words

spread out before me
an ocean of earthbound stars for miles,
those stationary,
those that rifle down dark highway
all alabaster and crimson,
solitary among them
a wavering flame
breathes life into a cigarette
that pulses thereafter
like a small orange heart
rebating not blood nor life
but smoke and ash
while filling me with strange impulse,
its very monument an afterthought
to that which burned the night before
in the dark chaos of your presence,
were there not contained
in your eyes two perfect liquid embers
measuring time by the pull and release of smoke?

i walked concrete and indecision
in the early hours and i did pause
to compose the moon austere and implacable
in the pale sky above,
only the thinnest sliver of said monolith
giving light to my intent
stenciled there in alien pro forma,
your hands free flowing in my thoughts,
drawing strings of light to your fingertips,
the whiskey in your veins
flew warm and profound
and i can sense it without evidence,
your laughter cosmic,
your hair dark and menacing
and the honey that you bear
is intoxicating enough
to bring me to such lurid conjectures,
trailing those vixen hips,
besieged before your temple
and your silken altar
like one condemned to a hysteria
greater than ordinary madness,
the wildness in your heart
lends to my soul credence
and though the night is sweet
morning is all brooding and deceit
and at some point we must give in
to its antic rule.

the arrival of others
signals the onset of my savage
and ungregarious character
and so now the city and those fallen stars
move away behind me
and i am left with longing
for your lips now so far beyond
and for your flesh and for your spirit
but such is the way of things;
i can feel your thoughts even from here
and i wonder if the visage in your mind
is greater than this strange bearer of lyric
and if the two will ever converge
in some space that you find agreeable.
still, still,
you question the quickness of my heart
as if your hand plays no part in its pace.
still your presence is larger than all the world,
still i crave, still i incline,
still i stave this strange narrative
in hopes of pulling at the strings
of your endearing heart.

-S.C. Martinez