words

looking into the abysmal heart of heaven for hours
i watched fallen kings burn out in the atmosphere,
my eyes trained upward to such a degree that
it became unclear whether the stars were real
or manifested from a desire to have them there
and like some fallen god stationed to a remote world
i felt alone in my wisdom
watching as that which came of my hand
flung themselves into unwanting atmospheres,
a cosmic suicide that held no cause, some faint
yet others lighting up the sky with their deaths
like the preamble to a great sadness,
lurching through the night like lambent serpents
in a lake of outer darkness
and the insects of the world tried to reach them
but could not and so fell back to the earth
and perished in their lament.

touching the stars with the end of my cigarette
i felt a longing beyond any common want
to reach out and grab those bits of light
and keep them as my own
and on the threshold of the world the night faded
and became nothing but the efforts of men
bleeding upward profusely
whether in homage to a god who left
or to replicate his work for the sake of vanity
none but they could know,
the necessity of such things lost in the making of.

the outer edge of the galaxy hinted
somewhere between here and there,
much to be taken for granted yet
nothing to lose in doing so,
falling into unseen ends they do as they are told,
searching or merely being the same in the end
and now the moon nowhere in sight
so as not to bear witness to such tragedy.

tethered between this world and the next
they chose the latter like those who seek the lord’s favor,
the moon nowhere in sight
so as not to bear witness to such tragedy.

-S.C. Martinez