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Taru Marcellus Feb 2014
this type of poem is new to me
as fresh as stale Olde English
the malt is flowing into me
and soon we'll both be finished

the cheapest of the bottom shelf
this poem is an insult
to Shakespeare and his flock of elves
it mocks their olden art

Elizabeth would have my head
hung in her court for sport
and so it is with heart of dread
I offer this retort

be weary of the ancient forms
they come with hidden ancient norms
this was SO hard. I swear when making this insult and art rhymed in my head lol
654 · Feb 2013
Build an Arc (10w)
Taru Marcellus Feb 2013
flood  out
  can            pain  
      tears                 rainbows
sky's                              will
the                                       follow
651 · Mar 2014
Pok•e•mon (10w)
Taru Marcellus Mar 2014
Call me Ash Ketchum
I'm just tryna get a peek-at-you
636 · Feb 2014
Haiku for the 21st Century
Taru Marcellus Feb 2014
a spider's network
facebook twitter instagram
social suicide
631 · Oct 2013
Limbo
Taru Marcellus Oct 2013
In a world where composition
Knows the heart better than blood
what becomes of the words unwritten
Taru Marcellus Jan 2018
Life has a funny way of mocking the non-believers
like reviving a heart just to kamikaze it back into submission

You were like my first sunset
a beautiful portrait of cascading hope
you were the colors that made dying days into dreams
a foreign land full of possibilities
I could close my eyes and wake half a world away with you

                   but life is funny
                                              ...HA
614 · Nov 2015
WoodWick
Taru Marcellus Nov 2015
you can find reprieve in the burning of a candle
the flicker of wick
  pure animation of life

come and dance on these ponds with me
submerge yourself in scents unknown

have you ever bathed in lavender
come out dripping royalty

this, is the secret to passion:
dance in the wind
dance til the end
and when darkness comes
light another candle
613 · Mar 2013
Lest Sleep Finally Fall
Taru Marcellus Mar 2013
I wanna punch a hole in a hole
make the blackest black
crawl inside
   and sleep

this
     is not insomnia
        this is lust
   twisted into the most frustrating knot
             and dawned with the ugliest bow

lying in bed
I swear I can hear the ceiling crack
it is mocking me
   incessant cackling
        I wanna tear this ******* room apart
crumple walls and bury them beneath buckling kness

I cannot stay still
it's like I've been touched
   and left to dry
aroused
   then left to die

        this is no way to end

my bones are starving hyenas
the bed, a watering hole
there is a slumbering carcass next to me
its flies
   buzz tidings of sheep-filled fields
     ~utopias of sleep~

but I
   am surrounded by night
no stars               no sheep               no sleep
only silence
   but not dark enough
this hole is not dark enough

someone punch a hole in me
I need to get some sleep
596 · Mar 2014
Arkham
Taru Marcellus Mar 2014
I write to keep myself sane
I write to keep myself sane
I write because I'm insane
my mind roams on astral planes
it's like my mind          body          &          spirit
live in 3 different eternities
they circle around nothing
to form a Venn Diagram
the commonality is called reality
it is the looniest loop
I would much rather live between lines
read and created
between black and white panels

I am in sane
I'm a math teacher if you haven't figured out yet
Taru Marcellus Jun 2014
the technicalities of technique
find cracks where there is no fault
in cracked faces etched with smiles
and written so it is
that syntax is but confused hindsight
that youth is but confused ____
                              ...well just confused
543 · Jan 2017
Fuck You
Taru Marcellus Jan 2017
I could care less what you think of me. You are a small person in an ever-expanding universe. My reality is bigger than you, and your tiny world!
to no one in particular
Taru Marcellus Aug 2014
we are all of the same matter
cells and ****
swelling into different sizes
some fat                                            
                 ­          some obese
some                        grotesquely                 skinny
but we are all of the same stuff
pigment variation splayed along a spectrum
what makes you better than anyone else

either we all matter or none of us do...
In the grand scheme... everyone of course has individual talents which they are better than others at but no one is holistically better than anyone else...been watching a lot of Orange is the New Black
508 · Feb 2017
Don't Tell
Taru Marcellus Feb 2017
I want to part your lips and slip you a secret
501 · Sep 2014
Number 1 (10w)
Taru Marcellus Sep 2014
knows it's all a game
   but gives their all anyway
500 · Feb 2014
Only the Good Die Young
Taru Marcellus Feb 2014
sometimes I wish I were a martyr
a  Billy Joel punchline that hit premature
I wish that something would strike me
so that I could feel struck instead of stuck
sometimes I wish I had a cause worth dying for
then I could truly feel alive
496 · May 2014
Teacher Daze
Taru Marcellus May 2014
How was your day?

                                       it was a day....except




this kid in the last row of class
shrouded in his own personal forest fire
actually took the time to cool into his seat

he settled down like a tree stump
as he listened to the murmuring of roots
                      y = ax^2 + bx +c

how could he not be captivated
in this wasteland for numbers and adolescent brains
how could he not be cultivated
                       this is my job

for the first time
he raises his hand with answers unpronounced
stumbling through parentheses
   as if they were brackets holding him together
               it is harder than it looks

he approaches the board
   -paper in hand
      and turns to face his audience

****! * it's a lot of people in here

I later ask him, when was the last time you went to the board
he says * never
It's the little victories that count
488 · Mar 2015
How You Been?
Taru Marcellus Mar 2015
I'm ******* **** uuuuuuuuup in the worst way!!!
almost forgot my mom's birthday
drowning in my own little misery
I think I really hate life
liquor seems to stick to me
**** wants to reminisce, dig up all my old ****
sitting in a cloud of smoke, dreaming of my old chick
nostalgic of past days
   wish this was my last day
...yea I wish this was my last day

Now it's daybreak
sun is on the rise again
hiding from the moon to keep the shadows from my irises
ignorance is bliss so I don't wanna see no evil
but I can't ignore a whole world full of people
I can't be blind to my own **** reflection
used to be good but I lost that connection
nother kid murdered, still I feel no connection
-----a common misconception

But can I fix my vision to become a visionary?
Can I find my purpose ******* her in missionary?
in a world full of things, if i buy a diamond ring, Does that mean love is eternal?
cuz that's kinda scary.
Is happiness an illusion cuz it doesn't last?
Is today just a mirage of the distant past?
if a circle always spins, when I do reach my end, Does that mean I was a point in a pile of ash?
TBC
488 · Feb 2014
Foggy Mind (15w)
Taru Marcellus Feb 2014
we need some clouds up in this piece*

   ~the dying wish of a sunny day
Taru Marcellus Apr 2014
the proof is in the pudding*
                                    irony is in the jello
                                              just eat it all
Check out the history of this oft misquoted phrase...
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/24/159975466/corrections-and-comments-to-stories
471 · Apr 2014
Good Ole Teddy
Taru Marcellus Apr 2014
Comparison is the theif of joy*
             - Theodore Roosevelt

green (jealousy)
permeates from
love (red) of sadness (blue)
456 · Nov 2014
verve (5w)
Taru Marcellus Nov 2014
sunset is a bittersweet symphony
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyu1KKwC74
451 · Jul 2013
What of:
Taru Marcellus Jul 2013
bullets that speak truth
when their podium is a cave wall
Interpretations are welcomed and appreciated
419 · Feb 2013
Point A to Point...
Taru Marcellus Feb 2013
A point outside of time is hard to define
when was it born
when will it die
oh, nevermind
Something old and simple...really struggling with writer's block
408 · Apr 2014
Smile Noise
Taru Marcellus Apr 2014
When inspiration comes
Backslap that *****
   And smile
Tell her her reception is too shallow
To catch these waves
120 megapixels in just one character

Stop them                                                             ­   I can hear the noises
Stop them                                                             ­   I want to
I want them                   laugh with me

We are the all- singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
Again higher hypothesizing and experimenting
345 · Jan 2017
Heart of Darkness
Taru Marcellus Jan 2017
I think I'm obsessed with the dark
some nights I find myself buried under covers
no longer hiding from monsters
but from myself
I lost fear of the things beneath the bed
until I tucked my suicide notes there
now I dream of death cloaked in misunderstanding
I nightmare of long days and a longer life
daily-
I awake to the reality that demons aren't confined to the shadows
and no matter how long I withhold
the light will eventually expose me
for
the
monster
I
am
272 · Sep 8
Lost ID
a black cat and a half moon
a sober night of
remembering lost things
like my identity
I can't remember where I left it
the street purrs
of paths already trodden
can I find myself on the dark side
of memory
tomorrow I will search
for completion
for validation of my existence
270 · Sep 2024
Worn Spines
Taru Marcellus Sep 2024
flip through
pages of old

lick words

and taste
the dust
that inspires
265 · Nov 2024
a curious suicide
Taru Marcellus Nov 2024
this cat has seen me die 8 lives
an asphyxiated sphinx
suffocating on my own questions
256 · Dec 2024
scribbled dreams
Taru Marcellus Dec 2024
rorschach                                 mandalas  
blurred by dawn

to be both dreamer and interpreter
is to be lost in translation
234 · Jul 2024
Maternal Breather
Taru Marcellus Jul 2024
what came first:
          the inhale      or      the exhale
is the moment of transition
a peak or a valley

this is the question of birth and death
    of rebirth and culmination
the leaf whispered to the seedling
yet neither remembered first touch
  a mother's womb is its own ecosystem
       a dark moist vacuum

           regalia regalia

she wants to lie down
and stop feeding but everything
relies on her
   even if she is just a link
she must be the strongest one
stand up when others sit
spit conviction while others question
        in the endless spinning
    she must have her own orbit
          she has always held tight to what she needs

needless to say
she has been both twig and tree
and she came first waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
before any man
233 · Dec 2022
Thigh-kui
Taru Marcellus Dec 2022
slippery highways
tongue traverses yellow lines
the crash is magic
230 · May 2023
Tomorrow's Gold Coins
Taru Marcellus May 2023
A field of four leaf clovers
at the end of a rainbow
a trail of gold coins scattered about
   this is my path
a yellow brick road carved throughout
with lurking black cats and white butterflies
what of luck when you are constantly saddled
with rosemary and lavender
when hummingbirds and crows
seem to follow your every step
I go to sleep in birdsong and wake up to harmony
my luckiest moment?
my luckiest moment??
when I take this breath
  or the next
and the sun continues to shine
I drop a few gold coins
seeding another blessing for another day for another person

Once, neck-deep in a valley
I found a few hundred dollars
on a sidewalk
awaiting my presence
     -happenstance-
Once, I left my job
to freefall and never land
and I am still floating
      -coincidence-
Once, I met a witch
who blessed me with
copal and quartz and oil
and the anointing still stands
my luckiest moment???

Tomorrow
when serendipity meets mundane
and the die roll 7, 7 times
as if I live in complete abundance
I do not know of failure, only progress
and so perhaps, just maybe
my next step will be my best
if only to bare my sole to the world
and be received

My luckiest moment is a thread
of gold constantly woven into a legacy quilt
and is it just me
or did it just get warm ~ cozy
this is my life
and to live it
is the dream I used to sleep on
but I can hear steady chirps
and so I know I'm awake
   and well
at the end of some rainbow
crunking with leprechauns
and shooting loaded dice
luck? luck?!?!

I cannot lose.
Writing Prompt: My Luckiest Moment
216 · May 2023
10,002 Steps
Taru Marcellus May 2023
10,001 steps beyond exhaustion
the body crumples into a heap
trash or treasure ~ depends on the observer
not everything with value is valued
a crescent moon of hope in the lungs
what will the next breath produce
when still chasing completion
in cycles unending
another step? perhaps for show?
the will is waning
the destination reached
time and time again
new goal- another step
remove the oxygen this time
breath only expectations
hinge on the exhale of results

Here we go!     <step>
into yesterday's half effort
competing for the highest version of happiness
WhaT iS HaPPiNesS
   a buffering rainbow spiraling amidst rainclouds
the feet trudge through mud
tracking desire along an otherwise peaceful path
why can't the mind   and   body
just be still
HERE
10,002 steps beyond exhaustion
sit, and be whole
the treasure has always been here
What's the path to happiness/ success?

“What is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness.”
- Don Draper (Mad Men)
211 · May 9
71%
71%
I am plugging in my tech
   for the night

   In darkness
I feel for outlets to fill me
   up

Your outline is a weighted impression
   the far side of bed remembers well

I trace edges of faded color
   empty for a spark of you

On the other side of a dream
   it is 3:54 am
   I am at 71%
210 · Jun 9
Forking Time
a swarm of physicists
sits in a room debunking
“the present”

                           logical deduction:
                             there is no now
                            (it doesn't exist)

                                           light years away
                                           on a podcast with nature
                                           a bug flys into my eye

I adjust course
                           a fork offers 3 options
the brain is an open mouth
                                          I sit instead
   an insatiable appetite consumes utensils too
This poem is literally based off a podcast clip. Inspiration Video: https://youtube.com/shorts/bdK540KUdWI?si=Ctf-KdP2D7tSRlyu
🙄
202 · May 1
but did you celebrate
...the thing
                    ...you did it
   ground a mountain out of
a seed
   birthed a dream out of
a death

you are not where you were
   10     5     1      year ago
but have you stopped to
                                         appreciate it

it is better to be
   late to the birthday than
early to the funeral
194 · Mar 2024
Unfulfilled Proposal
Taru Marcellus Mar 2024
what can I promise forever?

nothing

but perhaps the closest thing to a ring

I will continue shaving my corners down
193 · Oct 2024
Coffee Marries Bagel
Taru Marcellus Oct 2024
Love is both muse and music
both poetry and purpose
a symphony of serendipity


The perfect love poem takes just minutes
to imagine
    but a lifetime to create
though words may flood your page
seek the source
love is the strongest force
        it exists beyond language
    is felt before touch
let your sentences be drenched
in intimacy
and punctuated by appreciation

Even when communication is nonverbal
let its essence be affection
     devotion
not only are run ons acceptable here
they are encouraged
marriage is not a life sentence
but an epic of possibilities

Adventure forward knowing that
the future is unknowable
but you are forging it   -   together
ellipses are waiting for you
you create time
   mold it to your will   -   together
trust the process
                              but also
trust each other
     to be auxiliary verbs in
       the act of loving

Seek understanding in your verses
             there is no winner
when existence is the goal
     co-existence
     co-creation
ego aside
be co-stars for the Virgo moon
live in the ease of each other
  even as cycles spiral around you
  even as you spiral around cycles
be the period that stands firm
                                                      for your partner
even under questioning

When line breaks feel like endings
   indent   and   reinvent
you are both forever changing
   so change together
   make edits together
it is a lie that brainstorms are
only the beginning
they will find you
in idle moments
  when the mind wanders
   raining down doubts
though ideas may blot your page
again seek source
  and what started your course

Write to each other
Write for each other

The perfect love poem takes just minutes
to draft
    but if you do it right
it is always under revision
even after you decide to publish
Desmond and Afrika
Happy Publishing Day
to one of the greatest love stories
   ever written

a poem written for a friend’s wedding. Celebrating the union of Desmond and Afrika. 9/28/24
A lantern dangles
Suspended orb of peace   -   Full
A new age loading
187 · Mar 2024
Wu Wei
Taru Marcellus Mar 2024
to save a thread
            or cut it out
     or
           let
                  it
                       dwindle
the     natural      route
183 · May 18
Run-on
in all this empty space
                       still couldn’t find the time

our last contact is
                          a rejected suggestion
notification
               of erasure still in progress

your fingerprints are deeply imprinted
   considerations of immortalizing you
in a book
or two

in all this empty space
                    you are more than temporary

though we both spoke periods you are run-on letters from a decade ago
today’s breath is hope
                                               from yesterday
I wish I could tell you

what I once so feverishly stumbled over
it’s still true
it will be
forever
180 · Feb 2024
Scene
Taru Marcellus Feb 2024
Truth is spray painted on a brick wall
it is scheduled to be demolished tomorrow
wilted sunflowers rise from its rubble
179 · Dec 2024
Fleeting
Taru Marcellus Dec 2024
I was in it
Yes, it was real
Still is
It just changed
As all things do
I do not fault nature its cycles
I do not cling to any moment
besides this one
on love...
173 · Nov 2023
?
Taru Marcellus Nov 2023
?
Who
          wh          wh          who
     What
          When
Where
          wh          wh          where­
     Why
          How

if life was a sentence it would end in a question mark
no judge setting bail
just animals caged in the medulla
stuck in query
                    asking
WHO am I
     WHAT is my purpose
          ...WHEN is my deadline...
                  WHERE am I going
                         WHY am I asking all these questions
and HOW, HOW the **** do I do this right
168 · Apr 2022
A Grain of Mountain
Taru Marcellus Apr 2022
the most valiant of giants
   walks without a care
steps without looking
          or wondering
where feet will land

head in the clouds
     thunder is but a whisper
165 · Nov 2024
Election Night
Taru Marcellus Nov 2024
sadistic numbers
                               the map bleeds
                               a projected suicide

                                                        ­         too close to call

the heads yelp anyway
      decimals spilling out
                                           to fill the gaps

THIS JUST IN
the world is ending
the world is ending
the world is ending

                                   don't stop watching!
Taru Marcellus May 2023
Pro
Random
Organized
Vindication,
Intuition led
Divinely rewarded,
Enter thresholds graciously,
Not timely but always on time,
Care and covering in purest form
Esoteric benevolence abounds
An etheree poem consists of 10 lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 syllables.

An acrostic poem is a poem where the first letters in each line spell out a word.
161 · Jan 2024
Circle?
Taru Marcellus Jan 2024
I heard that Laozi said the perfect square has no corners
and I have been rounding myself out ever since
dulling my edges to get closer and closer to center
my point is- even when I'm not all right, I'm alright
158 · May 1
Wash Cycle
I’ve arrived again
in a place I used to know
I swear this laundromat is a portal
I’m in a wash cycle
wringing lessons free from my collar
how do I escape the rinse?

I wanna be clean
but this process feels so messy
not *****   -   but messy
share the heart, hide the hands
I am distorted and out of sorts
her eyes hold rebirth
if I could just die first
I wanna be clean

does purged love create space for more love?
why is release the first step to receipt?
is it?
gently deterred, no detergent
I am spinning on overload
strung out and stranded
how do I escape this rinse?

I used to know
how to worship being alive
without bubbles
is it any wonder why
sometimes cycles feel like
perpetual spiraling
I haven’t even put any currency in
and it’s already starting again

what’s the cost of water?
I wanna be clean
but I don’t wanna pay
155 · Nov 2024
Thoreau's Woods
Taru Marcellus Nov 2024
under foot
fertilizer whispers of fallen leaves
     not blackened or auburned
       by sweat or toil

light rests
  buried under compact soil
     silent and dense
     cold and unstirred
                                       forecasting winter

waking dreams are ground into dust
and tossed to stoic winds

pillars stand unmoved by clocks
          tradition and duty
          tradition and duty
          tradition and duty
                           swing hands in unceasing circles
do not let your light be fodder

  under foot
fertilizer whispers of fallen leaves
     as stars stare holes into your black
Inspired by a rewatch of Dead Poets Society
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