Bob Marcacci


Four Poems


hate this book                                inanimate
             thing                                     you read
                                                                                 pages
       hate grows in words in lines
                                                       you write
               read again coldly                                again
                     count now
                                                  how many per page
                                                    lose track as
                   hate numbers
                                                  into the tens of thousands
           return to the page where it begins
revenge will be the best solution you think
                                                           to destroy the book
                   reshelve this copy with a cracked spine
                             afraid to read


prayer

make winter colder                      don’t
   make no effort                                  no hope
make holes in paper                         more
                hate                make know dull mold
      make what was foretold                     no
luck           no pleasure                black
    make it back                              take it
           no don’t                promise           make sure
          no one                no cure               none
need                        pain                     make a man
                a woman           a baby
                                                amen



scent
for Angela


doggedly
                    as if to dig
                                  what she knows
   she nudges close
           sniffs neck and ear
                                                soon
                 we dog in the dark bed
              panting and hot               lolling
      tongues all animal lingual
                                                        awash
               detergent sheets conceal us
                        from light which seeps
                 moon’s perfumed pale
                             in our inner inch and dust
                                   another day upturned

               i know you
                                    she said
      from our womb for dreams
                                                              breathed in again





in
china
we build
our christmas
tree the day
after thanksgiving
go from one special
occasion to the next
plastic-furred flame-
retardant holiday
thing which leans a little
strung with tiny neurotic
lights hung all over with the
usual glued and glittered bulbs
deformed imported angels with
broken tiaras queer melted santas
atop green satin balls wooden hearts
and
the
like



Bob Marcacci is a California Vacavillain presently living and writing in Beijing, China. Recent work has appeared in dirt, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, Venereal Kittens and zafusy among others. Host of the International Literary Open Mic every Wednesday evening at The Bookworm in Beijing, and PJ for The Countdown at miporadio.

 
 
 
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