From the 2020 Collection "War Bread"
#jmartindean #warbread
Mowing with the sickle I stop abruptly and remember crawling out the window to smoke on the roof
The Rock made me to see each month as a day. The Rock implored that I be patie… with a patience so radical it slips into renunciation
When I see the little holes where the earrings used to be I wonder what they embraced and then renounced to get to now.
It occurs to me now that no one hears my song. Still young, I am discarded. I don’t anticipate being surprised at my aloneness in old age.
In your gut is an empire— Spells, tug of war, Holy Days, ascent, decline.
Nine times out of ten, it’s a demon you’re seeing, not an angel. They have all kinds of disguises, I know-I know,
Therein are the spoils of sorrow, the fruit of hardship, where wind snaps and prevails. Death whispers a hollow secret and I still a shiver
There is a most worthy woman, the upper steward of the manor, Obermeyer of Holy Terra, house cute, smokestack simmering,
The duration of a miracle is exactly one moment, after that you may as well be talking about what happened in the big game last night.
The choir of the saints is heartle… They’ve parried happiness a lifeti… seeking only the old earth, the marsh of the meek— where earnest suffering
I have this sensation when remembering the poignant noteworthy moments, Lovers, the Dead, crimes—
I know people see him and think, “Gee, that’s crazy.” Which makes it embarrassing to see him
The cicada, once with the humility of a barnac… weeping beneath the fern, now screams its inane mantra, which
Trees poke from the earth like the mummified hands of the martyrs. Buried alive, they strained with last breath
You can get better, or you can get worse, or you can stay the same. But you can’t change. Nope!