Milo Martin
ISSUING A CEASEFIRE TO THE DESTRUCTION OF LOVE
My heart is a goddamned ever-exploding rose
billowing smoke shattering thorns
striking deep within this cage of fractured ribs
reloading recoiling rejoicing grimacing
the inner metal spring mechanism
of a broken toy gun firing ad nauseam
discharging red velvet petals out of a circus cannon
My heart is a goddamned ever-exploding rose
a perpetual hand-to-hand bayonet firefight
frustrating the muzzle of a rifle used in a godly war
wounds soothed only by ampoules of morphine
dabs of cool water from a glass pitcher
applied to the forehead by a gentle dishwater nurse
in an ad hoc infirmary tent in the Swiss Alps
My heart is a goddamned ever-exploding rose
a shrieking black cat with its tail caught in a car door
a cherry bomb going off in a garbage can
blistered into smithereens by that neighborhood punk Emo girl
detonated secretly by the lit wick of a smiling witch
blasting the ill-fated crucified stigmata
straight up the splintered planks of a dry and ragged throat
My heart is a goddamned ever-exploding rose
its stem standing dutifully in the dirt
like the frozen night watchman
waiting for the troops to arrive home again
awakened by the ambush of affectionate weapons
now thawing flaccid and sad
the smooth green necks of dead mallards
My heart is a goddamned ever-exploding rose
a flowery grenade destined to blow me to kingdom come
its shrapnel puncturing hundreds of tiny black holes
into my thriftstore cotton shirts
its blooming center a confused rocket
spinning wildly off a launch pad
careening into the bleachers of a horrified crowd of cheerleaders
Milo Martin is a native Californian poet originally from the San Francisco Bay Area who found his way down to Los Angeles in 1995 coming up in the now-legendary East Hollywood poetry zeitgeist of the mid-late 90s. He co-founded the original Hollywood poetry slam team, touring the United States. Martin has also toured Europe extensively on five different occasions, his work translated into Italian, French, German, and Croatian. He is the author of Poems for the Utopian Nihilist and is currently finishing his new collection entitled Sublemon/Sublime.
Milo contends that birds and insects are manifest angels.