You ask me why I’m so angry all the time
I laugh because if I don’t I’ll cry,
I laugh because if I don’t I’ll cry.
And then you’ll call me emotional and hysterical
As if we’re still in the era of old where simple female reactions
Were pathologised and the bold locked up for being “mentally ill”.
You ask me why I’m angry and I simply scoff
And deny because if I start speaking about why
The rage in me will boil over like lava in a volcano
And then where will we be?
[pause]
I want to tell you,
I want to tell you why.
Why this rage, this utter, all consuming anger, this deep-rooted grief.
Let me tell you how I feel like crying whenever I hear about
Another **** case, another girl murdered for daring to refuse,
Another woman of colour who endured terrifying pain,
All because she was who she was.
Another minority violated, another black trans woman killed, her ****** unsolved,
Another child abducted and sold, like a commodity
Another another another
It never stops and it never ends
From micro-aggressions to gross violence
I feel it all in my heart
Like a stab between the fourth and the fifth rib
And it adds to my rage.
The words burst forth from my lips,
But I rein them in
Because even though I want to protest
Against your complete ignorance and your casual misogyny
And my being revolts in response to your words,
I stop myself
because you are my family, my friend, my peer
And if I say something
You’ll just ask me why I’m so angry all the time.
Sometimes there’s no winning
Resistance is futile
In a world so steeped in patriarchy
That it’s unaware of the consequences
Of perpetuating sexist narratives.
But I still want to fight
The oppressive systems that chain the girl child,
The casual way we respond to certain slights
Against the all encompassing freedom of women.
And I’ll take on a thousand such questions
If only I can change one life,
If only I can spread the word and fight the good fight.
And, I would have told you all this
If only you had asked.
If only you had the patience
To listen as I blathered on
About statistics and documented proof
Of how 50% of the world’s population
Is still under constant threat to their lives.
I repeat, fifty percent of the world’s population
Lives with a constant threat to their lives.
I would have told you about how there are thousands of accounts
Of harassment and abuse and violation of basic human rights,
The right to say no, the right to thrive.
I would have told you,
I would have told you all
If only you had asked.
So don’t ask me why I’m angry
Ask yourself why you’re not.

On the far away island of Sala-ma-sond,
Mira the Koala was head of the pond.

A nice little pool,
it was quaint, it was cool.
The shore side was warm
with eucalyptus galore.

But all was not well in Sala-ma-sond.
For the subjects of Mira were really not fond
of the company Queen Mira kept in her pond.

See, over the years, Mira had gotten to know
a few polar bears, their fur white as snow.

These bears got lost some long time ago,
whilst traveling up to the great northern pole.
On the part of the trip, along the Nile,
the bears lost their map at the 27th mile.

They moaned and groaned, yelled and cried.
They longed for the cold, the north's crisp blue skies.
As the polar bears sniveled, squinting through tears,
Mira heard their loud cries with her big koala ears.
Confused for a moment, unsure of the noise,
she paused and reflected, still keeping her poise.

But the cries of the bears continued to grow.
Queen Mira was left with no choice but to go.

Traveling fast on the path resisting the least,
she made her way quickly to the great sobbing beasts.
She arrived and asked what was the matter.
The polar bears explained, or more accurately, blathered.

"STOP!", pleaded Mira, her heart growing weak,
"I can save you! I can help you! I just need a bird's beak!"

At this the bears paused, for her meaning was unclear.
But then the toucan swooped in, beak sharp as a spear.

He followed Mira’s orders, and poked around in the deep rushing river.
He poked and prodded, but in the end, he had nothing to bring her.

Despite the toucan’s efforts, the map was still MIA,
Impossible to find, a needle amongst hay.

And the bears AGAIN let out big bear cries,
and water also began to fill Mira's eyes.
"Stop bears, stop! I beg of you please!
There is no need to cry, you can come stay with me!
Please come stay in my home,you don’t have to go roam!
Come stay, come stay, at least for a week."

And for a few moments, the bears did not speak.
They looked at each other, nodding their heads,
then roared loud enough to be heard through thick lead.

Every one of the animals heard this great sound,
and every one of the animals turned around,
swiveling their heads 180 degrees.
Every animal turned, from the lions to the bees.
And when the racket stopped, every animal knew
that something was different, something was new.

The bears came to stay just for a little bit.
Then a bit became a while, and soon, that was it.
Suddenly, it was three years later,
and the polar bear's presence had become much greater.

The bears were crude, they were rude, and they were loud.
To their every demand, Queen Mira had bowed,
and the bears felt entitled to every leaf, tree, and stump.
To every single hole, to every single bump.

It soon became clear that in Sala-ma-sond,
the big polar bears now ruled over the pond.
And all of the animals were utterly miserable,
especially Mira, who felt gullible and responsible.

Let this be a lesson to the more hospitable of you.
It's good to be generous, yes, that much is true.
But beware of the guests who take advantage,
for those guests can become difficult to manage.

Don’t be like Mira, letting others walk all over you.
Know when it’s time to bid a guest ‘adieu’.

Sword brashly drawn from scabbard
Gilded blade with a lucent polish lathered
Burnished to reflect the availing light on each side gathered
Conversely deflecting the pious streams pharisaically blathered

Weapon-grade mind steeled to cut through the broad discourse
Sharp point piercing each tangled, silken strand; puncturing each uncorroborated source
Serrated edges slashing through the syntactical pulp so coarse
Double-edged blade mincing then scoring lexicon that generational divide did divorce   

Vaunted crest advertising noble intentions
Brittle helmet to repel callous, vain repetitions
Dense breast plate to ensnare all heartless pretensions
Luminescent shield to deflect all trite inventions

The dirt on my fingertips tells me I’ve been living my share of life.
Barefoot weather under forests boussom and twilight’s singing.
Passer by on agile chronicles of all perfectly ordinary everythings
slips off at the hint of fraction, contradiction, restriction.
Short and Primal-Stooped can nothing but ordinary days
be spent wandering: lessened by the shell of much disgrace.
Found no where but the ground we tread, and the blood we’ve bled.
Calling out to stones or Screaming at the air,
To find our names in the pidth of every nothing we have yet to see.
Often the clue of exactly why
we paint on the face of every
needless, ditty, grotty, blathered, ******, accursed, body ****** like a worm into the cold ground
to be eaten by time as a morsel.
Oh what a blessed blessing be it to be Mortal!

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

Those lovely ladies
Who lie and sweat
Like little chickens
Hungry for some
Dough
*******
Hate
I do sometimes

I am just sad and cold and want to die. I am teasing the edge. I can write now, I can write. But not for long I’m already done. There where the ideas of the new era somewhere, locked away in my head waiting for the release of incomprehensible advisors. They kind lathed in blathered pink and with poly-chrome hats, dancing on the rivers boat-moon-spell moments, the kind that happened to every kid at every intangible, hallucinated camp. The one they make up in their head before bed on the streets in the muddy motel alleyway dirt. I couldn't hold back the want to die. As I sat there perched bellow the roofed rim of the building I could feel the splashes of water grace around my ankles, the water had been soaking for hours. I was the always rain. It never stopped, not once in the history of our race. We had to find houses along the rocks, soil was apart of the sea, or at least that’s the way I understood it. There was not time for anything besides keeping dry. It was really a mater of wet or less wet, there was nothing anyone could do about it. The earth moved without relent. I see a ***** in the ****** mary. I know because everyone else I know does too, we just want to be polite about it, not make to much racket. I debate even writing again. To who? an upcoming age of enlightenment? To say what is already been said by the mind of every mind in every place, that we are the collective unraveling of the fabric of our own making. I am the turtle. It finally hit me, I am the meekest of all of them, the slowest and most looked down at. I am the capacity of a nuclear wave. I am the only one who knows of my own power. A crazed soul I am. Sold into my own slavery again! I just wean to hear you breathe, to prove there are the balance and manifestation of the infinite love I hid away in my mind. The one love I created with one thought. I am the product of the indoctrination, they left a bomb in my mind. I am altered among the alter and always dying. No one should have to see their soon to be dead mother crawling around on the ground like a bug waiting to pounce on your leg. Too close to home and too soon for my own mind. Some girl who's name started with an M, it's fuzzy and I haven't the clue to remembering. Its all over finally, they are done, I am impenetrable by their foggy morning evergreen attacks. Try to leach and drain off of my unconscious collective. My hive honey. my meat. They are nice in the dream of reality, but in every way they are spiders waiting for the kids to come, they will feed on me first. They will eat. Always i remember our own journeys and I forget to dance most of the time, loose eye lids sweating now, A video arcade. Finished.

Watching
observing
like social outcasts
typical and yet atypical
according to demographics.
Craving ideas concepts facts
that will/do separate us from the herd.

Lost notions of sense
seeking portrayals, refurbishing old ideals
Warping every ounce of self
simply to emulate
some long forgotten concept
which no one will ever truly understand.

The brunt of a joke yes,
The stoic face that removes you from a content moment always.

We see
We accept
Most never understanding
Reading lines casting lies
doing our selves the only justice
Of keeping "them" content

I am not social with you all
I was never to be
I can accept that
I would even claim to understand

I care for,
for some small sake
Yet
"who's?"
is the only question to astound me.
Not the for who or the good golly whys
That are blathered from the lips
of every would be philoso-phile.
More so the
"who is?"
Because in reality so many of us are not

NOT
Stopping to smell the flowers
(for the truth of its meaning)
Breathing
Feeling
Seeing
Listening
Coaching
Questioning
Learning
(or ever truly)
Knowing.
Not even i.
i won't even fathom what it is to be.
Simply out of
Respect,
Awe,
Wonder.

Do we touch sanctity
or does it only grace us with their presence?
If so does
he/she/they/it
have a name?
Could our gift remain solely
in our ability for recognition?

i Question myself in efforts
To obtain procure peruse
not in doubt.
Doubt is a by product of fear.
I shall not fear
Will you
Do they
As hard as we make it

It will forever be ourselves.

I don't recall year one of life,
But I'm here now,
So they got it right.
Yet I remember being one,
On a mattress, in the sun,
The smell of bacon and farm odors,
Were part of me as I grew older.

But I never asked to grow up.

I walked first steps
In my father's shoes,
Blathered blissfully when I was two.

By the time I turned three,
I was sure youth suited me.

I could reach the outside door,
When I grew to the age of four.
Now the world's mine to explore.

But I never asked to grow older.

Then by five I tried to hide
From the travails of an older child;
The digging, weeding, painting, work:
My escape to school was my re-birth.

But I never asked to grow older.

I didn't ask to turn six,
Seven, eight, nine or ten;
I shuddered at our  portends,
I didn't like how my world ends,
I finished fishing with Amens.

But I never asked to grow older.

I made twenty years ago,
When decades moved ever so slow;
Thirty came, forty gone,
And fifty didn't last that long.

But I never asked to grow older.

Since I must,
Please remember,
Dip my soother in Irish whiskey,
Include me if you solve the mystery,
And reference me and my life's history.

Whether to wait in sorrow and Uncertainty,
And ponder my perfect agony,
Live a tortured and sleepless life,
Of constant fear and inner strife,

Or check-mate myself with the last move,
That some claim to want, but cannot do,
To join the club of either ultimate strength, or insecurity,
And leave all I was on the table to see...

Or in the casket rather...

But, on I have blathered,

So now I suppose I'll let you decide,
Whether tis stronger to live, or stronger to die

ceremony spiraled down into a coniferous cone like - gesture

raise your glass make a toast

deliver the speech our ears have been yearning to gracefully hear

your words, oh your soothing, pain dissolving words

they solved every problem we ever encountered in a lifetime...

for the moment being

----

the moment fades just like our memory of your  soul lifting elocution (speech)

but we do remember the smiles gathered and shared

for we all know --what's her name again...i only remember her face

said every person ever to hazily recall another

They ceaselessly blathered about society
How it should burn
For all it’s wrongs, decay
And unjust judgmental hypocrisy
With such conviction
It was as though
This “Supreme” species
Had forgotten that they too
Are this society they loathe.

Neurotic liberals who deny God’s word:
Be born-again. It’s not too late . . .
Or fall upon your own dull sword
With smug intolerant hearts of hate.

You’ve blathered on for years in error
New York Timesing, nose in Atlantic;
May God fill you with His terror
As your reading waxes frantic.

True, you may not be affected
In your grand patrician houses . . .
Still, you might check out, infected
Or your purebred dogs, or spouses.