Marie Kazalia

tonight

I have escaped all
my alternate destinies--
So I could be here with you... 

tonight---all the men
I like as friends
seem to come with 
jealous women attached
who want
me eliminated
from the picture
their ultimatums
screamed in backgrounds
of awkward situations 

tonight.. I realize I’d forgotten
that I’d screamed
into the laughter
of the sound-proof room
“it won’t do you any good”
no one can hear you 

I have a de ja vue tonight
about a hallucination--
wonder, does that
make my hallucination
any more real in time
and place, than what
occurs around me
according to the senses
of others--
tonight, I can have a de ja vue
that I have had this hallucination 
before, and it may be just that
a re-living, for I can only re-live
what I’ve lived before--- 

tonight, I show-up unexpectedly--
arrive dressed in elegant black
they talk of me--that not one of 
them has ever been to my place
and there is much speculation
as to how I might live--
they talk of how I give out 
my phone number
to a perpetual busy signal--
that some have tried to call... 

Marie Kazalia Feb 2K8

..and when I said no, he called me psycho

you put confusion into 
my head thoughts
schizophrenic--I am not
tho voices tell me
line upon line
I believe true
in my dreams
convolute
sleeping alone 
conversations I imagine
expand 

I wake feeling strange
wanting to kiss
because I have not kissed
in so long I know
kissing will smooth my lips
I feel that urge
curled up before my window
the wet street night rain
churned by passing car
tires turning 

the hiss of the steam radiator
moisture in a corner 
darkness
the only misfortune
gone from my vision
swimming stopped
inside my head
I find
an old piece of paper
I’d scribbled a note
along the bottom edge
quoting my own thoughts
“pretentious a-sexual shit”
and as I read this line
within myself re-connect
to feelings I had while reading
certain sanitized poetry
and a few famous lines 

as you stood outside 
the bar
at the curb watching 

Marie Kazalia Feb 2K8

things come out on their own schedule

first there is knowing--
you just know--
and it is OK to write 
stuff down--
put down these
emphatic special thoughts
even in emotional lines
you’ll call truth, perhaps
your truth of being--
but may I suggest to you 
that afterward you put this
sensitive stuff away 
for safe keeping...
for there is the time
in which things must develop
clarify such clarity often comes
with ongoing effort ---daily
punctuated by catharsis
revelation even that turns 
in the sacred geometry
of the circle 

and in that you
can consult the moon phase chart
to see where you are at--
perhaps as this quarter moon comes
the time to call upon an archangel
to grant your immediate wants--
---keep them small-- 

time approaches in increments
to the point at which
the moon will be full
there may even be a harvest moon
right at the time you are ready 

until, it is important to recall
repeatedly, that the step by step approach is
as important as the immanent arrival
in a progression
to being there
toward getting things 
just right
for yourself 

Marie Kazalia Jan 14th 2K8

she felt at a place that needed to be surpassed

yet somehow she stood stranded there 
alongside the dark road--under the gray concrete
highway overpass ---no help anywhere
then a figure approaching from out of the harsh sound
--appearing--- a sneer on her face became clear
with an attitude of derision
a hardened sort of female
hypercritical especially of the young
spoke without introduction 
critiquing with the words----
“you know, you need to get more sophisticated
for your own safety...” that tone of knowing 
but not really telling anything useful
strained eyes through reading glasses that
obscured a dull dry face deliberately
“...or somebody is going to take advantage of you.”
The young woman replied without missing a beat--
“you’ve got it backwards--
someone has already taken advantage of me
that’s why I am this way, here, right now.”
The derisive female pulled back as if to refocus
puzzled, bewildered even, as to what sort of
creature this really was...at the end of her nose
maybe not knowing so much after all--that puckered her brow
careful to keep that reality from being revealed
--just shrugged--shook her head--as if
the superiority of wisdom wasted on this one
magnified eyes through those glasses
looking the young one up and down finalized by a repressed laugh
then the older woman just turned her back 
as if to admit to giving up on trying to assist
departed the way she came --taking her wisdom with her--
--high on her own thoughts of the knowledgeable
superiority that her life contained 
disappearing back into the city sounds
leaving the young woman to puzzle- out
why that older one had come at all--
she’d offered no real assistance--
feeling--that had been the intention, to demean
before she knew it for real--why someone would
make so much effort to appear before her just to do that?
... careful to do it when there were no witnesses--
she noticed
and one more piece of the confusion became clear
for her to watch for with the next incident 

Marie Kazalia Jan 14 2K8

I wear my soft brown hair in two stiff braids

pockets full of ammo
on the edge of Ohio
like Dorothy
in the Wizard of Oz
“there’s no place like home”
I reach up, feel
my braids
that just touch my shoulders 

I own 
a little wooden house
yet feel that I am homeless--
this home is my home
yet no one wants me to live 
here---in it--this way
without a fight, a theft
a wedding
I must defend myself against all
with a .38 
concealed 
I break glass
to dispel the spells
they cast jabbing
blade points into the roadbed
with each step as they pass

 Marie Kazalia 1/8/08

Biography

The poetry of Marie Kazalia has appeared in a wide variety
of small press publications since 1995 since her return
to the USA from expatriate life in China, India & Japan.
More recently BlazVox published Marie Kazalia*s long poem 
about her 3 day train ride from San Francisco to Chicago. 
Marie now resides in the midwest after inheriting a house there.

Copywrite 2008 Marie Kazalia, All Rights Reserved

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