Realtime Babies

​parental disappointment



your birthday was an eclipse that never 
happened. the day went black, the radio stopped.
if there was a wind, i couldn’t feel it.
down in the desert they’re practicing
inner planet loneliness, screeching like
birds in the dark, swirling like a hungry kite.

tell the man in the traffic box i
hung up the sky in my studio with really strong
little magnets. so i DON”T have to go up and down that hill,
where they’re driving so close,
i wonder who’s going to die.

​the sages of mu



the sages of mu wear mountain flowers, crystallize,
and settle to the earthen floor making music.
i leave my name and hang up,
a pale hand with two white pills.
the hills blossom before us and whisper,
in depression, slowing, almost overnight,
i return to the bedroom,
“it’s closed”.

two suns rise and fall behind spindle towers,
there are too many people on the floor to the right of the desk,
a blue star and a white star circling.

the black technician stretches, vibrating against my eardrums.
smiling to each other, shaking our heads,
“i love you” he carefully explains.

air molecules leading up to their genitals, or whatever the hell it is,
a large crowd, toilets flushing, shuffling feet and clothing rustling.
i try to remember the statistics i read in the newspaper,
understanding in all but the most abstract terms
a dixie war whoop,
some animal's liver chanting to the waitress,
the sound of fingers snapping and falling,
and absolutely nothing else.

our bodies twine in sleep so quietly.
fine droplets cling to your hair,
rarefied and exquisite.
you turn to me still unknown,
four fifteen after rain,
each other and open space.

 

                  -- san francsico - eugene
                     november 1972

prophets


what the hell’s our velocity through this galaxy
cry the prophets fiery angels in their heads
people of earth we have come to open
the healing lips of your women
naked they dream of us across the lonely spheres
each breast a ripe household of the sun
whose cool bombs part the waters of the jordan
we connect and drill into its labial chambers
unwrap our hairy chests like the jew
with his sword and his automaton
silent he watches from the past

life on this little ship
chimes away like the empty sea
filled with salty vapors and a tear
how far we have come is a mystery
known only at the center of the bloom
how far we have come
with our foolish burden

                    
            
                     — columbus
                         may 10, 1980

i told you over and over


i told you over and over
the walls were tumbling
along the roadside,
and many of the important people wouldn’t climb out.
weren’t they thinking of going anywhere?
i wasn’t.

loneliness is so macabre that
excoriating lilac
wants my unconscious step-aunt to bomb 
the birdsong dragon,

but the lighted mists of some forgotten childhood dream
are so wet i can slide my fingers right between the edges
of the wound in her belly 
and dance all night, 
burning a terrified warning
to my gentle queen of silence.

                
            

                    — oakland
                         august 2017

the blue lake was not where we left it


we got no sleep last night,
no one here can dream 
a fascist radio interview 
between detonations and bloody debris.

never once sleeping,
the hungry rose petals live without you,
scrape colors off the 
flying canvas,

shout your new story 
from an ancient mountain, 
slowly from your wound
drips the milky way.

looking for myths, the wind 
blows slowly in the wounded starlight,
the last word of your story 
heard by angels in the morning.

                        

                       — martinez
                         october 2016

seven poems for susan

            A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
                    -- Gustav Mahler



1. precision has no words
precision-guided death angel blood 
for the grieving child 
whose ragged voice 
has no words

no one touches the far off daughter cold
as rocky fragments unimagined before 
silent dreams of the 
hole in time

yesterday a smile
stunned one
stone in the sky
with longing


2. waiting for thunder
beethoven’s sonata drifts by 
thunderous memory
driving down the coast where
mother screeches at

icy haloed dwarf planet
behind her eyes spewing
scary stories
of moonlit women 

stabbed in the heart driving 
motorcycles on the coast
looking for mother 
on the high cliff

whales spout far off 
mother finds a jar 
filled with tiny jewels
and can’t stop weeping 
 

3. counting the hours
blue veins writhe beneath
lovers’  
longing muscles  
   
a name unknown
and ancient  
writhing  everywhere 
   
curious skin
kiss her foggy
curves 

ancient lovers 
kiss like
never before 


4. planet glow
northern leaves caress tiny 
squid-ink cathedrals
stroke gentle
gravity crystals 

every turn of the dial 
the radio squawks blood
it covers the car seats
the doctor reveals the name of the flower

you told me a crystal grows under your soft fur
"i can’t make it without you"
bleeds the breathing radio 
its liquid voice fills your crystal heart with tiny jewels
 

5. blood forgot once 
imagine 
the nearest star     
won’t see you  
and hangs up 
  
drifting blood surrounds  
satellite 
packed into sky
imagine   
  
i wonder what eye sees everything     
fallen from 
butterfly    
airplanes imagine    
  
naked beauty years
over 
and over and
happier than ever

i nearly cry
because war
murders child wonder
beastly planet later

this coded message
means i’m sorry
i can’t see you
tonight


6. come over, i need you
swept into the Lethe gravity well,
tumbling over the rocky edge,
exploding and shimmering in shapeless sunlight, 
yearning for the silent pool,

i crawl down the wall to a tiny crack.
inside is a bustling city
filled with policemen, ants, 
a sail boat on a lake that becomes desert.

i give you no water from my canteen,
wake up and cry,
beg for mercy from the drowned ants.
my apology, they tell me, has already fallen 

in another time inside me,
where you and i joyously celebrate
the forgotten wounds
my parched lips will never again caress.


7. every morning
inside the drop of sunrise blood
lizard molecule
shines every morning 
without you

inside the heart drop light the way 
so the spaniard at the long table filled
with overflowing heaps of food
can find the leg of lamb

he was mouthing when the light turned black
when the taxi ran off the road and flipped over
startled mothers now bloody eating sandwiches on the lawn 
children running up the church steps to see farther

inside this tiny drop of water
vast memory unfolded
but whose stories did it tell you?
gone now but the warning

the lizard and the spaniard will 
thrive every morning i bleed
a molecule in your heart
every morning





                — martinez
                     december  2015 - february 2016