Self Dialogue with Marcus
In every movie there’s a snaggletooth thug who pimps broken
speech or a snob poodle who shits for a living named Marcus.
It’s like Marcus is the sleepless infant who weeps without fail
while you’re tonguing her navel by starlight. Fuck every Marcus.
He’s why you sail a hole-punched keel to nowhere you’ve never been.
Rastas love Garvey. Raised Methodist, died Catholic, ask Marcus
to name a market for his prayers. Miller’s no better. His bass
music’s fairly funky but he’d write in couplets too. Marcus
who did this to you? Mr. Schenberg, who says this CK
brief packages right? Why not free-ball? It’s gotta be Marcus
meaning Mars, or Ares in Rome. Today you got spacesuit high
in your underwear to declare self-war. That’s just like Marcus
Aurelius penning that progressive, tender self-help text
then stoning 10,000 Christians. Empire was his Marcus
for that. In Marcus, Iowa there’s one market, five large churches
& a kid who can’t absolve his bass axe-jones. What’s his Marcus
tell me that. You can’t tell what’s homestead or honed to save your life.
Nights you shrivel through a rib in your yacht’s gut. & though Marcus
can rarely swim in film, still, you live to drown another day.
& the Marcus for this Marcus is most certainly Marcus.
