words

i have wrestled with colossi
that once were dear friends,
broke them down and pulled them apart,
studied them, examined their massive structure
and cataloged the intricate detail
of their architecture, yet still,
i know nothing of their hearts,
i have failed to fool them of my importance.

and so i sit in pale blue rooms
making faces in the dark,
slinging expletives at these terribly impassive walls,
brief moments of passion erupting
from far within
and expiring in the heavy atmosphere
of this transient vessel,
slow moving hearse bearing the dead
that suffer from life,
yet to succumb to the great encounter,
the lonely war.

unkempt and solitary,
afoul of other creatures,
the hours consume the flesh and mind,
outside the traffic of insects
move tirelessly on invisible highways,
a deep madness breaks within the blood
unsettling all avenues of perception,
small metropolis choking the light,
moths circling madly in strange drunken orbits
conspiring in their insidious manner
to steal from that imprisoned sun,
sedated flame of what unfathomable power,
now and again fireflies
passing in the void without,
glowing and vanishing
like cosmic phenomena in stellar metaphor,
a cruel laughter in those burning effigies
possessing false stars briefly
then sucked away into depthless antimatter.

bizarre to keep such small company
but i prefer their view of things,
a behavior sensible and without motive
other than that which the light has placed in them,
free from the confines of men’s hearts
and the squalid savagery of lesser beasts,
wholly comprised by an endless lust,
a timeless pursuit of radiance
even if they must merge with flame
that will devour wing and spirit,
pull them back into that dark substance
from which they once emerged.

-S.C. Martinez