and the only time my hands stop squeezing my own throat is when someone holds them tightly enough that i cannot break away so i may break
the only times my old friends with benefits does not knock on my door with a shaking hand
and clanking knees is when someone else is already inside
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 9:56 PM UTC
I’ve been craving female companionship as of late. The need to have her in my presence at all times. I want her, face against the wall with joyfully erratic breathing, hands tied behind her back. I want her on all fours, head swivelled my direction with a smiling look of pleasure. I want her legs wide open for me, only because it’s me, only because it’s her. I want my tongue to make musical instruments of her ******* and ******** I want her to put me in her mouth so I can see her eyes tearing with shameless sin. I want her in her parents’ bedroom, I want her in tut rooms and auditoriums, I want her in the back of my car, in McDonalds, in elevators, under restaurant tables and on top of kitchen counters, I want her to say my name under soft moans during rough rounds. I want her in as savage a manner as possible.
I want her sitting in silence with me. I want her to listen to my ramblings, to sit there and be present. To exist. I want her to have her own ramblings, to educate me. I want her lips to be available for me at all times, for my head to make pillows of her chest. I want to introduce her to Ben Howard and Tom Misch, to Planet Hulk and The Pixar Theory. I want flowers to remind me of her. I want her to cradle me when Chelsea loses, to stroke her hair and rub her tummy when she has monstrous cramps. I want to hear ‘I love you’ over loud laughs between soft kisses. I want her on butterfly wings. I don’t know who she is, but dear God I want her to laugh, because I know I’m going to love her laugh.
I want so much from her, I want her to want so much from me. I want so much that I never wanted before. Only thing I’ve been wanting was to feel again, now I need to feel again in order to get what I want. I want her. I want more than me.
I’ve been feeling a certain emptiness
I feel like I’m not enough
I’m not enough to make myself as happy as I want to be.
I feel like there is nothing more I can do for myself.
For so long, I’ve been happy because all I’ve wanted, I’ve given myself
Or I’ve taken, but
I don’t satisfy myself anymore,
And I can’t take what I now want.
I think, for the first time in a long time, I feel lonely.
- Kata
Mar 12, 2017
Mar 12, 2017 at 4:27 AM UTC
There have been orientations
I've attended
that hit home, hard.
Ones that were held in auditoriums,
which brought outstanding projections.
Of voice and talent,
speaking to talentless voices that seek
increments of the number ten.
Tens of hundreds, speaking excrement.
Cause **** even a ten is divisible by the number two.
There have been orientations
I've attended
that hit home, hard.
Ones that were held in back rooms,
with walls plastered with common sense.
Of apologies and service,
speaking to employees that service apologies
to miserable men waiting for change.
Tens and hundreds, purchasing excrement.
Cause **** even the box that holds an engagement
can be discarded.
Orientations are set up.
They're made to entice and integrate,
but in all actuality they're erroneous and agitate.
They speak fate,
but hinder the great.
They mark you.
Like I've previously stated:
Orientations are set up.
They're not a debate.
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 6:05 AM UTC
Be careful of close auditoriums
And thick stanchioned stadiums
Watch out for iron gussetted doorframes
And bar covered windows
For your loneliness will trap you there
Backed up against the steel barriers
And probe your trembling thoughts
With it's dark truncheon.
Stay away from mirrors
Which can reveal your state of solitude
Automobiles which will show your inertia
Rollercoasters which can skitter you into the past
Without so much as a roll-bar
And arms, perhaps most dangerous of all-
Just before nightfall.
Mar 25, 2010
Mar 25, 2010 at 8:01 AM UTC
The Magician, gifted deadbeat, listless designer of immortal destiny, tragic comedian of the purest order, locked and buried, chained to the weight of indecision,
Ordained by cancerous night, canonized in the manifestations of nightmare heart withdrawals, ascending the cigarette strewn steps to lost versions of heaven,
Eternal kindred lovers in mourning, trace the chemical pathways to a neural shutdown disaster, martyrs imprisoned by their own mission statements, murdered by the cosmic truths exposed in tape recorded suicide manifestos, played backwards for empty auditoriums in a requiem for their apathy
Endowed with brilliant catastrophe, with the wand double edged with creation balanced to destruction, with infinite purpose,
The Magician breaks as he parallels the Fall,
the all consuming detachment,
the disconnected realities viewed from shattered lenses,
From distilled terror, from magnificent prose, from the ashen pillars of kingdom rotted, gutted, broken
Holy and lost, wisdom wasted,
As a mother's rage moves 1000 eyes and 1000 hands to some unclear end that I doubt I will be around to see
The Magician smokes his way to an early grave
While flowers grow over the memorials of those unmoved
I'm not sure what any of this means or why it should matter
But listen
There is a story here, if you will have it
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 4:34 PM UTC
Often I struggle to keep the ideas from bursting
out of the page and consuming me
like a jellybean, sweet and delicious with a nice tangy taste
and vanilla smell and sweetness
like a girlfriends kiss!
Ive read here that poets
0f the old tradition have rhyme and rhythm
and severe straitjackets that confine them
to prison walls of Victorian purpose.
I don’t belong to that staid
upper -lip class, casting a sly eye
on those of us who walk barefoot in the sand
swim naked in the rivers of emotion
or jump into pools of filth.
Free verse is better for me, because it is free.
Straitjackets with pins and needles and pin cushions
are only for those who wish to live in the past.
I m a sucker for sensible writing and for fun.
I am obsessed of a desire to write strange
synergetic words in a formation that sings
its own song in the auditoriums of my soul.
Author Notes
A brief reflection of why I write in addiction. Rehab awaits!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 2:56 AM UTC
Picnics on the frozen beach
Getting buzzed on a bottle of warm rosé wine
Popping pimples before steamy showers
Falling asleep during the last episode of our show
I'm glad none of that meant anything to you
I'm glad you didn't want to try anymore
I'm glad none of it was worth salvaging
I'm glad I wasn't worth fighting for
I'm glad you'd rather be alone
Than smile and laugh with me
Road trips to bumfuck anywhere
Baking at all hours of the day
Sleeping in until past noon
*** until three am
Kisses every hour
Concerts in dive bars and sketchy auditoriums
Getting lost trying to find our way
I'm glad it was all just a waste
I'm glad you don't give two *****
I'm glad it was never worth it
I'm glad it was just ammo
Perfect for your gun
To shoot into my heart
Dec 31, 2018
Dec 31, 2018 at 6:19 AM UTC
My old trumpets and trombone slides
Sit unopened and cured with the dusty attics formaldehyde aromas.
My lips dry up like mummified beef to their ancient smell of old black bibles and their taped up cardboard tombs. I find myself unable to break their mossy temple structures where I practiced my classical studies and could feel my whole kingly persona taming auditoriums and thrones of asp faced judges. But now my structure and stamina ruined and gone like a ginger bread piano.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 4:12 PM UTC
DO NOT BE AFRAID
there is something so
evangelical about fear.
i was raised to be afraid -
it was implicit from my first sunday school and
my first crush and
my first real haircut.
there is a certain desperation bred in youth groups
in local church attics,
in big auditoriums
with looming, radiant stage lights.
perpetual guilt -
perpetual repentance -
perpetual fear.
SACRAMENT
did i think that
baptism would make me feel more loved?
well, that’s between me
and the Good Lord Himself.
but i will tell you
the water was cold and
my father cried.
i received a necklace from
my grandmother and i
haven’t seen it in years.
fear doesn’t drown in cold water.
it crystallizes, it burns.
EUCHARIST
if my mouth tastes like blood,
let’s blame transubstantiation.
if my skin doesn’t fit right,
let’s blame God’s want for the process of creation.
if my heart wears it self thin at the thought of judgement - Death - finality,
let’s blame my Protestant upbringing.
how avoidant am i -
blaming Martin Luther himself
for a menagerie of ****** Georgia churches.
THE BODY AND BLOOD
christ, you people want
to take everything from me.
i can’t go to another easter service
as your daughter.
i never could.
you never seem to realize what
exactly you want from me.
don’t look at me like that -
like this is a resurrection.
i was never crucified. i never died.
it’s no comet, either, though,
i can tell by your face.
this isn’t easter, it’s
a funeral service.
i’m sorry i can’t come
back to life for you.
but what you think is living and
what i think is living are two very different things.
do you know what it feels like when
your own mother thinks you’re
going to hell?
CONSECRATION
i’m sorry i can’t cry
holy water anymore.
but there are good things in becoming.
i remind myself that there is progress- growth -
in transformation.
but i never really liked wine,
anyways.
AMEN
Sep 7, 2020
Sep 7, 2020 at 5:50 PM UTC
the stage lights in high school auditoriums
that burn out
within the minute you turn them on
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 2:27 AM UTC
somewhat such a much noted someone
said such a noted quote of noted importance
it's echoes overtook my reasonings
whereby her songs of words
those carolings
the octaves
her notes
of truncated
calls
like birds
on the wing
became the notes
written by
Mozart even
the soft violin
pressed into a chin
fluttering above the halls
of auditoriums like
winged angels calling
a hymn from the vault
of Eden.
I sat hand in chin
balled up
like birthed again
seeing
for the first time
Heaven and all that is.
Dec 27, 2016
Dec 27, 2016 at 2:53 AM UTC
Tense audience members, in active learning auditorium classes,
all crammed together.
In the first few days there were times that I felt genuinely lost.
I wasn’t used to processing everything,
especially technical things, in French.
On day two, one guy, looking askance, said,
‘That was confusing, right?’ Which was a relief.
On day three, Charles, watching me via the rear-view mirror,
said, “Trust the process, kid-0.”
And eventually, around day four, I started to find my footing.
Shall we wax, free-versely, poetic?
Who has it worse than a physician?
There’s no sleeping in that business,
and the physician’s wisdom, press'd with caution, is seldom desired or given careful attention.
Surely, I’ve heard it reasoned, those who applaud pristine health are but abusing God's patience.
But what else remains, for learned men - the priesthood, with its beguiling, terrestrial proverbs?
That idea’s a purgative. And I am female.
Besides, they’ve erased much of the good will that came out of Nazareth.
.
.
Songs for this
Welcome to the Jungle (808 Remix) by Freedom Dub
Easy Way Out (version française) by Mariama
Sep 18, 2025
Sep 18, 2025 at 10:48 AM UTC
When this love was not knives
I prided myself in simply knowing:
Being able to pinpoint his laughter
from the resonant balconies of auditoriums,
Predict his speech,
Map his countenance
and the paths of his eyes.
But he walked in that morning wearing your vestige like a smile,
with the glittering of your eyes in the corners of his,
and I knew that I knew him no more.
Now that you’re there,
mosaic-ed to his eyelids
when he dreams,
fluttering in the chambers of his muse,
There is nothing about him that only I know.
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 4:35 AM UTC
where Hollywood's celluloid dream
is reflected off silver screen
into the consciousness
of audience's expectations
sitting
in amphitheatre auditoriums
amid
whispered conversations
plot revelations
spoiler alert
sweet packet crinkle
coke slurp
popcorn rustle
where held hands
make promises breached
bases reached
love declared
for a fumble on a back seat
childhoods spent
getting out from under
grownups feet
the good guys won
the bad guys wore black
where a thousand shots fired
nobody died
in the end
aching legs brought to life
to leave with
a head full of stories
unrelated to real life
Aug 31, 2020
Aug 31, 2020 at 4:31 PM UTC