words

ashes in my drink
floating on the surface,
mildly disturbed by the tapping
of a restless extremity,
observing cold rain drops
streak across the windshield
like late sperm
racing over a spillway
toward some inevitable
disappointing conclusion,
sitting quietly in question
at 2am in the smoke filled cabin
of a dimly lit car,
running the battery down,
drinking the ashes down
with the deep red mood
while no one disturbs me,
not a living thing,
even when i wish it otherwise.

the rain falls harder
and the glass slowly drains,
cold winter hazard
cascading all around me
and nothing moves but precipitation
and the slow rolling of my thoughts,
not a question, no answer,
the dead reckoning of solace
and mild solitude
tearing at the fabric of patience
like a phantom of old dreams
from far gone memories,
the gelding that watched
from within the confines of a painting
this child sleep and wake trembling,
terrified of the world without
and then as now there were no others
though i terribly wished it otherwise.

something to balance
the real with the false,
the mind with the world,
the weird with the sane,
anything to quell the quiet frequency
at which the soul trembles.

-S.C. Martinez