How can one express their heart
when words are not enough,
how can I even dream to start
when my tongue finds it so tough.

Let me try...


You are the graffitti
tagging
me as yours
you are the scent
of stale beer
in late night smokey bars
you are the
pain of paper cut
where lemon juice seeped in
and the bitter
taste of sugar
replaced by sacherin
you are the days
felt wasted
and night times thrown away
and the silence
found in laughter
just to keep the tears at bay
you are my anger
my sorrow
and my pain
and given
my time over
we would do it all again.


These are not insults
these are the depths of my heart.

Even I, with scales on my eyes and large, heavy headphones pressed tightly against my ears, can see that this three week conversation has died out, although I have made every attempt to keep it burning.
Even I, with my nose bleeding, and my heart bleeding, and my soul dripping some strange, red liquid, know that this has run its course, which, coincidentally, was directly into an iceberg which I never saw. An iceburg that only exists in your eyes, yet this ship sailed, serene, into it, with no word of warning from your lips.
Even I, with guts spilled out, in the street, in front of your house, spelling your name, must aknowledge the fleeting nature of the situation. I guess.
Even I, with next to no knowledge of myself, know that I am lying.
But they are lies that I must eat with the eagerness of starving foxes - for that is what I am now. I am made of lies and paw-prints in the vacant lot, near the abandoned sugar factory, that place I still believe is haunted, to this day. Maybe it houses my ghosts.
But after my dinner of hollow lies, I am left famished still, even though I choked down one too many, coughing, and gasping for air, as if I were drowning in my own falsities. After my unsatisfying meal, I only want one dessert: A cigarette and an answer. But only one is possible, and I have already made my choice. The pull of Nicotine is much stronger than that of closure. So I don't really need it.
I am a blind man, who has wandered onto the train tracks, far outside of town, where the iron horses can really run. In the city (or something that may only resembe a city,) they prance. On display. "Look at my tall, graffitti-stained walls. See my beautiful face of cow-catcher grin and headlamp, cyclops eye."
I made my picnic on the tracks, thinking they were a bench. I guess that was a bad idea. And my reanimated corpse agrees, as it trusts that another train is still far away and stumbles about, picking up lost pieces.
I should build a house here. I really don't mind rebuilding, and the trainwrecks ain't so bad...
All in retrospect, friend.

my soul was black hanging on a graffitti fence
down by the corner street
where crack and needles punctuated the alleyway
with no hope.

brother hid from brother
and sisters wore mini mini mini skirts
to draw the danger from the honking cars
into the pool of light cast by the one surviving
bulb
on a lamp post of desolation

he had slick hair and sharp notches
on his belt, danging chains
that reminded him of time inside
the dungeons where he gained
his qualifications in years behind
the bars of justice.

Out on the street, it was mayhem
a blue car siren-ed off into the distance
careened across the road
and vanished into upper class society
where they ate pink cakes and sipped herbal teas

as morning cleaned the streets of darkness
the sunshine grew the window sill
stacked with marijuana.

It was just another day to be alive.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 11 days ago

5 am driving through the hood fearlessly
Because sitting in my passenger is a huge black man up to no good
Newports in my hair
Graffitti around these parts looks better
Than Wynwood
As the sun rises
Hitting all the homeless in the face
Sleeping on the sidewalks
I see a man stretching his arms,
As he unravels his cuccoon
Ready to fly through another day
Newport man points at a woman walking past,
Her grey baggy pants sloping
Her legs crisscrossing like shes cutting something up as she walks
But really she's just on crack
He told me that he knew her when she was fat
She looks towards a man down the road
And waves a flirty hand
He follows her home
Earlier in the night i see a skinny white girl
Walking around the club
I thought she was brave
For being down here alone
A couple of hours later i see her again
Waving an SUV down
They drove past and i saw her face crumple
The way gravel does
The car stops at a light
on the way towards her money
Newport man flags her down
She begs for a cigarette
But all she got was distraction
"Where are you from?"
Boston.
Her sweatshirt said so
I have a customer waiting for me,
I have to go
Newport man asks "what are you selling?"
She turns away and goes.
Another crackhead rolls up next to
The club parking
With a bike he stole from south beach
I know this because Newport man knows
Shirtless underneath a neon flimsy vest
That he stole from a valet stand
Smiling through gums at the drunk *****
Rolling past
Attempting to pretend
That he is the parking pass
Anything for some spare change
Anything for crack
And last but not least but not first is me
I just wanted some ****
Newport man said if i gave him a lap
Dance he would buy me some green
Instead the ***** gets skimped for a ten piece
When he paid twenty
And because my lap dance
Didnt have enough grinding
He didnt give it to me
And this is the general tone
Of Overtown.....
Addictions arent selective
by race, religion, creed.
All those people i met are just like me.

Take me back to this beautiful place. Where no one knows my name and the mist settles on the graffitti ridden buildings so softly. Where anxiety is unknown and all i can do is dance to rejoice the new morning. Take me back to the place that only got lovelier as the sun set. Where the lights of the city twinkle from a distance and the street lights smile down at young souls illiminating fear of the night. Take me back to this place i love.

called to scour these transient shores
i am slammed against graffitti'd walls
by winds of hate
and waves of steel
in silent vigil
i caress the promise time has made
the place that fate holds for me
i can see
i can touch
i will find
at the end of this storm

Death teased me once
as the Grim Reaper tickeled my arm pit
felt the Pit of Hell pour out my wrists.
Blood looks beautiful splattered on white
like a graffitti painted by a hoodlem in the dead of night
My eyes rolled backwards in my head
My skin went cold as the bathroom tiles
devil cracked its cunning smile
but short lived
towels wrap around wrists
carried out the house
to a ambulance
where my run in was turned to a sickness
depression
medication
a new living hell

my insomnia has gifted me unexpectedly
on this pre dawn morning.
i share the beach
with a single sand plover and a large work crew of sandbubbler *****
as they work their spherical graffitti magic.

i expect if i thought long enough,
my mind may make the practical connection, between the darting and bobbing of the stiff stilt,
red, legged bird
and the hyperalert scurryings of soft shelled, orb infatuated, crustaceans.

but, i prefer to play peekaboo witb the sun,
as it peeks it's sleepy rotound rim over the rippling bedsheets of the ocean's horizon.
eyes blinking, crafting opulent dusky lavenders and apricot oranges,
that meander lazily across, the brightening skybed.

i am alone on the beach until,
the next soul comes
this is my kingdom.
i stand firm and
breathe the tang of salted lands.

there is a deep silence
in my soul,
which i take to be completeness.
with neoteric expectancy and unchained exuberance,
i turn and run along
the firm sand's, edge of the high tideline leaving fading, ephemeral footprints
behind me,
scattering the little crabworkers every
which way.
i run in rhythm with the crashing waves
and we eat up the sand
until i am spent.

i sit and watch as the riders of the wave arrive.
their lithe young frames silhouetted by sunlight,
they stand at ten feet tall.
i wave and hand my kingdom over to the knights on fibreglass coursiers.
they mount their steeds
and begin the morning's tidal hunt,
for the perfect wave

I watched more
planes criss cross
the sky today.

Planes without
destinations ,passengers
or reasons why.

Planes that leave behind
thick lines across our skies
like a destructive hand
with graffitti.

There's no more floating
dogs or drifting ,parting
dancing girls.
No more summer flowers
or slowly gliding flying
cars.

The clouds above
the city don't
form the different shapes
like they used to do.

Starting again, staring at a blank page
Was this going to be a ramble, about a gamble?
Nah nah… it was just me, trouble
Cmon, start even if it's just a preamble

Words they are just that. Words
Can never capture the real world
Actions and guilt, sorrow and spilt milk
There you go, now you have an ensemble

Its season 3 with a similar plot
The casts different but protagonists not
Promising beginnings and shattered trust
Ah this is familiar, you are back in the temple

you're a Brooklyn Twig
running smooth through the street, like the raw water flowing into the sewer

your hair catches the flowers, the birds and the branches in the wind, in the blood orange of 5:15

your eyes explode across your view, all the wonder and waste that red, green, and yellow lights dictate

your shoes tap against graffitti & gum-covered rock, scraping a metropolitan harmony

your thin winged lips trace the black cold air, metallic lights  & ambivalent breezes that caress brick and granite

you've been planted in the garden, acclaimed as the favorite of the season,  and your branches and roots carry a sweet song into the eyes of the boy on the wall.

Maybe, one day, he'll step into the world for you.

god made beauty sing
when he painted myriad
designs on butterfly wings

delicate and so sublime
they float on by
graffitti artists of the sky

Father Mapple in the pulpit
Mortal or immortal

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Wardrobe is a portal

Aslan is a Turkish word
Ishmael shows Tahiti

Today I had 3 tacos
Tomorrow I'll have baked ziti

Richard Dreyfus in Stand By Me
And American Graffitti

He too is bipolar
(Better eat your Wheaties!) 😄

Graffitti found on the house where Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment:

Rodya, don't do it!