I write about what faces the average human being in just living each and every day without too much pain or too much stress or too much anger and the urgency and challenge of coping with those things. I write about the comparisons between the huge things that make us happy and the small things that make us sad. My poems call for us to see more, see further, be more and better and, again, more. I write about expectations and our ability to fulfill them or fail to do the same.
I write about relationships–the cruel, the complicated, the simple, the joyful, the sexy, the fearful, the painful, the intense. I write about what can go wrong, what does go wrong, how much beatings hurt and how much kisses heal. I write about the terrors and wonder of childhood, the terrors and wonder of aging. I write about sexuality, partnerships and marriages.
I write about music, dancing, reading, aging, cooking, sex. I write about how fear can destroy the mind and the feelings of anyone. I write about the intimidation of our peers, the strengths of our friends, the power of our enemies. I write about war and insects and the smell of clean clothes.
I write about God––how “we pray to a God we do not love for those we do love;” about churches, priests, confessions, weddings and funerals. I write about a God we look for and seldom find. I write about my mother who was mad and my father who was not. I write about madness and how it can be contagious to those who come in contact with it.
In my newest collection, LEARNING BY ROTE, I speak as myself, someone who has been transformed by living life full on–sometimes afraid, sometimes confident, often bewildered, willing to laugh at myself and cry for others. The poems in LEARNING BY ROTE are not for relaxation. More accurately, they call the reader to pay attention, be mindful of what is seen and what is said around him/her. I invite you to purchase the book, enjoy the poems and let me know, afterward, what you think. email me atmartinanewberry@gmail.com
Martina is available for readings, performances, workshops, and work in schools. She can be reached at: martinanewberry@gmail.com
A Medical Procedure
Eyes wide shut
To the stark horror
Amputated imagination
Discarded foreskins of decency
Silicone augmented justifications
Botox smiles
Liposuction sensibilities
Flat line responses
Sleep comes and goes
A specter haunting
The waking hours
Which daylight and clock hands
Cannot control
Zombies addicted
To blue techno light
And lukewarm flesh
A microscopic world
Of ineptitude
Where the administration
Of the antibiotic
Is an onslaught
And the blood is poisoned
Equally
By the disease and the cure
Doctors of words
Perform audiodectomies
Empty newborn ideas of life
Into the trash bins of irrelevance
Suture idiocy onto common sense
Creating a monstrosity
Of impossible dysfunction
And issue bills
Uncomfortable office furniture
And professional hacks
Conspire to occlude
Words of need
Flowing from lips
Bruised by speaking too much truth
To the wrong people
Far too long
Bare feet tread
Gieger counter concrete
Irradiated dreams
Of misshapen “what ifs”
Peeping through keyhole
Realities
Hoping to glimpse
Brighter tomorrows
Inhaling the scent of now
The new carpet smell
Of the new world order
Formaldehyde fresh
Wilted American beauty roses
Sweetened hemlock tea
A hot knife to slit
Cold wrists
In the exhale lies
The glorious past
Of an oxygenated luxury
Orgies of conspicuous excess
Faint screams
Of forgotten victims
And the scent of wine
Mixed with blood
D Jones 2010
Pretty word paintings of world conditions, doesn’t say anything about how to change them. Al Bates
And…?
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I can’t tell you what that means to me, but I’ll try. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder why I’m still a writer, why I do this at all. I can’t sell a book to save my life, I wonder, with every blog or poem, if anyone is “out there” and if they’re reading anything I write or not. I tell myself I’m going to quit about 10 times a day, but I’m a writer and that seems to be impossible. What you’ve said has warmed and encouraged me today. Thank you. You’ve done more than you think.
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