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Michael Marchese May 2018
With you or without
I still revel in doubt
And uncertainty’s angst
I just wish I could smile
Again, see your face
One more time and embrace
You like children at play
Run away with you
How do you do this to me
Everyday
Michael Marchese Dec 2021
Lucid
And sooner
Or later
Asleep
Even seated
Don’t need
Anymore to count sheep
And in keeping persistent
With daily routines
Only break from the norm
In my wildest dreams
Meaning reckless abandon,
Spontaneous whim
Don’t decide where I go
Just define who I’ve been
Should a day in the life
Include new and exciting
It seldom finds time
To explain it in writing
So as a professional
Aspirant
Strive
Not to make it a living
But why I’m alive
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
Michael Marchese Aug 2024
Do not bear
Fear
Or weary
My irrelevant existence
My request
You just reflect
My categorical indifference
Just admit it is
The best
Approach
To forming these attachments
Just confess
If we had never met
And memorized these fragments
Formed these habits
Would we have it?  
Or confabulate
A tragic
Would you even need
To know my name
Or tune it out like static?
For what actively
Is listening
But passively
Imprisoning
The confluence of ego
And emotion
In some other
And to oversee
Eventually
Imploding as their lover
Michael Marchese Jun 2021
If it really came down
To my last day on earth
I suppose I would do
What is actually worth
The investment of time
Precious mine
To see fit
Make amends
Mend the wounds
I am still burdened with
All too soon
If it ended
In fire and ash
Or a hole in the ground
It would not amount cash
Value added
To genuine closure
Regardless of cost
To my fragile composure
Again in your presence
To bridge the division
The distance
Insistence
I’d only make you and I’s
Pleasure
The mission
Michael Marchese Sep 2016
Power trip monopoly
Is played
With human property
To trade
Us for the Holy Grail
And drug crusade
Us straight to jail
No passing go
Or class
Or puffs of satan's burning grass
No abc's
No lsd's
But keep us hooked
On begging knees
For liver fails
Cancer sticks
And sleight of hand
Magician's tricks
Deceptions made
Through politics
A veto of mentalities
That think deep
And lose sleep
Pondering mortalities
And look in
And speak out
To question their realities
The open minds
One of a kinds
The won't be sold
The uncontrolled
Substance abusing fiends who dare
To seek the truths
Kept from their lungs
And wicked psychedelic tongues
By taking all of which they care
Then pass it on for all to share
Michael Marchese Mar 2018
There’s rarely any joy
Left in leveling the playing field
**** or be killed
And the world doesn’t want a shield
Only to sleep and to work
For the end
To live by the dollar
And die by the trend
To defend them would be
My existence’s
Honor
But I covet peace
Like a kami wind bomber
Just pondering all of the dreams
That they squander
The people they slaughter
These true men in ruins
Of Frankenstein’s Monster
A Las Vegas concert
A Wild West myth
I pack write lightning heat
Like a Mustafar Sith
But this Vader comes later
To savor the darkness
Within the machine’s
Pax-American carcass
Of ravenous Reagan’s
Who’d let your kids starve
And contain the unsane
To fund wars in the stars
Don’t you see?
It’s the same tricky dixiecrat reaper
Delusional geezer
The neo-Liberial pyramid schemer
Who still thinks illegal is Spanish for dreamer
And trains Contra dogs
For some searches and seizure
Misogyny cowboy
Digs coal in a hole
His cash flowin’ like oil’s
Re-standardized gold  
As the livestock in rot market’s
Shelves gettin’ old
As they waste away youth
With MAD weapons they hold
Convincing us greed
Is salvation of soul
Until even the “good” neighborhood’s
Hooked on Cold
Where the story unfolds yet again in my favor
Just penned in the blood of the winning side’s slavers
Michael Marchese Feb 2018
Dread not the the rising of tides
And the wave
Of the refugees caught in the wake
Of our craving
For lambs to the slaughter
For unholy terrors
Instinctive, uncivilized
Carnal lust pleasures
The power to take away life
In your hand
But to live it and give it
A meaning, is man
And but one of such gods
In its envy or wrath
Undeterred by the fear of death
Paves the warpath
With the bodies of innocent
Paradise lost
Assuring destruction’s
The mutual cost
We’d all share with our prayers
Or our honest opinions
To equally suffer
These killing religions
Michael Marchese Jun 2019
How quickly a year
Can elapse
Is astonishing
Make every moment
Worthwhile
Admonishing
Me
To be actively present
And pleasant
Each second
Or live to forget
The remembrance
In remnants of memories made
In sustaining
Begrudgingly forcing
Facades of equating
Superior intellect
Deigning to feigning
This greeting sincerely
A matter of act
To surpass the harassing
******* in class
In cacophonous braying
Displaying a crass
Disposition of *******
Herd-mindless en masse
Merely falling in line
Until their turn to die
Comes as natural to me
As the killing of time
Michael Marchese May 2018
Given to mortals
To spark a rebellion
They used it instead
To drop ****** oppression
Reducing to cinders
And smoldering ash
Their symbolic salvation
And piles of trash
Unabashedly brazen
Emblazoned in races
Their banners and books
Conflagration hate nations
The forests consumed
In the climates of change
As the engines of war
Dragon hunger pangs rang
Like the rockets ascending
To bring them to me
But they crashed and they burned
And returned to the sea
Michael Marchese Aug 2019
I never thought raw meat
Would be a treat
I could indulge in
Yet as chewy as it was
There has not from me yet
Expulsion
Of the seasoned slab
Of crimson flesh
From mouth
Or other end
I found the flavor
Rather savory
As down my throat
Descended
Several chunks
And shredded hunks
Of some poor creature
I refrained
From asking what
The people call it
Even in a foreign name
For there is shame
I feel, still craving
Yet another juicy taste
Of what I couldn’t **** myself
Nor have the right
To deem its fate
Michael Marchese Jun 2020
If you think that it’s fated
Just go ‘head and state it
Just say that you stayed
All too long
In awaiting
For me to be
Some kind of man
You’d expect
To be there all the time
Not the mind who’d object
To the social injustice,
The coup d’etat bloodless
The ******* plays
Charlemagne
To the Dulles
Insurgencies crushed
By the hush of corruption
The lush ****** lands  
***** by corporate seduction
The merciless,
Unyielding
****** of production
Duplicitous,
Profligate
Lust of consumption
The numb to the slum
Mum’s the word battle won
And some
Before even
The Russian bear stirred
Others still
Before even
The King Leo purred
When the purge isn’t fiction
I urge the revision
Enlist in the war
Upon carbon emission
And see with the heat-seeker
Serpentine vision
But spit it unwritten,
Unscripted
If needed
Concede not an inch
Of this ethical Eden
And in the endgame
Existential
Checkmate
Is the movement I make
To still you
Captivate
Michael Marchese Jan 2023
Wearily
Wearing thin
Skin
I begin
To default to
Defensive positions
Less frequently
Mishaps,
Mistakes,
And misfortune
Still teaching me
Better than any
Successes
I’ve wrested
From jaws of defeat
My integrity tested
Surrender,
Abandon,
All ethical bent
As incensed
Becomes sorrow’s
Tomorrow lament
Michael Marchese Nov 2023
Worked hard for this bastion
With masterful
Craftsmanship
Forged
In a crucible
Of my undoing
Secured
Rest assured
In catastrophe
Brewing
Like cauldrons
Of storms
Like calderas
Of potions
Like maelstroms
Of mind
In a sea of emotions
I’ve courted disquiet
Cocooned in unease
A tumultuous riot
Adorned in oblivion
Shrinking like violet
Michael Marchese Nov 2024
My overloaded  
Brain
Is short-circuitously
Sane
And drained away
Its finely balanced
Jenga tower
Pieces lay
All strewn about the floor
Defeated
I’ve conceded
Earnings needed
When the wellsprings that sustain them
Are supposedly
Depleted
And it seems
Despite devotion
To in service
Indispensable
Convenience
Kindness
Courtesy
Is not so fundamental
As to render it
An integral
Expenditure
To budget
And from livelihood
Parts of me  
Now they must cut it
Michael Marchese Dec 2017
Opinion seems so obsolete
Impoverished is the beggar’s
Wretched states of mind you find me in
Endeavoring to sever

The forever from the finitude
Entranced in pondering despair
Of why my lonesome disposition
Sees her memory everywhere

In clarity of can I kiss you?
Now I miss her more than life
Itself is nothing in the end
Except Erisian seeds of strife

Implanted in discordant numb
Intangible emotional
Still dripping from my empathetic
Rhyme is immemorial

And frames of time are fractured
By the beings we believe in
Never telling you I loved you
More than merely breeding Edens
Michael Marchese Mar 2019
I sculpt all these gods
And I craft all these muses
Yet still the design
Of mere mortals
Confuses
Don't know what to do
If each one of them chooses
The course of their own destiny
But then loses
Their self
In a false
Divination
And sight of the light
In their darkest temptation
How can I unmake them
Without bend or break them
For I do not answer
Their prayers
I forsake them
And ask not that they
Construct temples and pillars
To hoist in my image
The banners of killers
Michael Marchese Oct 2018
Still miss her like crazy
Pretend it don't phase me
But lately I've been
Thinking possibly, maybe
Just maybe
I have to believe it
Put her in the past
For the last time
And mean it
For two years of more
Continentally-drifting
Seems only to further the Great Rift
Of shifting
From living in loverless mountains amidst
What I tell myself
I really need
To exist
Back to shores of more wandering
Sandy-toed steps
In my infinite pondering
Bottomless depths
Michael Marchese Jul 2018
Cruising along
Ethiopian road
A lake town in the distance
A valley below
Craggy precipice plummets
To cracks in the earth
Like the hands made of stone
Hungry people at work
Abodes humble of mud,
Children play in the dirt
In its quilt pattern patches
Tread bare under hoof
The trees bent out of shape
Like the tin atop roof
And alone they dot plots
Of communal religion
Give thanks to your gods
That it’s not my decision
Michael Marchese Feb 2022
Want to be out there
With you
But I’m here
A dim spark in the dark
Should your message appear
On my phone
In a text
But you’re busy I guess
And however impossibly
Cryptic it gets
Just rejoice in your voice
As if reading it
To me
In nearing depletion
Its songs would renew me
Imbue with tranquility
Peace in the fading
Beside you
As some kind of conflict
Is waiting
To enter the fray
Pulling us away
Nightly
In spite of
Reciting it
Slightly more
Lightly
Michael Marchese Nov 2024
Look out
One last time
How it all
Just goes by
How I started here
No one
Afraid to be seen
Lacking confidence
Cognizance
It would soon mean
So much more
Than a job
Now a part of me
Robbed
And though grateful
A hateful
Irate
Inclination
I can’t seem to quell
To dispel
Its frustration
When duties I’ve taken
For granted
Retired
And services rendered
No longer required
Michael Marchese Jul 2024
Starting to prefer
Alone
Though
I want you
But before
A mere name
Could be slipping right through
Seldom kissed
I commit
A most faithless
Adrift
And I stared for too long
And I gazed in her eyes
But at night
Only you in the dark
Would I find
Only you
Who reminds
That my longing
My yearning
For dying inside
Cannot weary
Or wayward
My down for the ride
Further still
Have I shown you
The places I hide
When I cannot keep carrying
Days out of sync
Sinking
Crushed
By the weight
Of my ego’s distinct
Inclination
To feel itself
Safe
In the warmth
Of the moments
I am not a wraith
When you look upon me
And I cannot escape
From the hold that you have
Over my last embrace
Michael Marchese Nov 2024
Now decide where you stand
At the end
Of the world
When it’s into oblivion
Forcefully hurled
That we go
With uncertainty
All that we know
But in faith perhaps
Aftermath seeds
We might sow
May they grow
To survive us
In some shape or forms
May they weather the wake
Having borne
Superstorms
To preserve legacy
To surpass our potential
All time and dime
Spent
Wasn’t inconsequential
Michael Marchese Mar 2021
Forget me
Just let me
Fade into oblivion
I know a million
Plus times
I’ve been living in
Such a concurrent
Divergent
Disgrace
Can’t escape
Inundated
By this dreaded state
It’s the kind
New beginnings
Can’t even suspend
Like a sickness of mind
I cannot comprehend
Only go on pretending
I staunchly still strive
To convince myself otherwise
Try to survive
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
Michael Marchese Jun 2022
Let’s take a few months
Of this getting to know you
The real me,
You feel me
Explicitly told you
Withholding no side
Of the life I’m about,
Yet despite your acceptance
The lingering doubt
Unexpressed,
Just suppressed
Now you choose to address it
Is not what you want
Anymore
So why press it?
At all
Any further
Your choice is made
Done
I’m just sorry
I’m not what you want,
Not the one
Michael Marchese Jun 2024
Without markets
It’s darkness
No cable
To spark this
That works
To connect
An anonymous
Marxist
With Cominterns
Burning through
Forest and field
More ideally
Than killing ones
Capital yields
Michael Marchese Mar 2018
Could never sit still in a class
For five minutes
Now I teach English
Like nobody’s business
It’s vivid, expressive
My content explicit
Colloquial linguistic
Rhymes are sadistic
Prolific retellings
Of history written
Like one death is tragic
But millions? Statistics
Like lyrics as liquid
As Ludacris livid
Ferociously phosphorous
Fury I spit it
As rising sun dragons
To Asia I pivot
But I bury fascists
At level 10’s limit
Michael Marchese Jan 2018
You think words can’t hurt
Or reign down from the skies
I’ve red little handbooks
That say otherwise
I got history’s vengeance
Packed mean at my side
Cruisin’ free like Zheng He
In that Normandy Tide
Got these war orchestrators
Class consciously mute
Guess these urban invaders
Can’t handle Pan’s flute
In the jungle you feel it
I’m stalking my prey
Scalpin’ tix of head-shavers
From **** CIA
‘Cuz I spy with my eye
A bomb-dropping peace keeper
And wake up the crowd
Like a Soviet sleeper
Michael Marchese Aug 2023
Whatever I don’t use
Becomes the gloomy
World away
Electrify
Entire nations
At the standard
Rate of pay
For what remains
Of degradation
Is the only thing that matters
Only flag I’d sooner wave
Before reducing it to tatters
Silver platters
And the scraps upon
Could fill my empty bowl
But some primeval,
Greater evil
Is devouring me
Whole
For I cannot be in control
Of cultivating
Innovation
I cannot feed all the people
Empty promises
Salvation
Merely offer
But a morsel
Of my hunger
To fulfill
What a good meal
Among the rest of us
Collectively
Could steal
Michael Marchese Dec 2017
Satiate your need for greatness
Not in gilded glory
You must never let society
Best sell your famous story
For no store-bought thought is novel
Lest it come first from the shelf
And no god can be believed in
Lest it come first from the self
For you must look within and then without
Identify the villains
Fight the battles no one has
Against the other billions
Who count upon the dying light
To offer its illusion
To illuminate the hopeless night
Rewriting their conclusion
In a new, exclusive twist of plot
To drop mouths to the floor
When really not-so happy endings
Have been done before
And will be told for eons more
And be forgotten all the same
And so I roar into the cosmos
And I make it fear my name
This epic tragedy, a comedy
I laugh at the abyss unknown
Existence is my kingdom come
Mortality’s my throne
And in remembrance ballads sung
Throughout the ages that proceed them
Are the legacies I leave behind
Now you just have to read them
Michael Marchese Jan 2017
Human desires
Cross seldom the mind
Of one who has shifted
The need paradigm
Yet often I find  
Myself craving a taste
Of her strawberry field
Or the diamond embraces
Of nothing is real

To think and to feel
Cascading emotion  
Is still but a drop
In infinity's ocean
Intangible quotient
The product of self
The sum of its parts
Is but dust on the shelf

And there lives an elf
Who communes with the trees
His arrows of wind
Sailing evergreen seas
As he writes eulogies
Detached from the world
For his dying earth mother
As time keeps on turning
Mankind on each other
Promise justice
Into dust
Is this
Fortune foretold
Determined,
Terminated,
Propagated
Stories all
Unfold
From Pravda’s
Driving Mazdas
Writing in
Their power
People
In a language spoken
Woke enough
To scheme a lesser evil
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
Michael Marchese Feb 2024
Already in us
The lifespan
Diminished
Dominion
Of domino theorists
Unfinished
With business abroad
And the world market
Over
Still pumping
And dumping
Their waste
Down our throat holes
And goes into veins
A cocktail
Of their chokeholds
And cold
As the pulse grows
More soullessly
Blood flows
The poisoned
Polluted
Precluded
Provision
Nutrition
Omission
Produces
Submission
And we are but lab rats
Experiments
Testing
Their chemical
Compounds
Of boundless
Ingesting
Michael Marchese Aug 2023
Not another word
About my misbegotten
Purpose
All compendiums
Addendums
End
In every bit as worthless
As these verses
Reimburse me
For the squandered
Fortunes fated
To be spent
In purgatories
Just a man
Incarcerated
In a prison
Of what vision’s
City ruins
Have created
I have crumbled
Inundated
Like a cookie dipped in milk,
By the weight of over-shaded  
Like a flower left to wilt
There were no pills
Or panaceas
To alleviate undoing
Only bills to pay
Atop already
Mountain debts
Accruing
All before we even come to her
To once upon a time
We were
Like fairy tales
Enamored bliss
Impaled upon
Unhappiness
Michael Marchese Oct 2017
There will come a day
When you wake to her sleeping
In solace enrapturing
Silence of mourning
All of her elegance muted in slumber
Appearing to you in its muses no longer
For furies at war in your head are the thunder
Of Zeus' insatiable ravishment hunger
Now tearing asunder your hearts in the void
As the distance impending consumes you, destroyed
Is the union you knew to be true in its love
But the one you feel isn't yet with you
Above
Michael Marchese Jul 2017
Lost in a flurry of thoughts
And disorders
The chaos of conscious
Enraptures the room
And she interludes often
The nail to my coffin
The anti-depressant
Of purple haze gloom
And a shot of suppressant
To lighten the mood
With a wit of without
Any life left to live
And a cold, steely heart
With no love left to give
I have axes to grind
I have bones to ice pick
A chip on my shoulder
A scratch I can't itch
When it crawls in my skin
Still forgetting to care
Unless my next fix
Is the wind in my hair
Michael Marchese Jul 2021
Want to see
How the filthy rich live
Before I
Should become one
Myself
Rather die
Than comply
With the status quo notion
Of progress
Achieved
Only set in slow motion
And masses aggrieved
When appeasement has failed
And the stimulus spent
When the city upscaled
Can’t afford to pay rent
When the gentry
Carte Blanche
Becomes staunchly imposed
On the food insecure
Still ensuring their homes
Built atop the displaced
The eviction note’s
Victimless crime
Is eraced
Michael Marchese Sep 2017
With left so deft you’d think it's theft
We are the blind man's ego death
We see the abstract poverty
In all of its cosmogony
Humanity is Mother Nature
We are but her nomenclature
Poets with a love of wisdom
Burning down this fascist system
Classist, cashist, racist pigs
They step to us with oil rigs
But we got dreamers of all sizes,
Colors, shapes and symbolizes
Universally diverse
Rehearsing every universe
Test our patience is a virtue
Justice will be swift upon you

By egalitarians
Who guillotine these Aryans
That D.A.R.E. to limit our fair share
Of ways to rock this crazy hair
And break this **** down to the truth
As we explore the realms of youth

Our architects will span the seas
On odysseys of Pleiades
Our psychics will make obsolete
The news-feed ticking time bomb tweet
Our rebels will revolt in peace
With furies reigning Ancient Greece
Our sorcerers will cast their spells
And grant each drop of wishing wells
Our Appleseeds will grow year 'round
Upon the fields of common ground
Our leaders will be yoga teachers,
Open mics, and bleacher creatures
We will obligate these morals
Or white wash these dying corals
We will all commiserate
Or drown ourselves in selfish hate
It's not too late to save this place
Our fate rests not in distant space
But in the permanence of ink
Now step aside and let us think
Michael Marchese May 2018
Fresh off the the boat to rock the vote
Like Lenin off the iron horse
This Wild Western Manifested destiny
Has run its course
And yet am I, the winning side, still spillin’ it in genocide
And civilizin’ savages supply-sidin’ Apartheid pride
To trigger happies harpin’ on their stolen country muses
Christian views as skewed as what their news refuses to include in
Whose excluded from this private privilege history alluded to
In commandante economic sticks and stones I sling at’chu
But what you gunna do but leave another man behind
Keep marchin’ to the slums of war, we’re all complicit in the crime
But you and I, the difference is, I am the Royal’s fear to wed
For I am prone to widow-making
Inter webs within your head
Like Debs ensnarin’ robber barons in a pit of wealth disparity
And Jobs’ cogs who took’er jahbs, achieving singularity
Michael Marchese Nov 2016
We're often called the dreamers

For seeing coexistence
Where you perceive division
Where you would split the difference
We conceive a common vision

For this one cohesive-conscious home
Each vow of silent thinking tree
Each lichen-minded stone
Every deep blue secret mystery
All creatures free to roam
Brewed into a cup of mushroom tea
Perhaps a drop of honeycomb
Will sweeten your reality
Drink in this splendid biodome
And taste the earth in harmony

So brand us as the seemers

For seeking first to understand
That there is more than good and evil
Warring within fellow man
Not so black and white upheaval

We the people must unite
A liberated human nation
Under godless in this fight
Release the cure's incarceration
From the cells of civil blight
Xenophobic hate contagion
And regressive, taxing plight
Impoverishing our education
Systems righting wrong from write
De-race-ing ignorant's foundation

Radical extremers now

For turning up the volume loud
Since we ain't down with social class
We pledge allegiance to the shroud
By burning one to puff, puff pass

Tsunami vibes and tidal raves
To flood the streets in flow-test signs
Insurance for the waging slaves
When drone strikes keep on blowin' mines
And diggin' them their shallow caves
But really we're all droppin' dimes
To keep our heads above the waves
So thin blue lines can take their fines
Straight to glock-bottom feeding graves
As we keep livin' off these crimes

Still we're labeled schemers

For nurturing our future's seed
To grow into a garden's peace
Which blossoms as our children breed
An atmospheric love increase

To passion fruitful harvest skies
Of astronomic musing
As their iridescent voices rise
Embracing every body's choosing
In a selfless enterprise
Across the universe infusing
Time and space to minimize
Desire's nebulous illusion
Quasar egos vaporized
In star-trips of their light speed cruising

They'd become redeemers

For this misanthropocene
Rerunning for the walking dead  
Newsfeeding on an empty screen
That eats the brains out of their head

And makes this orb of abstract arts
A stupid rock that you've condemned
To more prosaic, Dark Age starts
No world of imagery could end
The bags of bones in shopping carts
When no idealist sense transcend
Robotic corporate profit smarts
All dollar signs of life expend
On oil, coal and carbon parts
Per million broken souls we'd mend

With teachings of our *liberal hearts
Gatekeepers
Guarding
The access
To knowledge
And some
Greater evils
We had to abolish
Michael Marchese Aug 2018
Been making a statement
Since chalk on the pavement
Erasing complacent
Content in my basement
Been searching for famous
Since pen hit the paper
A COINTELPRO
Expose’ prose’n muckraker
No stake in your stockholder
Meeting this evening
Just cuttin’ deals laced with
A little left-leaning
Obscene acts of terror
Each letter a crime
A defacement of privatized
Property swine
Dispossessed but of rhyme
Like the spirit of Marti
Till I’m callin’ party boss
Shots of Bacardi
Michael Marchese Nov 2016
Human ****,
human ****  
Avarice  
Get that ****
Out of my dish
How many species
Do you wish
Extinct by Swedish overfish
Are you so fond of licorice?

Like cavities on Halloween
You rot away my clenching teeth
Spoiled children trick or treat
So concerned with what to eat
While glaciers melt like Hershey bars
In Hot Tamale heat
As oceans rise
You feast blind eyes
And licorice blackens the skies

Making my blood pressure high
Unwrapping one more Smartie
Just to find an Air-Head Spree
And now I'm left here questioning
My ***** Wonka sanity
For thinking I could save these kids
From Candy Land's of apathy
Stuck on selfish sticky squares
Lord Licorice tormenting me

With sugar-coated ignorance
Preferred over
The sour patch
Of truth too bitter for their lips
   Starbursting, Milky Way abyss
   Warheads warping face and time
   Mere rainbows to your skittle bliss
The end of mine? No sweets to find
You've left me only licorice
Michael Marchese Jun 2021
My luminous thralldom
Plunged back into war
I could not save a soul
Mine was nevermore
Sure
And the traveler
Side of me
Once optimistic
Fell prey to the death of ideals
Unrealistic
There was no escape
Nowhere else the tale goes
Though I found a few hiding spots,
Highs were still lows
I felt useless,
Abused,
Disaffected
Confused
And with each passing day
Became more a recluse
And I could not excuse
My aberrant behavior,
Attempts to explain
Only made me seem stranger
The anger again
Was what woke me from bed
Or else probably would
Have just laid there
All dead
Michael Marchese Feb 2024
Original
When was it ever
Creation?
Surreal
It has never
Been
Civilization
Just homogeneity
Acculturation
Collective,
Procrustean
Reeducation
No self-aware
Movement
No choice
Occupation
Just merrily
Life is but
Assimilation
Michael Marchese Jan 2018
Property’s slavery
Whole world still got it
And lands still the reason
We all pick a pocket
Pitch-forkin’ for-profit
Complex prison systems
Of jobs and backbone
Just say no kind of victims
When oil regimes who give rise to machines
Build their schemes to the skies
On their Thespian screens
Of democracy’s industry’s
Warring with Persia’s
Imperial graves
Till another god-king
Sends his Normandy waves
And we know we don’t show that to children
Now do we?
‘Cuz all of that blood and that rage would
Purr sue me
Subdue me, consume us young men in a field of what’s real
Made of fight for your life
Or be killed, or be killed
And then glorify heroes
Who ****** some kids
Instead of the ones
Who insure that they live
For a logical reason
To dream and to hope
That their Salem Witch trial
Won’t end in a rope
If they’re made in the image, we teach them to be
But we white-wash the parts
About humanity
Michael Marchese Dec 2021
And into the infinite aether ascendant
Now scream at me,
Shriek with me,
Wreak all the havoc
Together
We conjure
The darkest of magic
Dispelling the notion
The ocean divides
By the side of it
One with the waves
Do I glide
As the glades
Of tranquility
Beckon me back
And instilled in it still
Is your image intact
And though warped and distorted
The clarity stays
Till it summons the sun
From my dismalest days
Michael Marchese Jun 2017
Only time will tell
If it's the end of mine I long to find
Or just the new beginning
When I lose all track of rhyme
In loss of mind and lost control
Of blind ambition's suicide
Intertwined with passion's soul
So that in life I might revise
And redefine my dead inside
From slow declining glass of wine
To kind rewindings left behind
As memories that bleed
And drip their drops of pure sublime
Upon the lines of self-disguise
And ambiguity which hides
Me like a masquerade
Of drifting through transparent tides
When not confined to ocean-sides
In shallow depths through which I wade
Along the waves thine skies comprise
When lies are truths and lows are highs
The tantalizing heavens
Are the lighthouse in your eyes
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