Legacies in another harbor, a new poem

Legacies in another harbor

by mike marcellino


An American salute -
hope she’s right.
Her flag born
over a fort, guarding
Fell’s Point.
Legacies in another harbor,
Then Baltimore.
Lanterns on the road, headlights down the highway.

An American salute -
Centuries after
The Revolution,
almost forgot.
Still, leftover in real ages,
finding
virtually reality
picturing
her waving, flapping
flying over Key’s song spot.

An American salute -
born
in the blood of our brothers,
sweat,
tears, fears
years an’ years.
Soldiers fighting
to get back home,
suddenly unfriendly, unfamiliar.
Kiss their sweethearts.
Salute Old Glory,
the nation they knew -
The one they lived for
loved for, died for.

An American salute -
Across rivers, time
worn, forgot.
near frozen
worker army
almost forgot
across the Delaware
River,
with a founding father at the helm.

An American salute -
To a plain, anguished
man in rough spun cover.
Saving a union in chaos, carnage.
Freeing the slaves.
Remember Abe,
a great paperback writer
picked folks out of oppression
from a culture,
Southern.
States not possessed.

An American salute -
Not her uniforms.
Not our flag.
Our Revolution,
almost forgot.
Our Constitution.
almost forgot.
Our bills of rights
almost forgot
intended not just for men,
but for women, even children.
Our bills of rights
drawn by rich
land an’ property owners.

The poor,
almost forgot.

An American salute -
On wings of dreams.
On freedom’s rings.
On,
Remember
The Revolution
almost forgot.

Remember
The Revolutionary men
Their dust
Lying
in graves unknown.
Martyrs born in
The Revolution
All
but forgotten.
Abe, Martin, Bobby and John,

An American salute -
Legacies in another harbor,
Now Boston.
Lanterns on the road, headlights down the highway.

An American salute - Legacies in another harbor by mike marcellino copyright 2009

Bring me a rainbow

Photo credit : (cc-by-nc-nd) Bruno Monginoux / http://www.landscape-photo.net 


Bring me a rainbow
by mike marcellino

Rainbow me a rainbow,
on my wall
now two,
oranges, reds
greens, yellows,
blues,
down southwest of the cracks.

Bring me a rainbow,
painting
rolling farms on the wall
in a bed, living room.
Terraces rise up
to nearby hills,
far mountains,
giving chills,
Thoughts of Van Gogh,
countryside’s in the south of France,
the Pyrenees.

Bring me a rainbow,
next to an old burnt
red brick wall,
ladders leading
nowhere.
Rainbows on the wall,
appear, disappear, lost in temptations.

Bring me a rainbow,
bite into Ohio
sour apple,
painting those rainbow colors,
ones from the wall.
Bring me an apple
right
from the heights of Berlin
Farmers unpack them fresh, sour apples
out of the box
right
off the trees
outside a century market,
on Cleveland’s West Side.

Bring me a rainbow,
sour apples too,
gone
eaten
by gods of the sky,
gone,
eaten
by a man’s
way of surviving,
wondering
how rainbows are,
come to be
projections on the wall.

Bring me a rainbow
again
sometime, i pray,
wish,
for an apple
sour, colors true
trucked by farmers
from the heights
above Berlin.

Bring me a rainbow,
open windows,
unscreened,
to tree leaves
inches, fields away,
blown by the wind.

Bring me a rainbow,
i pray, again,
on my pale papered
green wall
of printed flowers,
prehistoric.

Bring me a rainbow,
again,
i pray,
wondering why
apples, sour,
brown once bitten,
touched by man.

Bring me a rainbow by mike marcellino 2009

Back to Woodstock, a poem

Back to Woodstock
by mike marcellino

Reaching out
to touch you,
sun’s rising.
Reaching out
to touch you,
sun’s rising.

Reaching out
to touch you
shampoo in my eyes, burning
cloudy.

Reaching out
to touch you.
Morning
in Ohio.

Requesting
Richie Havens
‘Freedom’
Forty years
back to Woodstock.
Forty years
back to Woodstock.

First call
a girl from Arkansas.
Old wounds
break open
releasing
a streak of blood
down to my toes.

Reaching out
to touch you,
sun’s rising
back to Woodstock.

Reaching out
to touch you,
sun’s rising.
back to Woodstock.


Back to Woodstock, copyright mike marcellino 2009

Bit of brown paper, a poem

Bit of brown paper
by mike marcellino

Trois chanson d'amour de partie

Prisoners,
not a long time.
Prisoners,
not a long time.
Bit of brown paper.

Prisoners,
not a long time.
Prisoners,
not a long time.
Bit of brown paper.

Prisoners,
that won’t be confined,
defined.
Prisoners,
that won’t be confined,
defined.

Prisoners,
that won’t be contained
by love,
life,
war,
death.
Ready
to break
loose
at a moment’s notice.

Prisoners,
that won’t be contained
by love,
life,
war,
death.
Ready
to break
loose
at a moment’s notice.

Prisoners,
that don’t say
‘That’s ok, never mind.’
Prisoners,
that don’t say
‘That’s ok, never mind.’

Prisoners,
as Lincoln at Gettysburg -
‘As the sculptor
must dream the statue
prisoned
in the marble,”

Prisoners,
‘As the musician dreams a song.
so he who writes
must have a vision
of his finished work
before he touches to begin it,
a medium more elastic.
more vivid,
more powerful than any other,’
she writes, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews,
in her “Perfect Tribute”
to the man with ‘the deep-lined face
bent over Seward’s bit of brown paper.’

Prisoners,
wearing
four hats at a time,
not a long time,
not a long time.

Prisoners,
not a long time.
Prisoners,
not a long time.
Bit of brown paper.


Bit of brown paper copyright mike marcellino 2009

Against the wall
by mike marcellino

Trois chanson d'amour de partie

On the futon
back against the wall
all hung up.
back against the wall
all hung up.

Restin’ on a pillow
back against the wall
all hung up.
back against the wall
all hung up.

Do you love me?
Do you love me?

Do ya?

Do ya?

Do.

Back against the wall
all hung up
all hung up
all hung up.

Do you love me?
Do you love me?

Do ya?
Do ya?

Do.

Back against the wall
all hung up
all hung up
all hung up.

Against the wall, copyright mike marcellino 2009