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Oct 2021 · 201
Scorched Earth Subversive
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
A dissident,
Intricate lyricist
Implements
Policy
Volubly
Imposing prose,
And inciting
In writing
Takeovers
In droves,
Turns the drones
Into dawning red rovers
And clones
Who fawn over
The radical zeal
When she feels
Like berating
Opponents'
Ill logos appeal
To pure reason
In teaching it
Languages learn
To articulate grievance
In slashing
And burn
Oct 2021 · 144
The Endmonger
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Weariness
Has tempered me
But no mouthpieces
Censor me
Indenture me to servitude
Is only of my swinging
Mood
Exude I love you
Tacitly
And shatter hearts
As passively
Aggressive lets
Me fester in
My own regrets
Oblivion begets distress
My rest in peace
Of mindful quest
Should I arrive
Before contrived
Conveys finality
Described
Oct 2021 · 136
Rental Agreements
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Disappointment
Disaffection
Petty
Passive
Non-aggression
Penniless
Go hide your shame
Sequester worthless ****
You claim
Is yours
Is mine
Is borderline
Insane,
Another childish game
Except this time
It’s life we play
And now your place,
Is dead...
Last
Withdraw into
Your sugar crash
Your hash-induced
A’straying path
Will only lead to glass
Enclosures  
Shattering in full disclosures
We were closer
Long before
Our bedrooms weren’t right next door
Oct 2021 · 148
The Foot Soldier
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Still answer commanders
With unrefined candor
Like demagogues unto
The masses
I pander
Outlander
I’m not from around here
You see
I’m just peregrinations
And sol...iloquy
Oct 2021 · 210
Alienation
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Weary traveler
Tempered by
So many countless
Faces die
No more to roam
In search
The earth
Has ever been
My home
Since birth
But lately
It seems all too distant
Of some end times
Reminiscent
Nothing new begins
Nor blooms
The ardent activist
Entombed
Exhumed
In years to come
A relic
Of his trips
Through psychedelic
Delving into
Coalescence
With machine's
Planned obsolescence
My transcendence
Just pathetic
Condemnations
To hermetic
Oct 2021 · 76
Net Losses
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
My compendium penned
With impending doom sentiment
Write as I speak
Just a whole lot more
Eloquent
Never meant much to me
Life as a whole
Because even in death
There’s unrest in my soul
For the bold are the favored
By fortune’s extortion
Eventually profit
Blows out of proportion
The what you can gain
From the you that remains
Before adding it all up
To zero sum games
Oct 2021 · 160
Micro-Progressions
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Attempts at reforming
Don't stop global warming
Your valiant best efforts
Impress no one less
Than another dead kid or more
Under arrest,
Can't rebuild it back better
Endeavor to change
What won't work
About status quos
Stuck in their ways
And updates
To the program's
Internal software
Are no cure for the virus'
Lack of prepared
So compare all your prices
The shipping lane's closed
And submit to mandated,
Free-traded,
Imposed
Oct 2021 · 74
The (Dis)associated Press
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
What in the world’s
Going on out there
Barely
Prepared anymore
For the others
Are wary
So scared that I might
Say a word or two
On
The Koran,
Or Iran,
Or the Fall of Saigon
In its latest rendition
Of terror campaign
Like domestic disquieted
Capitol gain
The non-violence’s silent
Night shades of methane
Grown at home
And exporting
Its virulent strain
Of nefarious variants
Kids of all ages
In cages,
Their truth is
What say
Facebook pages
Oct 2021 · 393
Dot Dot Dot
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
I summon the depths
With Titanic defiance
Usurping the summit’s
Olympian tyrants
But still find their kind
An enchanting intrigue
When the real love affairs
Of this world
Have aggrieved
And deceived me more often
Than yielded the truth
Bittersweet
As I reach
For the Tantalus fruit
Still eluding me
Not before
Offering glimpses
Of nymphs seal my fate
To a constant ellipsis
Oct 2021 · 124
How Could you Know me?
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Must be something
About me
Appealing
Revealing
As much as I can
Only yields
More concealing
I’ve got it together
Make money,
Enough
And I’m not the worst looking guy
Life is just rough
If you catch a few peeking
Intuit their thoughts,
Even one in a million
Crack smiles I’ve caught
But as soon as it hits me
I’ve already passed,
And it’s back alone
Back to
What’s under the mask
Oct 2021 · 113
T.G.I.F.
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Rendered expendable
Merits commendable
Just not the right
Fit for you
At this time
Heard it once before
Now
I can’t leave it behind
Wasn’t good enough
Failed
To meet standards  
Unfair
And availed no comparison
Income upscaled
But I’m making more now
Doing less than I’d hoped
I’m the office space coffin’s
New friendliest ghost
Oct 2021 · 76
Assistant to the...
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
No trouble fitting in
My skin
When no ones here
To day-begin
Alone within
The office dimly
Lit, the rain
Outside
Foreboding grimly
For my future
At this desk,
No directive
Yet expressed
Transparently
To feel secure
I’m vital to this job
Ensure
I’m here awhile
Not just temp
Though not quite sure
It’s permanent...
Oct 2021 · 122
The Media Circus
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Now check the black code
Secret message
Embedded
Explicit content
Even Disney regretted
But only express it
When woke
Is the token
The singalong signaling
Virtue
Invoking
Nostalgic
Desensitized
Feasts for the eyes
The objectified princess
Is one of the guys
So best get with the program
Before the pogrom
Seeks to cleanse
The agenda
And cancel the prom
And instead impose masks
Of the master class act
Still determining
What the truth is
That’s a fact
Oct 2021 · 74
The Bouncer
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
What reassurances
Can you provide
That I’ll have a good time
If I let you inside
We have standards here
Prove yourself
Worthy of entry
I’ll gladly embrace you
And lay down the sentry
With room for more friends
I can always find space
Just don’t waste my time
Pacing your mouth
In my face
Oct 2021 · 369
Amanuensis
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
How does he keep
Finding pieces to write
They can pay him
A pittance
And still he’d recite
What he’d rather leave buried
Prefer go unheard
Introversions
Keep turning
The unwritten word
To the vanishing
Verbal
No longer
Preserved
In internal
Immortalized
Me
Exclusivities
Shared only when
I’m in moody
Declivities
Or if so prompted
To humor requests
Or else leave me
The blanks
And I’ll fill in the rest
Oct 2021 · 224
Nothing’s Wrong
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Level of lonely
No cause
For alarm
I’ve been long a familiar
Of **** myself
Harm
By exhaustion
Most often
Eventually sleep
Buries it in a dream
To remain in safe keep
Of what difference
Do subconscious
Conjurings make
To these mental health
Human conditions
We fake
Oct 2021 · 541
Comes with the Times
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Not getting younger
Just aging
Engaging
Increasingly less
With a rapidly changing
World climate
This virus
Has taken its toll
I can see the night sky
Through the atmosphere hole
Oct 2021 · 89
The Social Chameleon
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Dreadfully sorry
You must be mistaken
I wanted no part
In these games you partake in
But still play along
And assume any role
With a character flaw
Even critics extol
To behold a performance
Befitting of class
Acting fake
Then you make it
Identity’s mask
But my eyes independently
Scan and discern
And my tongue lashes out
When I hunger to learn
Why the rest
Of the pesky insects
Drone away
Just to miss my shade change
All too late
And fall prey
Oct 2021 · 96
Sinecures
Michael Marchese Oct 2021
Where to turn
Now
For the piece missing placed
Office spaces
Remotely
Mismanage my case
Could provide sanctuary
Community
Interface
But she’s a coworker still
Nothing more
So I sit at my desk,
Over documents pour
Can’t get closer
Attached
Like a sticky note
Wrote
As a final reminder
To end at the rope
Sep 2021 · 79
Office Intrigue
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Ahead of myself
Guess she gets
What I’m thinking
Can’t stare at her too long
Without even blinking
Not veering
Nor shying away
From her gaze
Wondering
If she sees me
In all the same ways
But it could be
She happened to speak to me
Kindly
That makes me so hopeless
Romantically
Blinded
Sep 2021 · 214
Unfair
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Finally laying to rest
For the evening
Another long day
Couldn’t find
Any meaning
To life
Just epiphanies
Not so bright light
Revelations
Absurdity ascertained
Death and taxations
Sep 2021 · 99
Crossword Puzzles
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Declines in additional
Income
A ******
But calling this work
Is like he’s in the summer
Just feels like reflections
Of compromised quality
Quantity mirrors
To me
The frivolity
Of expectations,
Complaints,
And constraints
On the time it takes
Me
To fill in
All the blanks
Sep 2021 · 187
Fallen Love (part 4)
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
At least I can think about her
All the time
Predecessors
In retrospect
Still on my mind
All the same
Never changes,
Arrives uninvited
The failed
Ever fallen love
Still unrequited
Sep 2021 · 67
Denied Entry
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Don’t ask for much
But respect
Just address
Me as such
You’re in my house
Arrest
And still dwell in a glass
Domicile
Of shame,
Insecurity,
Foolishness
Shattering frame
When I know you can’t look at me
Square in the eye
I see through your intentions,
Your presence
Belies
Here unwelcome among
The long love bereft
Numb
And you only make foes of me
Thinking me dumb
Sep 2021 · 133
Wi-Fi Cancellation
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Just take it
Disgraceful
Exploitative snakes
Your duplicitous
Subterfuge
Scam aggravates
Me to no end
Dependent
On what you provide
Just another class luxury
Robbing me blind
Been deprived
A lot worse
And still found a connection
To internet speeds
Expediting depression
And I will secure its
Expanses of bandwidths
As if overlords
Of the data plan
Planned it
Sep 2021 · 177
The Drifting
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Friends moving on
They don’t want me around
They’d prefer not to live
With who won’t make a sound
Barely speak
But to mention
Behaviors we’d tweak
For the other
Old friend
We know so well already
Don’t want to end up
As unsteady as Freddy
For far, few between
The right words
Aren’t lost
And now seldom moreover
Our paths even cross
Anymore
Separate ways
We are going in
Hasn’t been,
Merely a phase
Sep 2021 · 303
Overworked and Underpaid
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Lacking that quality
Quantity
Haunting me
Won’t let me sleep
It just instigates
Tauntingly
Forcing me back
To the drawing board
Bland
Staring blankly ahead
With a pen in my hand
It just has to be moved,
Be expressed,
Be expelled
All attempts at rebellion
Are ruthlessly quelled
For I've spelled it out
Countless times,
Infinite ways
It still beckons me back
To the halcyon days
Or the tragic,
Traumatic
Past, revisitation
What’s one more
To add to
Its zero summation
Sep 2021 · 123
Adult Problems
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Not one thing
Another
Will make itself known,
Instigate
Aggravate me
Unstable my home
It’s the can’t find a job
Or the wifi won’t work
Undesirable traits
Of my roommates
That irk
And the dread of course
Lurking
Implacable
Discontent
In perpetuity
Renders me impotent
Broken, don’t fix it
I can’t even implement
Simple solutions
To ongoing quandaries
Life cycle spun out
To dry
***** laundry
Sep 2021 · 83
Description’s Limits
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Could use fewer words
To appeal to the senses
The ethos, the logos,
The pathos
Pretenses
By mentioning less
What it seems to suggest,
How you’re meant to interpret
These feelings expressed
Sep 2021 · 115
Giving up the Globalist
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Change it
Save it
Claim it
You name it
I’ve been there
I’ve done it
And still can’t retain it
For after all
Valiant
Effort exhausted
The impact you made
Is outweighed
By its losses
No capital gains
Can account
For corruption
The gradual,
Casual,
Natural destruction
As more digitized
Status symbol
Numerics
Become the mind-numbing
Drone bumblebee
Clerics
Sep 2021 · 76
The Debt Collector
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Disconnected
Let it set in
Icy silence
And disdain
But you’re forgetting
Who keeps roofs atop
Your drowning in the rain
Go on believing
Shelter simply is
A promise you can break
And with your sideshow
Succubi, belie
The happiness you fake
I’m done pretending,
Over chasing,
Finished clinging
To delusion
Just return to me what’s owed
Before it’s more than games you’re losing

This is Life
Need I remind you
Yet again to flick the switch
And kick the wicked witch’s
Fix, not an addiction
Just a *****
You can’t resist
So go on wishy-washing,
Claiming its depression
Let them crocodile tears
Keep shedding
Serpentine confession

It’s your precious time,
Not mine
And it’s your poor
Productive mind
To waste
On Disney’s ***** dream
Your full potential
All amounts to
Getting on your knees to clean
All but your act,
Because you lack
The courage
To confront the fact
There is no god of yours
Except when I
Demand you pay it back
Sep 2021 · 120
The Devotee
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
In spartan conditions
Inured to privation
In bountiful plenty
I opt for starvation
Been waiting on angels
To cradle my grave
Like a craven
Still craving
A lover to save
Me from clutches of loss
And the jaws of defeat
From the dissatisfaction
Pursuing elite
Living standards
Can’t stand
To compare
My despair
With their lucrative lassitude
Classist career
If I wanted it genuine
I’d disappear
Yet again
Go pretend,
That I can
Belong here
There was no place for me
Since I crawled from the ooze
And confused
Evolution
With gods it alludes to
Sep 2021 · 89
Equus
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Good to feel good again
Spoken word stimulant
Working with like-minded
Active participants
Perks of the job include
Shorter commute,
Better pay
And I may
Even really be liked
Be appreciated
For the works that I write
That I type
That I scribe
To assist
With the ongoing struggle
To end homelessness
Sep 2021 · 68
The Traveling Psychosis
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
On I’ve gone
Sifting through
Shuffled few songs  
Still embedding myself
Where I do not belong
As if I were expecting
The same to bring change
Others finding me strange
Former lovers estranged
And my brain
Not so painful
To use anymore
I just can’t seem to stop
Seeking peace
Where there’s war
Sep 2021 · 70
Hanging in There
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Thus ends my journey
Some evil dies young
When exhausted all words
To convey how I’ve hung
From a rope of indifference
To life
For too long
Barely kicking,
Just dangling,
Suspended in song
Elegiac, I wish
Just constricting
My throat
Squirming vertically,
Gurgling,
In anguish I choke
On another addition
To suicide note
That I wrote
Multitudinous ways
To escape
But my finest
Is yet to come
Just sit and wait
Sep 2021 · 165
Pauper’s Romance
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
My morbid elegy
Drenched in sincerity
Steal me away
In the night
And pretend with me
Play one more
Round this world game
Revolution
Return to me
Having applied
The solution
To share what you found
But not bound to me
Lover
Possessed by you solely
In yet to discover
What aspects
And facets
You still keep concealed
What bemusing
Infusions of us
Would reveal
If it works
If it sees itself
Having in common
More than a just cause
And a living off ramen
Sep 2021 · 75
Mass Appeal
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
I’m easy to talk to
Or so
They might say
If I spoke
As I wrote
My awoken cliché
List of grievances
Seething with
Fury inveighed
A melodious
Medley
Relentless tirade
But the vehemence
Meaningless
Cannot prevail
Without targeting
Enemies
Too big to fail
So continue to rouse
Rabble ruffians
Huffing
And puffing,
And stuffing,
Their pockets with nothing
But broken home
Hopeless
Promissory notes
And peremptory
Purchasing powerless
Votes
I prefer the immersion
In mobs of unruly
And still punish pigs
With unusual cruelty
Sep 2021 · 87
Coyote Boy
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Defaulting to scarcity
Desert conditions
Inured to abject
Desperation
Submissions
In sheer deprivation
I take
What I get,
What I find,
What is offered,
Except
My position within
Hierarchical food chains
Of daily grow thin
Until sources of plenty
From paucity catch
The enhanced sense of smell
And await me to ******
In my jaws
Taking back
The predation skill
Killer instinctive
I lack
Sep 2021 · 114
Lordly
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Might of the billions
Igniting the legacy
Flooding your homes
And disowning hegemony
Sleeping
And feasting
Completing the sequence
In all the enrapture
Contraptions
I frequent
Complete with
An arsenal,
Cache of collectives
And weapons of unwieldy
Leftists eclectic
Directives from bottom up
Terraform sound
I will echo through chambers
Eternity-bound
Like a movie star shadow’s
Imploding career
Like the wife and two kid’s guy’s
Addiction to beer
I appear to the proud,
The complacent,
The waste
When disposing of class
They assume that its race
That I run around here
Like some placeholder king
I am but
The sheers severing
Puppets from strings
Sep 2021 · 105
Shades of ‘84
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Everyone just wants to fight,
Even now the poodles bite
Tread lightly
Choose your words
With care
The thought police
Are everywhere
When even hair
Can spark debate
More pressing issues
Have to wait
Until the confirmation
Bias
Echo chambering
The virus
Reaffirms
The anti-vaxing
Mask
To wear
Is not so taxing
Casting news
For your amuse
Hot-buttons pushed
To light the fuse
Of you
And your
Subjective truth
6 second talking point
Is moot
And muted by
Refuse to listen
Fact itself
A work of fiction
Sep 2021 · 133
The Inoculated
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Individualist
How you struggle
To coexist
Think yourself
Central
Essential to function
On doses of daily
Devoid of compunction
For lives you have taken,
Time wasted
Encased
In a prism
Reflection
Of cannot relate
To the late
Combined effort,
Collective potential,
Conceptual framework
Of change incremental
Can’t wait for too long
For the others to care
So you tower away
As you let down you hair
But beware
In the dark
We still muse
Of amassing
Within echo chambers
Of poison gas
Masking
Just go get vaccinated already
Sep 2021 · 129
The Complete Revolution
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
Plague pervades
In your trans mission  
Whole world burns
In my ignition
****** crows
Have unbecoming
Portents of
A malice mumbling
Numbing
Death is sweeter whence
The senses drenched
In effulgence
Where victory still stains my blade
In history’s
Enslavement trade
And bade the vanquished
Anecdotal
Frozen shadows
Of Chernobyl
Therein lies
Perfection’s ruin
Too much idealizing
Human
Idolizing idle tyrants
Prone to thrones
Imposing violence
Silent in the face
Of doom
I am the sickle’s sonic boom
This is my voice of treason’s
Tomb
Sep 2021 · 108
Laurentian Abyss
Michael Marchese Sep 2021
That further from her
Feeling grows everyday
At the edge of the land
Masses sinking away
We would watch the tides rise
And envelop horizons
Advise them to see it
On more psilocybins
Imbibe culture rich
Criticizing its glitch
And combine our diversities
Into this niche
We would thrive for all time
Within withering woe
Oh I guess only me
Wanted that deep to go
Aug 2021 · 83
Runaway Groom
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
Assume I was
Already gone
Or more clearly
Appeared to you
Never again
As I nearly
Perfected the image
Envisioned
Sincerely
But seldom signed off
As beloved
As dearly
Aug 2021 · 88
Roommate Issues
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
Blame it all
On me,
As if I intended
To selfishly make
Only my problems ended
With what minor setback
Comes daily, but free
Hidden fees set aside
To preserve harmony
But it’s never quite good enough,
Laugh in my face
When I seek a solution
You try to debase
The shared space
I facilitate,
Foster,
Preserve
The respect you don’t show me
But I still deserve
Aug 2021 · 61
Tireless
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
Upticks in attention,
Transmission statistics
Explicit suggestions
Of ****** wish lists
Been busy today
Grinding green is go
Slow
Don’t weigh down
On the pedal
To metal
Oh no
Now the crash
Overworked
Underfed
I dream more
When awake
Than I do in my bed
Aug 2021 · 126
Career Advancement
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
Occupy my time
With the grind
Don’t want it for the fortune
Nor the fame
I would decline
No notoriety
Accompanies
Such thankless
Entry level
New positions for myself
Within the status updates
Revel
See for me
It all comes down to
What corroborates my class
That education
Means you make it
Means you fake it
Till it lasts
Aug 2021 · 168
The Evacuee
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
Still running away
Like a fugitive slave
From your capital paradise
Digging my grave
Be it edible poison
Or poisonous drink
Be it 9 to 5 nightmares
Still pushed to the brink
We all synchronize
Sheepishly
Safe and secure
Entertained
And brain-drained
In another lost war
Aug 2021 · 117
Still Nothing
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
But what does it matter
Just climbing the ladder
And taking the chutes
Down in cyclical
Rhythm
Reliving reboots
Just as lacking in luster
As any film screen
Just attempting to find
The right priced
Magic bean
But get swindled and conned
By my own
Inner monologue
Clogging up space
With my brain in a vat
And my memory erased
Just in case
She appears in its
Crash and burn wake
And then any fresh start
Is another heartbreak
Aug 2021 · 84
Sincerely
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
In candor I come to you
Totally honest
Philandering days
Are behind me
I promise
Can finally be
The real me
That you wanted
And face up to all of my demons
Undaunted
For long have you haunted me
Don’t go away
And the spectral lament
Is what I didn’t say
Or compose to you
Wholly
In signature cipher
Another farewell
That you couldn’t decipher
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