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Jul 2023 · 176
The Scribbler
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
More passer
Than dribbler
The scritch and scratch
Scribbler
My flow is a river
In come what May
Winters
I swim in the shiver
And even in bloom
All my numinous
Withers
My luminous
Gloom
Still obscured
To the witness
My freakiest nature
Survivalist
Fitness
A wishlist
Of ashes
Compassion
Impulse
And with tact
My collapsing
Synapses
Convulse
Jul 2023 · 129
Rapt in Melancholy
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
Anchored
Drag me
Solace as ever
Serenity weeping
Cantankerous
Sadly
My life away sleeping
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
Can’t give up
Reaching for
Seeking
A meeting
Convening with clarity
All the more fleeting
The seating is limited
Lighting gets dim
And obscuring its absence
Oblivion grim
Underpinned
By the fins
Circling as I swim
Overtones
Of imploding
Corrosive
Head spins
Barely scratching the surface
Of where to begin
When I’m out on a limb
Saying
Find what is lost
But before you sell souls
Please consider the cost
Jul 2023 · 242
Anger Boy
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
Anger boy sees all of you
He feels what you are going through
He wonders why there’s such distress
It vexes him, they can’t express
The same unbridled rage
In pain
Just quell,
Dispel,
Suppress,
Contain
What still inclines you naturally
Object
To counter-
Factually
Bemused of ruin’s
Rhapsody
Tumultuous,
Tempestuous
Aggressiveness
Passivity
But anger boy still wears it on his sleeve
For all to see
He differentiates the hatred
From the seething enmity
He contemplates the hidden faces,
Safer space’s
Veering gaze
But looks away unfettered,
To a better
World ablaze
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
This is not your home
More a land of enchantment
We dream for the high-rising
Homeless encampment
We pray for salvation
Pay for
Subjugation
And waive our proud colors
For brand names
Emblazoned
And raised in
This race-based
Freemason’s e-state
Is to learn
Lady Liberty’s
Lecherous villainy
Some more illusory
Profits
Grand wizardry
Class-driven
Rifts
Of consumerist misery
So be forewarned
Welcomed all as you are
This is not opportunity
Knocking that hard
It’s just no-knocking
Crack rock
The vote
By design
It’s injustice for all’s
Justice
Taking the bribe
This is men left behind
ALL THE TIME,
ANYTIME
For a nickel
And dime
Violent crime
Rates are high
But the views
Are sublime
So remember in venturing
Here
On vacation
Be it
Permanent
Or a special occasion
Again, I implore you
Be sure that these shores
Are a lot more
Than more than enough
Food in store
Jul 2023 · 219
The Daily News
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
Bury
The verity
Flowers on graves
Are like coffins
Of cargo
Containers of slaves
And the heroes
Have vacated
Privatized shores
And the product
Keeps pushing down
No-knocking doors
And the wars
Are a whirlwind
Of feeds
On repeat
Leading us to believe
That the truth is a tweet
Jul 2023 · 124
Detachable
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
Sacrificed her
As was yet
Undeserving
To be of the
Beloved
To be one with the
Beloved
To be suns above
Beloved
Came undone
For my
Beloved
Never wandered roads
More rugged
Jagged, sloping,
Craggy
Climbs,
In winding
Hindsight
Going blind
Beseeching
Seeking
Modes of teaching
Scattered pieces
Peace of mind
Jul 2023 · 144
Staying Here
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
And still in the shadows
Your shallows
Astound
Knew this wasn’t a movie
Keep moving
Unbound
But see through me
Exclude me
From fond recollections
From funds I’ve collected
The sum of my most
Disrespectful
Transgressions
Contrition incarnate
Discards me like waste
To a thoughtful exile
In dissonant space
Having learned
And unlearned
And relearned again
Better
It’s better
Having loved
Than been drugged
By forever
Been judged by the netherworld
Deemed to be temporal,
Rejected,
Resent
To lament my mistakes
And wake up to her
Once again
Beautiful face
Jul 2023 · 152
Civilian Casualty
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
King of the jungle gym
Under the rubble dim
Light of survival
Is vanishing
Fast
Felt so tall
Just a moment ago
Harkened back
To a time before memory
Anchored longevity
Fleeting few moments
Reflection embraced
Still lamenting components
I couldn’t erase
No escape
From the weight
Of the crumbling facade
No uplifting salvation
To make me a god
Or equate such disgraced
Afterthoughts of creation
To some more outlandish
Evolve explanation
Acceptance of place
Beneath all mortal burden
Bequeathing assumptions
Default to uncertain
This earthen slime mold
Can preserve the self gone
Can deliver me from
The untimeliest bomb
Jul 2023 · 558
The Plebeian
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
Can’t get no
Status faction
Satisfaction guaranteed
Just parakeets
A pair of beats
Commodifying
Cost of need
The price of greed
Inflates like ego
Gives you power over me
Or so you’ve seen
The dream machine
Forever justifies
The means
But in the hands again
Of people
Breaking equal
Treatises
We feed the treachery
The fallacies
Of drama queen decrees
Jul 2023 · 128
A Serious Relationship
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
I know
I was there
Stranger place
Stranger time
The strange faces
I’ve seen
Estranged
No friend of mine
Not the least bit
Resemblance
Of love to lament
Nor a letter
To send
In my pen’s eloquence
To a worthy of waiting
For reiterating
The myriad ways
I could feel
Recreating
The meeting space
First laid my eyes
Vivified,
Vivid
Given to smitten
With my own demise
Never home
But to show her
A welcome befitting
The one to whom
Rest of my life
Is committing
Jul 2023 · 122
Psychophobic
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
What hath wickedness wrought
Scared to have a real thought
For submissively
Venerate
Sorrow
Do I
And permissively
Wait
On tomorrow
To die
In the mind
Resides peace
But unrest never sleeps
And if food for thought feeds the brain
Mine overeats,
It devours
Digests
And expels
The excess
In some monstrously
*******
Ego-death  
Mess
And repressing
Ensuing
Onslaughts of forlorn
Is my fear
That from one
Into many
I’m torn
Jul 2023 · 122
Mushroom Tea
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
Crescendos of overloads
Water my brain
And I’m down the same drain
In a whole different way
Grew apart
Closing in
All my memories spin
And within a prismatic
Class bubble
Chagrin
Is my gleeful indifference
Immersed
In mesmeric
Existence
Misshapen
Hallucinogenic
Mistaken so often
For misaligned
Misery
Maladaptations
To malcontent
Miserly
Still none the wiser
To omni-dimensions
Still so much to see
Is believing
Suspensions
Jul 2023 · 199
Pride of the Earthlings
Michael Marchese Jul 2023
Let’s pretend
We trend to like
We tend to
Mostly
Playing nice
The sprawling
Fallen
Paradise
A part of nature
All its own
We decimate
This one true home
Insisting in the cloud
To save us
As we let the lords
Enslave us
Digging graves
Like Vegas babes
Keep track of time
Like meter maids
Still underpaid
And overworked
And haunted
Everywhere we’ve lurked
By what a curse
It is to live
To be this me
With more to give
Yet gifted with
A lesser power
All the universe
Is ours
Jun 2023 · 296
The Tranquilizer
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
I am peace in the flesh
A reprieve from distress
The primordial Netherworld’s
Retrospect death
An angelic embrace
Fall from Grace
Bliss despair
And I fluctuate
Dreamscapes
Like any nightmare
Jun 2023 · 190
Peace Incarnate
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
And I brought all the words
That I needed to say
Dare I form them
Some rather
Material way
Some ethereal sway
Taken hold
Of my hand
And with dexterous
Penmanship
Each inky strand
Made its mark on the page,
Freed my soul from its cage
And let spill the life force
By the edge of my blade
Let it flow unreservedly
And
Unrelenting
Instilled
In serenity’s
Solace lamenting
And still
In calamity’s
Calming
Fomenting
A wrath only I
Could begin to describe
And a madness
Of malice
Too warped to decide
Which is which
Who is who
Where to go
What to do
In an infinite void
There is merely
Beware
We are here
We are now
We are locked in its glare
Jun 2023 · 121
Deerfield Ponds
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
Grow up in a swamp
Dampen spirited
Sinking
There’s no coming back
No escape
From rethinking
This home
We are rooted to
Stone’s throw
From who we knew
Soon to submerge
In the dismal
Mundanity’s
Tireless dirge
May it serve
Unrelenting
From Quaker to Cat,
Like the memories’
Nemeses
Harken us back
To catharsis
In darkness’s
Walk through the woods
The reclaiming,
The changing
Of old neighborhoods
But to leave it behind
In the mired
Decline
Is impossible
Lest you
Return
Time to time
Jun 2023 · 113
The Iconoclast
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
And that’s when I wrote you
Came right out
And told you
We were just
Reflections
Of similar figments
Our differences
Deeper than people
Of pigments
Upbringing
Diverges
In privileged
And poor
As the middle class
Widens the rift
Even more
What a chore it’s become
To among them
Reside
When a score
Of conquistadors
Seeks to divide
And presiding
Unprecedential
In his crimes
In his locked box
Of docs
In his Fox
Populies
Is the traitor,
The ******,
The racist
Tax fraud
Still enriching
His image
Like profits of God
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
Must have meant
Something then
Same old
How could it end
What makes us
Carry on
Forward from here
For the whole world imploding
Dark nights
To appear
For the fear
Sinking in
I go through it alone
Maybe turn over
Every last
Perfect match stone
Before finding the one
If such notions exist
As an actual form
Or a premature kiss
Jun 2023 · 177
The Breaking-up of Society
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
Apparatus
Against us
It wickedly
Works
From worthlessness
Into a purchase
Converts
Any currency
Currently
Rotting in vaults
Any hapless
Homemakers
Estranged in their faults
So deranged
In their stranger things
Bingeing
Addictions
Adrift
In the rifts
That still shatter the kitchens
Jun 2023 · 121
Realization
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
Shards of a shimmering
Sanity
Slither
The rain,
Forest flame,
Mortal-stained
Rivers wither
And little known
Little me’s
Watery grave
Seems a long way away
In some newfound malaise
Where the waves
Undulate
Even out
Across land
And alone in its
Thralldom
I stand but a man
Jun 2023 · 502
The History Bluff
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
You can read
Whatever you want
In any font
You write your name
May it contain
The pages waiting
On the narrative to change
Upon the ways
Its flags are waving
Over battlefields of graves,
Beneath its shades
Belies the aisles
Mercantile
Sails of slaves
And if we wanted
To improve it
We would have to let them choose,
Even if it means
The winners
Would have nothing left to lose
Jun 2023 · 89
The Bothan Spy
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
Holes in my running shoes
Same old recycled news
Nooses
And crosses
And lost is our
Helpless youth
Soothing albeit
To see it
Inspired
To rise to the skies
Like a funeral
Pyre
Aspire
To signify
This is defiance
Our dog eat dog world’s
All too human
Alliance
And we compromise
With our difference’s
Union
But never on vision’s
Imperial ruin
Jun 2023 · 160
The Post-Modernist
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
As you so
Beseech
I am getting more sleep
But lost sight of the now
Peering into the future
Appearing more often than not
In the past
But try as I might
To traduce the consumer
I find myself molded
On models of class
Jun 2023 · 167
Adopted/The Claimant
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
Well where will we
Wallow
When weathering
Woe
If the one who weeps
With us
Won’t drag us below
Will we find
Sanctuary
In various others
Go run to
Succumb to
The some of them
Lovers
Asunder I’d sooner tore,
Bore out my soul
Before treading the sand
Without your hand to hold
So behold
But a testament
Fragment
A statement
My orphan heart
Lost and found
You are its claimant
Jun 2023 · 161
The Supplicants
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
Mindless hate
Fueling,
The spectacle
Ruling
The idol lies
Hypnotized,
Slavishly drooling
Like homeschooling
******
In repressed
Insecure
And alone,
Unexpressed
Will turn into
A war
For your loyalty
Soil,
Your toil,
Your vote
For the royalty’s
Dynasty’s
Building a moat
And awoke
Is unwelcome
Just go back to sleep
As they reap your American dreams
Counting sheep
Jun 2023 · 126
The Off to the Side Guy
Michael Marchese Jun 2023
I will always be the shadow
Seldom seen,
Rarely heard
Barely verbalizing
Any
Written,
Stutter
Spoken word
But on the mountain
In the fog
I am the ghost
Of mostly gone
I am forgotten,
Undesired,
Disappearing
All along
You cannot find me,
Just remind me
To at times
Make presence known
And should I feel like talking
Only locking eyes
With her alone
May 2023 · 281
The Maestro of Discord
Michael Marchese May 2023
Seal me in a cell
Of serendipity
Dismayed
I feel the flooding
Wishing well
Of unanimity
Betrayed
You know my name,
Control my brain,
Made me exclaim it
As I came
And in your absence
I am rapturous,
A ravenous
Despair
And in my sadness
I am avarice
A fathomless
Nightmare
The prey ensnared,
The barely breathing
Sense of freedom
Self-deceiving
There is only
Bound volition
Inclination
To be yours
A blind ambition’s
Snap revision
Of my book
Of nevermores
May 2023 · 157
To Live For
Michael Marchese May 2023
Embittered
In winters
And withering prose
As I’ve wept it alone
In a tomb
Made of stone
Though heroics
Don’t show it
They mask
And aglow it
In written hubristic
Indulgence’s misfit
Admissions of guilt
It so deftly
Elicits
Consistent in
Wistfully
Weathering storms
For the other side’s sun
And the heart that it warms
May 2023 · 112
Echoes of Mania
Michael Marchese May 2023
Impregnable gloom
Decomposer
Consume
Let decay
What remains
Of my chance to exhume
Nature's progeny,
Property
No more befit to rule
Creature
Is stopping me
For I write words
Ironclad in their peace
And reverberate
Deep
In the despot’s defeat
In humility
Strode
An ulterior road
All the while
Reside
In the doesn’t
Well bode
Just a toad
Having tasted
The princess’ bliss
When I tongued
The abyss
And I heard
A most visual
Serpent god’s
Hiss
May 2023 · 914
Keeping the Rhythm
Michael Marchese May 2023
Don’t mean to misguide,
Misadvise,
Scrutinize
Don’t devise
Any plans
Anymore
I apprise
What of relevant use
From experience brings
Synchronicity from
The discordant heartstrings
May 2023 · 98
Domain Name
Michael Marchese May 2023
In here
You’re with me
At my mercy,
Behest
At my beck and call
Call me
By what I do best
What I claim
Domain name
Is eternal unrest

For in here
I decide
What to give to the night
What to offer
The coffers
Of can’t see the light
Ever seeking in vain
Domain name
What to write

When in here
We’re at home
But a whirlwind
Alone  
Overthrown
Though unconquered
Dominions I roam
For I came
Domain name
As I etched it
In stone
May 2023 · 138
The Fashion World
Michael Marchese May 2023
Starving egomaniacs
Hide the distention
Dysmorphia’s
Orphans
Engorging attention
Pretension
Comes natural
Just live to be seen
To be lust after
Vanity
Fair magazine
To be queen
In your castles,
Your carriages,
Gowns
To be columns
Of gossip
And talks of the town
Chopping down
Natural art
For a heartless
Creation
A faux fabrication
From deforestation
A waste of
The vacant
High-minded
High-rise
Like the hungry,
Neurotic
Consumer’s
Disguise
May 2023 · 476
Self-Harmony
Michael Marchese May 2023
My soul is now shaded
More aquamarine
To have lived by the sea
Caught adrift in a dream
But I merely mean
Too good
For truth to compare
To be barely
Still clinging to life
But aware
There is no sweet release,
Sugar-coated deceased
That prepares us for
Gone
Is just resting in peace
That allays
Waking days
Of its cognizance craze
Liberates us,
Or saves us,
Or aids our escape
Better than
The departure
Revolves around me
To the part where
I’m suffering
Simply to be
Michael Marchese May 2023
I let pride
Cloud my judgment
Of you
Safest space
I could place
My delusions
Delay
Decay’s pace,
Decades pass
We react
Like it’s all white and black
And the toll it exacts
Statistician’s
Poll tax
Is the mission
The merchant of death’s
Righteous path
So make safe in the shadows
And count out the facts
Or the gallows
Will bring back
The odds
Ever favor
The gods
As they savor
The fruits of our labor
May 2023 · 231
Rohypnol
Michael Marchese May 2023
Dropping gently
In the drink
Disable your
Instinct to think
Just sink into
A bed of shame
No way to say
You’re not to blame
Restraint is for
The faint of heart
I am the strobe lite
In the dark
The luminescent
Blackout switch
The dumped her body
In a ditch
Acquit the rich boy’s
Wettest dreams
Enrich his daddy’s
War machines
The silent status quo regime
Complicit
Like complacent apes
Engaging,
Waging
Data rapes
May 2023 · 169
Crash Landing
Michael Marchese May 2023
Working on
Reading your mind
A bit better
And weathering storm
Stinging thorns
Of forever
Together
In channeling
Turbulent tides
In embracing
The space between
Bridging divides
Overcoming the obstacle
Misunderstanding,
For otherworldlys’
Fall in love,
A crash landing
May 2023 · 131
The Neuralizer
Michael Marchese May 2023
Blank me out
Stare
At my pair of
Disguise
Wipe me out
Like a drought
When you answer
The whys
The goodbyes
Must ensue
Seem to always
Come true
Never quite
Empathize
What we really go through
Just conclude
Only ends
No escape
No return
The wound mends
The mind bends
Ever love
Never learn
There is no perfect union
Just fragments
Of whole
Optimistic
Endeavor’s
Unreachable goal
So forget’er
World nether
Embrace
The amnesia
Induced by my
Loosening
Trip synesthesia
May 2023 · 173
Hubris of the Imperialist
Michael Marchese May 2023
Home to some
Back in
The sun never sets
So just let me succumb
To the burden
Of glory
Then let me write only
My side of the story
May 2023 · 61
Motherhood
Michael Marchese May 2023
Must be like
Wow
How’d he grow up so fast?
As if yesterday
Stood
Beside oceans so vast
How he cast away
No more attached
To my side
In pursuit of a living
For earning my pride
He’d confide in me
Vulnerably
Little boy blues
Knowing fully well I
Sooner die
Than refuse
To make time for my son
Be the solace he needs
Be the home
When he’s sick and alone
And believes
He is nothing,
Unworthy,
Not fit to exist,
Undeserving of love,
In abysses adrift
But I gifted him
Intellect,
Honor,
And hope
And remember
I taught him
Each letter he wrote
How I wept
With each deftly-penned
Suicide note
But when he had to go
I would still see him off
Though it shattered my heart
To imagine him lost
In his absence
Forlorn,
Beyond mourning,
In pain
But endured nonetheless
For the man I had raised
For I give
All I can
Unconditionally
And whatever he makes
Of the world
I agree
To be there for him
Anywhere
Scared
Without me
May he be
And take care of him,
Walk with him
Proud
By the sea
May 2023 · 98
The Traveled
Michael Marchese May 2023
What downtrodden trails
Have I failed
To get paved
What uplifting travails
Upon my heart engraved
Have all made out
Like bandits,
Like hopeless romantics
Like kings and queens gambits
And Goldilocks planets
Beholden
To therein
The sunset is glimpsed
In ephemeral remnants
Of vacated bliss
May 2023 · 136
The Socionaut
Michael Marchese May 2023
Conflating your drama
For trauma
What isn’t
In this day and age
Just a for-profit prison?

Creating personas
Coronas
Who doesn’t
Go clubbing or pubbing
With someone who wasn’t?

Equating your other
Half-lover
When found
If indifference we all
Are made hole in the ground?
May 2023 · 108
Casino Economics
Michael Marchese May 2023
Gambles,
Addictions,
The vice and the *****
The sick
Twisted joke
Token
Go for broke
System,
Stay woke
And carouse
As you Google-eyed
Browse
For the quickest
Rich scheme,
Have a dream
Slot machine
But the 7s are 6s
And god’s
The mob’s green
It’ll rob
And reduce you
Like sirens
****** you
Induce your comeuppance
Then buried in debt
Drinking still
To forget
They persuade you
Upgrade
Or in vain
Place your bet
Like the same
Reservation’s
Pit Boss
Can attest
May 2023 · 122
West Word Expansion
Michael Marchese May 2023
It’s rare
This breed
Of anti-social,
Cloaked in daggers
Draped in woeful
School begets the brain
But play
Recalibrates the mind
Array
Mine just the price
Is right
To sum
Keep searching for the one
My sun
Keep building,
Keep advancing
Aims
Keep reinforcing
Thesis claims
We came,
We saw,
We conquered
Earth
For better
And far even
Worse
A legacy
Of codices
Of cities
Built
On legalese
The eagle frees
And handcuff keys
And gleams its greed
Like shining seas
May 2023 · 578
The Ubiquity of Madness
Michael Marchese May 2023
More beside
The shadows
Lull
Than where resides
Therein
The skull
Aware,
Ensnared
Enlightens
Glare
Determines one
Last love affair
One lost,
Aberrant
Hole
To bare it
One more squawking harp
To parrot
Just in finding time
To see
No clearer
Sheer
Uncertainty
Pervading through
Distortion’s view
Through every sentient
Inch of you
Michael Marchese Apr 2023
Warned that this path would lead
Seemingly nowhere...
So get to the problem,
Too many to solve them
Too different to see
The same ways
We evolve in
All crawl from the ooze
But all grow
To refuse
To return to its void
Like a bottle of *****
Apr 2023 · 142
The Extinction Agency
Michael Marchese Apr 2023
The world is still out there
More life
Unbeknownst
But we make of its ghost
An award show to boast
Of our profligate pride,
Our inflated self-worth
An exaggerate,
Bloviate,
Ego
Since birth
Apr 2023 · 226
You Say What Now?
Michael Marchese Apr 2023
Decreed to be freed
But in vain
Made to bleed
I can’t read,
I can’t write
And with whites
I can’t breed...
But can still feed their cannibal
Race war machine?
Apr 2023 · 418
The New Gods
Michael Marchese Apr 2023
Still slaves to Apple
But they treat us nice
For their only demand
Is a brand new device

Still beholden to Google
But they see it all
And they only expect
I continue to call

Still an Amazon serf
But to work for them worse
Is their presents
More peasants

A gift or a curse?
Apr 2023 · 199
The World Over
Michael Marchese Apr 2023
Peace is of puzzles
All scattered
Before me
When war
Was more formerly
Stories
To bore me
And poor getting poorer
The norm
Uncontested
Made sense
But incensed
Nonetheless
We’ve invested
A fortune
Of favors
Engraved
In our labors
Subjected,
Subtracted,
Enslaved
By day traders
Invaders
Advance
From each angle
Except
When the mangled,
Star-spangled reign
Steps to the left
Because then there’s the problem
We solve them
Unarmed
And we educate,
Raise them
To raze
The alarm
Should its nightmarish
Blaring
Scaremongers
Come knocking,
Its gun-cocking,
Crack-rocking,
Lawbreakers
Mocking
The locked
Ballot box,
The tik-toks,
The youth lost
Yet to feed them
Spare change
Is all that it would cost
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