words

these hands are not my own,
they draw fire from shadow
and bring old ways
back in to concession,
parodies of will,
beguilers of want.

the drink reveberates
in the hollow cavern
where once was clarity,
but what harm is in it?
what injustice derived
from lapses in totality?

it brings with it
old foes and lost memories,
wood floors and slanted
green houses,
nights of smoke,
nights of parlay,
the sum of all reckoning
and revocation of god’s gift
to chew it like a gland
until it is stone dry.

it is the ferrier
on distant shore,
joining worlds
in dark and narrow crevice,
bringing to fruition
a mild genius
this conjurer of words,
giver and taker of madness,
ultimate wanton spirit
wrapped in sheets of bitter gale,
sifting through the fires
of other sorrowed habits
left on roadsides
and in notebooks
and in the hearts of fellow savages,
is it greeting or farewell
that raises these hands
in ominous repose?

dance the dead to slumber
and in their musings
come renegade processes,
hourglass figurines
with soft hair and angel skin,
all remnants of a younger night,
all fading come morning.

-S.C. Martinez