words

on both sides of the argument
there is little to be said;
they buy their false gods
in pill and powder form
from men with calloused hands
and bury themselves each night
in that waste of confusion.

those with heart bear witness
to the fall of language
and the birth of broken vestige,
still struggling to stead in that place
like newborn equine shuddering placenta
into the surrounding air.

the gravity there, greater than numbers,
pulling form and image alike
toward the center of that draw,
swine without cause or knowing
yet outward the force from the earth,
the dead pulling themselves up from out it’s grasp
all bone and baptized afterlife.

to the west the sun departs
and that place is filled with maniac purpose,
lust for the unborn and disdain for the living,
scavengers tearing pieces of normalcy
from the world and hiding them from each other,
bearing down on fate like reason on hope.

-S.C. Martinez