Whose There
by Maria Marrocchino
My mind races with nonsense parables and rhymes.
I haven’t got the time to hang it up
clear it.
I’m tripping but there’s no acid to speak of.
I miss the innocence I once knew.
Eyes that look through windows of ripe cherries not yet bruised.
I want to get all the goodness from the ocean, the sky, but
instead I keep listening to widowed thoughts
telling me I’m vapid or wrinkled or wasting my time.
Me and the lonely moon are singing each other’s
high crimes again tonight.
I’ve wasted yet another love, trying hard to make him mine or perfect or something.
But I keep failing and so I get into a cold bed with just my fantasies
and I’m so fucking bored.
What happened?
Did I let all those needled scavengers rape me dry of my humility?
You see I love myself too much and really I am nothing at all.
I walk around like I don’t have a care but truly I am scared.
I tried to call my mother and tell her she better not waste her tears on me anymore
but I was too late.
She’s shriveled.
Just like an Edvard Munch painting
I want to scream like that.
No you have a nice day, mine is already filled with too much honesty.
Trying to sort through all these filthy lines
and everyone keeps calling me to ask me how I am
and I tell them I’m so great, super, I just need to be saved.
And they hang up on me.
I guess I better work on saving myself.
This Is A Long Poem
This is a long poem
It will be passed over
But the flow of my hand
And my chestnut thoughts
Overwhelm me so I go and go
Letting blue ink stream wonderfully
I sit and the gush of everything
Comes like a full orgasm
It surely is not a great group of words
Maybe only average at best
It surely will not get printed
Maybe even tossed.
This is a long poem
Not even fit to read really
Seldom should anyone care about the outcome
But I’m up all night
For this pedestrian poem
I lose sleep
Many minutes of loss
But long poems are worth it
Phone keeps ringing
The baby is crying
My soul begs me to give up
But I go on and on.
This is a long poem
The throbbing of my hand
The crinkling of my fingers
It’s working
It’s haunting
It’s mature
Short poems are dull
To be a true love of this verse
It must be sweeping
And the opposite of puny
It’s giving me clarity
It has a barrel of hope.
This is a long poem
It stirs such uncertainty
But I feel a sense of humanity
With every crooked prose I still go
Not everyone can do this you know
A cryptic passage to let you know I’m alive
And I wonder when it will stop
Do you think now?
Why are you still reading this?
Have I made a mockery of this art we call “ode”.
BIO
