words

it comes at midnight,
the dark drone of lonely hours
spills forth from out this soul
like so much smoke
and you can almost smell the burning.

there is mist on the window
and in the wet cold written
the names of possibles,
dirty finger prints
and telephone numbers,
the hollow wind rattle
sucking sound back with it.

flight of shame
through town after town
under shade of night,
a bitter spectre
passing highway itinerants
trailing bits of karmic viscera
and dead smiles
like transient arms fleeing the world.

the intimate murmur
of this verbose guilt,
the lion’s gaping maw
and the thunder in its throat,
sedative eyes beyond cognition
watching clouds race overhead
like propellant dark islands
moving from some alien precipice.

hear the trains at midnight
deplete the night’s tranquility
with its shrill steam laughter,
a rusted ghost from archaic pondering
turning silence to fire,
crossing terminal to terminal
this crying earth tonight.

-S.C. Martinez