John Martino is a writer, photographer, and educator currently residing in Hong Kong with his life-partner, Xiuli. His debut book of poetry, American Sonnet, a suite of 51 "little songs," was published by Half Inch Press in September 2025. Additional poems can be found at North Dakota Quarterly, Another Chicago Magazine, Packingtown Review, The Southern Quill, The Bitchin' Kitsch, and J Journal, among others. He is the Executive Editor at Home Planet News (homeplanetnews.com).
Little Pig, Little Pig
Don't mistake the words on the page
for the poem itself. Don't mistake
rage for direct and clear-minded
intent. Whether gunshot or engine
backfire, the letters jump and scatter,
take flight like a murder of crows,
realign as musical notes on an overhead
wire. The page in your hand is blank,
but the poem remains. Try to blow
it down and, like a house built of solid
air, it absorbs and integrates, grows
stronger. Most nights, I'm behind that
house, aiming arrows at the darkness,
guided only by a howling moon. Don't
mistake this for misdirection. In the sure
light of morning, walking and observing,
look at the many new targets heretofore
unknown: brick heart, human wall,
garden vault, bank gnome. You think
you know, but you don't. The biggest,
baddest toe of them all. A lifetime spent
misreading the signs, no matter how far
you roam. Remember: This little piggy went
to market doesn't mean it comes home.
Whitman Sampler
I celebrate my selfie! And play
with it, too. And what I exhume,
you shall exhume. For every atom
bomb belonging to me
as good belongs to you.
Tabulation of all our days
down to a spear of summer grass.
I grow lean and loath under
camera eyes. Watch me scratch
my patched mass.
I sing the body electrified,
hooded, buggered with a broomstick,
tortured by water, the flick
of a Bic. I sing of truth
extracted with a tooth.
I sing of twisted truths buffed to perfection.
I sing "America the Beautiful
Idea / Someday we'll live inside
the IKEA" and point the way
with invisible hands. The heat
sputters and cracks like Pop Rocks.
I leave teeth marks in every sugar-coated
confession, put all the half-eaten
pieces, each wounded dead,
back into the box.
