words

i’ve been lost in the woods of your dementia
while migratory winds blew soft and cool,
kissing the leaves softly in a whisper
of maple and cottonwood and oak,
brushing the limbs, catalyzing in my delicate brain
chemical eruptions, fountains of serotonin
that flood the outer reaches of my city
in crested waves of towering magnitude and volume,
flowing tributaries meeting high and low
and usurping the magnificence of one another,
endless streams this river of quiet elation
that i may drown in so deep are the waters.

in the evening streetlights blur like cobwebs
caught in the rain and sirens spark the nights coming,
strangers, bastards, whores, thieves and killers
emerge from their black and oily roots
and cold wet marrow runs now in the streets
where earlier rivers did flow and it is a mess
yet there is little to be done for it
other than to nod sagely as i pass
and know that my world contains within it them
and not the other way around.

still, had i but a choice
i would stay stranded in the dense wilderness
of your forest and chase sparrows
through the spires that touch the sky,
sleeping beneath stars that burn out
and are born again elsewhere in massive bursts of fire,
breathing deep the inky blackness of the universe
while dreams of catching those sparrows
and keeping them as pets play out in my head.

-S.C. Martinez