words

in that valley lined with street signs
and overhead lights
come the dregs like bad omens,
loping with their crooked grins
and burned out eyes,
they come across the road
alone or in the company of others,
trailing children behind them
in a train of utterly horrifying lineage
while ants with iron hides and headlight eyes
crawl along the earth.

they sling profanities at the wind
and spit on the concrete,
long thick wads of brown liquid
that hang leftover on their bottom lip
and tremble when they laugh,
these are the neighbors,
these strangers that make me want to abandon my home
and turn nomad in the face of their company.

too many lies have made them this way,
giants they have become, lacking sense or purpose,
giggling in front of the television
while the static glow
casts dancing shadows
across their vacant eyes.

parked cars in pancake house parking lots,
the stench of cheap whiskey
and cigarettes and perfume
choke the interior of their impromptu bedrooms,
rocking back and forth
to the rhythm of their labored breath
and grunts and moans,
ravaging more than each other.

humanity suffers at the hand of their creation,
the children come out
and are much unchanged,
strange before the age of clarity,
discontent with knowledge
but all too comfortable with being fed and groomed
by some hand wiser than their own.

the jackals that breathe down the neck of genius
they know nothing of,
they have found the philosopher’s stone
in the form of stuttering madness
and their spines tingle
a caress from morphine fingers
at the very mention of a savior
but they’ve no need to be saved;
they’re already home.

-S.C. Martinez