UNTITLED

you were born in a house that was living and you live in a house that is haunted and you'll die in a house that is laughing and then you wake up in a house that is no house

- Nicholas Martin

(featured in the poetry forum 12.01.11)

editor's note: Thus, a vacancy is created, the tag-team cycle repeated. The rent is due at the end of your stay and the cleaning deposit is non-refundable - so, keep it neat. - mh

A BEAST UNBROKEN

when I become death
the night will darken
and the beaten path does unfurl

I must break the circle

when I become death
the blood of thy mother
where does the river go?

I must wound this healer

when I become death
a hundred years of solitude
through the eye of a mollusk

I must look into this mirror

when I become death
scatter my ashes over
the charred ruins of the great empire

I must dig through this flesh

When I become death
my memories obscure
leaving a vague face of joy

I must seek a newer poison

When I become death
everything will burn
and I will start again

I must cleanse the void

When I become death
I will stand before the behometh
a beast unbroken

- Nicholas Martin

(featured in the poetry forum 10.29.11)

editor's note: As we approach this Day of the Dead, we reflect upon another Day, when we become... - mh

The Right Door, The Fly

a voice drones past the threshold
like a gregorian chant,
it echoes on the surface of the water
mimicking the sound of god
a fly on the wall
in a catacomb
beckoning me
wake up

- Nicholas Martin

(featured in the poetry forum 05.23.11)

Feast Upon the Weak

The electric hum of sleep
Dull voices streaming through the walls
Evil-natured; Nature turned me evil
We're a dying breed
Expand your gray matter
Feast upon the weak
Poetic justice of the circle
Indefinite reasons to keep it just

- Nicholas Martin

(added 05.23.11)

The Illusion

this short moment
like the one before it
sheds it's skin
ridding itself of the past
still it remains, however intangible,
a string of light shining brightly amidst the void
the crude mask of sanity that proves we exist

time; this guilty passenger,
walks me through ruins
I stare down
at the shadow-stained Earth
and know
a hard rain must wash the ground

this soft music
smooth and psychedelic
composed by the orbital currents of the moon
how the sound reverberates
from the insects' paper wings

the confusion you feel
is the illusion revealing itself to your
eyes; these minuscule windows,
too small to perceive the depth of it all

how will I remember this dream
when I awake
just a yoke in an egg?

- Nicholas Martin

(featured in the poetry forum 10.24.10)

The Equinox

every age there is a dawn
the chrysalis sun
bloats within the birth cloud
waiting for transformation
the metamorphosis of the red giant
the great mask of death slips o'er the face of god
and nods for the grande applause

- Nicholas Martin

(featured in the poetry forum 08.27.10)

Mankind & Its Kin

awaken your sleeping demons
their dreams are empty
who gives a shit what god thinks?
they will dance next to the fire
and feast upon the weak
carry your rope
as I do
every goddamned day
through every suffering city
all along the internal path of the enlightened way

I drag my rope along my side
of the right hemisphere of my feet
and a trail lingers behind me
of dust and oxygen
beneath uninvented skies
do we hang the man less intelligible?
do we hang the man insane?
could I bleed next to the window?
would I crawl to the door in vain?

I drag my rope
in search of the ugly creature
I must remove from this plane
there must be some force
some invisible hand
scratching against the door
do I open it?
do I ask for more?
for that unholy spirit lifts me to the heavens
and then further lowers me to the belows
do the trees try to tell me something?
their roots must be screaming
for some intangible desert
does the dirt speak my name?

I drag my rope
and I will hang
the fucking nonsense
that dissolves this universe
and that pangs
mankind & it's kin

- Nicholas Martin

(featured in the poetry forum 05.10.10)

The Abomination

What a familiar dream
how many vague memories
swaying like pendulums
through centuries of empty bedrooms
and broken windows

How reoccuring,
the shadows of these mad animals
floating past me
then blinking away
like every singular existence
swept away like crushed leaves
from a tree with roots
that could withstand time
but it's inhabitants
so foolishly, have dissipated the very foundation
their own feet walk upon

How strange this life,
however unlikely it may seem,
will in moments only be
that of dust
and blurred faces stretched across
skulls that were carved from stone
but remembered
as petrified wood

What an oddly comforting feeling
to wake up in someone else's dream
this abstraction of reality
on this crooked screen
we're wrapped in psychedelic flesh
but we so frequently decide
we want to look through black and white eyes

- Nicholas Martin

(added 05.10.10)

I am Diogenes

I river rat around
in the nude
noosed by scarf
ugly as day
carrying bronze lantern
door by door
searching for a light
that shines into it's shadow
looking for some certainty
or kindness
sifting through brilliant complexity
for some pure soul
wisdom & calamity in form
reoccurring dreams of
this one person
is there one?
I don't know
but it's been so damned long
goodbye, fellow citizens of this world
I feel sickly among the werewolves and the plagues,
and all I see is pain, weakness, & woe
beloved permanence,
take me beneath your sight
I am Diogenes,
dog of man

- Nicholas Martin

(added 05.10.10)

...AND THE CHILDREN WILL EAT THEIR FATHERS ALIVE

...and the weak will dance
a
death of human compromise
an
illegitimate cry
however great the sound in size
and the clocks will burn their hands in time...

...and the bored will sodomize
every
inch of field that the martyrs yield
salting
every flower growing out the spine of hell
then the atoms beat upon the walls of their cells
and everything under the sun does melt into one...

...and the sperm is dispersed from
a
male's entrails and the egg
grows to beg
and the infant weeps or at least the unlucky ones survive
just as their fathers before them
...and the children will eat their fathers alive

you're all in the clouds
just
fucking each other

- Nicholas Martin

(featured in the poetry forum 03.11.10)

The Martyr Part II The Hallucination

upon my waking eyes
what mysterious dream is this?

a blade of grass
in the horrifying darkness of my mind

what ghost lingers inside these walls?
the flowers upon the floating steel
who might've sent them?

where did I come from?
what have I begun?
I feel the cold silence of death
what mystical rattle

motel room 9
or is it 6;
is it 6?

the devil's knocking at the door
is it locked;
is it 6?

they've got me tied down
the bed sheets cocooning my
exoskeletal threshold
what are these angelic beasts?

the animals beyond these walls
howling every midnight
and scratching at the window's sill;
the ghosts that chase me
through the trees of the cold winter's wilderness
mother, I'm frightened out of my skin

where did I begin?
my heart is cut and bleeding
and my words and body are floating away

love is forgotten
and pain is never ending

what must I learn?
how must I burn?
how long is this waltz
off such a forever shortening dock?

what conspiracy is this?
my lover on the telephone
what mirror stands before me?
the television is staring between me
I can't hear the laughter of the smell of fruit
you're in on it too,
but I love you..

this room is 6;
it must be 6

the devil's knocking down that pearly white door
his dress lifted up; obscuring his face

and the clouds; woe, the storm is madly loud
I can't have my eyes see this anymore

this room; it is 6
nothing makes sense here anymore
I just meddle in the snow
around and around I go...

- Nicholas Martin

(featured in the poetry forum 01.20.10)