Marcus feels discontent.

Marcus feels discontent.

 

Is he forever condemned to a lack of warmth,

a disconnect, a lifeless existence, a lover’s quarrel with himself?

He mourns because never yet has he managed to find a book about everything.

 

Please, God, I’m not looking for a gripping tale,

human passions as warm breast rises and falls, sinuous twisting plot.

Is everything too much to ask?

 

Why does this small cut on my finger irk me so?

I know you would have liked to cut my fingers off more than once.

Have you wandered back, taken a class in spiritual direction, inhabited my index finger?

 

It has been many a year since I have been sung to sleep.

In my dreams I have grown heavier, bloated.

Do I long for a child, a human of my own flesh, am I pregnant in my sleep?

 

Give me a sign, please, ruffle my hair and give me sweet secret knowledge in the monotone darkened bathroom!

I feel a warmth but I do not know if it is you or whiskey.

 

Hurry, please, I begin to be unable to feel my legs, squatting in communion on the porcelain toilet.

Will I be numb, will they hear a crash and find me in the lavatory?

Will they say, “Such a pity about that nice man”?

 

I will deny all of their filthy accusations, I will cry, “I am not dead,”

I will cry, “Never have I picked my nose and eaten the fruits of my brief labour!”

 

And they will momentarily scatter in shock,

embalm me in their minds shrouded by strips of tattered blindfolds,

try to forget legs purple-red stiff and mottled!

 

I will truly know whether I want to be drinking what you drank or to be what you are drinking,

liquid puckering kiss or refreshment of the soul…

 

If you love me will I be handsome, will I mow the lawn in half an hour?

Could I breathe any louder than I do right now?

 

I want to once again feel comradeship with long-haired young men,

I want faceless people to stride beside me in halls and on roads,

I want my whole body to be legs stretching all the way up!

 

Acknowledge me, I shall cry out, proclaim for all to hear that you know who I am!

I cannot be the stone left unturned; give me a tidy alliterative name,

give me the immoral touch of sweet Caroline!

 

In juvenile notebooks will there be scribbled renderings of my name?

Mister Marcus Reid, they will write adoringly, with soft precise dots and crosses, pink bubblegum loops.

 

And I will be there with them in the spirit, I shall trod on their toes,

I shall flick my jeweled spittle on the pages and watch their faces mist over in confusion as the droplets dance down!

 

“I am here!” I will cry and do cry, and presently there is a rattle at the door.

Thump thump thump it sounds again and again and I am not hard of hearing!

I hear, yes, I hear the door cringe as you belabor it with your withered fists, O landlady,

I know it is you by the pressure of your crumpled hands and yet I do not know your name!

 

“You’ve been in that washroom for half an hour,” you say.

O shrillest of harpies! You accuse me, and you do not know the effects your words have!

I am innocent of this crime.

 

Time does not exist but only clocks. I am a clock and I will tick and I will tock eternally until I break down!

I measure the seconds bored stiff! There is no rest from my hideous ceaseless ticking.

Liberate me; never again will I frown as you wear magenta. Hear me tick!

 

Am I grass that has shriveled, almighty god sucking my juices in a frenzy,

am I a section that has been edited out, a microscopic footnote, a useless annotation?

Do I really sense holistic meaning in the sense of cooking food?

 

Tell me that you are content, tell me tenderly with your withering gangrene mouth.

It will not be hard to say.

And still your dead eyes echo a hundred and a thousand expectations barely fulfilled!

 

There is a rounded fever burning hollow in my head.

Perhaps I am drunk. I am tired, I am tired of being tired;

I am a spiraling angry empty bed. Oh, won’t you touch my central nervous system?

I’ll do the dishes, I’ll do the dishes for the whole week.

 

There are only my dishes now.

There is something final about one cup, one plate, one spoon that stares at me with fixed metallic eyes.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/3zvnqb/dusking_first_post/cyq1680

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