"tornadoes" poems
For a creation was devised of the purest and simplest elements in life
When the calming and smooth sensation of water caressed your bones, it carved canals of strength along the way
Your skin crawled and crept past your defined chin to bind with its lover
and when the tendon reached the muscle, it fused in an unbreakable relationship
Baby, the sight of your eyes shatters the crystallization of the finest glass
And your voice pierces the night fog leaving a path for only you
The kindness of your heart poured into the rivers to feed oxygen to all of those who depended on it
Your body contains the same carbon that creates sparkling diamonds
The majority of the oxygen is the same element creating tornadoes, or when fused to hydrogen to make a hurricane
Do you see how powerful you are made?
Your soft lips are the same lips that can produce sound in an empty canyon
Your bones are the base of your embrace when you sweep me off my feet
That mind is the exact replica that discovered how to survive the times that were a bigger struggle than planned
Despite all of these acts, how simple or extravagant
You are the perfect arrangement of atoms that hold my hand when I am scared to carry on alone
And the same arrangement of atoms that pull me close and kiss my lips
One might say these actions, however small, have a stronger effect than any hurricane, or tornado, or diamond
For you are a creation devised of the purest and simplest elements in life
And you are completely mine
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 7:21 PM UTC
The deepest understanding between lovers
stands majestically above the deepest abyss
as if, unbreakable and pure in its unreachable,
unbreakable bond.
Whatever melts this emotion together
was forged in a hotter furnace than ever found
that only two people can understand.
Rising above the highest tide
soaring above tornadoes and typhoons
and cruising along points of paradise
available only to the two of them.
How serene it feels to know
that your own reflection mirrors
in the other person and their every nuance
is written into your own poems
adding the rhyme and rhythm
for your own journey together.
Author Notes
Feel like this at times?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 4:26 PM UTC
Off the train I hit the streets
and start laughing. This is ridiculous,
incomprehensible. How can innumerable bipeds
have individual inner lives. Why are they doing
what they’re doing? I have no answer
New York City but to also go about my business
in this case prepare for surgery, survival.
But why survive with so many exact replicas
to replace me? A swarm of ants or hive of bees,
social organisms they’re called, climbing
over each other, avoiding bumping and amazingly
making way, anticipating the sudden turns
and straight paths of others, strangers but brothers,
sisters incubating, the cells of a small
***** nodes of a single semi-conscious organism.
The concept of a higher power that cares
for me is also risible yet how else
can I explain the surgeon and his team,
robots and magnetic resonance imaging machines,
all primed and trained to save my life.
They are not particularly interested in what
I do with my time. I am immediately
in love with the Irish brogue of the head nurse,
the Indian skin of the physician’s assistant.
The long extraordinarily thin
fingers of the famous surgeon. All
mine to savor (and the other cancer patients).
Despair, lose all hope
that’s what the sign says at the gates of hell
and at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center the sign says
Be kind to our customers who are waiting and suffering.
Yesterday’s suicidal thoughts: the mind
is a clever servant, insufferable master. Therefore,
meditate on this: absolute need, dependence on the Other.
I still like Hombre, The Shootist and Ulzana’s Raid
but realize those dead heroes
were subordinate to society: the gun manufacturers who armed them.
Thus, I go for cancer tests, accepting, not predicting results.
Hero accepting help.
A torrential rain following five days of flooding,
tornadoes out west busting up wooden towns
all because too many of us are hoarding plastic, herding electrons.
None of us know how it will end, what the outcome will be
(of our surgery). The best that can be said
is Don’t forget to breathe. And you might
as well believe in that higher power.
Mar 5, 2019
Mar 5, 2019 at 6:00 AM UTC
On a hot hot day
nothing better than
sweet sticky rice coconut
milk a big ripe mango
That, I felt, was what the fly thought
he touched down onto my mango,
it was so sweet, pouring
saccharine sweat
ripe slabs of yellow smorgasborg
endless pleasure of sugar mango flesh
it seemed good to the fly
Across the water,
pressing over the mountains,
opaque threads of rain, like
slim tornadoes twisting ash into the clouds
moved this way
things never looked good for the fly
He ate nonstop, boozed up on mango
an unlimited supply of yellow stuff
he gained weight by the second
there was no point in stopping
the more juice the mango sweat
the stickier its meat
the more mango the drunk fly ate,
the further he sank into its flesh
he was stuck, flailed his stupid legs
in the air as if more flies coming
would rather help him than eat
juicy golden mango feast
he died there, I think
the monsoon would make sure of it
I tossed the mango, sticky rice
the styrofoam plate
thinking it spoiled, fearing the rain
May 3, 2011
May 3, 2011 at 3:58 AM UTC
The whole world has PTSD,
brought about by watching
far too much TV.
Normal people becoming
neurotic or psychotic
by all the "Breaking News".
Talking heads spewing fearful
endless chapters of dread,
all with their own ax to grind
into our heads, day after day
after day until we want to scream.
Real news or fake, impossible
to know the difference.
A political landscape strewn with
landmines of division and hate.
Melting Ice, and adverse weather,
hurricanes and tornadoes devastate
and forest fires burn, as racists and
terrorists abound at every turn,
and crazy's with military weapons
killing us for sport, just to make
the nightly news, as our nation's
infrastructures crumble into ruins,
all "Breaking News day and night",
while we and the world choke and
quiver from an excessive Carb diet
of information overload, trying to
sleep bathed in bad dreams, laced
with too many strong doses of PTSD.
Aug 31, 2019
Aug 31, 2019 at 12:14 PM UTC
~
*Lipstick to void. She is a race against time. The beveled past a disruption in her lines of influence.
Travel is dangerous, and tonight it darkens the highway of blood vessels coursing through her extremities. She wants to be luminous and under the skin.
While Dorothy dreams of tornadoes in Kansas, she dreams of remote climbs in lesser Glasgow, of party drugs in Tokyo. How many lights does she see?
In her hair are sixty circuits. But she waits, religiously inclined on the hotel bed. She drove through ghosts to get here wearing nothing but Las Vegas.
So strange at this hour, in a city full of sleepwalkers for the taking, she now dreams she's a bulldozer, she now dreams she's alone in an empty field.*
~
Dec 26, 2022
Dec 26, 2022 at 4:36 PM UTC
I COULDN'T GO OUTSIDE IN CASE I GOT ZIKA,
BUT THERE WAS NO WAY I WAS GOING TO GET WEAKER,
I MET RONALDO, AT A FIFA PARTY AS YOU GO,
AND MESSI AND NEYMAR WHO HAD NOWHERE .. .. ,
THEY SAY THAT INDONESIA IS TO BE ATTACKED BY TERRORISTS,
BUT WE'VE HAD ENOUGH OF TORNADOES AND EXTREMISTS,
NAOMI SOCKED SOMEONE ELSE ON A BA PLANE,
AFTER DIVORCE, CHARLTON WON'T BE THE SAME AGAIN,
ENGLAND'S VOTING TO STAY WITH EUROPE OR NOT,
MOST DON'T GIVE A S.... , THEY'LL SAY THEY FORGOT,
TRUMP CONTINUES TO BORE US AND DEPLORE MOST,
DON'T LET MONEY BUY OR ENTERTAIN HIS ILLITERATE BOAST;
WE'LL GET ON WITH OUR LIVES, DON'T NEED THOSE GUYS,
THEY SHOULD REMEMBER THAT SOME THINGS ARE NOT GOVERNED BY THEIR SIZE.
Feb 26, 2016
Feb 26, 2016 at 8:16 AM UTC
We humans have messed around
With Mother Nature and her eco-system
For years and years
Decades and decades
Centuries and centuries
Felling gazillions of trees
Turning forests into concrete jungles
Filling ponds, lakes, rivers and seas
With tons and tons of toxic waste
Releasing enough carbon monoxide into the air
To wreck the entire troposphere
The list of sins against Nature goes on and on
With no end in sight
Given all this, who are we to complain
When Mother Nature has had enough
And unleashes her fury on us
Through earthquakes and tsunamis
Avalanches and volcanoes
Hurricanes and tornadoes
Floods and droughts
And so on
Remember, Mother Nature has blessed us
With oodles of riches
In the form of plants and trees
Mountains and forests
Ponds, lakes, rivers, seas and oceans
And last but not the least, oxygen!
It is time we show her some gratitude
And more importantly, respect and compassion
And stop messing around with the eco-system
Remember the famous old saying
Live and let live
It doesn't mean infrastructure shouldn't be developed
We can build roads
We can build a railway network
We can build houses
We can build schools and colleges
We can build hospitals
We can build libraries
However, as my grandfather used to say
There is a limit to everything
And we should also plant trees
Build gardens and parks
Switch to renewable sources of energy
And cut down severely on emissions
A balance should be maintained
After all, messing around with Mother Nature
Will only bring about our own downfall
There have been enough natural disasters
Caused by human negligence
Let's not add to the list
Which is already longer than the river Nile!
May 9, 2022
May 9, 2022 at 12:54 PM UTC
Winter hit
The window panes turned cold
Bricks around the drains began to mold
Frost stuck to sidewalks
And the tip of your nose
Protected by gloves and cotton clothes
I watched your skin fade to grey
Like the trees outside my house
But not as beautiful
The church bells rang every Sunday
And the old man down the block sat in dismay
The veins in your neck turned blue every time it rained
I loved it till the veins in your arms did it too
I could see your heart pulsing through
But those were only the sirens for the tornadoes in your chest
Winter never felt as cold as it did that year
When you started praying to a needle and broken skin
And it tore you apart limb from limb
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 4:19 AM UTC
Each day she grows stronger.
All physical functions
require acute concentration
unwavering vigilance.
Her invisible shackle's bind me.
Tornadoes my conscience
weakens muscles, bruises skin
Splinters the soul.
Her outstanding weapon?
Relentless emotional chaos!
Sep 14, 2011
Sep 14, 2011 at 4:46 PM UTC
My head feels dull.
Not even “comfortably numb”.
No mood for rhyme
Yet must cast my soul
Back through time.
No.
No more rhyme.
Just cast my mind back.
Seek that spark.
Call out my Muse.
Be inspired.
Excited.
Yes.
Excitement shines
Like a billion suns.
The merest touch
Explodes
My every nerve.
Magical mysteries
Unveil themselves.
Brilliant, fluttering butterflies
Flash and flicker
Those rainbow colours and more.
Deep inspiration.
Adrenaline rush.
Electrical discharge.
Cascading sweat.
Thunder-drummed tornadoes.
Lightning storms.
Rose tinged dawns,
And silver-ghosted Moons.
Inspirational volcanoes
Of Muse-blown delight.
That’s how it was,
To be in Love.
Jan 22, 2011
Jan 22, 2011 at 4:34 AM UTC
If I have a daughter
I will name her Katrina
Remind her she is beautiful
Brought forth from the passion of the sea
She is a mix of warm Atlantic winds
strong enough to devastate a nation in
just a puff of her breath
wild enough to tracer the ocean
stretch out her wings and fly
watchful enough to remember
that spinning is dangerous
but curious enough
to want to go find land
In Winter, she hibernates
waiting for warmer weather
to envelop her soul
and bring life to her feet
In Spring, she stretches out her arms
and yawns, smiling
as the sun’s rays caress her face
In Summer, she giggles and
asks to travel,
whip across the ocean
sprint across the earth
She has no idea that exploring
Surging through the sea
will bring destruction
but when I tell her
she only laughs and says
Mom, you are the eye of my storm
and I will keep you safe
So, in Autumn, I will buy her
a ticket to anywhere
and as she spins out
of my home
I brace myself
for her eye to shrink
and her storm to intensify
because I know what is coming
While she loses herself
in the ecstasy of life
I shield myself as the eye wall,
the freest of her passions,
crashes down on me
with the force of 400 tornadoes
But I smile
because I know it will
be over soon
because winter is coming
and the rains
will cease to fall
and she will settle down
into her new life
and her new home
and one day
I will get a call
“Mom, our daughter’s name is Sandy,”
And I will smile
and watch from afar
as history repeats itself
and once again
I will brace myself for
the most beautiful of hurricanes
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 12:31 AM UTC
Mother Nature
(Poem by Serenus)
Mother, Oh Mother
You’re such a woman scorn
Your children mistreated you
And now we’re caught in your storm
Your womb, birthed the earth
And from the earth, we were born
We use to be so close
But now we’re just a family torn
Smoke stole your sweet scent
We scorched your beautiful hair
Your skin sealed in cement
Suffering from thirst, but we didn’t care
We force fed you poison
We put a price on your head
Taking your gifts for granted
And we left you for dead
But Mother, Oh Mother
You have come back
With a vengeance!
Your temper is heated
With no signs of forgiveness
Your touch use to be gentle
Tough-love, but modest
But your backlash has been brutal
The judgment of a goddess
Hurricanes, acid rains,
Monsoons, tsunamis
Droughts, water spouts
And quakes that sneak up calmly
Blizzards, floods, tornadoes, and wildfires
And we never cried for you Mommy
Now our situation is absolutely dire
We are begging for a day that’s balmy
To protect yourself from your people
You are fighting back
And all we can do is stop our evil
Reflect-and stand back
But Mother, Oh mother
Can we be saved?
Or have you sealed our fate
For the way we behaved?
…Before she can be her children’s savor
Rescue us, from our own bad behavior
She must save herself "first
So don’t blame her
She’s a mother
Protective power
Is in her nature
She said she’ll get back to us later
…First she has to communicate
With “The Father”…Her creator
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 7:45 PM UTC
Topaz dreams and fire flowers
Find their way into
Shadows and streams
In the space between
Our hearts and minds
Seams of alchemy
Blowing stars into birds
To touch our courageous
Sunlit beams
Dripping
Kissing
We
Keep
Running from our light
Praying that we’ll stay
Painting colors oh so bright
In the emotions we display
Flying
We are a painting in one another
A brush stroke full of hope
A paradox of intimately curious
Wings that have found a way to cope
Building a birdhouse home
On the backs of each other
Bones and sacred stones
A paradox of intimately curious
Wild tornadoes
Embracing
We walk in dark we walk in day
With footsteps often clumsy
And telepathy is not as easy as
Psychics will convey
Your hair is made of flowers
Or at least it seems that way
Our hearts are painted gold close to
The way the yellow birds that play
Around us when we stand
Glowing in our space
Exclusively
Beneath the tree
We made
Where Amen’s tears
The sun god
Rain
Around our love
Rushing in rushing out
Breathing in breathing out
Hold me close push me away
Both of us praying the other
One will stay
Kneeling
Pray
We are a painting in one another
A brush stroke full of hope
A paradox of intimately curious
Wings that have found a way to cope
Building a birdhouse home
On the backs of each other
Bones and sacred stones
A paradox of intimately curious
Wild tornadoes
This is our butterfly parade
© tHE tERRY tREE
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 6:44 AM UTC
I wished on a star too
Skipped rocks, flew off the inner tube
Played capture the flag, hide and go seek
Summer camp and climbing trees.
Passing notes, amusement parks, sports awards
Just Dance, sleepovers, boogie boards
Tire swings, smores, shirley temples,
Neighborhood friends, trampolines... few troubles.
A shooting star passed,
Silent tornadoes of memories
Come, lets ponder the time machine.
Just a kid, or maybe an adult- I'm 18.
Cherish past experiences, live for your dreams.
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 10:47 PM UTC
I've heard of tornadoes
Mangling buildings and structures
Or hurricanes
Destroying landscapes and neighborhoods
Or earthquakes
Splitting the earth in two
But no one told me
A girl with green, wandering eyes
Would be my most destructive
Natural disaster
Mangling,
Destroying,
Splitting
My stomach, head, and heart
Stripping them from my ground
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 9:55 PM UTC
People talk about Tornado Alley,
The part of the U.S where I live.
They act like tornadoes touch down every week in May through October,
Like storms go through every other week.
Like everyone’s not scared and they’re always calm.
The truth is,
Tornado Alley’s not like that.
Tornado Alley is worrying
When a tornado touches down only five miles from your house,
Your family’s in the basement,
Wondering if everything’s all right,
And if your house will be damaged.
Tornado Alley is praying a storm will pass,
The ever-looming threat of a supercell,
Swirling clouds above your roof,
The sky a nasty green and purple.
Tornado Alley is taking everything you have for granted,
Then being scared when it’s threatened.
Tornado Alley is knowing tornadoes exist,
But being thankful that you’re not in San Francisco,
Or Hawaii, Florida, the coasts.
Tornado Alley is flat plains and wide open spaces,
Not being afraid of a storm,
But of what lurks when the beginning is over.
May 8, 2018
May 8, 2018 at 9:51 AM UTC
it's inherent ontology, it's not even necessary to process inherited ontology; inherited ontology can be riddled and lost to abstraction like the invention of crosswords as antidote to the drilling-in of the Bible... but inherent ontology? inherent is a tautological invitation to italicise the word ontology - tautology anti synonym - the doubly stressed, point origin secured, but from two adjacent / adjective angles - well, might as well be a compound, the adjacent-adjective, when language meets math and math meets.... d'uh... or simply arithmetic, because that's how it's easily translated, arithmetic is grey people and math the rich... language the poets and grammar the farts.
a shortened critique of pure reason -
a) based on phenomena
(things most likely talked about)
and
b) based of noumenna
(things least likely talked about)....
i.e. a) and the ego implant,
and b) the god implant -
likewise the zealots on either side,
bleep bleep beep r r e r s.... and muslims...
i forgot to mention that Kant forgot
to mention the trigonometric foundations
as justifying owning a villa or whatnot,
the same foundations of having
the implant ego secured and willed
are the same parameters of the
implant god secured and thought
the point being dynamic parallelism,
mid-way between cosine and sine
rigid fluctuation tangents occur,
the ridiculous abbreviations, the p.s., and ibis.;
you're basically born with ego
or you're born with god -
there's no woof woof Pavlov chime chime in between -
ring-a-ding-ding-surprise?
there's no side-winding to create cinema -
being born with ego is explained clearly, coerced
with monetary affairs;
being born with god is explained "clearly", coerced
with murderers, lastly -
no psychological theory will box-me-in
given the lost tribalism and the usage of
the trans-valuation of the synonym of thing -
with money came slang - and all thorough evils,
with slang, synonyms, antonyms, critique of vocab.,
Arizona in the ******* Amazon -
i'm basically saying what Kant said:
god isn't uncool or whatever atheism tends to forget,
it's an implant of functioning, we can't rid it
by argument, and we certainly can't accept it
by prayer - unless we're dumb enough to do either
for worth of understanding tornadoes;
because that's were Seymour Hoffman started for me,
filming Twister.
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 24, 2016 at 7:29 PM UTC
Trace the scars at her back.
You'll find a constellation.
Trace her tears when it streaks down her cheeks.
You'll find a lonely river.
Trace her hair strands.
You'll find an aromatic flowerbed.
Trace her fingertips.
You'll find hurricanes and tornadoes.
Trace her soul.
You'll find yourself.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 8:20 PM UTC
Turn the tables
tumble through tears
totalitarian thespians trying tired themes
Tanned tenants thrive
trespassing turtles turn towards tornadoes
Tested trees tower tall
tomorrow terrifies Timetraveller Tom.
Again and again
I have to make my choice
between your fiery face and the endless maze
But then I remember
my heart is made up of
a thousand tiny
Belgian Waffles
A thousand tiny Belgian Waffles.
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 11:06 AM UTC
There is a god for every thing
There is a god for every thought
There is a god for every spring
There is a god for every drought
I walk amidst their creeping shadows
Swim in the deeps, crawl in the shallows
There is a boat for every sea
And there's a buoy for drowning men
But there ain’t
One god.
There is a crown on every being
There is a staff in every hand
It doesn’t matter what you have seen
It only matters now where you stand
I walk amidst their flickering shadows
Bask in the breeze, dance in tornadoes
There are birds for every wind
And there are wings for broken men
But there ain't
One god.
Mar 21, 2022
Mar 21, 2022 at 9:44 PM UTC
blueberries gasoline and prostate gland
breast cancer Wonderbread and pacifier
controlled experiment space travel and honey
peanuts inductive reasoning and electricity
tornadoes torture chamber and biscuits
copyright car radio cantaloupe
golden eagle lunch break tomato
Romanian songbook rhubarb and barbed wire
always hungry nevermind meat loaf
goosefoot mango juice Ipad
mosquito bite city street and broccoli
Chinese cabbage female *** drive water sport
pure contralto goat yogurt new year
black death white light and green tea
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC
that has taken the mantle,
the muse of inspiration,
for she -
(did you think she was a man-god?)
dyes me oft, colors me, ***** me,
loves me with intensity hot
that near to make my heart stop.
poems I did not know,
knew not their name,
would write,
but moments ago,
now are
chicks in the hatchery hatching,
cupcakes in the oven rising,
spit in the mouth ***********
so fast a-coming,
the sustained pleasure
the best drug I have designed.
seconds ago there were none,
a lifetime of moments,
now, multitudinous,
molecules of
oxygenated words
flying past my eyes,
purposed for inhalation
through my skin.
all week I have stretched and pecked,
shreds of lettuce un satisfied,
a title, no poem,
a stanza, no poem,
like I need a woman,
need to write,
like I need loving,
desperate and raging,
need to write.
even my alter ego,
the hidden me,
where I write on the other side
of edgy, indie, across border lines,
in a name you do not know,
nothing.
started poems about
being enlightened,
my eldest sin,
my eldest son,
hitting a kid with a car,
reading writing and 'rithmetic,
inch plants,
****
about the young poets here,
fast track to nowhere.
but at 2:22 am awoke,
my small engine repaired,
the fingers humming flying across the keyboard
so fast broke the 3:50 minute mile,
dear muse,
I hate you with all my love.
would it be so terrible if you gave me
one complete per day,
is that too much to ask?
now I am choking gasping on
****** adrenalin cup overflowing,
now they come like *******
only a women can have,
so many more than one,
long short fast furious
separate but connected.
you make me woman,
just like you.
one day when get up high where you reside,
gonna start a recall petition, and if that don't work,
a revolution, to kick out the cruelty y'all dish out,
the tornadoes and typhoons,
return the missing to their parents,
and give inspiration, hope
to every human poet upon this
living planet.
now I comprehend why
Shakespeare's theater was called
The Globe.
Nov 23, 2013
Nov 23, 2013 at 5:58 AM UTC
OHIO MY HOME
Ohio my childhood home
a simpler life
an innocent time
a place where corn fields go on for miles and miles
the fields wave and sway beckoning you
to make secret forts in their midst
the original corn maze
in there we eat cow corn
never thinking to ask
was it fresh or clean?
it was organic at its best
playing in the water down at the “crick”
no such worries of a chemical spill
no one got sick
no parents around
nobody drowned
tornadoes come by
what a scary thrill
mother nature at her worst
toppling trees each way
providing us a strange place to play
in between the branches
we made our mansions
safe maybe not...
but we played anyway
far from the city lights
we spend our nights
watching natural sights
fireflies glowing looking for love
the tree frogs are singing out for a mate
mother raccoons bring their young from the nest
skunks delight us with their odorous best
in an eerie alien fog
ufo’s hovering over the
tall trees in the front yard
all under the moons sight
as i close my eyes i can see
Ohio my memory home
Mar 19, 2018
Mar 19, 2018 at 4:26 PM UTC