words

in the waning hours
split between infinity and indifference
i wish for anything but reflective boredom,
in boredom i am afraid
of all the things i could have been,
all the futures traded for a handshake at midnight,
what unsown greatness
slung wet and wasted
into laundry baskets
and trash bins
and sink basins so polluted,
so polluted mutant sons surely groan in fabled hatred
from the slickened pipes below;
what king of industry
or economics died how many nights before
by the tired grip of some quick release?
left over the afterbirth continues
to contemplate various awful indignities,
damsels with dead eyes and daddy issues,
synthetic latex smiles so sedated,
chameleons of fantasy and feral yarn,
deranged silhouettes calling out from electron dialogue
and red curtained windows your name in to the night,
come stranger, come customer,
come bored and witless indifferent,
come feel my fleshy sorrow
and pair my agony to yours,
the sum total of wasted prowess
condensed to baser elements,
come touch the dried plum heart where it hangs
so dearly atrophied, so nearly like yours,
in boredom we are but one
split between shame and acceptance
in the waning hours.

-S.C. Martinez

i find sleep difficult to achieve in the transitions,
the odd little spaces between one life moment and the next.

order dissolves in bits,
gives way,
friends are rationed and some lost in arithmetic.
a hibernation of sorts begins,
an edging back from the active world,
one that responds in three dimensions.

my dreams become much clearer,
much more responsive, vivid.
i can hear my thoughts in them,
trace reasoning.

the dog watches the nimble movement of my fingers,
the precision and wonders.

his olfactory reasoning processes no discernable signifigance,
the mystery breathes.

this is how one perceives their master.

he curls up at my feet and sleeps, at peace.
i cannot say what he dreams.
i know only that he feels at ease by my presence
and if i vanished so too would his confidence in the world.

abandon words. abandon previous ideas, understandings.
sums accounted for, reasons reasoned.
the thin lines between everything are where the truth lies.
here now is only this, the present unavailable to the observer.

i wish to know the thoughts of reptiles,
the methods of insects,
the little mechanical rhythms
that keep them moving without politics,
without curiousity as to the nature of anything.
the dimensions we share.

how wonderous the ability
to request the body
to respond to the mind.
i wish to therefore i am able.
every moment a choice.
i can witness the response of bone,
muscle,
tissue
and blood
as my fingers dance,
dance endlessly a rhythm only i may know, only i command.

the dog wakes to check my proximity.
i bite my lip until it bleeds.
the nervousness we share is palpable yet separate,
the room smells of mixed anxiety.
he sleeps and i rest.

-S.C. Martinez

this siren
rings alarms far within,
keep away keep away
yet history knows better,
deliver me unto everything,
a sudden understanding
of things before oblivious,
a geometry beyond words,
the neurometa,
points of arbitration
in the brain,
reflect inward the howl
of too much knowing,
the loose minecart of the mind.

reflect inward the howl
of now upon now,
so small and so fast,
the only, the outright,
the unattainable,
to slip the mortal boundaries
and rail naked
the smooth tracks of the infinite,
the pulses where ancestors roam,
replicating codons forever forever.

this is love,
the interchange,
the points where all we meet,
here is where i have gone
and here is where you are now,
spinning like atoms
following atoms,
the all of everything,
the this of this.

-S.C. Martinez

over these bones
the pebbled and pronged feet alight
at intruders calling,
gripping the air.

over these bones
the shrill lament echoes
swerve about the hlls,
go dancing through the land.

over these bones,
the ones and ohs
go trembling on,
nameless protocols
stretched to infinity.

over these bones
the white sky like paper,
vibrating, pulsing,
coalescently waiting.

over these bones
the meat tatters lightly,
clings nimbly against the breeze
like flags of skeletal nation states.

over these bones
the sacred is depraved,
solar cycles force wind against sand,
grains in an hour glass
forever enumerating.

over these bones
the hips turn cathedral,
amphitheaters, forums
for the scorpions.

over these bones
the words wisp by
caught up in little desert swirls,
sparkled djinns briefly
before gone for good.

-S.C. Martinez

he moves with a purpose
that which has a craving,
a secondary agony.

catching the edges of curves
and gaining momentum
in grand sweeping arcs,
following a loop that originates
and terminates in a dopamine race
whose quiet little tracts
are alight with anticipation
and drowsy timeless hours.

he feels the bumps and breaks
in the sidewalk for a beat,
a bass line that itches
and the outer world exudes
an a cappella chorus,
surging and falling in again
by the heartbeat in a spoon,
the pulse of a flame,
the current from a needle.

the metronome slows,
the clicks stretch and fade
and in the rising intervals
receptors glow in neuroecstacy,
the streets swell with sound
and every one knows this genesis.

-S.C. Martinez

the dog sleeps curled up on the couch
and dreams of waking up like me,
dim light carries information
in little smoky waves,
glasses and bottles and cups
in various stages
sprout like fungi from the tables,
the shelves, unpacked boxes,
anything with a suitable surface,
loose change everywhere,
the music pauses and considers the silence
and then moves on, little bells in the hallway.

-S.C. Martinez

from other heartbeats i have gleaned
the misshapen rhythm of my rhythm,
i can feel it at times immeasurable,
everything and a little more.

not just to do but to feel,
to know that snake walk,
to feel that wave in your veins,
it moves in stereo.

i feel in sudden unison
and across some spectrum
a series of events peak in tandem
and i change my rhythm accordingly
and then, then this makes sense.

-S.C. Martinez

jazz in the day’s wake,
it is the songs that i will forget
that are understood the most.

in the quantum etching
a part of me expires
at a constant rate
and the west goes burning on
and the cars and trucks
pass me by like pulses on the wire,
electrons skipping town
and we are waves of a similar sine
and the notes go on beepbopping
in to the evening.

is this not but symmetry,
an aching in the smallest of particles
to float anxiously together.

or but the truth of things like jazz,
the notes not played are felt
as in the passing of a peer,
a moment of silence suspended there
for everyone to hear.

-S.C. Martinez

the drunk blathers,
white kid college charisma,
cheap thrills
from modest risks,
the hiss of the grill
and the drunks babble on,
talk over one another,
loudly, louder,
the louder they get
the clearer their point becomes,
augmented by repetition
and decibel level.

matters of love, family,
of life and death
should be discussed exclusively
where everyone can hear
how important your life is,
at shitty little diners
at 4 am
in summers
drenched in white heat.

-S.C. Martinez

in a crooked house with crooked teeth,
a bad heart and paper skin
you watch the presence of specters
with their vapor trails
go ambling through the yard.

sleep for hours, sleep for days
and ignore the skittish infection
rifling through your brain,
bury old ideas in the dark
and listen for the remote insect lullabies.

waste away, the shell of before
now peels away slowly, piece by piece,
the trees rise like unearthed bones
to an overhang of evolutionary birthright,
what else is there, what else should there be
and the stomach eats itself
like a horse consuming a horse.

the clocks breathe out seconds
and ever so often their pulses meet
and everything is slightly askew,
this crooked house with its crooked inhabitants
and the ghosts of old men
peering curiously through the stained and broken windows.

-S.C. Martinez