The October Editor's Pick Poet is
Marc Nocerino
Please feel free to email Marc at: marc.nocerino@gmail.com
GIVE/TAKE
Blue and grey swirls upward
an exhalation
precious life commingled with
poison death
Lingering, sensual, in the night air
warming it
Come here, boy - with that
cocaine voice
her mouth a cave of treasures
allures me
Fingers under my skin
seek purchase
One more breath
my own
gone into the night air
Not yet
I whisper silently in my ear
and ignore
APATHETIQUE
“It won’t begin until you make it end” – Mike Patton
Raising the glass to lips wanton with reproach
I drank deeply from the cup of sorrow
Relished the acerbic taste of misery
That peculiar flavor not too unlike happiness
Sharing the same base,
Only a little harsher through some caustic alchemy
Draught after draught was poured
Until I had drained all but the smallest drops
Left at the bottom of that pitcher of bitterness
And those too I devoured with abandon
Upending the decanter and shaking them into my greedy mouth,
Tongue searching for any stray molecules left behind
Flush with the fullness of my own acrimony
I entered into a languid torpor
Spent of energy and bordering on introspective
Self-recrimination now exchanged for reflection
My bloated gaze turned inwards,
Scanning the detritus for scraps worth salvaging
SWALLOW
The Words burn with dark fire
my throat expands, contorts
to accommodate their alien shapes
They struggle to get out
I ate them with my eyes first
strange lines and curves which intersected and
bisected the planes of yellowed pages
- the Geometry of dead gods
Bulging, throbbing
I gag on their putrescent power
Tendrils of articulation crawl along the back of my tongue
tasting of bile and sinister intent
I used to think it was the house;
but it was The Book that called to me first
nestled among the thousands of volumes
in that decrepit mansion’s library
Slime and heat and pain and glory
and Intelligence, such ineffable Intelligence
worm their way upwards
toward freedom
The Book had hungered to be read
and I, fool, fell prey to its appetite
trapped in Its snare and unable
- unwilling – to look away from those terrible secrets
Utterances like vomit flood my mouth
hot and ichorous
I can barely keep my lips shut against their Will
as they press against my clenched teeth
Sitting on that dust strewn floor
in that horrible house I beheld the message
as the Words and sigils took residence in my mind
I became their Messenger
Liquid sound thunders against the walls of
my cheeks as grotesque syllables squirm
and writhe, demaning release
This will be my last act
I know that all vestiges of me will be subsumed
Swallowed to forward the Greater Cause
The Words must be set free!
I shudder in ecstatic release, and they slither out into the world
Writer, musician, poet, armchair philosopher, libertine, mystic; and most recently, father.
Marc was born and raised under the foggy canopy that blankets San Francisco, where he was first exposed to the exotic and profane elements that became a seminal influence on his creativity.
When not writing for pleasure, Marc spends his time doing a ridiculous amount of homework as well as working as Assistant Editor for She Never Slept, an online horror magazine where he also writes the occasional review and has a column on horror-based webzines.
He currently lives amid the tall pines of California's Sierra-Nevada Foothills with his amazing wife and daughter -- and the sketchiest cat ever born.