words

long shadows from wind swept trees
move like spiders on the pavement,
vesperal arachnids pursuing some tender,
i smoke with my left hand
while the pen in the other
hammers out words of iron and steel
like a blacksmith on this paper anvil,
i am surrounded by flowers
that stretch away from the sun,
ornaments from a life other than my own.

i’ve become a slave to this craft,
the words must be had
or the world will fade from me softly
without sign or warning
and so it is that i am,
picking through the mess of these thoughts
to scavenge any usable articles
with which to construct my pantheon
to house dead heroes and idols
of my divination.

i see piles of leaves like dead insects,
i see wormholes in the clouds
and portals in the dark,
i see vapor trails of gods’ thoughts
drawn about the night sky
in luminary scripture,
i see paradigms shift
before they have been felt,
i see dreams in orbit
like quiet temporal satellites
following what trace of mathematic ink,
grating against the ethereal trenches,
gliding through the black liquid of out there.

i must swallow my spirit each night before bed
and leave no trace of my renaissance
for the sun to glare upon,
no imprint of my inquisition,
and so i must extinguish each little ember
with the broken limb of my cigarette
before dividing myself back into a fraction
for discovery is murder,
to be seen is to conspire
against the native elements of my inception,
i must burn alive wrapped in kerosine sheets
and wake each morning to sift through the ashes
of my immolate charge,
to begin anew each night
as if the aggregate never was,
as if there exists no parable to this life,
as if there is no provocation
against the materials i am forged together from
and no seeking to unravel the thread of its fabric.

-S.C. Martinez