The road was broken in segments of dream huts
clinging to 10 sqm of waterless, worthless plains
beside a million flies teeming for life sustaining energy
from rancid smells and miracles of justice that never come.

Living in the light of palaces, the poor understand pain
and poverty like life's  great gifts of wonder
to philosophise and burn in the tabernacle of
rotund politicians. How easy for them to girth
the national wealth under a huge lie.

Out in the open the crows capture the days sound
with raucous caws of indiscretion. Unrestrained
by manners or moments of ecstasy, each crow
sounds off the days entertainment.

At nightfall the city slimmer's to sleep
and the slums awake to underground life
living and moving relentlessly,  from one
moment to another, unheralded, unsung
fully awake with hunger, even as the darkness
closes in and absorbs the days movements
with its blanket of silence.

Tomorrow is another day for the cycle
to turn one more cog in the direction
of no return. Sad. Sad. Sad.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Wound that stretches in tune with a trumpet
that scratches the second face
I have hidden on my sleeve.
A cat curious as me at night
while I look at strangers
that could potentially
Be friends.

A small little fish
that forgets its existence
swimming around a sea of 0,5 sqm.
Just like me and just like the cat
-trapped, forgetful and curious.

You have all the seasons in your room.
My insides are blossoming
and my breath like rain
Is splashing on the floor.

I am the kind of woman
that leaves some food on the table
before you come home.
I have a different power inside me.
I am a woman,
and I blossom and I blossom.
My eyes speak truth and my lips
give birth to words that burn
my lovers down to the filter.

And for the first time tonight I prayed,
for I have name Her The Mother
And she is all I want to be.

sure, we're caring for the demographics,
a black hospital nurse
                           manages to own a mercedes benz...
huh?
          how did that happen?
                  a bunch of nigerians
   "business men" manage
to buy out all the new flats in a new building...
white priv.    white priv. they say...
             nigg'ah gonna shoot!
they still call us communists... never mind,
       i have no rhetoric for hyperboles...
  one muslim dies at a mosque... everyone goes
nuts! a muslim woman walks up to
           a politician and says: i'm afraid to
raise my children in this country!
   one word answer: manchester.
                       i knew and i try to forgive myself
into forging alliance with the zeitgeist narrative...
whether social or mainstream media...
   but sometimes, it's almost like ulysses
     not tied to the mast of the ship, mad, being
dragged to the depths by the song of sirens...
     and this is what media has become...
the song of sirens: as if you, really really,
     but not really, need to provide an opinion...
to the oars men!
                           past these crevices
                            of schizophrenic insinuations.
ah... but the title...
                  this is not an anti-feminist poem...
sure... allow men to join the army,
   make a fetish of demographic representation
being adequate, in the army...
          i've worked on a construction site?
          you know how many women are on
a construction site? perhaps in the kitchen...
      i've seen only one brick-layer, a butch woman...
she could butcher a cow with her bare hands...
there will always be more women in the army
than in the construction site...
       imagine, these days, being a industrial-sized
roofer, tarring a roof, in a heat-wave of
                    over 30 degrees... at the boiler?
over 50 degrees...
            women are more rare in the construction
industry, than in the, ******* army.
          oh please, come along... join the construction
industry army... lift 40kg of felt,
   and 45kg of mineral felt, and carpet
  the roofs of tall buildings...
                   in the 90s, roofers could still wear
shorts... now, they're boiling eggs in
    long jeans... and the radios were banned
    in the industry...
          sure, it's safe as hell, for it is hell,
     but glum and boring as an office job,
  that needs sit-coms and jokes...
                                   like i once said:
    i completed the scottish widows' h.q. building near
st. paul's...
  more women in the army, than in the construction
industry...
     this is not an anti-fe poem...
                    oh please, come along!
       in a place where there's so much concrete,
fresh roofing tar smells just as infatuating
as freshly cut grass where there's so much earth.
more women will join the ceremonial
procession of a weak army,
than join a strong industrial army of a strong
work-force...
      odd... i've never managed to spot
feminism making an insurgence into roofing...
            *****, shut the **** up!
you go and cover 100 sqm of a flat roof in a day
in over 30 degree heat...
     you do that... then you can moan
your little bourgeoisie swan song;
which is odd... since writing this so called
     "poetry",                   i feel castrated,
although internalised... my ***** are bulging,
and tickling my perception of things...
     i watered the garden, and cooked a bbq...
           oh well...
     ever wonder why construction workers are
anti-gym-culture of office workers?
    ******* krawaciaże, office hamsters...
    paper pile (a), vs. paper pile (b)...
                   more women in the army,
                 than in the construction industry;
less yoga, less yoga, less yoga,
                    oh don't join the army!
                            get into construction!
   then tell me that prostitution needs a tear;
you lift a 40kg roll of felt,
                              or a 30kg doughnut of
hot-melt, and drop it into a furnace of
                                                       a boiler.

I have never felt home anywhere
Before I met him
Not at my childhood home, not in my parents bedroom
My first home was him
The presence who cures my insomnia was him
Wherever he was, it was the safest place I could be

I think, no matter how long time has passed,
And how much life happened in between,
His arms would always be my lost sanctuary
I think, that even though I know,
How dysfunctional that relationship was in the outside world
I felt the most comfortable in that little 18 sqm room cramped with furnitures
When it was just the two of us
In that tiny little apartment where our love grew and died
I think, that even though I know,
The future is clear and it won’t be us in the end,
It can still be dangerously easy for me
To slip back in to my old comfort zone and heartache

Seeing him a few moons ago reminded me of that
I’m good on my own
But I think,
If he’d pull me into his arms
I honestly would still
Even after all this time
And bad blood
Not be able to push him away

That’s how it always was with us
How every separation made me bitter and detached
But the moment he steps into my house,
I always give in
That’s how it always was with us
And he knows that
He knew me the best for a significant period of time, after all

am i being an *******, am i, maybe?!
                     before the real polemics begins...
i have to deal with these little
shitlords in the comments...
                    plague: the sefiroth lifted to the heavens,
castrated and told to sing: give me
my idle hands for the devil to do much more
than this...

based upon a reflex:
   concerning

thank "god" / "luck" my alter-ego
Conrad von Heiligkreuz is not getting a welcome
reception elsewhere...

my-poetic-side...
            only a 2nd poem in and i'm "told"
to shut up...
         happy to conclude a revived jazz binge...

i once had a friendship...
which lasted to the point of hearing:
it's word salad... sorry, what?
i do know the lexicon of psychiatry...
perhaps your sister is a genetic oddity...
but i'm hardly the "spezial needs"
culprit... the royal family are paid for by
taxpayers' money...
they are grifters of pomp and circumstance...

not that i'm waiting for ol' lizzie to die...
but if i had suicidal tendencies...
i'd wait this one out...
a pope dies... a knee bother...
but the queen of england?
the lineage running from edward
the confessor?! ****! i'll have to be around
for that one... when ol' charlie
gets his face into print
on that new spastic fantastic grit of
plastic... paupers' paper...
hardly a square mile of a proper... wipe...
one's ****...

         i'm waiting for lizzie to drop
at the gallows...
i had to call her: purple comic sans girls...

rereading... on the offensive...
i am an *******...

purple comic sans girl:
do you feel better having got that lot off your mind. So therapeutic this posting on MPS business isn't it? I imagine you found yourself bored out of your mind before writing that tirade and i hope its been of benefit for you.

Conrad von Heiligkreuz:
blah blah blah blah blah... and some words in between... then again more blah blah blah... wait... is this one of those "safe spaces" i've heard of? you're not going to leave me with a benefit of the doubt, are you? well then... run along... run along... stick to rhymes and rumi, or whatever crap you're into.

he also posted a comment on one of purple comic sans girl's poems:
yep... thanks purple COMIC SANS girl... your comment was more engaging than this poem... sowwy... now get your sycophantic hyenas to focus on me and get me banned... too bad you can't see any constructive criticism... i was going to ask: iz u zee torbewahrerin - some twitter-esque blue checkmark cerberus for this website?! will you be the one to go that one step further and tell me: no lightbulbs for you: no internet access... wipe your *** with your hand and write by candlelight? thanks for the emotions though... i was right in being slow today... low blood pressure... thanks for the emotions... now i can knit them into a bundle, a stone... and throw it into a sea of rhythm. again: i'll just ask your sycophantic hyenas to come knocking... god forbid this site is to be one of those urban myths of "safe spaces": thinking hurts: aaagh! i quiet like the blog section of this site, though... it would be a great shame not to catch up on poetic news... yup.... "friends" / fwends... walking on egg-shells... looks like an echo-chamber to me... this sort of "love" / ******* you see for miles and miles... doesn't anyone these days tire of news as propaganda... and such only ++++ comments? i'm thinking of washing my hands like some o.c.d. golem... and brushing my teeth... see you later purple comic sans girl; thanks for the adrenaline shot.

definitely the pronouns...
that's it... this is not definitely the *******?
first impressions... the churn of emotions...
well there was... nothing exactly... "offensive"...
but i'm that beyond redemption e.g. of
no e.g. to begin with:

         alter-ego alternatively: who's who in third
person - there's always someone missing...
my alter-ego has to write an apology
for her... the aura of hostility is being multiplied...
forever dealing with a genesis story...
to have seen a mountain and the sea...
but this crown... this new-found-tooth:
yet to be a jaw...

i'll make an apology... i'll post her this link...
do i feel better:
what's there to feel better about?
even if i think i'm hardly the optimist desired
to only mind weather forecast prophecies...
over a pint-hour-long-conversation...

this is a reflection... but the reflex is already
a faux pas:
bull sees red... some porcelain gets
shattered on the hoof and snort of wet air...
there's a heart: but there's no glory of it
to be made into splinters of breadcrumbs
when extracted from a tabernackle...

      miasma... miasma...
          and metaphors of miasma...
                    otherwise: this congested traffic air
of plugged horn sections of an orchestra...
                the past or the part where i say:
someone was misunderstood...
someone clearly jumped to conclusions
too early...

       i was going to do something human today...
instead i opted for toying
with a robot that made pizza...
and over-seasoned the pizza sauce with
too much oregano...
           faulty "a.i."... back on the new found
glory wheel of replicas...

cheers! here's a hope to...
when two reflexes meet... spawning two reflections...

the only tragedy of what comes from
borrowed time - or the past -
however irrational the previous "few" were...
they still allowed us to carry through:
the W of a wHEN...
              they allowed us to carry a
H of hOW... and...
                                 there is not rhyme to bargain with...
the cess-pool of feverish breathing...
the insult of exaggeration from the propaganda
news... it's not even fake, as such...
it's just... cold cod and ambers...

                        if they were to be dying with
mushroom-esque sprouts of out-growth from
their foreheads... i'd be deemed the most interested
undertaker...
an apology is necessary... but i only spotted it
having written this "repudiation"...

perhaps that's what her comment was all about...
the hope for a beating heart...
this prospect of feeling...
i can't remember the last time...
anything of thought was worth
a cradle of genius...
or that anything felt was more than
a reflex... hell wouldn't want me to reflect on
certain matters...
hence the faux pas immediacy...

                    i was able to read: but at the same
time i was blinded by a rage that...
allowed me to feed a larynx replaced with
an impossibility of a heart...
and with the heart replaced with a larynx...
⠊       ⠎ ⠏ ⠕ ⠅⠑
                                        ⠃⠇⠊ ⠝ ⠙
no colons or dot dot dot included...
here's to me singing a karaoke in england
with the song: madonna's oh father...

           blind fool blind bid to pray...
if only... those forwarded gesticulations
of phatom were to be a gratification of relief
i were to be seeking...
handshakes with shadows and the dead...
eclipses of multiple suns
and a suitcase of words that cannot cross
borders beside the familiar pain of some later
posthumous translations...

what modern scientific discovery?
the ancients gave me the sound and its subsequent
meaning in how i connect it to
another sound and a subsequent meaning
and craft this umbilical chord...
this tapeworm this foetus of myself of
a future bound to a past...
wrinkles on a page...
a spilled picasso of coffee in some
variant of Rorschach...

                               most of the time i don't want
to be forgiven... to be forgiven is to be immediately
asking for an apology: a futile enterprise...
i'd just like to be understood...
take all the time in the world:
for that to happen... or 'appen...
we're dealing with surds that still retain
a status of a spell-check: you know...

                         there's that impossible moral
of this: anti-story...
         the comments section of an internet...
let me show you the sqm
of what it takes to resolve: a boot... leather belt...
strap... of extending enough of the shaved
hind of the snorkel of a pig in the shambo
of a blood-bath of a slaughterhouse...

                             all the best parts were and will
continue to be used...
               she called it a tirade:
i'm more prone to the self-laceration
of calling it a diatribe...
                         is this what promulgating
self-depreceating humor does to one's coordination
of: "it's at"?
                             this new breed of: there...
               and being...
            perhaps a focus on: that? clingy little shitstorm
of tomorrow's never new...

well...                      that's me...
asking to be forgiven is so futile...
       this clingy originariness of sin... more like:
replica - and... was that the originality of
individuation - the sin being...
the replica... the plagiarism...
                               that "unique perspective"...
the eventual monotheistic intra-personal "god?    
and later the democratic fizzling-out...
the diluted "god" of the... yawn...
inter-personal?
                
          the better half of me has already died
having written this...
the pivot of either half of me that was
ever going to be differentiated as good, or "evil"...
the challange of probing the mediocre...
i would always keep to retaining some
standards of cohesion...
grammar, spelling, arithmetic...

                   the skeleton requesting
a pickled jar of brains...
and some tendons and muscles to coordinate
itself as an early grave-risen:
                           shadow of a mollusk...
circus of words... the meadows of Edinburgh...
the ego as a minotaur...
thought as a labyrinth...

                             and the leftover...
the shop of porcelain...
           and the revised minotaur...
as a sphinx.