"gumboots" poems
On my gumboots, S p l a s h!!!
New ponds on the road, I found-
Muddy; blur Memories!
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 7:01 AM UTC
There's something majestic, yet also extremely gloomy, about a streetlight at night in the rain. Something, some unplaced dimension within the echoing cars and within the particles of water, as they spray...into oblivion
Mother, do you recall that rainy day?
The day my gumboots soaked through,
I beleive we were waiting for a bus. It was one of those city rains, when all you could dream of was home or the warmth and comfort. When all you wanted was a bath and hot-chocolate or another item of food, steaming with love. Mother, I remember holding to you're body for warmth as we sat under that old wooden bus shelter.
I clung to you're body and melted into you're lingering scent, you're falling breath and you're human form.
You held me, you hid you're shivers so as to warm mine.
We watched the cars spray etheral mist into the orange lights of the city.
We watched lovers rush by under umbrellas, we watched rain curve down the cement like a snake on it's own journey.
We listened,
oh did we ever listen, we ate up the noise, the stories within the rain, we cuddled until we felt the warmth from our bellies rise out of us like smoke or a dragons breath, tainting the air.
I, you're daughter. You, my mother.
You're long hair curling down your breast. Me, like a little berry scrunched up as close to you as I could get. Like our bodies would drip into each other as one, our breath the same. Only my gulps of air came much sooner and you silently resisted my subtle games. When the huddling was done you reached out to me with you're strong hands and you led me along the night of echoes. I can't remeber much else, asides from sitting with you in the empty pizza shop as we both savoured and satisfied our cravings for comfort. Cold-handed laughter as we danced over the most delectable pizza.
Then we caught the bus home, you sat on the red leather, grabbing the creamy yellow bar, I jumped onto the ratty blue seat beside you and leaned once again into you're body, melting into sweet harmonies.
Eating in the sounds of humans and the sound of the bus, splashing through water
and journeying on through the deep
and endless city night.
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 3:18 PM UTC
The sun is shining
but it's raining
on your face,
down your neck,
through your socks,
through your skin.
It chills your heart
and makes you glad.
You look up.
The sun,
the clouds,
the snowflake rain.
Pink gumboots,
striped jackets,
dull canopies.
People stare
as you stop and wonder
how people could hide
from this pleasure
which makes them cold,
makes them see
the amazement
of sun and rain
together
creating beauty
in a sunshower.
May 18, 2012
May 18, 2012 at 10:26 PM UTC
___FLUFF:___
_Frequently, I discover words with hidden meaning, shining like coins in a handful of fluff, apple seeds and other down-the-back-of-the-sofa leavings. Some are too precious to share and I secrete them away. Others I spend cheaply on rigged slot machine verbiage. Mostly they sit waiting to be written usefully. Adding insight, lending moment to my day._
§
___NONSENSE:___
_Foraging amongst the dahlias
For Cinderella’s lost slipper,
I am Barbie magic made manifest,
I am Germaine (sodding) Greer’s antifem,
I am Super Mum with gumboots on._
§
___ABSURDITY:___
_The best nonsense is always spoken in the middle of the afternoon while heading north on a train bound for a smallish beige town, and so it was that the occupants of second-class carriage BG1754 found themselves gripped by a kind of eloquent hysteria as they rattled around the final bend in the tracks before the steep descent to the weatherboard station at Claggy Peat._
Apr 3, 2021
Apr 3, 2021 at 3:51 AM UTC
*My darling little one I am tasked.
Tasked with the idea of imparting what I know.
It might not all help,
But it is what I wish I knew.
If you don’ t already;
Pretend you like yourself,
Because if people think you are untouchable
They won’t attempt to approach you and tell you the negative things that you already tell yourself.
Take the time to listen to classical music,
You will like Toccata and Fuge in Dmin,
Trust me.
Don’t regret anything;
You are who you are because of what you have done,
Even if you don’t like the person you are now,
Use the present as a catalyst to become who you picture yourself being.
Fall in love with weird people.
They are a different type of person
And you learn much about how the mind works from them.
Pick up the ukulele.
It is bright and happy.
But only do this after your long stint as a metalhead.
People can say what they want,
But you have to be talented for metal
And if anyone knows about community and looking out for their own it is metalheads.
It is okay to be unhappy-
Even now I don't have the hang of this one.
But maybe someday
Maybe someday.
My tiny shining star,
The world will be cruel to you,
But it will be kind if you let it.
Take in the little things that give you joy.
But your Mum and I cannot wait,
To see the joys you experience
And the mistakes you make,
Because I will be waiting with tea and gumboots
And your Mum will be waiting with blanket forts and chocolate
And probably a better solution.
You will be an unstoppable force in this world
And I couldn't be more excited to meet you*
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 6:27 AM UTC
Rush around in circles like a headless chicken running
Diminishing to spirals in a blue encircled churn
Giddying to balance in unsteady equilibrium,
Whilst canting to the left on a gyroscopic turn.
Vaulting to the heavens in gymnastical maneuvering,
Launching into ether in fanatical escape,
****** features grimacing through muscular contortion
With abdominal contractions in a pantomime of ****
Yowling to the darkness in a feline form of vocalness
Hissing through the teeth in a serpentine display,
Bellowing the bellicose of bovine innuendo
And bleeding feet in gumboots on a ****** raining day.
Rush around in circles like a headless chicken running
With ****** features grimaced on a ****** raining day,
Yowling to the darkness with abdominal contraction
In a bovine innuendo of a serpentine display.
Bellowing the bellicose of bleeding feet in gumboots,
Vaulting to the heavens in fanatical escape,
Giddying to spirals in contracting equilibrium
Just a ****** innuendo of a gyroscopic shake.
Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
On a ****** raining day.
7 August 2010
Aug 6, 2010
Aug 6, 2010 at 6:17 PM UTC
I wanted to get lost in your ocean and if I never drew another breath I wouldn't mind if it meant seeing you smile at me once more. Sinking in your gaze, and floating in your smile, without a breath, without a care, without a regret, but to tell you how gorgeous your eyes looked under the moon that night when you told me the truth
how many crossroads and passages must there be to get lost in your eyes, brighter than the sun yet darker than the night. For two things to live so near to each other is only explained by magic. The magic in the softness and grace in your eyes as if you were a ballerina under water, without a breath without a care. The magic in the puddle of happiness we splashed in with our gumboots on a rainy day many summers ago. Look in the puddle, past the sparkle of curiosity that reflects the suns rays, further down, and you will find the emptiness of my sorrow now we have gone our seperate ways, in hope of meeting again soon, forever unknowing of when.
By morning I must wakeup, but I urge to remain dreaming of the magic in your eyes as I remember them. But what compels me to open my eyes to the drowning world of chaos and loneliness we live in is the knowledge that there is a chance I may see you again, a glimpse of the one I once knew, but I never do. I'm beginning to wonder if I should remain asleep forever.
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 2:18 AM UTC
I want to go to the circus with him and fail at the tricks at home
I want to dance in the rain with him and jump in puddles in gumboots
I want to climb trees with him with binoculars and look over the lake
I want to build a pillow fort with him, with Disney movies and chocolate
Something took a hold of me right in the moment
I accidentally got lost in those eyes first time looking into them
His smile made so happy and I think he noticed because he smiled more
I literally felt sparks and a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart
I didn't plan on this happening, far out
I swore to only fall inlove with myself
Too much pain and love is so overrated
But it was beyond my control
And then cupid's arrows kept hitting me
Just a moment in the pouring rain
I saw myself and a billion adventures together in him
A deep urge to hug him came over me
He's so dorky and cute and sweet and innocent
He wears a big clunky watch and is good at maths and computers
He does acoustic covers of Of Monsters and Men songs
He runs around like a maniac in PE and bashes up his friends playfully
There is no definition and there aren't any rules for love
If you think a person is just the bee's knees, that's love
I'm only young but I know an awesome person when I see one
And God will always hold my heart but man, this human... I adore him
I feel stupid for letting another person contain some of MY own joy
I feel so scared that I fell for just the idea of him like I have once before
But ugh, words can't describe how content my heart is
I refuse to say he erased my pain, because let's not be naive, but wow
One day I hope we get to conquer the world in our pillow fortress
<3
Mar 29, 2014
Mar 29, 2014 at 6:57 AM UTC
Flustered in gumboots,
No way to compute
The full weight of the drops
That saturate her scalp
And seem to soak right through
To her clouded brain,
Where thunder roars
And lightning scours
Until she smells burning flesh;
While she spins, confused
The sky seems quite amused
For there is nothing
But sunshine and blue.
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 12:58 AM UTC
"Bring your gumboots and rain coat, we're going on an adventure"
Lost, going around in circles; embarrassing.
Rainy, sick, "Let's go".
Pizza! Closed... cue more embarrassment.
Car rides along the main street, soft music playing
"Can I borrow that towel for my hair?"
Picks place to eat.
"Let's become humans again"
Dry hair, deodorant, changing shoes.
Struggle...
Horn blaring.
"This looks weird. Windows fogging, horn going, scraggly hair"
Awkward belly laughs.
Best avocado burger and aioli chips ever.
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 3:12 AM UTC
It was a cold night,
I was coming home,
And I didn't inform her,
As I wanted it to be a surprise.
War was over and I was going home,
The terrorists had been terminated.
I had stopover en route,
At a distant town I paused,
Famous for its winery,
I had got the finest ***
For both me & my wife.
Obstructed en route by a blizzard,
I thought about my wife at home.
Waiting for the way to be cleared,
I slept because I felt so very tired.
A dream sequence started,
It was so bright and warm.
I was basking in the Sun,
My wife accompanied me.
Holding hands we're in the backyard,
Not a cloth shielded us from the Sun.
Composing poems we were,
Warm and hot ones as well.
I had said:
***"Oh my honeybunch,
My buttercup,
I love you,
From the core,
Of my purest heart."***
She had replied:
***"Oh my sweetiepie,
My bigger baby,
I love you too,
From my heart,
And even my body."***
But then the dream ended,
They had cleared the road.
The driver again started driving,
At a slow speed fit only for snails,
Still my rifle rattled inside the bad.
Now I reached my town,
I expected her in nightgown,
In the velvety green one she had.
Edging closer on foot to my home,
I observe incandescence in the hall,
Glimmering through the curtains,
I thought she was waiting for me,
Basking in the heat of the fireplace,
After a tiring day's work at the office,
She should have slept peacefully,
But here she was, I thought,
Waiting for her man to be back,
From the neighbouring state's capital.
With these positive thoughts on my mind,
I parried forwards in the snow,
And I thought I'd surprise her,
Telling that my work was done,
Earlier, much earlier than I had expected.
I produced my copy of the key,
And silently opened the door,
But then I heard some sounds.
Totally unexpected sounds,
Like the intimate ones in bed,
I wanted it to be some teleseries,
But then I noticed an overcoat,
And a pair of oversized boots,
Neither the overcoat belonged to me,
Nor the huge gumboots were mine.
It dawned upon me,
My wife had been cheating,
She was in the hall,
The indecent incandescence,
With the noises of it,
Filled the home after issuing,
From the main hall.
I immediately stepped back,
Closing the door silently behind me,
Then I went to the bus stop.
I entered the lodge nearby,
Took the bottle of *** out,
Drank it full slowly but surely,
Then I took the gun out,
Sank the *** in & pulled the trigger,
BANG!!!
The bullet dug under my chin,
It pierced me through my head,
Shattering the lamp overhead.
Jan 2, 2016
Jan 2, 2016 at 11:40 PM UTC
my thoughts were perverted
but somehow it became reality
blue jeans and gumboots
your kissing my *******
playing with my shell necklace
whispering memories of the past
we're laying on a cold tile floor
in an empty room
in an empty hotel
in the middle of nowhere
this can't be real...
Mar 30, 2010
Mar 30, 2010 at 12:22 AM UTC
/sword
in the way
by the well
it is said
she will rise from the blue
and it is true
...chilly mossy air
petticoats and nighties
little torch
and walloping gumboots
pig tails and
bandaids
the little girl went running
the rust of the bucket
the shadows cast by the hidden moon
a bolt of lightning in a far away tree
scare her a little
but she goes on
..at the well
she points and whispers
and there is the ghost-ish-thing
with its sad sad eyes
it tells the girl of the slashes
and deaths the swords
and the wars
have caused in its time and
it tells the girl
to stop the wars from happening again and again
...the little girl often visits the ghost
she is not frightened as the ghost has never sought to harm her
instead she listens, and learns
the ghost is her teacher
Apr 26, 2013
Apr 26, 2013 at 5:54 AM UTC
The storm on the eastern coast will descend
into a grey day bringing showers
and thunderstorms
filling your picnic basket as you go about
finding shelter under trees and shrubs
gone on holiday to the south of france.
bring your brollies
raincoats and gumboots just in case
you day darkens into a cyclone
and your lover leaves you
abandoned with the sunrise
emerging in your life
take care as you meander through
the floods as the gates open
and your emotions spill out
in poetic metaphors
all over the page
******* readers into the whirlpool
of hidden symbols and mechanisms
that can choke you out
as you watch the weather swish by
without you noticing.
never be deceived by the weathermans wares
at times he may play god
with your days diary entries
but all he can do really
is work like a fortune-teller
using guesswork as a device.
Author Notes
One giant metaphor for what happens in your life if you believe in the weatherman!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 2:54 AM UTC
I do not remember my father as a demonstrative man,
but, hobbled though he was by a pre-war psyche,
we never doubted the depth of his affection for us.
His love of nature shaped our own perceptions of life
and his love of sport showed us the path of true competition,
that the essence is not to better others but to better oneself.
He transfused the ocean into us so thoroughly
that we will go to our graves with salt on our lips.
At all the painful pinnacles of growing
my father was there like a crampon you know will not fail you.
A towering lighthouse in his hat and dark suit
as he led me through the convent gate on my first day
and gently cut me adrift in the cruel seas of education
where the nuns patrolled the playground like killer whales
in search of seals.
He went ahead to each new town to make things ready for us
when I started boarding school he let me go in confidence
he bailed me out of scrapes with the law,
he was as certain as the mountain of his beloved Taranaki
and as solid as the beams of a whare runanga.
When I returned from overseas
my father and I found a space in our lives
where we could really get to know each other.
Through a winter that sparkled
he led me on odysseys into his soul
through the walkways, forests, rivers and coastline
of the city of his birth
which will, one day, witness his death.
If I were allowed only one memory of my father
it would be this: seaweed expeditions.
The northeast winds blew a bounty for his garden
onto the reefs around Belt Road
and at low tide we descended with our gumboots and sacks
to gather the fleshy harvest with its nitrogen-rich pods.
He had a system.
We heaped the seaweed on a number of high, dry rocks
then bagged from first to Iast to allow time for the seawater
to drain and the burden to be lessened.
I watched him as he moved around and about as deliberately
as a crab,
gathering the morsels,
bending to scoop the necklaces from the sea,
the sun's purple fire in the white, white, white of his hair.
He had seaweed in plenty at home,
it was the experience he craved.
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 6:54 PM UTC
Gidi gidi
The sound of their dusty feet
Oversized overalls with gumboots
Sweating,anger all over their face
Sore lips, puffy eyes, tremble voices
I watched their action
I heard their shouts
Yelling, grumbling and threatening
''Increase our salary,increase our salary''
They know thy self
They know thy enemy
I heard a thunderous voice shouting
''We should fire them''
Tears rolled down my cheek
Why so easy to put one down
Sifelani isizwe ngenxa yemali?
I heard gunshoots people screaming sadly
Yhoo yhoo yhoo
The scene was like genocide
All run for their lives
But too late to escape the deathline
They were killed like flies
Blood gushed all over the place
Their life flashed with the blink of an eye
Tears rolled like waterfalls down my cheek
Why so easy to **** someone?
What about their loved one?
Griefing,suffering,anger they will have
I fell down unconsiously
Thoughts crooked my mind
Why killed when you save your life from the yoke of slavery
Why killed when you ask for equity
Marikana you drained our power
Kids are now fatherless
Wives are now widows
-LakhanaMnyani
Apr 13, 2018
Apr 13, 2018 at 1:21 PM UTC
once i feared the rain.
wet and cold.
afraid of hair and clothes.
now, i rejoice in it
running free through meadows
shelter beneath trees
wearing nothing but gumboots
annd a flowery dress
i feel like a gypsy of times past
free.
free as a bird that flys through my dreams
i feel words
i want beauty
Mar 30, 2010
Mar 30, 2010 at 12:25 AM UTC
Do you picture,
A home,
Enclosed in snow,
Juxtaposed with ocean sand,
And the blaring light,
Of a fresh white sky,
Gumboots and maples,
Cemented in the dampness,
Of mud and dew,
Ice and oak walls,
Dripping with the gold,
Of morning
Apr 4, 2012
Apr 4, 2012 at 7:19 AM UTC
your eyes remind me
of thunderstorms
echoing a harsh lullaby
of overpowering thunder
against a hushed drizzle
so **** the world, baby
i could get lost in them
forget what my mother told me
about gumboots and umbrellas
we were never the kind
to stay dry anyway
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 8:30 AM UTC
It was back in those days, the elementary school days,
when we were all friends, characters to one anothers plays of nonsense.
When we reigned over puddles with galoshes or brightly coloured gumboots.
When we wore capes and knew all the sing along songs.
And yes, I do recall, fondly so, that big park.
We were all there, whether in soul or in spirit,we explored the butterfly gardens, our parents and teachers were there too,
a school trip of sorts?
Just a vivid but fotgotten dream?
Who may answer these questions but ourselves by eventually succumbing to the universes natural way and forgetting the questions and finding and accepting the universes other answers.
The flowers of the light May day were in full bloom and that glass greenhouse, the one that intrigued me so, stood just like a castle.
After lunch, when the children were running throuhg green grass or wiping sticky hands from oranges upon the damper grass of the shade and while our parents and teachers sat on their coats dilly dallying, I stopped.
Stopped from my playing like a bunny caught in someones eyes. Was it a hand that grabbed mine or mine that reached out? Lead to a rivers edge, a little stream or pond. Ducking under willow and stepping over bushes and creeping through imagined dens of foxes or coyotes. My companion, my little friend, the face on the memory is blank, perhaps we had even more company.
We held hands.
We held hands like friends in our childhood innocence, before the concept of cooties, before the playground held terror. We sat hunched up by the pond poking sticks and reeds into the stream. Poking at the river flies and mud. Lost in a mystic realm of childhood unknowingness.
And then it caught me. A glimpse that magnified. The little water spider, gliding on the surface as though the surface were glass.
Oh water bug, from my bright eyes and blurred warm memeory you stood out to me. Majestically skating in the reflection of my face. As though you were that man mentioned in grandfathers stories from the book he said he beleived in, that man himself, walking on water. Such grace and beauty in you're perfectly casual stride, a quality I later noticed and looked for in people. Oh water bug, slipping your little bug fingers through glassy streams like a figure skater on an ice pond.
Do you remember me little bug? I was the one, the one with the little hands reaching out. I tried to hold your magic in my hands.
I was the one that in awe
reached out
But like a snap dragon,
in a blink, you were gone.
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 7:14 PM UTC
I'll stamp hearts in your sleeves
for every thing you've ever lost there
for every time she said "I'll never leave"
stop checking the lost in found
there are no childhood remedies hiding under the kitchen sink
quit flipping over couch cushions hoping for change
you wont need a rainy day fund
just gumboots with me
the only piggy bank we'll be breaking into is the one packed full, heavy with stolen memories
nickels and dimes,
save them for me
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 3:02 AM UTC
I live this peace like I once lived in pieces,like I once held the lease on the heartbreak hotel.
I wear it quite well but I once wore the gumboots,the glumboots that rooted me in hell.
That was another time,another line and where no signs could guide me,I had Beirut for brains,a war zone as I slept in the carriages on even emptier trains.
Peace is the bonus where the onus is on keeping it,
I do well to remember it when I think that my life is ****
Keep your religions,your sanctimonious politicians with their maladministration,I take care of my own needs which are few,
I who have nothing,want nothing,it is you that wants affirmation that you're a force to be reckoned with as you praise Gods creation with one eye on the stock exchange floor,
what for?
We shall all end up as bleached bone with the coast as our beach home with no mortgage to pay and every grain of sand will have its day,only the dogs left to **** on us as they play with the bones.
I live this peace but it's fragile and while it lasts
I'll enjoy it.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 5:47 AM UTC
I'm loving this rain.
Listening to it hit the tin roof of this wooden jungle home,
dreaming of the little grey island back home,
The familiar sleepy feeling found in all rain,
feeling it cast over houses,
dreaming of a scene where I am thinking
whether to put another log in the fire and snuggle back into bed beside a man,
a man I love
with three days of stubble on his face
And to just lie thinking about things.
Or whether to start a *** of coffee
or just keep sleeping until the sounds of silence,
of finished showers,
awake us.
I lie dreaming
of family,
of chickens and kindling, of sweet angel children
soflty sleeping with baby hands in little fists
and resting under little quilts.
I dream of witch hazel, good soap,
and claw foot baths,
of lush mossy rocks and strong red cedar, of rich abundent apple trees,
they too sleeping in the rain,
black gumboots and puddle green fields,
of forest walks, warm eggs and organic chai tea,
I dream
of the ocean in the rain,
or the city in the rain,
all the different umbrellas.
Everywhere cast under Mama Earths spells of comfort,
of big yawn sleepiness
that follows a morning like this.
Oh my,
oh me,
if I didn't have chores
I could lie forever like this.
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 2:02 AM UTC
We set off for a long weekend,
Does this Carmageddon ever end?
Eventually, we arrive,
That was a long hot drive!
See our tent as it collapses!
"He" does bust all his synapses!
I unpack, rain commences,
"Let's go home!" he mentions,
Yeah, right, now the dog wants loo,
Did I bring a coat and gumboots too?
Armed escort of mosquitoes,
Forgot insect repellent, oh Woe!
Never mind, not long to go,
Finally made it all the way home,
A weekend of staring at the rain,
Last word to him I say,
"I am never going camping again!"
(And no more I did)... from my brain,
The poet in someone's heart,
From indoor ablutions, I'll never part.........
Oct 17, 2016
Oct 17, 2016 at 3:54 PM UTC
I find myself
Looking more regularly
At the weather map,
Checking the chance of chills and drips
Or sunshine and fine sailing.
The percentages
Determine:
My attire - dress or pants,
Jacket or t-shirt, and snaz it up with lace?
But more importantly, it informs my shoes -
Heels, loafas...
Today, gumboots!
Especially while swimming in these storms.
Sep 19, 2025
Sep 19, 2025 at 2:16 AM UTC