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Michael Marchese Aug 2021
And how do you plan
For the end of the world
Hold the ones
Dearest near you
Embrace the undying
No fear
Just adhere to
The deathless defying
For never were we
Even here
To begin with
And back to the same
Non-existence
Relinquish
Illusions so long
Our identities formed
In anarchical nothingness
Shall be reborn
Michael Marchese Apr 2017
Not writing tonight
Leaves tomorrow deprived
Of chemical changes
In moments sublime
Through valleys of shadow
And mountains I climb
Of ripples in rivers
Wrinkles in time
Heartbreaks in waves
And passionate rhyme

Of my guiltiest prints
At the scene of a crime
And the trail of bread crumbs
That they all leave behind
As clues to emotions
I've yet to define
Like the love I have made
To a goddess divine
Or the hate I have seen
Where her sun doesn't shine

Like my lone shooting star
With the planets aligned
In illusion defusions
Of water to wine
When I shed the skins
That malign the benign
With vivid prescriptions
Of drugs I've combined
Into altered egos
Of complex design

For a world I could save
With my Spider-Man mind
But the webs that I spin
Become so intertwined
With the fates and the furies
To which we're confined
To a Hundred Years' War
Against all of mankind
So a new piece a night
Is a peace treaty signed
Michael Marchese Mar 2021
After hundreds of these
Sordid entries
Into
Privacy,
Unreservedly
Sharing with you
You might think
I get tired
Exhausted all options
But even now clueless
I write it as often
As coffins compile,
Uplifting inspires,
Attraction beguiles,
Or nature makes fires
And only attempt
To divest it from her
When the last several
Still sit in silence
And were
Insufficient,
Haphazard,
Or not yet complete
There will always be more ways to say
Or repeat it
Michael Marchese Dec 2020
This could be it
I was already leaning
Out over the edge
Of devoid of all meaning
And hope before merely
A word that was spoken
What once I held dearly
Had long ago broken
A ghost in the most
Morose host
I was lost
Since I drew my first breath
Of fresh air
Has a cost
And tossed out
In a cruel, unforgiving world
Yearned
To return
Just to leave again,
More left to learn
But approaching it now
Tantalizingly close
It recedes like one does
In a drug overdose
Michael Marchese Nov 2021
Suggest you’ll be part of
My life
Then depart
Just as quick as you entered
And punctured my heart
Like a dart
From the start
Piercing ever so slightly
You got close enough
But avoided what might be
The height of the pinnacle
Pivotal moment
We notice that awkward’s
The vital component
Michael Marchese May 2020
Wonder if
You wonder if
You often cross my mind
And how you linger there
As I just stare
And wonder why
I even try
To put a smile
On that face,
When I know
It could not
Erase
Those crazy feelings
So you claimed
But I know you feel nothing,
Same
Except perhaps
Some grave dependency
On me
Or somebody
To have,
To hold,
To clearly see
Really wanted to love
And be loved
As easy
As the rest of us seem
To believe
We receive
And deserve unto death’s
Unreserved
Deceive
Michael Marchese Oct 2019
Can't look at her now
Couldn't even back then
I don't know if she knows
If it happened
And when
I extended my hand
On that balcony ledge
And drew her into my
Burning flag-bearing pledge
My allegiance unfaithful
To her's in its purest
Convictions as graceful
As mine
Are abhorrent
Exhorting their pleasure
Two forms pressed together
Succumbing to Hedonist
Weakness
Whenever
It renders me deader
Than "death do us part"
In contrarian fashion
To what I Descartes
For the heart
Isn't really
The love that we feel
And if she really felt it for me
Was it real?
Was it even the same
Kind of strain
Of in vain
To express it to her
As the most welcome pain
I could ever again
Comprehend
Or explain
That to be without it,
Without her
Was the end
Michael Marchese Apr 2017
Coincidence laughed
When I asked of her name
The fates were amused
Though they couldn't explain

The meaning of life
Is nothing but time
She was but a wrinkle
In fabrics of mine

I always want more
Than I ever should
My heart knows me better
Than I ever could

Perhaps there was room
Not yet locked away
Where she could be free
To shade in the gray

But all her fling's horses
And all her string's men
Couldn't put me
Back together again

Another betrayal
Beyond all repair
Infidelity cracks
In my ego affair

Dwarfed in the shadow
Of my universe
She would shrink to the size
Of the things we converse

Tethered and bound
To each other in not
But the fear of without
One another we rot
Michael Marchese Dec 2017
Practice what you teach
And make the images you preach
And when you’re reaching out for guidance
Be the wisdom that you seek
Michael Marchese Dec 2023
Out of sight
Out of mind
Like a ghost in decline
Which is where I might find you
In memories weeping
If I let you go
Let you fade away
Keeping
Your secrets no longer
The intimate moments
Bereaving a loss
That exceeds all condolence
Your smile
Your voice
Once the key to my heart
Would become
In its absence
What tears it apart
Michael Marchese Jan 2022
Your mind
Is a whirlwind,
A maelstrom
All scattered
Your heart has been torn apart,
Broken and shattered
Now nothing else matters
To you on the surface
But grungey rejoinders,
A vape
And some verses
Conversing with you though
Reveals the concealed
And when you crack a smile
I know you still feel,
You still care,
You still try
To believe living life
Doesn’t mean you just die
At the end of it
Having spent none of it
Finding
The love you misplaced
Or have trouble defining
Consigned to the trash
Heap of past
Deepest cuts
And the lingering pain
In the heart
As it shuts
Out the would-be abusers
Preemptively
Safe
From the hurt
And the worth
Less than dirt
Sort of fate
But not stating this
With any judgment intent
Just relating it to
My own former torment
Michael Marchese Jul 2021
Still hittin’
Her hard
With disaster
Relief
Sinking boats,
Blocking votes,
No...
Congressional seat
Then deceitfully dollar
Diplomacy
Drain it
Of sugar cane
Brain
Generations
In training
To tolerate chains,
More urbane
Costs of living
Just giving in
When resist
Is just enlistment
A privilege to serve
In their wars of attrition
And still hear the bombs
Pounding into submission
The Spanish last bastion’s
Taino kid’s vision
Michael Marchese Aug 2019
Gone long ago  
Up and vanished
From here
the bewildering wildlings
Never appear
Anymore
In the form
Of imaginative
Vivid images we
Had envisioned as kids
Overprivileged to live
In a kingdom of sky
In a reverie
Tucked into sleep
Lullaby
An illusory fantasy
Story belied
By the monsters beneath
The wars raging outside
Castle walls we sequestered
Our western ideals
Civilized since the dawning
of time
Isn’t real
And revealed to the kneeling
To its old and gray
Scientific divinities
Still on display
In decay
Preservation encasing
A once upon kind
Of design for eternity’s
Undying mind
Michael Marchese Aug 2023
My sorrow disarms me
When ignorance harms me
Had known you
This meant to me
More than a profit
Could ever predict
What it feels
To have lost it
Perhaps then you’d think
Not in numbers and code,
Not in protocol calculi
Heartless and cold
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
Michael Marchese Apr 2022
Not expectant,
Dependent,
Nor think she can mend this
Dysfunction
Defunct
Beating hunk of junk
Heart
She’s not looking for love
But still jumpstarts its parts,
Its ignition
Conditioned
To running on E
And then pumps it with
Once upon
Sincerity
Real with me,
Not a dream,
Not a fantasy
Fallacy
Balancing my
At war peace
Of mentality
Michael Marchese Jun 2020
Needless to say
It requires we slay
The master classes in their cradles
And their graves
To seize the day
Michael Marchese May 2021
Opted out
Got back in
Couldn’t live there again
I chose racing with rats
Over ones on my skin
Crawling off its embrace
Of my gaunt skeleton
Gnawing at my subconscious
Insomniac guilt
Where fecundity blooms
It shall soon enough wilt
And what built its decay
Domicile exile
Expires, erodes
No abode is worthwhile
Eventually I
Would abandon the home
For the first opportunity
Onward to roam
Be it so
Upon continents
Drifting away
Or domestic tranquility
Muted and gray
Michael Marchese Jan 2021
Not apathy
But naturally
Defaulting on
Catastrophe
Is possible
And plausible
And thus is just
Unsolvable
Too much exists
To comprehend
Too much resists
Its fate to end
And such attempts
Do not make sense
To rage against
Impermanence
In vehemence
Or fulmination
Air and fire
Conflagration
Made us all
And shall unmake
The urban sprawl
The wilderness
The in-between  
Is nothing but
Internecine
Conflicting clans
In entropy
Will ever be
How it unfolds
And with it my
Life story goes
Michael Marchese Jan 2021
Who really cares
Enough to
Follow through
Or to start over
When the year changes
To new
Think you could,
But just won’t
Know you should,
But still don’t
So then why
Even try
To convince yourself
Otherwise?
Michael Marchese Jun 2021
Still masking en masse’s
And variant aryans
Nobody wants
A koala on fire
But when it’s a forest
It isn’t as dire
Exorbitant wealth
Little more for myself
I have no reservations,
The hand I’ve been dealt
Not immediate victory
But I make due,
Bend the rules
As I need
To upgrade
Ocean view
Michael Marchese Sep 2020
Finally options
Some odd jobs to do
Just a few
But they’re pulling me in
More than two
New directions
To take one would be
Some more waiting around
Yet another would see
Me take off of the ground
And the third doesn’t sound
As exciting,
Enticing,
But stable, secure
If I am
To live life here
Michael Marchese Nov 2022
How sleep takes a hold
Of me now
Is astounding
Where formerly
Insomnia
The clock rounding
Unbound
By my childish fears
There is only
Exhaustion by day
And still go to bed lonely
Though not for a lack
Of a special companion
Just prep
For eventually
She might abandon
Me standing there
Fooling myself
To the last
I learn more from then now
Than I do from the past
Michael Marchese Feb 2019
Told you not
To throw rocks
You were warned
Several times
Now when I finally snap
And the fear in your eyes
Becomes tears that I relish
In seeing you flee
From my wrath,
Little ******
You can't escape me
I will close in around you
Pursue to no end
And enact my swift vengeance
Like Gods among men
Michael Marchese Jun 2022
Best to get something out
Jot it down
Make it sound
Pleasantly
Melody
Kept in sequential
With rhymes
Undefined
Undiscovered potential
Is all I intend with this
Penmanship ******
The trend-setting ends
And I never remember
How far from her gone
I became
Me unmade
And in hindsight
Proceed
Onward in
Retrograde
Michael Marchese Jun 2020
These were hardy people
Stern and stolid,
Solemn stoic,
And they’re relatively equal
I can see it
And I know it
And among them
How I struggled
To conform
And integrate
To learn my place
Within a culture
I could not appropriate
Assimilation
Not my strongest suit
Linguistics class
I failed
And as a teacher of my own
I might as well have spoken Braille
And by comparison it paled
In living standards
I was jailed
But wealth disparity
Was fair
And food desertion
We could bare
And trust me
Even at its worst
I was not genuinely
Scared
So with a hindsight
20/20
Only now I see it clear,
Within a country
So much more
Divided
By its fear
I’m the outsider left
In the darkness
Bereft
For too long
As I watched them all
Toil in squalor
Imagining
What they would do
For a dollar
There has to be more
Than my place on the earth
But to fight for it
Die for it
See her give birth
Was the land that they claimed
To its roots
Were engrained…
And I am the Communist
Seed
That they trained
Michael Marchese Apr 2020
So often write tragedies,
Vanities,
Ecstasies
Sympathy-seeking
Bleak
Pity parties
But when old friends
And I
Reunite  
I can’t help
But to write
In contrasting,
Unmasking,
Night shades
Of myself
Shedding light
Seldom felt
Even rarer
Exposed
To the shivering,
Shimmering,
Slithering
Prose
Michael Marchese Dec 2017
I lost my patience years ago
Now I just wait and bide my time
I sit and stare and step inside
Another portal to immortal
Existential everything
Dominions that are taking over
Michael Marchese Jan 2023
Now so enamored
I just couldn’t leave
If you left me to die
The loss I still bereave
Furthermore would the memories
Cease to be made
I would give up,
Give in,
Nor again
Try to save
What remains
Of my wayward
Outcast
Unaccomplishment
Mask
Having worn it so long
While pretending to try
I would never again
Let these causes belie
Without her
Just a blur
Between then
And the end
Nothing new though
Oblivion
My oldest friend
Michael Marchese Jan 2021
I saw what we could be
And yet
What we are
What we were
All at once
Just the kids of a star
Michael Marchese Dec 2020
Suppose it’s not really
Intended
My life
In suspended
Not meant to be
Rife with such plight
And by night
I think only
Of dreading awaking
I feel only painstaking
Time slowly wasting
But quick is the day
Dismal in its dismay
And I only see color
In colorless gray
And replaying the same
Angry songs
On repeat
As I work myself
Famished
To earn what I eat
Keeping on
Sleeping on
What I’d rather be doing
With you
But that ship has sailed
Leaving me ruing
The few, but still ruinous
Tragic mistakes
I have made
But won’t make
Anymore
For your sake
Michael Marchese Oct 2020
Pathetic without you,
Whole part of me’s missing
Its multiple others
Not there to begin with
Consuming me
From the inside
And then out
I project insecure,
Retrospectively doubt
I was ever assured
Hurting you could feel good
When I knew all along
Only freeing you would
From my radical chains
To your practical change
Make my narcissist
Two-faceless ego
Estranged  
From you there in the meadow
My shadow outcast
In its final act’s
Spinal trap
Last goodbye
Flash
Michael Marchese Aug 2018
And it’s on to the genocide
After you labeled me
Branded, enslaved me
Then as a beast, stabled me
Tabled my questions
And grievances then
Made me feel I was less
Than a man among men
When some semblance of freedom
Was finally reached
You just kicked down the doors
As our homelands were breached
And then preached your divine
Racial right to rule,
Hatred fuel speech
Then you slaughtered my people
In droves
As was shown
To the rest of the world
A facade
Mockery history
As it added more jobs
To polluted and muted
Vox populi rooted
In fear that their name
Is the next new recruited
To die by the bullet
The blade or the bang
Or the furnace forged famine’s
Frail hope hunger pang
Michael Marchese Jul 2022
Maybe not yet
Couldn’t be the right time
If we haven’t quite met
Is it safe to define
This romantic
Semantically
Not ascertained
As rhetorically
Verbally
Just unexplained
Inundation
Of all too forgotten
Emotion
Feels more like a promise,
A vow,
But unspoken
For now
There is day in
Day out
Demonstration
You give me a reason to live
Ideation
Michael Marchese Jun 2018
How many words does it take
For the writer in search of
A novel to make
Before realizing he or she
Poetry needs
To be freed from the brush
Of the artist therein
And the vision imprisoned
In where to begin?

Not enough I suppose
Of these words would suffice
If they did you would see
My pristine paradise
But instead it seems like
I just write to ignite
An uprising demise
Of your country in spite
Of the plight we in common

Must actively fight
Michael Marchese Jun 2022
One single word
Didn’t think
Much of it
But decisive it proved
Nonetheless
Not to split
All too soon
Long before
We could ever be sure
This is what we both want
To desist searching for
Michael Marchese Aug 2020
Been losing this struggle
This battle with life
And with nothing else better
To write
I am rife
With conflictual
Obstacles
Making it worse
And of course
They all say
It’s the way
Universe
Has intended,
Determined,
Discerned it should be
But how could it,
And why,
Would it do this to me?
Strip me bare
Without love
Nevermore
Naturally
Helplessly
Make me watch
As my friends fall apart
And allow me to botch
All attempts to restart
The malfunctioning system
Corrupt-data driven
So riven with viral
Can’t talk to me’s schism
Michael Marchese Nov 2022
Semantics take chances
Like hopeless romantics
And thus my undoing
From love still eschewing
Revealing it feels
Unmistakably
Latent
She knows in her heart
But is stoic
And patient
Awaiting its fall into place
Opportune
More fortuitous
Whereabouts
Over the moon
For her form and mine
Melded
Dispelled the fell
Hell bid
On once upon times
Merely nursery
Rhymes
Just to lose it all gambling
On how she defines
Michael Marchese May 2021
Missed you a lot
As I drove off the lot
As I rode out of sight
To foreboding distraught  
Travel time is too long
Destination is final
Without you
I’m already
Dead on arrival
Michael Marchese Aug 2023
My dearest enchantress
My last second
Chances
Romance is revitalized
There by your side
Most profound
When I’m down
In the ground
Where I died
Or a part of me did
And there’s no resurrection
Not sure if a god
Would undo my transgression
No furthermore lessons
Nor tutoring sessions
No gainful employment
Of actual skill
Just robotic hack protocols
Running the mill
With their judgment,
Indifference,
All empathy lacking
Forgive and forget
Would be humans reacting
But no, cast me out
Revoke my
Humble claim
Make the smallest mistake
The worst I ever made
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
Michael Marchese Jul 2022
Illogic illusion
Construct it with me
Needn’t be
Any less
All too real
Fantasy
Than two people who care
He is here,
She is there
And no distance could sever
The bond that they share
Never dull
Or diminish
The moment
They hold it
Refuse to let go
Without gripping too tightly
And fall for each other
In writing it
Nightly
Michael Marchese Feb 2019
Who was she to he
Can we ever be sure
Do we really know
Really love
Really live for
Someone else to be special
Imprint on us charm
And disarm us of weapons
With which we do harm
To each other
In-lovers
Can never recover
If in coalescence
They do not discover
The secret identities
Even to them
Are uncertain
The roles that we play
Are pretend
Artifices
Illusions
Contusions
A bruise on the soft, silky
Smooth subterfuges
Deceit will eventually
Entropy coax
The dependency
Bend the knee
Vows to be broke
Or discordant performance’s
Suicide notes
Michael Marchese Nov 2018
Used to be king of the world
Unbeknownst to you
Ruler of one
Into all
I was shown the truth
Youth was my edict
The law of the land
I decreed it and freed it
With sword clenched in hand
And commanded the finest
Contingency plan
Prosperous in a gilded age
Advent of man
Common in its exceptional
Privileges granted
For all a most plentiful harvest
Was planted
Supplanted the former theocracy
Waned
And in its wake logic and reason
Then reigned
As supreme as the beings
Extremely would dream
Of utopian unions
To be, I would deem
Michael Marchese Mar 2019
The rains are back
All fades to black
No telling how long
This will last
The shadows are
My oldest friend
Arch-nemesis
We meet again
For I have been
Too many days
And nights
Without
Malaise's praise
To compliment
My evil ways
And reinvent
My serenades
With morbid music
Silence sings
And turbid lucid dreams It brings
When yet again
The rains return
This power lapse
I can discern
And with it comes
Each second taken
Simply waiting
To awaken
In an anywhere but here
Austerity
To make it clear
Michael Marchese Sep 2018
Technical issues
Malfunctioning wires
The power sporadically
Comes, then expires
As quick as the rains
In cascades upon town
Serenade me to sleep
As they crash all around
And depart to the chirping
Of crickets in thickets
Of dense foliage
As the canopy glistens
Bejeweled in the dews’
Opalescent sun rays
As the colobus leap
To and fro as they play
On display is a wilderness
Otherworld bliss
And the people as natural
Components subsist
Off the land that has nourished them
Centuries old
Now a part of their story
Mine set to unfold
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
Michael Marchese Oct 2022
Have I done enough
Thinking
For both of us now
My accomplishments
Nothingness
Still don’t know how
I could ever be down
For a down-payment town
For submission
Conditioned
To bow to the crown
Never found
The unbound
To its soaked in blood ground
I remain
My remains
As the Earth spins around
Not demanding my presence
But yet nonetheless
She accepts me
Addresses me
An
Honored guest
Michael Marchese Aug 2021
As if it mattered
Colored lives
When nothing in the world
Survives
She’s taken
Great
At this rate I
Have only stake in
Yet to die
No reason to report
To work
To have the boss
Impugn my worth
Incentive’s solely
Meager pay
Misplaced ambition
Power play
Some day I could be
In control
But don’t get fired
Is my goal
For now
And patiently preside
Over the wasted,
Bided time
Until she stands
And cracks a smile,
Asks to use
Some stupid file
All the while
Unrequited
How she makes me feel
Ignited
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