The Poetry of Michael Mars

THE FOLLOWING IS A
MARS PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

writing is a form of self-imposed, self-indulgent, sleep deprived play therapy, a multiple choice rorschach test.

a test where erasing what you see is often times as invaluable a lesson as seeing what you erase. it is a process that opens from a place that is forever closing, welcoming you to a place where you are constantly being asked to leave. we are vaccinated with pencil, immunized with pen. words are sealed behind child proof caps. these same words can make you well, as easily as they can make you ill. as a perfect example, wouldn't you be better off if you hadn't preoccupied your time with reading all of this. instead you could be doing something constructive. maybe you could picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. if you would rather disassociate yourself from rocking-horse people, maybe you could think up some alternative to reality shows, maybe you could think about creating some alternative to reality. maybe you could talk to your kid about altered states, alternative sources of energy or why Nuke the Whales was a clever alternative to alternative culture. But see, you are still here reading all of this. go away. you really shouldn't stay here any longer. go do things on your own. go own something more than things. please go away.......

you have been lured into this sentence by the time honored tradition of tiny red letters. this is a trap of unfettered self-importance. quit clowning around. your time as always is limited to the time you have. you now have less than you had.

you still here ? ok....here's more words.......but then please go away

perfect, just perfect

the florist asked, baby's breath with that ?

I thought it rather an odd request

as he lifted the infant above the spray

pressing down on the tiny abdomen

until i realized, the tempered cries,

the shallow breathing

added just the right touch of melancholy

-Michael Mars

This poem was written in February 2000. Shortly after that I was paid a hundred bucks for it by DFWArt magazine in a poetry contest they held. One little lousy c-note and out of nowhere I was forced to turn pro. I am not naive. I know full well the professional lure of steroids as well as the problems associated with the influx of endorsement money. You may be surprised to learn that poetry does not normally pay a livable wage. One hundred dollars is considered a windfall profit. I'm sure you're asking yourself, How can that be? Maybe even asking yourself, How could I personally get hold of a poem for just a scant hundred bucks? Go ahead and ask yourself that. No, really ask yourself that..Now........ Out Loud.

This may be your lucky day, my friend. Email me. I think I can arrange for you to buy one of my poems for a hundred. Maybe you want ten for a thousand. Hey, be careful, start small, pace yourself, poetry can be deadly medicine. It's a good idea to right now write down any anecdotes that come to mind. If you are too young to have an interesting sum of money at your immediate disposal, don't be discouraged. Many a quality poetry portfolio began with stealing dimes out of a mother's purse or selling mom's cigarettes to the younger kids at school. Be creative. Always check for quarters in the coin return of vending machines. Bet on middle school football. Sell your birth certificate and at least one of your little kidneys. Buy poetry as often as you can.

You might even want this one

You can Listen and Read

a marginal existence
I once lived in a spiderman comic
fourth or fifth page, center frame
rumor had it, issue one hundred seventy nine
the forty-ninth floor of a fifty story building
you must have seen me at my desk, head in my hands
eight of an inch tall, but I felt bigger
things are deceiving in two dimensions
in a world so paper thin,
where in the right light you can see to the other side
At least I think it was a spiderman comic
I never actually saw him,
but there was webbing in the frame next-door
and the building had that feeling it had been walked on before
Sometimes, when no one was around
I would crawl out onto the building ledge
imagine the artist erasing it out from under me
fall forty-nine stories to the bottom of the page
and slowly seep out of the bottom margin
scurry across the thin metal shelf
into the middle of a high school dance
with jughead, archie and veronica
it never fails
when I scream something about watergate and deep throat
betty always looks at me like I�m insane -Michael Mars

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OK, it seems you have decided to hang around. I should at least offer you some hanging out, wasting your time Mars Music. Let's see here. I got Loose Socket, a song about the jilted astronautess, recently hell bent for revenge in a desperate, no stop drive from Houston to Florida. And then, Sugar Cube,Please about the recent world outbreak of polio that made me feel a little nostalgic for the public health department's gift of sugar cubes laced with polio vaccine that a few of us still remember. Good times........ Next something about all the stuff the authorities found on John Hinckley and in Hinckley's hotel room after his assassination attempt on then President Ronald Reagan and how what you have is what you are, Novel Pleas. And finally a little political nostalgia. The campaign song written by a friend of Timothy Leary when he was considering running for California Governor, Come Together. So come on in to the Mars Wide-Eyed Lounge. Good Times