A POETIC EXCERPT
BY JUAN JOSÉ MARTÍNEZ


Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world… Ezra Pound


3

The road is more arrogant than the skies even with brand new cars
Rented with usury—stained credit cards and its satanic seepage
Everything is so awful

That we must escape to Mexico
And take refuge in the surrealism that holds families together
But we find uncertainty in the very rich
And recklessness in the very poor
We are begged not to depart because our new friends fear the unknown
And they want us to stay inside their hearts so we can also love them as they love us
And now we take the task

To find the meaning of love
We drive through dusty streets

And pick up pilgrims
On the way to the land of milk and honey
Who carry with them bibles and crosses that will make them invisible
So when they cross the border the gunmen will not be able to see them and kill them.

4

The freeways are anything but free with their tormented drivers high on oil
With hummers everywhere serving as signs of the apocalypse
And things get better

When we enter the Arizona desert
Because there is less obviousness

And more otherness
The road greets the darkness of night time and everything seems romantically tragic
Inside our carriage of luxury I try to stop in the middle of the stars
To find out more about

The significance of marriage
But we continued ahead

And when we felt the sting of suburban withdrawals
Once in awhile my high beams illuminated

Random cactuses petrified with solitude
As we eat in a diner by the roadside

I remembered how Adam lost paradise

Because of his refusal to fast
I decided to make a mountain

Of ketchup on my plate
Using french-fries as little trees

Left to out to die by loggers.

AIRPORT

The travelers
Are happy
Not because they see
Their estranged love ones
But because they landed
And they’re alive.

LANGUAGUES

Don’t feel bad
If you don’t understand
Academics speak
From the coldness
Of their grey matter
And you speak
With fire
Form you heart.