LIBERATION

 

 

A man throws a boot  at an obnoxious Rooster.

 

His balls are loose and hanging from his naked body

over the edge of his bed where he now sits hungry

and thirsty  but too spent to do anything about it

and unable to sleep.

 

Concrete walls perspiring deliscious, aqua remedies

for the broken hearts of mothers lost are the guards

of this vision. Locked down and corners joined

they become one.

 

After consuming the essence of a Guava

the man ties a rope around a woman’s waist

and the bantom’s leg. As they reach the apex of their propulsion,

he severs the chord and they take flight in separate

but eually astonished directions.

 

Not enough sleep without any pleasure can be extremely dangerous

to those who fancy and practice the the art of deprivation.

All of twenty minutes is what it usually took for him to clear his head,

to console himself. But usual was not charateristic of four hours passed.

 

And as Hector flicks the ashes of his long awaited cigarette

into what remains of his dinner and lifts the bottle to his curious lips,

he can’t decide which  of his conspirators he misses most;

the horrid cock  or the cackling hen.

 

                                                                                        

                                                                             

Blair Avon Martin

 

 

 

 ABSENCE of COLOR

 

There are lips that fold into

depths of atavistic reasoning.

They  relieve themselves by springing forward,

reaching for a kiss in the absence

of color.

 

Fingers turn a page

dog-eared from nothing less than disdain

or is it love for that which stiffens

your spine in the absence of color.

 

When longing is wet and resistance

hard to come by, darkness looks

the other way from what lightness

tries to deny in the absence

of color.

 

Infinitely misguided by our faith in limitations,

the conflict set down by a folklore of miscegination

and imperialist mythology substituting

elementary biology, we are inevitably beside or

in front of ourselves when we dream

in the absence of color.

 

                                                                             

 Blair Avon Martin

 

 

 

                            FRUITE CAKE

 

Well, a day in the life of a dragon fly is

not one that I would assume to be charmless,

                      they’re such slite, nervous and shy creatures

that don’t take swimming lessons from

mosquito youth selling tickets on the Avenue.

But by the looks of this one, maybe they should.

 

Well, the girl next door,

her breath smells like baby food to me

and a strange fruite cake of a deserted

heart throb once confessed to me that

“it ain’t much different lyin’ on your back

in a flooded pot hole than when you flying”

 

Well, so, I immediately thought of rehabilitating

this poor, lost,

but oh, so lovely laced wing remnant of

prehistoric beauty just before sunrise

on a broken glass stage 

in a Baltimore project

                        complex

                        inject  

                        reject

                        inspector gossamer, are you ready?

 

 

                                                                  

Blair Avon Martin             

 

 

 

         CUPID’S IDEA OF FUN

 

 

The day we met it was hot

it was first Avenue hot

Puerto Rican breath hot

it was the August sun Peeling away another layer of my over indulged obscurity.

 

Shoulders were dropped

breaths were hastily taken and given

smiles were ushered in at knife point

while voices sliced through the collective

it was open season.

 

I was working

I was dirty

scared and excited

I was detecting very impressive ripples

from waves of far more ominant tides.

 

And all I could think about

were the points he focused on

while telling me about you

and the dream that I had of you

before we ever met

and that skin that admired before

I ever touched it

and the flower I smelled long before you ever opened your legs for me

and all the fresh air and light

that my new recent perforations were then just dicovering and, and  how it was all a big tease.

 

 

                                                  Blair Avon Martin

 

 

 

                       PROMISE

 

I  am the voice of the unspoken word

the voice of secrets undeveloped and afraid

that seek refuge in the lower jaws

of monsters with sandy gums and broken teeth.

 

I am the voice of listening

that has heard all that it cannot speak of,

I watched that spider build that web

I swear I did and we had tea from rain water poured through porselain filters over the pits of fallen Apricots and I held the umbrella

the whole time while she made our bed;

this bed in which I am still floating.

 

I am the voice of pleasure alleys

paved with concord grapes picked by

whispering midgets-brown and soft-

whose sad eyes console one another 

in the silence that their muted lips embrace.

 

I am the voice of hair adorned, lovingly

cared for that no one ever smells or touches.

Hybrid locks of red, brown and gold

love each other and a pleathora of neglected

indentities is awakened in a forest of screams

that swallow my amphibious tongue.

 

I am promise.

 

 

                                          Blair Avon Martin