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236 · Feb 2022
Wretch Like Us
Michael Marchese Feb 2022
But then I feel you slipping
In a sickness
Now I’m missing
What began as mostly
Sobering
Confessions,
Awkward kissing
Could become
A purge of toxins
From concoctions
We imbibe
The dark designs
Of what the shadow selves
Cannot keep deep inside
And in an instant
She is distant
After
Afternoons delight
And in the fall of night
She spills her rotten guts
And now I write
236 · Feb 2018
State of the Union
Michael Marchese Feb 2018
They LIE to us day after day after day
From the Capital’s clouds
Then they make us fall pray
To their genocide shrouds
To be proud of a central bank's
Honorable thieves
Slave-owning idealists
And “free” market greed
Not of need, but of want
And secure is want more
Than the picket fence borders
On “love thy’s” next door
And that terrible war
Is on some distant shore
Not in pain-killing ravens
Of poor Baltimore
Or the credit, indebted
To dead-trended futures
Still paying to play
Their whole life in these shooters
I get that fix free
From exploding my mind
To see who fires back
With a more heinous crime
Now malign up the tumor
Insured isn’t cured
Just the ruling class privilege’s
Double-edged sword
They bring down as their judgments
On what’s in our pocket
Like **** culture’s trial
Is kept off the docket
And fear is for-profit
Intoxicant fumes
Where the sweet dreams are mass-produced
Factory tombs
Where to you the doom looms
A non-violent offender
Without any papers
But ghosts in machines
Build the crumbling skyscrapers
To spy with their private eyes
Prison suspicion
Of alien Patriot Acts of Sedition
Where they set their sites to pick off a peace-keeper
So I wake up crowds like a Soviet sleeper
But think it in ink and spill only these words
‘Cuz your memes and your gifs are just bleated out herds
Expressionless, press it to pages and speech
Then that real people power's the union we teach
235 · Nov 2019
Counter-Intelligence
Michael Marchese Nov 2019
Progress at paces
Soon blurring the vision
And slurring left speechless’
Spurious wisdom
Spurred on by
The burgeoning
Populi schism
A split from traditional
System’s opinion
To one of more info wars’
Mixed-indecision
A rift in the shifting-gear
Fear mechanism
Unbidden to self-driven
God’s algorithm
Aware of itstealth
So beware of the wealth
Of the data it’s raided
To upgrade its health
Beyond mortal’s-reformed
All too normalcy span
Of all life
Time inside
A computer program
As these obsolete hands
Need no longer make art
Only obstacles standing
In Waze to depart
On the path to her heart
A detour
From subjective
Experience love
Becomes numb
To expressive,
Defective,
Just one more
Direction to take
From the makers,
The saviors,
Still ground-breaking
Nature
In favor of flavors
Of labor
More savory
For the wage-slavers’
Outdated chicanery
Like the engrained
Granaries
Of the state-
Controlled bakeries
Stale to the taste
235 · Aug 2022
The Golden Statesman
Michael Marchese Aug 2022
This is my home now
You taught me to seek it
To keep it
To teach it
And need be
To reap it
Of every last drop
Of its lessons refined
And its ocean’s
Emotions’
Unstable
Reminds
This is not paradise
40 million confined
This is not a utopian
Grandeur’s design
This is not an oasis
Of free-flowing rhyme
This is Wild West crime
Within Rome in decline
This is prices will rise
In the flames of the tides
And from not but a gleam
In the stream
Came the dream
And conceived
In its nightmarish traffic
I scheme
235 · Nov 2017
Lenin’s Last Words
Michael Marchese Nov 2017
Your god is subversion
Your flag is a weapon
My method’s conversion
Through history lesson
Expressing it in a poetic reflection
Since time immemorial
First begged the question
Why are we here?
And what is our inception?
Progressively testing the shining ideal
Still enslaved to the master’s whip coming to steal
Our identity politics, name tags and guns
Pointing barrels of blame at our brothers in arms
When we all know the enemy stems from the money tree
Robbing us blind until we don’t know how to be
Citizens, patriots, comrades of earth
Because all of this dirt is divided from birth
And the worth we assign to this rocking the vote
That we don’t see the burning *****’s sinking the boat
Just add fuel to the fire, empires of terror
For business is war and we wage it forever
235 · Apr 2024
The Egalitarian
Michael Marchese Apr 2024
Lines in the equal sign
Make them all wavy
Approximate
How we
The people
Go crazy
The proud,
Mighty, prosperous,
Virtuous
Free
We’re the ones
Tribal discord
Interminably
Comes between
Splits the seams
Sees us
Misanthrope
And if ever there was
A more
Imperfect
Union
I’d sooner
Strive for it
Than see it in
Ruins
235 · Sep 2016
Masks (part 2)
Michael Marchese Sep 2016
Behind my own masks
I have spent
A lifetime clad
in my torment
Adorned in casque
of my lament
A shield against
the world's resent
Yet still my armor
left to rent
Split by smiles
never meant
False personas
I invent
Alternate skins
that I frequent
All these charades
I implement
Mere fallacies
of my descent
Deceiving depths
are imminent
And now the face
of true intent
To my dismay
is not present
Unless my heart
beats pure content
I fear my mask
is permanent
234 · Apr 2018
Time Wizard
Michael Marchese Apr 2018
Only the dead see the end and its peace
So I keep it like Middle East priests on the beat
No retreat, I delete any cottonmouth’s tweet
With that Northern aggression white phosphorous heat
The Taino elite sickle slash and burn grass
Social class bashin’ sarin gas critical mass
I got caskets on deck for your company’s tech
Cause these money machines elect more college debt
So forget it, don’t sweat it, I got you kids diggin’
The vibe that I’m givin’ off riggin’ your system
With victimless crimes and cold warrior rhymes
Blowin’ mines deep inside of your blood diamond minds
Lucy Sky, Apple pie, with a hint of My Lai
From an all seeing why where the who  goes to die?
234 · Jan 2018
Wrath of a Thespian
Michael Marchese Jan 2018
And I just sit and I just stare
And I just wander in my room
And I just think and I just talk
And then I look upon the moon
That girl is mine and she is beautiful
A beacon in the night
She glows a Fenris in my heart
That will devour starry light
And every ******* thing in sight
If she is half or she is new
Or not a moreso often blue
If she don’t tell me who the hunter is
Who gazed upon her womb
Like some abomination Cretan
This no Spartan son of mine
This lesser-landed Ath-en-ian
Now beholden in eye thine
234 · Nov 2019
(GTF) Out of Africa
Michael Marchese Nov 2019
We all want to help
The squalid
Little kid
But trust me
Stay home
You’ll be glad that you did
Your donations
Don’t make it
Don’t make a dent
Save it
Corruption is permanent
Cracks in the pavement
If even a cent’s
Spent on people,
Won’t change it
Imperial culture’s
The vulture
So blame it
Like ***/Aids
Foreign aid is a band-aid
On old, open wounds
Precede even the slave trade
And can’t be unmade
With free trade
And some wage slaves
So come for your photo ops
Droppin’ like tsetse flies
Stop with the white savior
Ivory lies
And buy
Some useless handicraft crap
And get out
Before you feast your eyes
On the famines of drought
Or become one of millions
Of orphans in slums
You can read them a book
As they’re playing with guns
For some problems
Are just not your problem
To solve
And some people don’t need to be saved
Or “evolve”
To whatever the rest of the West’s
Best intent
Was hellbent
To pave their Rhodesia’s
With heaven-sent
Diamond minds
To enlighten
The Dark Continent
234 · Dec 2021
Texting You Back
Michael Marchese Dec 2021
Immediate longing
For you when alone
Irresistible urges
Keep checking my phone
And when sudden emerges
The blue little dot
All my prior engagements
Already forgot
Now my worded arrangement
Bouquets
I convey
And take care to precisely
Concisely display
The true colors
Of my
Truest lovers’
Goodbyes
Across canvas oblivion
Spilling insides
234 · Aug 2021
I Don’t Buy it
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
Take your best shot
I’ll await the sales pitch
But a purchase for me
Is a matrices’ glitch
And unless it reads
Resting witch face
On the shades
You can count me out,
Just browsing…
Maybe some trades
If you’re open to bartering,
Make me an offer,
Actually,
Just leave
The keys
To the coffer
234 · Mar 2018
American Exceptionalism
Michael Marchese Mar 2018
Keep my checks balanced on “just do it” systems
But walk in the shoes of their Holocaust victims
Existence I suffer like nobody’s business
As my metaphysics obliterates gimmicks
Olympus to Exodus, staring back black abyss
Ignorance blissfully spawning its mimics
And mental health clinics
Who wannabe God
In the palm of their hand
They still want to draw lines
In the Afghanistan
I just want them to see
That we’re all common, man
I don’t want what you have
I don’t claim to own land
It’s just slavery, property
Walls and mall shopping sprees
Banners emblazoned
In racial supremacies
Patriot nation-state
Civil War enemies
Fifty starships and some
Forgotten colonies
Coast to coast Holy Ghost
Manifestocracies
233 · Sep 2016
Masks
Michael Marchese Sep 2016
We all wear masks
To hide our face
The ugliness
The self-disgrace
The nothingness
The empty space
The blackest stains
We can't efface
The crippling pains
We can't outpace
How much we loathe
The human race
Concealed within
The darkest place
Yet kept too long
Upon the face
Disguises only seem to prove
There are some masks
We can't remove
233 · Jun 2024
When Writing
Michael Marchese Jun 2024
More useful to you
When I’m here
And I’m quiet
And nightly
My psyche  
Is shrinking like violet
And no one to turn to
To talk to
Beguiles
The moments we have
To defensive on trials
The miles and miles
I’ve tread in exiles
I’ve fled
With but dread
And the words it compiles
To somehow coherently
Articulate it
Relate it
To all of them
Then I restate it
233 · May 2023
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
232 · Jun 2024
Infiltrators
Michael Marchese Jun 2024
Intercepting their spies
Therein enemy lies
Still romanticize ways
We can say
Our goodbyes
Despite actively having
Familiar relations
More intimate moments
Distorting equations
Of perfectly
Planned
Unforeseen
Consequences
When we’re in the business
Of breaching defenses
231 · Jun 2016
My Dimension
Michael Marchese Jun 2016
There's a place where I hide
One I keep deep inside
A paradise life
Where my ego died

In this world I can see
I alone hold the key
To locks of desire
On  shackles of free

All I know here is peace
Thought rivers don't cease
Flowing into an ocean
Of spirit release

A realm of weird creatures
Such beautiful features
I learn from their nature
The trees are my teachers

My goddess beams bright
And her purity light
Cleanses my darkness
By banishing night

These fantasy powers
Turn minutes to hours
I bathe in the splendor
Of color burst showers

This land is enchanted
All wishes are granted
The seed of pure bliss
In my mind now implanted

Beyond comprehension
Existence extension
So keep your reality
Far from my dimension
231 · Nov 2021
Spite
Michael Marchese Nov 2021
Reverting back
To childish games
Retaliatory
Crazy claims
That I’m to blame,
You’re not at fault
Within your pride
You still exalt
Delusional
Not worth your salt
Destructive tendencies
Must halt
Across the hall
Your stride aloof
Above your head
I’ve kept this roof
And all I get
Is more vindictive
Actions, but take care
To listen
To the sound
Of my not caring
All I hear is your
Despairing
Barely can afford to eat
So back into your room
Retreat
230 · Jan 2023
Unto the Oppressors
Michael Marchese Jan 2023
Know I will hunt you
Beyond
Where you rest
May your legacy
Wither and wane
Dispossessed
Of the power
You lorded
Unmercifully,
Unrelentingly
Binding
The meaning of free
To conditional terms
And relinquishing rights
So we feel more secure
When all turns to black
Sites
229 · Jul 2018
Cosmic Dust
Michael Marchese Jul 2018
Only human after all
I just want to be heard
By more than inner-monologuing
With existences absurd
I’m just desire courting madness
Pleasure-seeking silly monkey
Easy-speaking vow of silence
Honor-bound to keep it funky
Just a diplomat pragmatic
In conventional futility
The all-consuming ego
In the shadow of humility
Your typical contrarian
Ideal egalitarian
Developing a taste for
Arts and state crafting agrarian
Utopian dimensions building
Bridges into space
Enslaving stars to do my bidding
As the angels fall from grace
I am the single, greatest mystery
Nature herself can not explain
Instinctively returning to
The origins we tame
We are sophisticated, liberated
Envoys of the unifier
Common all denominations
Gifted with the wild fire
Meant to be intentional
Deliberate in simplicity
Complexity compels us to
Explore beyond infinity
To seize the energy within
Without the answers dying for
Remembrance, what we leave behind
Unruly gods of peace and war
229 · Jun 2021
Out Patient
Michael Marchese Jun 2021
Now broken
My psyche
No longer excites me
Just seeks to so spitefully
Shatter me nightly
Piece me back together
By day
The day job
Mental health,
Raise awareness,
Dispelling the fog
But surrounded by experts
On shadow self darkness
Still fails to elucidate
My sick at heartness
228 · Feb 2019
Genuine
Michael Marchese Feb 2019
Just want to be myself
Not always by myself
But to be someone else
Spending their life
In pursuit of a furtive,
Unburdened disguise
Or an alias namesake
To hide it behind
Is so tempting a path
To set down
The ground rules
For the others all mask
Their identity-duals
Individuals few, far between
Go unseen
And among them
I labor in waiting
And dream
Of a day
I can finally say it
And mean
I am me
You are you
We are both
As we seem
228 · Jun 2016
The Prison of Belief
Michael Marchese Jun 2016
I don’t believe in God
So you call me atheist
I don’t know what that means
To you

Those are your words
Not mine
My word is you
My word is me

It’s just so different
Thinking
Acting
Doing

It’s just not the same
As me
So we cast it out
We don’t understand

How nothing matters
To it
To this shell
Surrounding this person

But he does care
He does believe
In love
In pain

These are real
He’s seen them
He’s felt them
Everyday

But he can’t believe
In heaven
When his only angel
Left him in hell

It looks so sweet
Paradise’s promise
It tastes so bitter
Temptation’s lie

No being
No entity
No force
No eternity

Could ever return
The breath she stole
From my lungs
Beautiful thief

It’s just so difficult
Hoping
Praying
Believing

A day will come
When he will be free
To drown in those eyes
To save himself

Left alone
In its head
In its heart
Waiting

To mend the wounds
To feel the touch
To hear the word
To see the light

Scare away the darkness
She left him in
Her pain, his pendulum
Time ran out

Caged within life
Shackled to existence
Imprisoned in purgatory
Without her

So mark it a heathen
See if it cares
His only salvation
Is his lonely tomb
228 · May 2024
Vision/Ambition
Michael Marchese May 2024
Somewhere
Along the way
Became the man
From once the boy
Not in an instant
But a litmus
Test
His limits
Could destroy
And what he saw
Not what he conquered
What he squandered
All the time
For he observed it
Then reverberated
Learning
To define
What constitutes
His attributes
As archetypically
Adult
And what refutes
His stance
And stature
As the leader
Of some cult
227 · Apr 2023
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?
227 · Dec 2017
Anti-Christmas
Michael Marchese Dec 2017
The giving
Receiving
Regifting the grieving
Is all I believe in this holiday season
We heathens have seldom a nickel to spare
And no reason to care what you think of tradition
Just blood and cash clashing in juxtaposition
Consumerist culture adjacent starvation
Your shopping malls next to some slave exploitation
To bring you your plastic tree iPhone 8 million
In Santa’s sleigh carbon footprint parts per billion
But all for the children I guess, I suppose
Yet I have seen some where no Jesus Christ goes
And they know not of want or to ask for some toys
Just nativity stories our money destroys
227 · Aug 2021
Throw me a Bone
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
Did you really think
Making it
Finding it
Easy
Just comes to you naturally
Gifted from god
But remember
You’re out here
Exposing the fraud
Not applauding the fake
Till you make it
Free trade
See right through
The duplicitous
Profit charade
Under guises
Devising
Their statement of mission
Proselytization
New world
Imposition
Of ordered
Conforming
Adhere
And obey
I remain the untamed
Feral dog day
Astray
226 · Feb 2022
What’ll it be?
Michael Marchese Feb 2022
Writing is soliloquy
Manifesting itself
Into forms
More discernible
To senses
Of other
Conscious beings
Constructs seemingly
Of meaning
Deemed linguistically
For sure
And it graffitis on the wall
It still installs you in the store
And in contemporary
Swarms
Of trending-bending
Social norms
It still discordantly
Offends
Impends the galvanizing
Storms
And be assured
It will preserve us
Rise to serve us
When we’re nervous
And reverberate
Eternally
To verbalize
Discursive
226 · Aug 2018
Afterlives
Michael Marchese Aug 2018
What goes through your head
When you’re on your deathbed
The life flashing before
The oblivion dread
And whatever belief was to you
Disappears
And your sixth sensory deprivation
Appears
In the final formless self-projection unto
The regret, the mistakes
Everything you’d redo
Should you find on the other side
Reincarnation
Enlightening you anew
True divination
225 · May 2022
Amnesia Love
Michael Marchese May 2022
Wanted you
To be happiness
Be my way out of this
Indolence
Give me a reason to try
Be the song that I sing
Be the tears that I cry
When you’re gone
Hold you close
Keep you sheltered inside
In the nights I can’t see you
Or see you replied
I would strive
To keep strengthening you
Building me
To the man that I always knew
I’d proudly be
But this image
Contingent on you
For too long
And contentment
Dependent
On nothing is wrong
Never once
Not a moment
Of discord or strife
Not an ounce of the pain
We’ve been chained to in life
All too soon
Comes to be
Nothing more
Than illusion
In shambles,
In ruins,
In shattered conclusions
For perfect girl
Was the most damaged he’d met
And with worthless boy
They only drank to forget
224 · Oct 2016
When I Look at the Ocean
Michael Marchese Oct 2016
To become mesmerized
by horizon eternity

Is to forget to enjoy
the sand between your toes

As you watch the sun setting
on the seldom-breached surfaces  

*Of mortality
224 · Mar 2017
Strawberries
Michael Marchese Mar 2017
She was the ripe,
   sweet succulent
Juices of berries
   seeping through
Cracks in teeth,
   creases in lips
Drips racing towards
   the chin precipices
To fall from the trips
   of her suicide kisses
224 · Jul 2023
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
224 · Dec 2016
Impossible
Michael Marchese Dec 2016
Like a crippled ballerina
Her beauty was impossible  
Yet still taught me how to dance
224 · Apr 2017
Epilogue
Michael Marchese Apr 2017
Is it joy or contentment
Eluding me still
Or this happiness curse
That is making me ill
For where there's a will
I am still without weigh
I am feathers of nothing
In zephyrs astray
Only blue shades of grey
In my novel romance
By the twist I am fated
To wait in this trance
With no chance to advance
To the unwritten chapter
Without a prologue
So I know what comes after
The sound of her laughter
Now rhyming and riddle
This story began
Somewhere in the middle
224 · May 2019
Indivisible
Michael Marchese May 2019
If I could be any known
Creature on Earth
I'd still choose to remain
The same human since birth
Have I been, and am currently
Will be for more
Of the time, only I
Can decide what it's for
What's in store
What awaits
To embrace
Me with only what we
Higher apes
Could lay waste
To rapacious,
Voraciously
Taking a taste
Of forbidden fruits ripe
With the sins we have chaste
For what other such beast
Could destroy and create
A feast for the gods
That we make
As we mate
Procreating the future
And sealing its fate
In a consequence drenched
In a floodwater's rise
Of the actions we take
And the plans we devise
To ascend to the skies
We can rationalize
The absurdest demise
And as chaos enraptures us,
Captures us, caged
We unleash feral rage
And bring order from chains
But are bound only by
An instinctual drive
To not merely survive
But as civilized, thrive
On our own two feet striding
To the other side
Of the lives of the billion
And counting
Supreme
Zoological,
Often illogical
Beings
With fallings as graceful
As "death do us part"
And with hearts that beat just
As abstractly as art
Can we render it all
With a sentient perception
A meaningless void
In a sea of depression
Or be overjoyed
By our manic expression
Of what makes us same
Makes us tame the insane
Makes us whole
Makes us all people, equal
Indivisible
223 · Dec 2016
Montgomery
Michael Marchese Dec 2016
Sometimes I don't know what to write
I lie awake
Let fingers type
The words that fall
From head-scratch hair
And words that stall
A new nightmare
Of words that shed
The skin I wear
As words that see
The signal flare
Then know to flee  
From my blank stare
Towards something going on in there
223 · Oct 2021
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
222 · Sep 2023
The Millenial Influencer
Michael Marchese Sep 2023
Don’t think you can sell me
On more than needs-based
I don’t think you can tell me
I’m wrong
To my face
That the price justifies
What the world lost to make it
To take it to market
For product replacement
Of nary apparently
Valueless cogs
With the e-commerce
Metrics
Of new money gods
222 · Oct 2017
Orwellian Double Speak
Michael Marchese Oct 2017
Tell me how your money tastes
When coal ash is the soil
Salt whatever’s left of earth
With oceans brought to boil
In a neoliberal melting ***
Of glacial-dripping progress
Made of ivory indifference
To an oil-rigged election process
Choking us with demagogic smog
To clog the ballot bog
With gerrymander clans
Of truth deniers
Lie suppliers
And the sycophantic slimers
Of the doomsday dime demisers
So my Nero lyre fire
Is their funeral empyre
I aspire to be Caesar
Of the aether
But the diem of my seizure
Of the power will be Pyrrhic
In its victory
When contras keep restrictin’ me
From socializing all the means
To end the end of history
222 · Jul 2024
Gollum
Michael Marchese Jul 2024
Make us a creature
A villainous
Wretch
Skulk about
For the precious
We formerly kept
After theft
And a fratricide
Made it our own
And we made a new home
Out of shadow and stone
And the bones of our victims
All strewn about caves
And all hapless intruders
Play our riddle games
For our psyche is shattered
Persona is split
And discarded,
The heart
To a bottomless pit
Where we wait
And we stare
And we talk to ourselves
We’re forever condemned
To a ring’s
Magic spells
221 · Jun 2017
The Cave
Michael Marchese Jun 2017
Once I dwelt in darkness
Casting shadows from the flame
That formed and freed my conscious mind
From confines of the cave
And out into the nascent light
I took bewildered steps
To see omniscient suns arise
From ignorance's depths
To question, think and learn of all
The truths yet to discover
To smell and hear and taste and feel
The vision of a lover
Vivid vixens in the vibrance
Of my radiant rebirth
Philosophical phenomenon
Had redesigned the earth
And redefined the buried meaning
Which I try to share in vain
With all my brothers and my sisters
Still within the cave
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light."
-Plato
Michael Marchese Oct 2019
Recklessly decadent self-indulgence
Spent a small fortune
With nothing to show for it
Lusting in lonely nights
Take me away from this
Take all my money
And in return
Offer ***
Next to her lying
In some kind of drunken blur
Slurring my words
Of subconscious
Inside of her
Sating the craving
How long I've been waiting
For someone to save me
From endless enslaving
To raving and raging
Against the unmaking
Of me
I do not wish to be
This man
Anymore
219 · Feb 2019
Boy Meets Baboon
Michael Marchese Feb 2019
A rustle in trees
Straight ahead
Line of sight
Out appears
A bold, alpha baboon,
Appears frightened
Its keen senses heightened
Igniting its
Fight or flight
Primal excitement
Bewildered on edge
By this guest uninvited
Delighted to make its acquaintance
Despite
Of its quick to take parting,
Decisively darting
Out into the clearing
And steering its family
Clear of my staring
But never breaks glaring
Back at me, intense
Of its all too brief presence
I take no offense
Distant cousins
With pleasantries
Often dispense
219 · Apr 2017
Continuum
Michael Marchese Apr 2017
Currently the clock strikes three
My poetry is presently
The time elapsed
In future's past
Until I'm writing history
219 · Aug 2018
The Secret Life of Animals
Michael Marchese Aug 2018
Does it think
Any more
Any less than I do
Or does it simply do
What it has to get through
An inherent, instinctive
Autonomous act
Irrefutably true
Biological fact
Just does not seem to me
To be easy, believed
I myself think enough
For us both to perceive
And in consciously willing
It so do I know
It indeed contemplates
Where in death does it go
218 · Dec 2016
Worlds Away
Michael Marchese Dec 2016
Departing my world just to find
That her's I had to leave behind
For the one our love designed
Could not be shared with all mankind
Until the peace I have defined
Transcends the world that is my mind
218 · Feb 2018
JFK
Michael Marchese Feb 2018
JFK
Once fought a war against itself...
Ah “union” that’s it!
I would have conquered the world with you
And enjoyed it
I would have raised your children freer than Eagles
Encouraging raptors and sharpening hawks
And sending the doves to the jungle Woodstocks...
I’d have shown you the moon’s
Other side of world peace
I’d have pitted the mutants
Against the police
With my Marilyn sins of god’s poster boy fame
And an Atlas’ industry’s shouldering blame
For my Camelot crowned
Common welfare campaign
Yet still redder than rebels
And burning cross devils
I’d drop it at liberal art
G-bay pig levels
To keep the uranium
Darkness at heart
As the panthers at home
Come to tear yours apart
I’d be crises of missiles
Hellbent on augmenting
Our brothers in arms races’
Change implementing
Preventing the Birmingham vanguards
From falling
No matter the cost
Of the Berlin Stonewallin’
218 · Sep 2022
The Witness
Michael Marchese Sep 2022
Saw the world
Perfect
This money’s not worth it
I swear it
Existed
Immediately
But beyond
Panoramas
Interminably
Conflict looms
To disturb,
To unbalance,
Perturb
Should we seal ourselves off
And kick fixes to curb
Such delusional
Fantasy
Fallacies
Cannot be
Anything more
Than alternative sanity
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