2 Poems by Martin Avery

From La Biche, Haiti, March 2009:

IN THE MARKET

I've seen them ask,
Reaching a hand to mouth,
"Menge?"

I've seen them ask,
Bellies taut and empty,
"Menge?"

Calling to me, "Blanc!"
     "Blanc!" - seperation
     "Blanc!" - distance
     "Blanc!" - cash soul!

          -Blank,
Blank and empty.

And I feel no longer empty
When a spirit tap pours
And
I'm filling while opening
And
The sky opens
Fingers touched.

ENERGY

Whispering waves of gloom

Daily wading in plenty

Grinding,

Same,

Grinding.

 

Port Au Prince

Filled with sparks.

Feel it

And smell the smoke

 

She’s walking in grace

With her load carried

On her head.

 

Pushing down,

The North sits on her head

And she walks in Grace.

 

Everything crumbling,

The door opens,

Mususa smiles,

Welcome to Haiti.

Martin Avery is a poet and humanitarian from Redfield, South Dakota. He may be reached by writing to mavery1219@hotmail.com

Poem

FOR AWAY

I need you because I’m anxious.
I permit spew in bed, an honest aim.
Anytime I wallow slower, you lay
The visible convulsing.
I remember that steak is dead.
Hail falls inside my head.

I am thankful for your letters, lighting
What’s gone between our stark emotions
And the first void of morning.
The last darkness chases the city.
Dove traces exchange my pity.
It’s too early to be naked.

I give you my first stare, plumbing
A destination superior and gutless
As the terror I wear.
Our pups are boiled alive in oral sex, their
Noises assume weapons where we won’t.
When dead, I’m them.

I need you in my head.
Anything the visible remembers is there
But isn’t.
I face the bed because hail falls on the city.
I am thankful that darkness chases my pity.
What’s left between us ends slowly.

2 Recent Publications

"HE-WOLF STREETS" @ The Legendary

"THE OTHER SPOT" @ Opium Poetry 2.0

Why Is My Cup So Full?

A Devotional For The People of La Biche, Haiti

by Martin Avery

Why is my cup so full?

"I get up, have some bread and coffee." 

Why is my cup so full?

"Around three I eat a big meal"

Why is my cup so full?

"Then it may be 2-3 days I don't eat"

Why is my cup so full?

"There is no work here." 

Why is my cup so full? 

"I would like to work." 

Why is my cup so full? 

"My parents can't support me either."

Why is my cup so full?

"I want to be a music mixer." 

Why is my cup so full? 

"I'm going to Miami to study medicine." 

Why is my cup so full? 

Daylight comes through cracks in the church walls. 

Why is my cup so full? 

The lights go out in the service. 

Why is my cup so full? 

Half the roof is gone. 

Why is my cup so full? 

Precious wood cut for the cook fire. 

Why is my cup so full? 

Meat every night. 

Why is my cup so full? 

Water carried on their heads. 

Why is my cup so full? 

Singing and laughing everyday. 

Why is my cup so full? 

Praying and praying, 

Why is my cup so full? 

Loving and loving. 

Why is my cup so full? 

And why do I spill so much?

Martin Avery is a poet and humanitarian from Redfield, South Dakota. He may be reached by writing to mavery1219@hotmail.com

10 Fragments

I chop off my nose and hand you

My ear while we're asleep, I never

Planned for this, I need your favors

Growing inwardly

A dynasty of bronze DNA scoops, 

Potential disasters I roll over duped,

In one day I'm displaced, and we are

Indeed very meaningful

Abuse the self and include me among

A selection of utensils, it creates many

New jobs for those who demand the world's

Top brands, on your pillow is quite a handsome dick

Heavy smoker with a broken ticker, a cradled corpse

They stable online, the numbers vary little, the battlefields

Automatically roast up some hippos and gorillas, I've

Enough to occupy my ground without your death

The image is how I think,

The image in what I drink, a firewood

Mind, a smooth gun I don't show, the

Darkness under doors the

Ice was gonna tell her I was

Somebody to step back from, the train

Falls asleep farting, twenty wombs repeat

My characters

Clams and kings, their meat sticks out, their

Moving feels weird, like a neck

Pointing out a road, like

The center of a wolf

I want to be your dark man, give me another

Reasonable hit, cuff me up a cloudy bay, your

Evil unleashed just in case my solitude

Beckons its spastic bloom

Through violence our becoming is

Valued, it is clear when agony succumbs to another

Soul, another monotonous and single devotion reaches

The point where its reproduction is irreversible, where

The numbness goes away strange mountains are

Detached from the muscle line, violet slime is hauled

In verses, I hope I can be a hint for you, I hope

I'm the exaggeration of a replacement you rank.

Poem

As rivers of plural stall the lightning,
I hark back nothing of a private noose dear.
Plain awesome sums my elimination.
How hopelessly this ingestion of reality blusters.
It propels me
Into the common heap shaved bright.
A sausage cauldron of no calls and no career.
At neutral dusk
The carbons sway aimlessly.
They pull over a quilt of quills
Pilfering the blood not returned
A pillar or freak peppermint.
I ring of mountains,
And your ring's for tasting.
Ah sometimes it's scary living in New York City.
I sense someday Jihad's gonna nuke us!
And blessing Allah like we should,
I obey a plight like spin and what does shit.
Cristy is kind.
She twiddles her buns.
There's lingerie on TV.
My writing is dumb.
So bored of the light,
So bored of the darkness,
The poor hum to the poor and proceed rimmed.

Publication

"BAMBERG" @ THE

Don't Know Mind

Flowers Of Bo Weevil

Poem

THE CHIMNEY

I admire my message to the rural champions.
I admire my amputation of the lunar sigh.
I am distinctly buried in a fetal position.
The behavior of my vulnerable corridors
Gives your ox its spontaneous genetic frenzy.
So long and elegant is my piss behind this bar stool.

The ape it strokes
Its cereal with toothpaste on toilet paper.
The pebble it skips
A spelling of the same pile two years late.
As a solider I balance
My sword inheriting total clot control.

And suddenly there’s access to sacred expulsions.
Suddenly, my lurking hires an urgent sanctuary.
My despair sells the kids for boxes.
My faith it sells the cat for condiments.
This solar intelligence drags my intestines
Through hair and grass always open for whores.

O indeed I’m blended, but sit down motherfucker,
I still pray
For fragments within me to judge what’s small and tragic.
The crops they’re whipping like motherfuckers,
And I’m hit while praying
Those sirens are hungry for my manicured image.

It goes without saying
I’m full of the real paradox.
Birth after birth,
My stringy pollen layers itself
To prime the infant’s waning grill.

It goes without saying,
My grand birth of afterbirths
Is a dim passage
Where shepherds may scratch inscriptions
Into you
Who cannot forget his stolen egg sky.

Poem

CANDY NECKLACE CAR

My steak gets wild while pursuing your carpeted paradise.
My mind expands due to trendy gadgets
Taxing turkey sausage and a flawed condom
Splattered on the flinching sidewalk.

It’s shocking how photographs
Probe the inner emotions of holidays,
And successfully signal an imprinted doomsday
That cares so much for nailclippers buttfucking mortality.

And yes it’s shocking how precisely
My new master stares 
At each treason as if his cheese
Rapes a digital membrane queen.

The rent checks slip on passed out candy.
I’m shocked stiff and protecting my drugs
From an identity load of divine iron junk
Awake and hunting.

The same old story, the population is groggy,
Screens and diets discuss their titties
Like a broiled lamb chop
Saving birthday decoys from migraines.

I may be vague, but I assure you I’m not ill.
With every mile, my prison becomes more marketable,
Capturing these poses in a committed spotlight
Crawling back to the irresistible burning.

3 Self-Portraits

First Daze Of March

Selection Of Poems @ Parasitic