The minotaur suffers only from minor nightmares.
He dreams infant dragons devour him whole.
A silver sphere circling round and round a disc-shaped plate.
His eyes remain in a frozen state.
He is a form that travels with me.
I fly above the wilderness, and now that I am inside, I discover a
windowless house.
A marquee in the shape of a hexagon
Reads, “Solitude in darkness is the ideal inspiration for transformation”
When she leaves me, she says
I like boys better because they let me seek consolation in our naked
intimacies
Years before, I see the premonition
inside her silver door
A fine apartment in the oldest quarter of the city
The perfect place for a blackout
Her face was always a mess and my hair even worse
The bronze plates next to paintings read: Film, Pyramid, Man Cut Up,
Little Boy Dream, Aztec Tides, Monster Sky, Totems and World Belong,
Dim Lights
In the basement of my building, a bony figure sings my praises,
Proclaiming, “You are too strong for her and her upsets”
The only dreams are the sound dreams
Safe madness
You have 5000 years in that face
Telegram:
Rose is dying. Stop.
I send you a giftbasket.
Enclosed is a card.
Dear,
Enclosed are:Two apple tarts
Six strands of hair
One broken collar bone
My half-eaten thumb
With love,
Face bones
Stop talking! I’ll murder you!
I poisoned….
I’m poisoned
They poisoned me
The doctor’s here
I can’t write the check
I like your watch
I can’t go
I don’t
I have a long story
I can’t talk now
I’ll tell you the story later
Water please
Let me close
Let me out!
Grow water
Grow clothes
Grow close
Close, no, no, no
Close, close it up
Where are you going?
Go under
Under! Let me take off my
clothes, I doubt that
Who is she? Where am I going?
Take off my clothes
Let me take off my clothes
Let me take off my clothes
Let me take off my clothes
Where are the boys?
The boys!
Stop.
Tuae perceptiones non consonae veritati sunt
s
he is
she
and
me is
me
and
she is
me
and
when
you
walk
you
do it
most
force
full
y
down
stairs a
spiral
of mo
tion a
vessel
a
portal
in
disgui
se
Ed. Note: This work originally appeared in Martinez’s third book, Via Dissimulata, out now from Octopus Books. Reprinted with permission from the author and Octopus Books.
**
MARISOL LIMON MARTINEZ is a writer, musician, and visual artist based in New York City.
Poet, musician, and visual artist Marisol Limon Martinez’s third book, Via Dissimulata, uses the book as a frame & a portal: phrases and images echo, cycle, and stutter as the book-length poem accrues meanings both archetypal and personal—from the wilderness and the rebus to seven pills taken with water. Via Dissimulata explores ideas of the body, family, gender, culture, and speech, how these extend beyond dichotomies into permeable layering of ideas. It integrates visual studies for a five-panel painting that includes the text of the entire poem with poetry that uses the space of the page as another canvas, by turns minimalist and expressionist. Via Dissimulata tracks the tensions between the individual and the metaphysical, with poetry precise as it is harrowing, haunting as it is lovely.