I came into this world,
My sister automatically hated me,
She wouldn't get the jewelry,
That my mother promised she would give,

My mother told me about jellybeans
"it will make you feel better,"  she said

I first learnt to walk,
My brother let me fall,
He said two children was enough,
Then I came and ruined it all,

My dad gave me a jellybean,
"it'll make you happy again" he said

I turned five,
My teacher didn't like me,
She found me a disgrace,
Just by being the way I am,

My friend gave me her jellybean,
"the jellybean would make you think of heaven instead,"

Ten was the worst,
I was fat as hell,
Girls picked while boys laughed,
Everyone just said it was puberty,

I ran home to my sister,
She said,"the jellybean will drive the pain away"

A teenager I soon became,
My father was drunk,
Rapping on the door like a ghost,
It was as if he felt his life was done,

My brother covered my ears,
"don't listen to his say, let the jellybean lead the way"

My grandmother died,
My mother cried her soul out,
She was like a sister to me,
My life was now incomplete,

My aunt dried my tears and said,
"Bite down on this jellybean, it's your only happy place"

My mother was stuck in depression,
Nothing could help her,
I was on my own now,
Everyone looked past me,

god came down to me and gave me a jellybean,
"never give up" was his advice to me.

20 was my age,
To rise and shine,
My family was finally happy again,
It was so great I had tears in my eyes,

My family gave me a box of jellybeans,
"more the merrier!" they said to me,

It was during college,
Did a handsome man ask,
"why eat those jellybeans,
When you're supposed to be sad?"

I gave him a jellybean, smiled and said,
"more sweetness fills in, than tears are shed,"

The man became my lover,
We were everything to each other,
We planned a whole life together,
Until he had to part away forever,

He kissed me on the lips and dried my eyes,
"please take this sweet, as token of my love for you,"

I went back home to find,
my brother had gone haywire,
He didn't listen to anyone anymore,
He was a rebel now,

I calmed him down and all he said,
"Carmel, you don't understand, all you care about is jellybeans,"

Soon after there was 'breaking news' on the TV
My brother had killed,
But soon ran away,
And I was related to a murderer,

My sister hugged me and asked,
"does this call for a jellybean?"

I got a job as an assistant  mental helper,
What more could I do?
My resumé didn't hide my history,
Dead gran, criminal brother...

My sad face softened the one on my boss,
"have this jellybean, it's all I have," he said

A year after the same routine,
Did I learn my father had a drink too much,
The hospital bed he lied,
And went away without my goodbye,

After The nurse told me everything, I looked into my purse,
"oh beautiful jellybean, please do your magic," 

After, a marriage was arranged for me,
The man was sweet, but not mine,
He was a choice of someone else,
Which is what hurt me a lot,

I looked for a jellybean, but my sister sighed and said,
"you are about to be married, no need for those antics,"

In reality, the man and I were friends,
We had a bit in common,
But nothing like my lover,
I was alone again,

My mind yearned for a jellybean,
But I stopped, for my sister knew what I was doing

The day to tie the knot,
My mother was half gone,
She came in a wheel chair,
Yet she was clapping along,

The priest spoke as my 'husband' smiled,
"no jellybean, but smile, smile for them," I thought.

After living a different life,
I still hadn't learn to love him,
My sister got mad and ran away,
Far away from me, she said,

My husband sat down and gave me a packet of jellybeans,
"I know it's what you love, take them and smile again, for me"

31 my brother payed a visit,
He had changed so much I could have loved him instead,
He cried and apologized,
But I just gave him a hug and SMILED,

He gave me a special jellybean,
"to tell you how much I appreciate it," he said.

He lived with me for a while,
My "lover" said I needed the company,
We laughed, smiled and cried together,
It was the best year of my life,

My friend came up to me and said,
"a jellybean for improving your happiness," 

Later my mother was fully gone,
My brother couldn't bare the pain,
He ran away, for he wasn't strong,
Sadness filled my air again,

My neighbor came and wished me well,
But no happiness came without a jellybean.

My depression,
It became my obsession,
My husband tried and gave up,
There was nothing he could do,

Cigarettes were my new candy,
"I'm sorry, Carmel, you're too old for jellybeans'' 

My husband screamed,
I would never try,
So he packed his bags,
And left with no sweet goodbye,

I cried my heart out, and pulled out my cigarette,
" wow, Carmel, look what you've done"I said.

So this was my life,
I was lonely as hell,
No family to love me,
No one to ask if I was well,

I left the cigarette and took out my special jellybean,
" at least it sweetens the pain, reduces the hurt, and make you feel as if you're whole again,"

After all that has become, 
after all that has been done,
The jellybean never left my side, 
It was the one who loved me, all this time

"I love you, Jellybean," I said, " you are my one and only, best friend,"

Each individual jelly-belly
jellybean in a clear bag
tied with a red wire
is so different from each
other individual jelly-belly
jellybean in that clear bag.

The one that I find,
without fail,
without fault,
is always the one that
tastes like black licorice.

The sticky, overly sweet,
bitter black gunk that junks
up my perfectly good bag
of jelly-belly jellybeans,
and I am never paying
enough attention
to catch myself
before I pop it
into my mouth,
unaware that I will be
receiving: not cotton candy,
not coconut, nor cherry or lime,
but a black piece of bitter-sweetness,
whose taste always seems to linger.

I never wanted to go splashing and crashing over the top of a rainbow..
So..
Julie and me sailed off across the jellybean sea to a land..(and here I'll agree this sounds a bit grand. )

But under nursery rhyme trees where lollipops grow out of grandmothers knees and lemonade pop,pops up out of the ground with a lemonade pop popping pop kind of sound and where chocolates galore can be found on the shore by the lakes of cream cakes..

..here we will stay to play every day...and the night never came and each game was brand new..

Wouldn't you want to stay?

Well..wouldn't you?

But the time finally arrived though we had hoped it would not and wiping snot on my sleeve (because boys do that)
We built a matchbox boat and got ready to leave...ready to sail on the sea of despair
I will,I will be going back there to the land of sunshine,funtime..

..and whether it's the jellybean sea or an ocean floating in marmalade tea..
Julie and me will cross it together..

..eating love hearts and living,
Forever.

Goodbye my beloved
my best friend
my cartoon strip
my spicy blend
my confidant'
my story-teller too
my source of bliss
my beautiful you
Goodbye my soulmate
my aggravation
my dewey tears
my joyous elation
my dark devil
my saving knight
my funky mixed salad
my angel in white
Goodbye my jellybean
my every color
my brilliant star
my only stellar
my addictin high
my curvy wurvy road
my far away companion
my emotional garbage load
Goodbye my truck driver
my ever pessimist
my deep sad poet
my christmas list
my squishy hug
my dictionary
my thesarus too
my harry-carry
Goodbye my healing crystal
my happy thought
my **** dreams
my man I have not
my heaven on eath
my hell here too
my disneyland
my passion that grew
Goodbye my mysterious moon
my brick wall
my favorite song
my bounce to the ball
my craziest joke
my sun in winter
my dirtiest thought
my fantasy reader
Goodbye my phone friend
my tug of war
my fleshy goosepimples
my bird that soars
my bright lightening
my roaring thunder
my white rose
my hopes down under
Goodbye my perfect lover
my satin sheet
my carribean vacation
my favorite treat
my majestic mountain
my green thumb
my cycle rider
my last crumb
Goodbye my first spring rain
my catalyst
my curious dreamer
my lemon twist
my catch of the day
my white cloud
my emotional abyss
my cake upside down
Goodbye my only you
my hopeless dream
my love of loves
my everything

I remember the jelly bean jar
perched next to the owlish librarian
in my school when I was younger.  
One lucky soul would win a prize
for pulling the right number of jelly beans
out of an air still filled with fancy.
I can’t remember who won the prize,
and I can’t remember what the prize was.

But I guess as selfish minds are wont to do,
I remember the act of guessing.  
It was a childhood of guessing,
and I wonder if any of those guesses were truly wrong?  
When the engine of innocence toils away,
any solution, however fanciful,
can’t be false in a world that finds falsity
in far more veritable places.

I digress back to that jelly bean jar,
packed full of sugar,
and to a young mind,
full of promise.  
To a mind such as mine,
a mind akin to my classmates
who shared my sugary desire for that jar,
any guess was as good as the other,
as long as any guess was your own.  

We clutched ordinary pencils
scribbled on ordinary paper
with our own extraordinary numbers.  
In the basket went these figures most accurate.  

Days during the week passed
with those store brand jelly beans
mashed against each other,
childhood memories turned ordinary pages
wrote with ordinary pencils
until that singular, self-sure number
mashed against pages turned against it.  

However strong that memory of numerology
in a room full of words is etched in my mind; no trace
of the end of the jellybean contest remains in my ledger.
No trace of the disappointment of losing out
on such a treasure trove of tooth decay.  

But I guess this is the way of the mind,
it tends to trace out the positives
while it remains filled with youthful levity,
no weight is imbued in innocent minds,
and so tragedy, loss, and disappointment
float away past untroubled eyes.  

But time rolls on and much like the crushed growth
under an ever-rolling stone,
our lives start to fall harder on softened memories.  
Our lives harden with our heads,
and those days of living out short-lived fantasies
fade with jelly bean guesses.  
So as we mature and feign to seek the truth,
a small part of me keeps a singular page earmarked
for a time when the truth no longer weighs
                                                                              down the air with half-true deceit, and a mind long
abandoned
will return to grasp fanciful ideas
out of an air that’s still light enough
to evade our youthful fingertips.

Consumer Culture makes me sick,
it burns like acid contained in
coffee cups the size of
your heart exploding.
Music that will **** your ears
for only a buck
because it is a song shaped by greed
alongside factories, with smoke stacks
acting as sploof tubes,
covering the smell of life
created just to be killed.
They have innocent eyes
an organism giving away its only truth
for convenience, for simplicity
**** your fast food,
**** your jellybean president.
Employment is conscription to join
on the losing side in the war on
your time and mind, The Double Bind.
You ought to love your country
but do you?
You ought to compete, go for the win
**** your friends, get to the top.
Do you know what the prize is?
One morning you wake up and find
that your game was a farce
and you aren't what you really are
but what you could of been.

Defend your limits.

For we are waterfalls, spinning wheels of imagination
shaping clay with organic inspirations
planting ideas in the fertile unconsciousness
Don't form beliefs, form a question.

Understand we are ice-9
collectively, we are the watering-system
We are the true god through experience mystic
disbanded stars that are the galaxies.

Properties of our composition suggests that,
you better let this water flow,
because if you don't
a world full of love
would love to strike you down
making you coo and swoon
over the symbols of a dream,
the beautiful sunflower riding a bike,
hitting a hacky sack perfectly
at the end of the day

a cup beckons inscribed with your name
are you just going to sit and stare at it?

I ain't afraid to tell the world,
That you make me,
What I hate most.

That the jellybean drops,
Slippin' from your lips,
Spread like,

Dollops -
Sweet butter,
On toast.

Can't hide my sticky fingers -
Drippin' your,
Candy residue.

Though, I plan to make,
The best of it,
Before the moon is new.

My sternest strategies,
'neath the night's eyes,
Light my ***** little schemin',

My plot to watch,
Your every step,
Before the moment,
That I steal you.

--

I've been eatin' jellies,
Since I was little -
Today, I've tasted so many,

But, the ones that slip,
(And, sometimes, skip)
From that head,  

Drive my thoughts,
Out, much,
Too selfishly.

The jellybean kid

When jelly beans was the things
All those years ago
I was Patrick Dunbar
Who was no chest oh no
You see he was the jelly bean kid
And he ate a lot of them
Yeah taste yeah taste
Yeah jelly beans are so sweet
The jelly bean kid the jelly bean kid
Patrick Dunbar is the jelly bean kid
His colours are red and white and blue yeah he is the jelly bean kid
You see he would attend the 4th of July parade and mate he was really
Popular there and Halloween, he played a disgruntled hansel year
He wishes he could get away
And at thanksgiving he brought his outfit to the front oh yeah and then
At Christmas he led Santa's sleigh
Out to go ** ** **
All dressed up as
The jelly bean kid the jelly bean kid  
Patrick Dunbar is the jelly bean kid
He will party like there is no tomorrow
Yeah he's the jelly bean kid
You see Patrick was walking down
Waving to the crowd saying howdy folks
And when he past the drinking crowd he will tip his hat oh yeah
Then will do a little dance and say
How cool he is
You see Patrick Dunbar is the jelly bean kid and said I am way cooler than him, who is the giant frog that is
And he sang
The jelly bean kid oh the jelly bean kid
Patrick Dunbar is the jelly bean kid
Walking on the street in the parade
Saying hello to the drinking folk
And doing a dance for the entertained mob yeah he is oh he is
He is the jelly bean kid oh yeah


Sent from my iPhone

You're in my head
You're on my mind
I think about you all the time
I'll pick my heart from off the vine
And turn it in to a fine wine

Days go by and I wonder why
Our lives got so intertwined
I play the tape back on rewind
Not sure of what I expect to find

Some might say I'm walking blind
Into the darkness of the night
But you're the sunshine in my eyes
That guides my way, no regard for sight

Even on a cloudy day
In drenched clothes caught out in the rain
And my entire life in disarray
You're still perfect in every way

My reward for being me
Is the sweetness of a jellybean
Or the softness of a puffy cloud
Awaiting me in my dreams

princesses made of freckles, wild nettles, vitamin C
strawberry-preserve smiles, backdoor-screen
dreams, pockets full of pencils and pink jellybean
lip gloss, wearing summer and skinned knees
these types of princesses don’t practice their lives
in stone-and-mortar towers. they take dives
into lake-blue unknowns, sunflower skies,
break their falls on vanilla sunrises.
these types of princesses only build their
castles made of tarpaulin and filled
with oak-tree pillars and moons that tilt
into the soft iridescence of rose-gold winters.
these types of princesses conquer backyards.
these types of princesses catch falling stars.

clean lines cut shiny wet skin

cold menacing eel eyes meet
a jellybean nose child's sticky fingers,
calculating; deriving the smoothest way
to unfasten Oshkosh suspenders
in a sun-drenched park, with fierce
protectors, and the wrath of an angry God,
one that judges perverse men and protects
innocent children,
but God must be on vacation;
too quickly, aplomb aplenty,
he slithers past the slide where
a trio of blond ringlet drenched heads tantalize
when the boys hop and jump
their curls excitedly bob, mimicking the children's movements.
the man, he waits, tucked
in a leafy green pardah, a veil.
the sun crawls into the clouds;
thunder bellows in the distance,
and like a mercy, a tiny raindrop
hits his eyes, which he has closed
in respect of this jubilant miracle.
the mothers grab their own sticky handed babies
and run for drier places
and safer
though they only heed the rain
and not the man peering from the soaking foliage

flash of lightening.
darkness.
a scream.
silence.

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.

I stopped by an old candy store the other day
The same one my parents took me to when I was a kid
Old man Joe still recognized me as the lad who bailed his hay
We chatted for a little and then he asked for some help unloading a skid

His daughter Tracy of whom I went to school with was already in the back there
She was complaining about how her dad should get new candy to fill all the empty beams
I stayed for another hour or so, we cached up as old friends do, she told me her dreams of being the mayor of our little town. Before I left her Dad asked us what kind of new candy he should get.
Without hesitation we both grinned and shouted Jellybeans.

Something that day must have created a spark, because ever since then I held her close to my heart
A few years later, we had our wedding at the old store, we even ran away after on a horse.
Who could of known a place like this, could leave such a big mark
Perhaps the best part was being asked what he had for dessert, we both smiled said Jellybeans of course.

Today she lives her dreams as mayor, while I run Grandpa Joe's candy store.
We expanded a little and even took up a space for ice cream
We have one on the way and another who just turned four
And although Tracy can't help too much anymore, I have help from our little one, of whom we call Jellybean

I wish I could be near you
The real you
Not your shell
I want to hear your laugh
And see your smile
Hear you call me jellybean
I’m your baby girl, your only
And always will be
Keep hearing “nothing’s changed”
But it’s all different
You’re here but you’re gone
You smile but it’s not real
You don’t even know
It’s me standing in front of you
And my brother
Who’s that?
We’re yours and you are ours
You’re still here but…
You’re gone
Who am I?
I’m your miracle
Remember me?
Please remember me
Your brown eyed baby girl
A happy accident
I’m your college graduate
Your hard-headed brat
You gave up everything for us
I would be nothing without you
Now I’m old enough to realize
All you did for me
Now I’m ready to say thank you
And even though you’re to hear me
And see me
And be with me
You’re not
Not even close
Not even at all
It kills me
My heart shatters
Because now when I need you most
You’re here but you’re gone

It came from the blue,
Not quite true,
For we had been scared a time or two to be true,
But now,
WOW,
Such a tiny "+" symbol can change so much.

You now rest in your Mama,
Just the size of a jellybean,
but our little Bam beano.
how you'll grow.

Will you love Harry Potter,
Star Wars,
both, neither?

In my dreams I see you playing the guitar,
but I'd be just as happy if you decided to play the bassoon,
to follow your dreams,
and love the journey for the beautiful chaos that it is.
To be foolish and terrifying,
because like Willi Carlisle says,
"It takes a certain kind of fool,
to make a difference in the world."

I imagine you being kind,
and these acts bring tears to my dilated eyes.

Speaking of eyes,
Will you have your mother's or my eyes?
Here entrancing green or my steely blue?
Will the world harden your eyes to what you see,
or will what you see soften you to what you can do?

Sweet child,
are you my daughter or my son?
Will you have me wrapped around your finger?
Or will you have me thinking of my own old man,
trying to not do what he failed in and copy what he had succeeded with.

I think of the future,
the danger,
the cost,
the sheer time.

God the time.

When you learn to drive, I'll be 44,
graduate with the class of 40 or 41.

My God the time.

We can't wait to meet you, my child,
Our sweet little bean,
Whether you're a Wyatt or an Ellise,
Just know that Mommy and Daddy love you,
and can't wait to show you the world,
with all in it to be seen.