Thus Spake Marco

the coward,

the Hider,

The Runner,

the Liar;

Thus Spake Marco,

the stubborn immovable

wolf-born child;

Thus Spake Marco,

the Anarchist priest,

the philistine beast

Who rose from the East;

Thus Spake Marco,

the student of Aristocles,

or Plato if you please;

Thus Spake the New-born babe,

Still slick and wet from womb;

Birthed again in Suburbia

to forsee the coming

of our Doom.

why is it That I can love so much,

and yet, when it comes to loving a person,

I can’t get it out right?

I love plastic bags

and the George Washington bridge,

I love seagulls and polluted rivers

and crabbing on the side of the AC expressway,

but there’s some dumb part of me,

installed into my hard drive by a lifetime of programming

and generations of societal norms

That prevents me from saying

I love you

to another human being,

another creature of the same tortured species;

why are we made this way?

needless to say,

maybe someday

I’ll turn into a butterfly

and flutter away

and even though I like to think

that I’m fine by myself,

humans are complexly social animals

with a genetic desire for connectedness and dependency,

the way things are now

I get kind of lonely.

if we made up money to strengthen order,

then why does it make chaos?

hold up,

what the fuck is going on here

I’m crying and my heart is in knots

and my cousin got shot

for this shit.

somebody give me an answer quick

before I do some Tyler Durden shit

When you died,

why didn’t the world stop?

why weren’t the flags at half mast,

why weren’t there news crews

and streets clogged with throngs of mourners?

this isn’t what it’s supposed to be like

when a Hero dies,

there are supposed to be teams

of investigators trying to find out why

and maybe the mayor of New York,

the governor

Somebody

When the ambulance drove away with you though,

what was the driver thinking about?

His girlfriend or his mortgage?

why didn’t the crickets stop singing,

why weren’t bells tolling

and global ceasefires called?

Doesn’t anybody know

that the most important person in all existence

just ceased to exist?

what do I do now

I’m alone and I’m so scared

how can I go on

and does anybody care

Great!

A 21st century Caliphate

Sponsored by terror,

and fueled by hate

I guess is what you get

when you fuck with a state

for multiple decades

and make it too late

to get out…

So let’s send more young boys and girls

and dress them up like soldiers,

make them fight in all our wars

before they get much older

get some home inside a box,

and the rest just damaged forever

Say wow did they fight bravely

(got his head severed

by a bomb

in some simple diffusion error,

or blown up along the roadside

by some teenaged jihad aggressor)

All the same, let’s take a nice breath

of agent orange,

straighten our boots

and see some foreign

Lands;

Colonel Gaddafi, al-Assad

and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

certainly did their best,

Now the commander-in-chief

and his war-hound beasts

with their bloodthirsty greed will do the rest!

After Every Spring

and the dog-days of summer

Comes a long hard winter,

and it just gets tougher.

Drone-strikes for Jesus,

Heads for Allah,

and Missiles for Elohim

God sure is a thirsty bastard,

bloody old and grim.

Humans live such tortured lives

and have unparalleled capability

to destroy and hate

You have to give us something though,

Cause boy, can we create

Invisible people are everywhere (supposedly

living on invisible lands over invisible oceans)

There’s an invisible war going on right now, my invisible country

is fighting some invisible enemy.

In some invisible city there are invisible crimes transpiring

and invisible happinesses.

Invisible brides walk arm in arm with their invisible fathers,

and invisible beasts stalk the frozen invisible boreal forests.

An invisible girl

was kidnapped by an invisible assailant 12 invisible years ago,

the invisible police never found her;

Wow, the more I think about this…

All that really IS visible right now

is my desk, some books,

and this poem.

Poetry is when you find a windshield smashed with a baseball bat

and you smile,

thinking that the little pieces

look an awful lot like diamonds.

Poetry is when the seagulls

hung up in the night sky over the casinos

look like plastic bags,

Drifting on the dirty, gentle summer breeze.

You see, Poetry

is taking a breath on top of a parking garage

and closing your eyes to cry

where nobody’s going to stare,

and poetry

is thinking about what’s out there

What’s going on in every housing project,

and why is that man holding his face in his hands?

Poetry

is not nostalgic,

is not a sexy boy kissing a perfect girl,

it isn’t using logic, it’s more

Poetry

is just being able to stand

and look at yourself and at others and at the pigeons and at the world

and shed tears because it’s all so perfect.

Poetry is being able to understand

That taking a child’s hand and walking down the promenade

is not just motions, it’s not just an action.

Poetry is realizing that every brick and nail that makes a city

was laid by hands that were once as small as those,

That every grain sand and piece of land on which we stand

is all the same;

Poetry is opening your eyes to the miracle

of the neon lights on a Corona sign,

seeing a squirrel for the first time

and living your life,

I don’t know how else to put it,

just write

Marco, the streetlights glow just for you!

Your smile makes the traffic signal change,

and your Eyes

are the two most beautiful puddles

I have ever seen.

I don’t wear designer clothes

and I don’t do my hair.

I don’t sit and write dumb shit

from a fancy high-backed chair.

Seated on a barstool throne

in a Hooters booth in Wayne,

I’m the son of suburbia

with concrete in my veins

And when all this is gone,

my legacy remains

in plastic bags

and empty Fanta cans

in the dump on Staten Island

or in the Meadowlands.

You think I don’t see those track marks from crank,

I can’t see that your hungry eyes have sank?

Keep trying to hide behind excuses and lies

and it’ll show you why you’re twisted up and broken inside;

You want to shoot it up your veins?

Some Mexican mud inside your blood

gonna help you kill that pain?

you put a demon in your body

to murder your family while you watch,

so now sit back on the couch and relax

to that smackety smack smack

with your eyes rolled back

and hot vomit on your shirt

Thinking you’re less than dirt,

so what’s a little more gonna hurt?

5 bucks for a bump of that dirty brown,

A little bit of white right from Chinatown?

It’s not too late to flush that tar

and even though it’ll leave a scar,

that’s better than another dead kid in her car

You can do it and I love you,

so please

don’t give up.

Just read it in the news, Atlantic City’s going under

Where’ll all the addicts go? To Pennsylvania somewhere

I don’t know what could be sadder Than watching a city sink,

Sliding beneath the waves Of that green eternal drink

Walk out on the Steel Pier, 3 tickets for the Ferris wheel

And it stops all the way on top

Feel the breeze pass through your hair

And as you sit up there and stare

at what this place used to be,

Can’t you see

what it means to me?

Never mind, because to you

It’s a rundown town

filled with whores and dirty bars.

To you, it’s skanky streets and public housing,

cheap souvenirs and dollar-dogs.

You see the homeless sleeping underneath the boardwalk

and you want to leave

the 72 cent underpants at the Super 8.

You want to get away from this place,

the broken needles and the pain,

the casino commission and the crackheads.

Now the lights are going out

along Atlantic Avenue,

and the doors are sealed

With the boards they’re being nailed to.

Governor says we’ll make it through,

but I don’t know if he knows what to do

so there goes another city,

Sunk into the sea,

I wish you understood

what this means to them and means to me.

Take me to Canaan,

to that blessed land

Where Messiahs walked

and teachers taught

From cities made in sand.

The whole world’s dick

is in it’s hand,

and they’re trading nervous looks;

but Israel a Jewish State?

I don’t think Murders in that book.

This can’t keep happening forever,

somebody’s got

to pull the lever pretty soon,

Russia sits and mocks the West

as they play the game,

Africas forgotten still

(Has anything really changed?)

And all you Tamils

better run for the hills,

Cause Sri Lanka’s got more camps to fill

So get on over to Australia,

See if Tony Abbott’ll have ya.

Don’t take what I’m  writing to heart,

it’s just a little poem,

I just want to play my part,

(some things are better thought than spoken)

All this is exciting,

but it’s three whole worlds away!

I can’t be concerned with human rights

when I’ve got work today.

Ye olde Soothesayers who sit boothed in Jersey diners,

Ye mystics of the cole-slaw truths

of club sandwich Rudolph Steiners,

Though Germanic Gods are dead and gone

occultist dreams can yet live on

In bathroom stalls and Tinton Falls,

the alters still exist;

the midnight glow

of candlelight shows

those secret ritualists;

The Anglo-Saxon dirty napkin

of Medieval Olde-Norse runes;

A greasy cup of coffee flood

and a rising orange Moon;

add two drops of Dragon’s blood

to the house soup or Caesar salad,

Rub the magik stone and chant

That evil alma mater.

oyster crackers Mythos calls you soul to pickle,

Linoleum divination

Reveals another jukebox-nickle…

The Gothic inscriptions carved

within ye all

Lie scratched upon

thine dessert case wall;

So follow me to see what is or what may be

ye draconian pupils of Merlin

to have a taste of deep-fried Destiny

on the road back to Carthage or East Orange,

for Guido von List

may yet persist

in a waitresses kiss

in a drainage ditch

that reeks of piss

or some parking lot abyss

off Route 46;

What I’m trying to say is this;

Magic is everywhere

and A cannoli is

my only holy

scroll.

Callused hands

and bluegrass bands,

and Ferris-wheel love

from up above

The Atlantic City pier;

My life’s been going

pretty fine

when I stop to think

from time to time,

but it has it’s wears

and I’ve had my shares

of defeat and cold regret.

Now look ahead and close your eyes

as the sun begins to set,

But hold your scars close to you

until our Maker’s met;

For though it’s hard for us to do,

we must never let

ourselves Forget.

They come in every size and shape, they’re guidos from the Wildwood shore, or big laughing Hawaiians. They come from LA, and they come from Poland. They’re filled with jokes, and they’re deadly serious; They’re human calculators from Calcutta, or they’re hairy Israeli Mexican Druids from Santa-Cruz. They roughhouse and they read books (love fantasy and Sci-Fi!) They stock the dairy shelves and they make me laugh when I’m feeling low; They climb trees and burn money, They’re radical liberal Hippies with flower-eyes and communist dreams, and libertarian conservatives, They’ve married young and they’ve lived alone, They’re Persian bastards Who I truly love, and berserking barbarians when it’s party time in D&D.They are volcanic redheads who are truly insane, and they are pig-tailed men who speak in riddles and rhymes. They speak Ukrainian and they smoke pot. They steal from the rich and give to the poor, They’re reckless and they’re tame, They’re introverts and they’re burglars. Their name is Sclurbs (I don’t know why) and they are farmers and musicians, Metalheads and activists, They’re smartass Stickboys, Who can’t shut up, And Honest G’s, wise and reserved. They’re East Coast Gay Boys, and they love linguine with (white!) clam sauce. They’re loud and they’re proud, they’re quiet and they’re hurt. They’re Raw Power or they’re surfers with trucks, who quietly sip rootbeer on the beach at night; They are thick-headed or loyal (sometimes I don’t know which!) They’re Jewish raccoons who find peace in winter, or metrosexual fashionistas! They’re fiery Cubans (who think they’re Italian) or beautiful Puorto-Ricans, with sun-kissed skin. They love good espresso, and they’re slinking Frenchmen; they are Pokemon masters, and they will marvel at every scene in Blade Runner. They’re Homosexual and straight, and they’re more sensative then they look. They can be brave and they can be scared, but that doesn’t matter. They’re professors and old teachers, your brothers and your Cousins, and they get you into trouble, then get you out; They apologize or they fist-fight, They smoke hand rolled cigarettes and come from Seattle; Drive motorcycles and make damn good cider. They have beautiful hair and lovely eyes, They’ve been to prison, and they’ve got regrets. They’re old and they’re young, they’re Christian and they’re Bokonist, and they’ve brought pizza over to my house every Friday night since I was born. They guard my life, and they take my money on poker night. They are the Children of the Information Generation, who fight spies with gaming-controllers, and they’re outdoorsmen who loathe the screen. They are inward and they are outward, witty and Simple. I’ve known some since kindergarten, and some I’ve just met, They have badass scars and imperfections. They are big Russian freckle-faced sweethearts and Irish comedians looking for that break. They are feminists and they are fierce competitors.They’ll always surprise you, and they’ll never fail you. They fill in the cracks, and they keep you together. They are all different. They help you everyday to grow and learn. They are Friends, and I love every one of them so much I could die for them Without batting an eye. I am blessed.

Here we go again

America’s lost it’s head

Please Give love a chance

Someone lend me

a helping hand

and Take me to

my promised land;

My wife is dead from missile strikes

and you’ll never understand

The world may be numb to this

But I can’t quite say I am;

Hamas and Netanyahu

direct unconditional hate

Leaves me wondering who

Has got the fullest plate

My organs

are the violent churning waters of the ocean

beating on the pilings beneath the Atlantic City boardwalk

during a late July

tropical storm.

My heart is a torrential riptide,

So fierce

And so strong

That resistance is useless.

My Soul is Waves and swells of salt water

that never stop coming,

That rise up out of the grey sea Again

and Again.

My eyes are the lightning strikes

That you watch split the sky over the Ocean at night

from the inside of your home;

Love me for what I am

or Fear me and Drown

I do not indulge

in the Bullshit of Landlings.

O Espresso

you God-drink,

your super-crema

makes me smile.

Your flavour awakens

Ancestral happiness and pride

and puts me into

A dull and warm state of mind.

Espresso, save me from what

the world is doing to me,

you perfect, dark, fatherly liquid,

You magnificent little tiny cup of coffee,

with the little spoon too!

I want all of you,

and I want drink you up my mouth,

and never let you out!

Bricks and bridges

and highway-signs,

making me start

to lose my mind

Chainlink fences

and streetlight glow

Been making me feel

pretty low

Fire-escape balconies

and cigarette butts

Starting to drive me

a little nuts

Parkway exits

I’ll never drive down

making me wonder,

what’s out there?

Do you Ever have those days

When you just get out of work late,

and you reek like fish from

Chopping off their heads,

And you just are feeling the strain

So Hard,

that you get in your car

and drive to an abandoned asylum

down the road

and walk through the empty rubble-filled courtyards and hallways

and feel the crunch of broken glass under your feet

and look at all the empty, staring windows

and stare right back?

I do.

And I stare at the trees growing out of collapsed rooftops

and the forests of weeds,

At The bottles smashed

(for whatever reason, I may never know)

I stare at the smokestacks and the crumbling roads

at the old Televisions

and the rusted out Machines and rotted plywood.

It’s nights like these

when I take every piece of

graffiti to heart,

And it just crushes me to see

that sad street art,

The overpasses decorated with their scripture.

Just going to drive back home

and write another poem

that she’ll never even read,

Got to try to get some sleep

before I’m born again tomorrow,

but somehow I know

that I won’t get much of that tonight;

So Here I come, tomorrow!

One Night in the Woods,

Wolves will run beneath your Skin

and Fur’ll coat your arms.