Solitary Notebooks 

I've not known you

or heard you

nor been close enough

to hear you sing

some somber lullaby

to the strangers you

speak of softly and

suddenly, strangers that

deceitfully stained

your stockings

and white lace dresses

leaving through the

back door of neon lit

buildings with their

cracked concrete walls.

Yet I see

some sense

i...

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The sea has not been still 

and the fishermen

nearly losing

the nets they cast,

the seaweed entangled 

like sequins sown badly

onto the fish nets 

for a final haul where 

backs bent and burnt  

from an unforgiving sun

will pull frantically to 

catch, if only briefly,

the songs of the silent sea

M Martinez 2022

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What’s left of me?

When I die?

Or when I’ve 

forgotten 

what to do

with my time?

A form of death 

of the heart 

and other 

appendages.

What’s left of me?

Not politically 

but physically,

personally,

philosophically?

And what 

are these 

meandering 

shadows 

on the tiled floors 

with their simple 

patterns of leaves?

Who are these

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Waiting rooms,

needles in the bin,

all quietly 

contemplating.

Waiting rooms

with pictures:

bullet points 

and ticks and crosses.

Places to remake 

dark futures,

by turning them 

into new projects.

Maybe one more year

living without fear 

thinking of something else,

crafting new prospects.

Remaking the soul

in a clay oven 

having been   

thr...

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Ride with me my last known friend

and leave the directory behind,

no need to remember the numbers.

Just saddle up and buy us two sombreros.

The sun will burn hard, scorching persistent

memories: leaving us to it’s unrelenting mercies.

Into a desert together meandering aimlessly we will

ride, whistling tunes from the Saturday morning

pictures we saw at the cinema when we wer...

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So I am imagined -

as Angel González said -

being reflected 

inside your brain cells.

A circuit of fibres

that sees me standing 

‘within’ your thinking:

briefly flickering.

Momentarily there 

inside you like some son 

waiting to be born 

and floating oblivious.

Warmed by your heart

perhaps lighting up 

the deep sea fishing nets

which are the mind.

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Return me 
to my darkness,
my own darkness 
not yours.
Deliver me 
from your fears,
to my own fears
not yours.
Bring me 
stumbling back
to my nightmares
that held me close
like familiar friends.
(Michael Martinez 2021)

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sitting on some rusty purposeless wire 

looking down the platforms

of Paddington’s Circle Line

the rain falling gently

and settling on the head of a sad man

who walks in circles on the platform  

as if a bird looking for stale bread

almost like we do minute after bleeding minute

unless it’s shagging or building our nests

in some dying tree or leaf and moss filled gu...

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I live with these fallen people 
in this shaded land,
their conquests lost 
within their broken dreams,
as I queue for bread and beer:
this world of fear and dust 
entering my lungs 
leaving me lost in time 
looking at their stained hands.

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Mortal men stumbling 

into unknown spaces 

removing their bloodied coats,

with the dried mudded backs

from resting under the rain.

Spoken to in a foreign language 

as they empty their pockets 

and the torn sacks made of rope.

Letters from their homes, 

empty wet leather wallets, 

pictures of visited places

and small books of rules.

The emptied pockets turne...

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