words

i fear the volume of it,
i fear the solubility of it,
i fear the coming of all this buried wrath
upon some underwritten squall
should i drown myself
in its effluent conspiring.

here god’s hand rests mirthless
over the earth,
waiting to close heavy fist
and stir the dust of his makings
at my transgression.

i fear the combat in it,
i fear the resonance,
i fear the prophetic rise
of what has been written
and what has passed before,
eons of old smoke and muttering,
the cause of so much paranoid drifting,
ageless phenomena,
backward dialect
with no room for logic.

i long for slantwise sun vapors
through foreign trees
and still rivers in the night
catching stars in their ruminations,
holding them to the surface,
the myriad blinking of unseated brilliance
to mock my wayward solace.

i fear the instinct,
i fear the amber tones of its liquid form,
i fear the vessel of its conception
in my soul’s unthreading,
a space in my liver still reserved
for its warm embrace,
the cool following of its arrival,
the profound reason it bestows
upon this languid shell
and the acidic genius it augments.

-S.C. Martinez