October 2022 – novamartinpoetry.com

Poems

Some Days Discarded

She knows I’m beautiful now.

Well, becoming more beautiful.

Though she doesn’t care anymore.

She let that kind of feeling go.

But she knows I’m having that

look these days

that others see and think

I’m a delight to look at and experience.

I might bring lust into a room.

There could be lust.

She could see my dark eyes

and my long eyelashes drawn across

the suspended air in stillness, calling

something sultry and sensual,

that dark hair majesty,

there with my cheekbones,

drawing my naughty eyes out

and shining on the naughty thoughts

of other women I see. Who go thinking.

They see me.

I’m seen.

I’m out.

It’s becoming and uncoming

in very much a way it never has before.

She knows I’m beautiful now.

But she doesn’t care anymore.

She can’t.

It would stop her world

and the kind of afternoons

she needs with herself.

Poems

In A Hotel Room In Albuquerque

In a hotel room in Albuquerque
I wake up
in the middle of the night
to various things you said
speaking in my mind,
like a radio tuning in…

Initially there is static,
my mind is groggy,
the words are unclear,
but soon the more into
consciousness I awake
I can clearly hear:

“Women don’t have penises.”
“Women don’t dance like that.”
“Women don’t have those kind
of thoughts.”
“A woman wouldn’t wear that.”
“I don’t think women do things
like that.”

Then I get up.
Go into the stale bathroom of
my hotel room.
Grab my pink metal tweezers
and continue my tenacious ritual
of plucking out the remnants of
my beard hair, one by one,
as I stand there for an hour
underneath the nauseating
fluorescent lighting,
plucking probably 800 hairs
and plotting out my plan to
move to Berlin to become a
Sapphic lesbian, woman-only,
sensual and tender,
feminist healer prostitute.

Poems

Leave You As Ghosts

I’m going to leave you

as ghosts

back there under that

moonlight.

Your lips left there

on my shoulder

drawing

your big, scared,

sacred, sensual feelings

out of you

there in that

ghostland

where I leave you.

A last time,

an eternal seance

with your feelings there,

not here,

left with the ghost life.

Witch’s word, witch’s covenant.

I step into the sunlight.

Poems

Spells In Heartbreak

I set to write the spells in
heartbreak.
The aborted child.
The lost capitalist culture.
The absent love of parents.
The lover whose heart I broke.
The lover who broke my heart.
The abusive father.
The abusive and withholding
partner, and the anger and anxiety
lived towards them.
The two cats who revolutionized
my soul, then lived, created
something joyous,
then died and went away.
The gender I am but in some way
will never wholly be in
other people’s eyes.
The hurtful things said.
The hurtful things heard that
are never surmounted once said.
The living of self that always
carries a crushed something.
The gentle smile I still manage
in soft quiet moments
with myself very still or
across to another’s eyes
who needs my gentle smile.
But I did not write these spells
in word —
I lived and live them.
And I guess they taught and
teach me to
love and love onward
somehow,
in a lifetime, in a life form, in a life
way remade, reformed, and
even revisited.
That is their spell.
That is the spells in heartbreak.

Poems

Earthling

I love you Mother Earth.

I’m going through

my first lesbian breakup.

And I am standing on

you right now

looking up at a billion stars.

And I know I’m an Earthling.

Resolutely tender and mortal.

Vulnerable to the Universe’s

dispositions.

I will love you

always.

Poems

Ripe Moon

Our emotions are full

when the moon is high.

Ripe am I

in your heart and mind.

Over the fields,

the arms of the trees,

sleeping and dreaming.

The northern skies

believe in southern breeze.

The breeze weaves and

weaves

around our bodies entwined,

but separate and solo.

Midnight is right,

the light between leaves.

You’ve awoke in the morning.

Your feelings,

so many of them

underneath the bright moon,

now clear in daylight,

together and simple.

And this is why I cast

dark pearly eyes to the sky

when you are sleeping.

Poems

She Is

I can feel a thousand lifetimes

passing through our fingers.

She is a person who would

let a thousand lifetimes

pass through her fingers;

an epoch of love and lovers,

passed over.

She’s done it before,

many times.

I’ve seen it.

And I watch it now.

That’s why I was here again,

to see if things could go

differently.

But they won’t go differently.

She’ll be in this situation again;

it may not be on Earth,

it may be as a woman or as

a man,

it may be as a mom

or as an animal,

but she’ll do this over and

over.

That’s why I leaned in to

love her.

Poems

The Last Morning

On the last morning

we were together

I made chilaquiles.

It was good, maybe

the best chilaquiles I had

ever made.

Afterwards we made love

in the middle of her living room,

giant windows all around,

the beaming sunshine

on our breasts,

her flower melting upon me,

two ancient lovers

lost in our ancient eyes together.

Gasps and moans from our souls

from another lifetime,

melting into one another,

we brought one era to a close

and brought a new one

into being.

Poems

Heartsick

“Lightning strikes, maybe once? Maybe twice?”
– Fleetwood Mac (from the song Gypsy)

We both smoke
cigarettes
right now
because we’re heartsick.
So in love with the biggest
love we’ve both ever known,
but too tired to move forward.
So we puff, we puff, and puff
to give up on each other.
But I also go out
regularly each morning
and run an 8:45 minute mile…

because I’m strong-hearted,
rooted deep in my soul.

I wish… well… I wanted her
to value my strong heart and soulfulness.
But she didn’t,
so I continue on, running
and smoking and feeling and
mourning.
My heart continues with
the mad beauty and love
that I am
and that I have to offer.

Poems

The Oracle Of Sappho At Delphi

She is an oracle
I turn to every 20 years;
to buoy me,
to collect me,
turn me into life.
To say —
no woman will ever love me,
no earthling love for the poet.
Therefore I best believe in
and lean into life;
find the love of life within this.
Her eyes dance at me,
at my spirit’s dancing.
Again, she calls me.
She could be
the Oracle at Delphi.
She was once that.
I’m certain.
I was there with her.
Priestesses.
Priestess sisters.
She says my weight is cosmic.
No woman will ever love you.
You were made for this world.
The healer… diviner.