Bob Marcacci


in the very real dream of someone or other
     (with Josh Hinck)

in the very real dream of someone or other
that as shades slant askance and shadows lift
songs of our brother sift his night's cold chance
as a veil as a virgin as self being bridal gift
frail he serves swiftly his victim's short romance
cowering in trepidational rift are they not both the offender
and the offended, naked as babes in coital dance
we serve none but our cold sun coiling swerve
and unnerve wee bleak fun to shove and above all
rise and fall in the swell call of our love upended
distended shape in this still flowering neck of nature
with and in humility we are set free to discover
in the other the well, from which these supple parched
and peering lips quell the shame and passion is whispered



[sic]

[ ] reputation from storms [eclectric] and your wrong [froms].
An apology? Bah! [Adjunct] adversaries in [formual] alights
only on the hand that does not grasp. The greater [goes]
the difficulty [flows.] If you love the more [flix ex-] tempests.
To the end [everywon] enemies that I can remember.
There is no [sav(i)or] of England. [ ] lesson imperfectly [urned.]
The bird [days] our days [turned] God's ways of freedom [fabricrates.]
Disgusting! [Well-wrung] wrong, [lewd.] Cowardly!
Beneath the gentleman['s flunky], however [wee] be.
Where [our] customer [waits] to [fashun] death, [f(low)erever.]
[ ] you can't wrong [agrain.] [S]he might go in paradise
surmounting it[s walls]. Skillful pilots gain their [c(fl)ountry.]
[ ] much [of] my political life [f(l)ails], but no [nix] who mixes
the pleasant with the useful [flinches]. I have had a lot of [fixtures.]
[ ] there is much error. I never forgive, [(f)alter.] [ ]
dignity of any[body] but I always forget. [S]He gains [frames]
shortcut to life. Law [file] everyone's [forsworn.] [What's worse?]
[ ] there is [floral] glory[, affluency] approval of [force],
[if] life is a learned [agilation]. Honesty is a question of right
[left] or not [bereft] a matter of policy. Everyone complains
of the [fad] badness of his[/her] memory, but nobody of his[/her]
judgment [fallacy]. [Fault.] Malt [Oh!] does [Walt] more
[molted] than [Whoa!] Milton can to justify to [mottled] man.
[ ] is part of the Common [farce.]



[untitled]

This door leads to a garden
Where, e'en in deep winter,
No frost touches its green eaves;
Faint petals constantly fall
From this pot. May the spirit
Of such dim magic visions
Stain my senses yet again
'ere I wander too far.



August opens on petrol on no Autumn God.
     (with Xiao Qiao)

August opens on petrol on no Autumn God.
The boy with a tattooed hand handing
Holding pipe drinking beer leafing a magazine.
Beer tastes like petrol like gun metal.
He lights a cigarette. Smokes. In his mind
It burns the tree it burns upwards.
The orange-yellow tree in windless heat
Still flickering in late August heat. The boy
Dreams of being an evil sleeping man.
He burns the station road animals people.
He burns the planet of petrol. The evil king
The boy called August. Lights. A dead bird fell
Off the tree. It just flew from the north to die.
Died in the petrol smell on this scorched earth.




An instructor with Qatar Foundation's Academic Bridge Program at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Education City, Bob Marcacci lives in Doha, Qatar with his wife and six-year-old son. He has also taught English in the United States, China, Italy, and Japan, and his poetry has appeared in numerous online and print publications around the world. Aside from publishing his own e-books, which can be downloaded at http://marcacci.blogspot.com/, Bob has had chapbooks published by BlazeVOX, Dusie, Plan B Press, and Unlikely 2.0.
 
 
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