words

back in the days when the days were blurred
and the nights a cyclone of spirit and smoke,
when everything you touched turned to wine,
you lived and died by a solitary whisper
in an ethereal haze of purgatory called summer.

waiting on the telephone, all-consuming
was the nature of your demons delivered forth
from small minds and feeble hearts,
the way of your swagger capturing the eyes
of all who would know your name.

those nights so criminal and wild
and unrelenting, the fixtures of morality
held no cause and you were born again
in that mess of dirty things,
those lecherous and serpentine flayings
in a flash of dilation brought home back to you.

on the backs of those weaker you did climb
to marvelous heights, and for a time
it seemed you would never fall back,
the crest of your wave held higher
than all others, this world created for you
and your amusement, your eyes and your lips
which pierced the sky open and you,
the debutante who would never lose stature,
ceased to matter in a world where little else does.

-S.C. Martinez