words

in the data overture
the world is drowned in opinions,
a great flood of upvotes, likes,
all the quarks hijacked
for this currency of hubris.

feed the ego with this thought,
this image, this string of characters,
give quantity to your quality,
the binary gremlins know,
they know your beauty and your genius,
how great your dinner
and how terrible your day,
how excellent your children
and how unique your circumstance,
upload and submit yourself to this.

god and politics are red and blue
and you are somewhere in between,
made of matter,
important,
reaching for a metacurrent.

what are you made of
but the thoughts and following of others,
your trail a miracle,
a blinding anti-reticent article of now,
you are special
and every terabyte further proves this,
each indention in to the great weight
cements your status,
your number, your rank,
your very meaningful existence.

nothing dies and you are forever,
multiple streams! multiple streams!
endless the need for endless the need for more!
more! more!

-S.C. Martinez

the door,
barely ajar,
creaks open
and light is spilled from a yellow geometry
and she emerges to perch on the corner of the bed
like some gargoyle of whisker and grace
to keep back the spirits from our slumber.

she climbs in the window and delicately traverses
the mountains of our materialism
to hunt for any wispy nightmares
intent on plunging in to our quiet hearts,
she cranes her neck idly
to consider the strange strings
of theories that vibrate endlessly
where all but we may witness.

she pauses to groom her forepaws,
she slowly lowers her body,
blending in with the night and perhaps,
just for a moment,
allows her feline eyes to dream
of light waves formed from insects
who have captured the source,
fractals forever dividing,
of batting the moon from out its obsidian socket
and studying it like some marble eyed astronomer.

her tail swings at these and other lovely thoughts.

-S.C. Martinez

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