Joseph DeMarco

We all hear the internal clock ticking,
A self-contained Doomsday device,
Melting like a candle in the desert heat
...

Flip-pity fly,
Swoop-pity sail
Catch a dragonfly
By the tail
...

The forgetful fisherman was as wise as he was forgetful.
Some even said that he used to be a Zen Master,
but that was along time ago and he had forgotten about that.
Early one morning a little boy approached the fisherman asking him for advice.
...

“Huckleberry Finn, a shaman, the Lizard King and me…were floating on a raft down the Mississippi, ” Siann heard Joe Kaye announce, as if he were a narrator in a play. Siann felt like she was the audience, but there was no stage, they were really on a raft. And there was really a black medicine man with white face paint and hoops through his nose. There was really a guy who looked like Jim Morrison with a beard and a large gut, and there was a dirty little boy in overalls with no shirt, and well, of course, there was the False Prophet of Fennimore Place: Joe Kaye. It seemed to Siann that she was invisible to the other four members, as they paid no attention to her. They (Huckleberry Finn, the shaman, the Lizard King and Joe Kaye) seemed to be involved in a strange discussion.

“The soul is not whole, the secret’s been stole, ” Jim said in a voice that was quintessential Morrison. The raft floated through an eerie, ominous fog that engulfed them in a mist. In the middle of the raft on the ground in the center of the four of them, was a large, circular, silver disc. There were several trinkets, a glass statue, and several shiny objects lying on top of the large disc. Joe Kaye spun the disc; as it moved it glinted in what little light the fog allowed.
...

It was a rainy day in Baseballland
The players were home in bed
One rookie rolled over his eyelids a flutter
With dreams of a stand-up triple running through his head
...

Every time I bring up the subject,
We get caught in the loop
perpetually.
It is as if we are frozen in this amber
...

She sings to us,
Even when we hear no sound,
Especially when our eyes are closed.
...

blAck pearls

and broken ocean sHells
...

Literal and Figurative
Are one in the same thing
I literally have a heartache
From that unused Diamond Ring
...

In the land of the lost
They dug up a book of magic spells today
No one had seen spells like this before
Some of them were extremely weird
...

I climbed to the top of the clock tower,
With the wind lightly at my back.
I positioned myself ever so slightly,
And got ready to attack.
...

Throwing gravity aside
this is the magical enchantment
...

The Beatles are frozen underground
Like some sort of Prehistoric Cave Drawing,
Art Incognito.
The Ground is Hard
...

If I were Sheldon Cooper
You would be my Wil Wheaton
My personal nemesis
buried on Planet Genesis
...

There is no amount of,
time or space,
that will ever eraser,
what you did to me.
...

'The Oshen Family was a simple family. There was a father, a mother, a brother and a sister. The brother and sister were twins. Some people even said they could feel each other’s pain, but they were actually very different from each other. One day they were sent on a chore. It was their job to gather fire wood for evening supper. As the Oshen boy overturned a rock, a black adder uncoiled from behind it, and bit him. He lay on the ground shaking. His sister, Oshen girl tried to save her bitten brother and she too was bitten by the poisonous snake.
As the two siblings lay there dying Oshen Boy asked his Sister, “Heaven (for that was oshen girl‘s name) , Are we going to Die? ”
“Yes, ” Oshen girl replied. “What will death be like? ” Oshen boy asked.
“Well, my teacher told me you will see a tunnel of light.”
...

Felix King couldn’t remember a thing about the accident. He rubbed his eyes. He squinted. He still couldn’t believe what he saw. Through weary, blurred eyes, he thought he saw an Arab and a Jew playing Chinese checkers. The pieces they were using were marvelously crafted glass marbles that seemed to change color when the light hit them. The Jew looked a lot older than the Arab, and had a long, snowy white beard. The Arab’s beard was black like coal. Both were dressed in ancient nomadic fashion wrapped in light desert garments. The Arab and the Jew did not appear to recognize that Felix had awakened. They continued with their game, but it did appear, at least to Felix, that they were waiting for something and the game was just a means to pass the time. A light came on in the hallway, and there was a small Ding, as if someone’s cake was ready.

“Do you think he’ll discover the truth? ” the Arab asked the Jew. Felix wondered who they were talking about.
...

An Extremity of Polar Opposites

Attached to Plastic Magnets;
...

Twas the day before summer break,
And all through the school
Not a single kid was studying
or following one single rule.
...

Awake. Shake dreams from your hair, my pretty child, my sweet one, the boy hears in his head. He is half asleep. He rolls over trying to find comfort in this cramped automobile. There is none. No space, he thinks to himself, and it is as if time is an illusion. He looks out the window, a vast radiant beach and a cool, jeweled moon; it is almost dawn. They are moving southeast in a car along an old desert road. Inside the car is a mother, a father, a grandmother and grandfather, and a small boy. The boy in the backseat of the car cannot be more than four, maybe six at the most. The car is really cramped, and, truth be told, the grandma smells like cough drops and talcum powder. The small boy has normal brown hair, normal brown eyes, yet he knows he is not normal. He can feel things others can’t, or see things others won’t; he’s not sure which. The boy remembers watching television with his mother. His mother had asked him a question about the show that was playing on the screen. He can’t remember the question.

“The guy in the purple shirt, ” the boy answered.
...