From the 2020 Collection "War Bread"
#jmartindean #warbread
Two onyxes atop another out where the witch frolics, the signal clear, it rang through my throat so loudly I frightened myself:
Forget shoplifting, not pushing your cart back to the cart-corral is the true crime. Amazing,
Want nothing from people and receive their myriad blessings Expect from them and find an empty well Eat less than a ghost
Think you’re doing something? Thing you’ve got some power? You can walk on coals, swallow poison and live, but who is at the helm
In the most lovely of lands, before a backdrop of mountains and palms, there hangs a pall— All my Loves
Ancient meadow preadolescence, burgeoning and righteous never-ending dimension first sighted past your fingertips… is stolen by ambition,
I would lie with my hand on the B… I would lie with my hand on a stac… of Holy Qurans. I would look you dead-in-the-eye, and tell you a lie.
I saw him on the side of the road, on the side of the interstate exit… Maybe he was 18, definitely not 21… tired but not yet haggard. The moment I saw him
It’s good here Decapitate me here This moment perfect astounding unknowing Faith in God not necessary
A Sacred Site is the ultimate emblem, a trophy of the horizon’s finitude… No better a final gate, no more wiser a runway,
Needless of a judge, a contrite heart is a bird suspended on a current, shifting myriad planes without asking or telling.
Every time I leave my parents’ ho… I am filled with a sweet sorrow. It has taken me half a lifetime to… and now I love them so dearly, so… They nor I are getting younger
Pretend like your hell is the new normal. Now the space is calm, and poignant, and telling.
I saw a man and his crumb snatcher… sprawled on the porch of their hom… it was painted a bright ocher with… small, modest, humble, clean, givi… A joy, in short.
Love is endless. Mercy, too. A great debt unpaid, sitting on my doorstep, first-class.