Poetry from Nova Martin – America's favorite transwoman feminist lesbian druidess poet
Consciousness comes in
and it pours into us
Like the surf rolling in
And it ripples and riptides
Crustaceans and sunshine fumble
Pebbles mix and carbon replaces
And that consciousness never dries up
It wades and bays
Then it withdraws
leaving
an imprint
that lasts a billion years
and
is then replaced with something infinite
holistic, continuous,
individual when needed
and squarely incomprehensible
I mean, everlasting
You are
I was
We now
I love you Leslie
Folds of skin
sat on a plate in a friend’s kitchen.
People talked about the skin,
associated it with this friend
when its vision was requited in their memories.
Eventually, most fell out of touch
with the owner of Plate,
but never did they forget the blooming gore
of that Georgia O’Keeffe-like still life.
In fact,
many are reminded daily,
when they eat tortillas dipped in chili,
when chili is poured atop a hot dog,
when they go to sleep at the end of such days.
… “Folds of skin
sat on a plate in a friend’s kitchen.
Who was that? Whose plate was that?”
Let us go watch while
the long rays of sunset
draw its light out
into the woods.
Made celebrants of darkness.
Life everlasting.
Here in this moment.
But also always all around.
Let those photons
bend our corporeal presence
to something angelic,
something where forgetfulness
and remembrance
is humbled by insignificance
of awe.
I’ll take tea with her,
in the club of existential poets.
Make me out of stars, fair father.
Tell me I am queer, dear weird,
dear mother.
Oh god, mothers are always
left apologizing.
God damn left handedness.
Let the day turn.
The trees stand.
Vines grown gnarled and green.
Trees reach out.
And the light will find its way.
Books closed and written
in the stupidity
of Earthling humans.
And night borne of morning words.
That old cellular way of consciousness.
Love and radiation.
I went to the night
and I wanted to run
further and further
into the star fields above.
Into the past.
Past my own people
and their adoration of
gender and tyrants,
drunk on power,
desperate without it.
For
the people here are slaves
to desperation.
Insignificant in space,
yet precious in form.
How
can we live content
as dust?
How
can we live
and then take
our form again,
in some manner,
some way?
Further and further
into the star fields above,
I lust.
I pray.
I send signals their way.
I’m wrong.
I’m full of mortality.
Portions of me
were an orange from Valencia.
Portions of me
spoke to my classmates
in an auditorium in college.
Portions of me
walked through the Agora
at midday
with pieces of billion year old
dust all around.
I’m wrong.
I’m full of mortality.
You turn your eyes away from
these words.
You’re wrong too,
opps, wrong again.
The evening sky burns pink
and orange
turning carbon particulates
into our lungs.
She lived
while other women
in her church
died,
got breast cancer,
had heart attacks,
grew old.
Her arms stayed thin
on the bone
while others got fat
and flabby,
marbled with vericose veins
and their breath grew
stale and sour.
She felt the fallen masculinity
in the men around her,
their loss of heroism,
though she loved her husband
nonetheless.
She knows this is what
our way of life offers,
so she lived in the moments in between,
the trips to
the nursing home
to visit friends
and the turning of the
Bible pages.
The waveform people took it.
The form of love between us,
the gravity.
Back to their mansion in the woods,
on a planet
three hundred fifty five million
light years away.
Can you see it leaving in the city?
In every city on the planet,
past the grimey stains
on subway stairs.
The people leaving the cities
to live like the waveform people,
in their woods
three hundred fifty five million
light years away.
Let them walk upon earth and snow
in the winter.
Said the waveform people.
Let them cherish their human
manners.
But the mansion is not there.
Only the blue sky
of the waveform people above.
(originally appears in the collection Humble, Humble Love)
In the first 100 days
we welcomed you as bone
through the corridor of the white temple,
next we enter the brown one,
for era
and its sunlight.
The beige cities pass on the way
and you walk the outskirts of the crowded districts,
like tourists, you count your days there,
but harvesters with celestial migrations bring
crops, dust, and pollinators
in from the orbitals
until at the last changing of color
you throw away your ribcage,
as you no longer need it,
pressed and known into terrestrial soil,
been done and dispersed in the rain.
Clouds come and go like spaceships
for the bodies
in the journey through the temples.
SuperNations are inconsequential,
as are Kingdoms and SuperLeaders,
encoded information.
The orb is everexistent.
The word is priyama,
the body priyamay.
The deliverance has been delivered.
The breath is threshed.
The stars are ponies.
We never walk at sundown.
We could live better on this planet.
You hold your dark eyes
and I hold mine too.
If everyone stays inside their house
and guards their possessions
then we’ll call this planet “Earth”.
You have a forehead made of stone.
I remember the scent of stone.
A solar star burns
and
mortals go capturing its light,
but we could live better on this planet
so I guess
you’ll have your possessions
and I’ll have mine.
Mature with me
Be immature
Hide the salt and pepper shakers
Grown old
Your bones
won’t have the chance again
to do stupid things
Fickle flicks
Preserve self image
The undead are dying
The dead live upon our breaths
The dead babies are being forgiven
in heaven
He has stale bready breath
Hide the salt and pepper shakers
Make rain
Look at the windows on Main Street
Down there she killed herself
ultimately
Mature with me
Be immature
Pull away
Now the funeral procession
heralds the west winded ghosts
and the cafe waits back in childhood
They’re tracing over couches
Your parents while crying
drove the car home
for their tender memories
past the corn fields and shopping strips
the red airplane hanger
Poetry by W.T. tuqMairtin
novamartinpoetry.com 