MARCO ON THE BEATITUDES

Note: I've been working on a series of poems about a character named Marco. He's maybe kind of autobiographical but also kind of a composite of a handful of real life characters I've encountered over my years. At any rate, of the three Marco poems I've created so far, I like this one the least, which means you get to read it here. I'm trying, against my every impulse, to be better about keeping things back, since the reality is that so very many journals require things to be previously unpublished, and even consider the most modestest vanity blog to be publshing.

MARCO ON THE BEATITUDES

Marco hops off the eleven
and immediately onto Matthew 5.
Glassy-eyed, grinning, and with
“No Gods, No Masters” backpatch,
engages three elderly evangelists
in front of Giant Laundromat.

Asked about it later, he’ll explain
something about having sold a deed for a lot
but retaining a blueprint to build.

“I hang on to the framework.”

He’s got, it has to be said,
Something of a holy fervor,
Righteous zeal;

The crux: Swords into plowshares
versus highways and byways,
Paul as a megalomaniac,
Preaching versus protest
“against war and profiteering!”

At the end, he’s really ramped up,
High on coffee, a handful of speed,
And the smell of his own shit.

His voice almost takes on
A certain something southern,
Like he’s out shilling for
a tent revival he is hosting,

Instead of flyering
for a punk show.