To Felix Baumgartner

[Ex Tempore XXXIII]

It is to those men and women,
They who say to Impossible,
"Just maybe, just maybe",
That our own unspoken dreams look to.
These strange creatures are not so strange in fact.
It is just that starry and steely sight
Of theirs that throws and thrusts their
Undaunted spirits to the threshold
And the beyond.
History will remember them and those that were there
Will say, "I was there".
But that inexplicable yearning for something more
Of these impossible persons
Lives and lives again.
As long as there is that which is yet undone
There will be those—the strange creatures—that say,
"Just maybe, just maybe".

M.M. — December MMXII

Fragment I

I have tossed my heart into the deep, fathomless ocean of your love, and I have let it sink slowly down. Diving in after it, I am guided only by the shimmering glow. —Such things now revealed to me—such things I now see.

M.M. — December MMXII

Words for a Picture IX

Alone I journey home
To where dragons were born
To mountain kingdoms
Where gods sung the First Song

M.M. — December MMXII

Sonnet II

This house does not resound its happy song.
No echo loud of life and lively steps.
The pitter missing and the patter gone.
Its silence wrestles sorrow ever kept.
A restless shadow troubles, haunts my sleep;
And memories do not allow me rest.
They follow, loyal, closely, within reach.
My guilt remains so warm and unsuppressed.
And blood!—the blood!—the blood that trails the hearse:
The funeral continues after death.
The light of love and life perverse, reversed;
And versed with words that sound my failing breath.
My children, blackness keeps you evermore!
The darkness beckoning me to the shore.

M.M. — December MMXII

That Time of Year Again

[Ex Tempore XXXII]

That time of year again
Some seasonal cheer or simple stress
Christmas lights, callous fights
Laughs by the fireside
I've always thought this particular holiday
As half festive, half more trouble than it's worth
Restive children—and their bright faces
Full of mirth—it's all quite the sight
Shopping mayhem
Something about Bethlehem
Mothers huffing and puffing
Earmuffs, sleds, stuffing in the turkey
And all that red!
Yes, 'tis the season indeed
All the more reason to get close to someone
Or have at it with the son or whoever you will
Have a laugh, halve the wrath
Between the weather and the weather
All with some mulled wine, of course
So a Merry Christmas to you!
And a Merry Christmas to you!
(We'll be lucky to get through to New Year's Eve being this merry!)

M.M. — December MMXII

Poetry is for everyone.

Poetry is for everyone. It is for those seeking comfort in the empathetic lines of one long dead, and it is for those who just want a rhyme—just a rhyme. Poetry is for everyone for poetry touches on all things and touches all feelings. The things of nothing, meaning very little at all; the feelings that stir or stutter the heart. Give me a fine verse, that is all I ever need sometimes—a fine verse full of world and emotion, or just an off remark. A poem read for simplest pleasure; or a poem read, tussled with, troublesome and stimulating: This is poetry, poetry for everyone.

The first line of my first short story

The Philosopher at Midnight

[Ex Tempore XXXI]

From the stars we come, to the stars we shall go—
That's all well and good, said the Moon,
but why are you telling me this?

M.M. — December MMXII

To Leave

[Ex Tempore XXX]

The smell of dusk is all about me and
a sea of reddish amber floods this final scene.
All I wish now is to go as well as I came:
with my heart clean and
not one regret to shackle me down.
I gave and I have given, but
I do not have any more left to give.
My mind is worn at the seams,
my sinews have hardened—I ache, how I ache—,
and I am weary, too weary for any more.
What comes after the day? The night,
I have been told, and then a new day.
What lies beyond the hill?, through the
glade?, across the unending sea?
Somewhere, I am told, and
beyond that, some place else.
It does not matter: the where.
It does not matter: the how.
They only matter, the when and why.
So one deep breath in—for courage,
the only sustenance needed—and
I cut the cord and place one foot
forward.

M.M. — December MMXII 

"the primordial pulse"

[Ex Tempore XXIX]

Inspired by the music of Gojira.

the primordial pulse of the old earth has been beating all this time
but you have forgotten the rhythm
reassert your right to the paths you tread on this sphere
and find the way back to the universal motion
an ear to the ground, your tongue to the air
the water of life coursing through your recollecting hands

M.M — December MMXII

A Nightmare-Rhyme

[Ex Tempore XXVIII]

My horror is not born only in the abyss of my mind: I look into the sunlit world and nightmares just as terrible are just as rife.

And what wicked things come from out the fog?
Staggering, hobbling, the never-dead rise from the bog.

Prowl they, the evil men that would do ill in the night,
Who would ravage and rape in their false might.

Up in the blackest night-sky, blacker forms glide and fly.
Onyx, wingèd abominations give out hell-sourced cries.

Admirer of the grisly scene, the moon gleams blood-red
And gives off its light to guide the man-wolves long unfed.

Those bumps and creeks that steal your unsettled sleep
Are the nightmares coming for you from shadowed deep.

Gelid hands thrust at your neck; fangs at your throat—
The fiends smell your sweat, they hunger for your soul.

Tonight all the monsters born of the dark are set free;
So be wary, for if caught, none shall answer your pleas.

M.M. — December MMXII

We are a miracle. To be is a miracle.

As I was warming down from my run earlier this evening, I looked up at the clear night-sky. Though the streetlights shone with their insipid incandescence I could still see the stars so alight. In less than a moment's turn I found myself becoming pensive, as I am apt to do frequently. Gazing at all the blackness and realising the near-absolute emptiness of the universe an incising terror soon gripped me. I contemplated and tussled with the thought of how small we and our little blue jewel of a planet are in the grand macrocosm. And I: a speck in the lightless void; an atom that fizzles for not even the briefest of moments; an insignificance amongst my eternal family of far-flung billion-year suns.

In the face of all this I felt that hope could not avail me. How could hope stand against this utter despair? I thought that perhaps this is why we as a species have created gods: to attach ourselves to something that is, in more than one way, indestructible when pitted against the unbearable pointlessness of existence.

But I am not satisfied with this; I will not be defeated by the Void! I stared back at the night-sky, both defiant and welcoming. I exist within its emptiness, and accept it. And, in fact, this emptiness is not empty at all. There is so much life and so much wonder and awe in everything. Go to the distant ends of the universe, the beginning of time; and come back to the present, to where you are, where this planet careers through space. Tell me that this is not an "inexpressible"—an inexpressible for there is no true word for it.

And why am I so unyielding? Life may just be an accident, but what an accident it is! We are a miracle. To be is a miracle. But I need not ascribe this to some unreachable, unknowable divine agent. Everything around us is divine. The great, endless cosmos is a great, unfathomable architecture, and it is its own architect. I can take comfort that my insignificance is an insignificance that forms an integral part of a divinity that is not divine, that is right in front my open and ever-wondrous eyes.

My being may only exist for a fraction of a fraction of the minutest time—but I exist nonetheless! And whilst in this current form (for existence is indeed relative) I shall continue to exist. Why waste this moment that I have on despair and hopelessness? I exist and I am and the entirety of my universe, the universe of everyone and everything around me, is mine; mine to make the most of. It is mine, and it is yours.

M.M.

"I walked by Cardiff Bay" [Incomplete]

[Ex Tempore XXVII]

In a rhyme scheme typical of Edgar Allan Poe.

I walked by Cardiff Bay to see the sea;
The sun shone, the air was wholesome,
And glee in all around me was my company.
I strolled along, watching daughters and sons
Laugh and live and be, as I thought,
"Ah! to be a child again! To know fun
As they do: so naturally; to be caught
By no care that so troubles the likes of me."

M.M. — December MMXII

"And all the bells"

[Experimental III]

An improvisation written whilst half-drunk.

And all the bells were ringing as we were all singing,
singing and dancing down in the wedding hall.

They two were twirling and round they were spinning,
spinning and laughing there on the dancing floor.

It was love that was rising as they were grinning,
grinning and drinking, they, the happiest of all.

I watched as they were singing and spinning,
and laughing and grinning, as they danced till their feet were sore.

And though time was ticking, they were not thinking,
save of the joyous ringing, of a moment that we all wish for.

So on and on they went unceasing, and reaching,
ever reaching for a perfect feeling, a feeling of little and yet of more.

There are bells always ringing, and I am always singing,
singing and dancing—but waiting and waiting, waiting for when I can soar.

M.M. — December MMXII

"Do you remember"

[Ex Tempore XXVI]

Do you remember that time when we gazed at the sable night-sky,
up at all the stars that shone so brightly and so wildly?
When you and I picked at each distant sun with our fingers, as if we could
remove them from the great cosmic canvas, placing them in our hands,
or wherever else we wished. They were diamonds that we
played with like sand on a beach whose breadth is a notion
that is only understood in numbers but which neither you nor I could explain.
But somehow we knew what it all was, knew what we were:
"you"—"I"—"we". We knew but we did not need to
acknowledge this. All there was was you, me and the stars watching us.
I remember that night, I remember that time—
a single moment when we were lost in the span of eternity and infinity.

M.M. — December MMXII

Drinkers' Paradise

[Ex Tempore XXV]

My friend, we have lingered here for far too long,
Searching for answers at the bottom of a whisky glass.
We have drunk our lives and our hopes dry,
Under the glare of the insipid tavern light.
Our incessant course runs round and round,
Round the swirl of the liquor that flows into us.
And down we have gone, further down than
We have ever drowned ourselves before.
It is all null and dulled away: the pain
That sobriety deals unto us so amply.
Another drink, my friend, just one more;
And another till we find salvation, or oblivion.

M.M. — November MMXII

I consider the time...

I consider the time when you are lying awake in bed at night, waiting for sleep to take you away to oblivion, to be one occasion when you truly get to know who you are. For consider: there you are, alone with just the whirl of your thoughts and darkness to block out everything around you, to encase you within your overactive mind. It is here when you progress through all the significances of your life, those that constitute the current important events that either agitate or delight you. But what is of note is that there is nothing to cause (or enable) you to dismiss even your most troublesome thoughts. That is to say that even though you may be able to pack away the thoughts that you find distressing during the day, they have the mischievous habit of rising to the fore when your mind is free to churn, as it is when you lie contemplatively in bed before sleep. Sorely envied is the person who has but pleasant and agreeable musings when conversing with themselves during this time. I for one nightly engage in a tussle of reflection and slicing introspection that has no resolution at its end. But then, in my life I demand and actively pursue truth as much as possible. And truth, I can assure you, always awaits you patiently in the darkness.

Unlit Window

[Poem XXXI]

There is such envious joy in an unlit window.
The lights inside perhaps just recently switched off,
that had lit a scene of laughter and vivid colour.
And the warmth within cooling—but only for a time,
until they all return in joy, laughter and vivid colour.

**

There is such tragedy in an unlit window.
Silhouettes stand motionless and cold,
unmoved and unneeded for far too long.
They stare at themselves and at nothing,
and out to a world that goes by and goes on.

M.M. — Augustus, November MMXII

Rain

[Prose VII] 

For Lulu.
Never dismiss the faeries; this comes from my own⎯

It had started to rain before I had left the building. The end of my day had come and I collected my things to leave. It became clear enough when I was outside that it was yet another rainy day in Wales. But this was no light shower I had found myself under; this was a torrent of water let loose from the sky to batter the earth below. This realisation was quick in settling in in my mind, and added to itself a hint of sour delight when it came to me that I had only a hooded jumper to wear through this child-storm. Accepting I would be far from dry when I got there, I started to walk home.

The heavy falling of rain—like that of the downpour I was now walking through—changes one's world in such a way. Those caught under it, braving it to make their way somewhere, seem to be hurried, as if the hounds of time were chasing them down for no obvious reason. For myself, though, the most curious thing about the rain is its insulating effect. More often than not I find that when I'm out and it's really chucking down I become encased in myself. Every detail of the world around me is accentuated: the sound of the rain's patter as it hits ground, rooftop, waterproof; the almost hazy curtain made up of droplets; the chill that accompanies the rainfall. All the people I pass turn almost into disinterested spectres flitting through the streets, specimens that I study half-keenly.

In barely any time my clothes were soaked, nearly through and through. The textile of my shoes could hardly keep out the water such that my socks and feet soon felt like slush. I was drenched. It became as though I were wearing some awkward-fitting one-piece that was just as unwieldy as it was the most natural garment I could ever have worn. But then at this point I did something unexpected. I pulled back the hood of my top and turned my face toward the sky, so that I could feel the drops fall on me—every single one of them. There really was no reason behind it, either; it was spontaneous, I just had to do it. I had to feel the rain as it was sensed through my skin: something external to me as it felt inside of me. And because of this I felt I was something else. I was immersed in myself, so immersed in myself that I had... found the deepest point of my self. My world, just moments ago a bustling machine of sights and sounds, had become a microcosm. A universe made of and birthed within myself where I was both a spectator and a creator. I continued onward, an intangible being on the inside, a sopped heap of clothing and flesh sloshing its way home on the outside.

And a heap I certainly was when I finally got to my house. Immediately stripping off and tossing away my sodden clothes, my first and only thought was to shower. The hot water was an ecstasy. And this is another curiosity for me: a hot shower. There is something primal about the heat from the water stimulating the skin on my bare body. A sort of transcendence results from that physical sensation and, for a brief moment, I am overcome. It's as if I am removed from everything I know and everything I am. Ecstasy is certainly one way of putting it, but it's also much more. A millennium lived or a galaxy leapt, all in an instant: it's much like that. And I plunge into myself. Indeed, however deep in myself I had been while walking in the rain, this heat now drew me in even deeper.

Stepping out of the shower, I was anew. Drying myself was like wiping away the dirty, liquid remnants of a part of me that I no longer wanted or needed. I then stood before the mirror, naked, and used my towel to clear away the vapour on the glass. The man looking back—the droplets on his skin, that distinct sheen in his hair given by the water—was not the same man that had been before the downpour, is never the same man. I stared deep into his eyes, wondering what I could see in them. Perhaps I wanted to see that world that had emerged in him. After remaining puzzled like this for a while, I headed to my room to put on clothes and, by doing so, complete the regeneration the rain had instigated.

Now warmed and fresh to the point of contentment, I took a moment to look out my bedroom window. The rain had just about stopped and the sun had found a weakness in the grey defence of the sky. Out in the streets, everything and everyone appeared to slow down and settle back into the rhythm that the rain seemed to have interrupted. The outside world was as it once was, and I couldn't help contemplating that soon I would be a part of it again.

M.M. — Iulius–October MMXII

"I have seen"

[Ex Tempore XXIV]

I have seen the naked flame inside of me
that illuminates the centre of me,
the flame I carry in the desolate fields
domed by star-studded night.
I have heard the call that resounds
down in the deep of me.
My ambitions are untame creatures.
They drive me on, the ravening of me;
they career like far-flung comets.

M.M. — October MMXII

"Silence in the midnight hour"

[Poem XXX]

Silence in the midnight hour
Silence in the midnight hall
Silence and I here once again
Waiting for the dawn to call

Words soon coming on
Words some not my own
Words as honest thought
Company when I'm alone

Heavy the weight of my world
Heavy the way and downward wind
Heavy the dream settling in
Negating the rules that bind

Lost in the midnight hour
Lost in the midnight hall
Lost in the labyrinth of time
As into nothingness I fall

M.M. — Iulius, October MMXII

Words for a Picture VIII

inner place 2 by ~niqe on deviantART

Rosie told her everything that had happened, all the while stumbling with fear over her words. Clarissa did not say anything throughout that moment—a perpetual moment—but then rose, gravely. Slightly hunched forward, she turned toward Rosie. Clarissa's silence was profound but tame compared to how she looked. There was enough weight in her face to collapse the sky, enough scorn to wreck heartless men. That visage signified the beginning of Rosie's doom. And Rosie knew this; her own face, now bloodless, marked it all so clearly.

M.M. — October MMXII

This is how the poet loves

[Ex Tempore XXIII]

All I can offer you are my words,
for they are the truest part of me.
Only they can speak the truths inside of me,
even though the truths are sorrow and joy
and apathy—all fair to my words.
I would be mute without my words,
and if mute I could not say what I have said to you:
secrets whispered that night
when we stirred together, alone in the dark.

All I can offer you are my words,
for they lay me bare and naked before you.
By offering you my words I offer you everything:
my life, my virtues and triumphs, my faults and failures,
my dreams, imagination, my fears—everything;
everything my words could ever give.
And after all, these are my words:

"I love you."

I do not know how to convey to you the measureless impetus,
the surmounted fear and absolute surety behind that utterance.

But then, only my words can do so.

M.M. — October MMXII

"I saw her there"

[Ex Tempore XXII]

I saw her there, again, for the first time, all at once and for all time,
my time, her time, I lost myself in her time, lost myself in her, for
she was all thunder and fury, I was all thundered and furied
and thrown into disorder and the ordered maelstrom of her
storm that came for me, came from her, it was her and it knew no
mercy, no need for mercy as her sword sliced like silk, because
love is all fever-dream, impetus, want-and-hurt, is all, absolute

M.M. — September MMXII

Wayfarer

[Lyrics II / Song VI]

Lyrics for a song to be written by Joel Thomas Martin.

To step into a dream
Is no simple thing
To live a dream, so much harder

The dreams I have dreamt
And all I have spent
To bring me closer to forever

But the closer I have got
The more I have lost
Getting further along the way
Became a burden of my own making

[Chorus:]
I have come and I have gone
To places known only in old men's songs
But I am a man who lost out to the years
Returning to himself only after so very long

And what has it been for?
When now I know no more
Even after everything I have seen

Still searching for a home
Still walking my own road
Even after everywhere I have been

Tomorrow will be like yesterday
Another destination I'll mislay
There is no end to my journey
I'll never find what I'm looking for

[Chorus:]
I have come and I have gone
To places known only in old men's songs
But I am a man who lost out to the years
Returning to himself only after so very long

What has it been for
After everything?

M.M. — Aprilis–Maius, Iulius–Augustus

"At the dawn of day"

[Experimental II]

Largely written in the dead hours of the morning in the weakening grip of inebriation.
Fragments from a mind lost of itself.
—

For Annie

At the dawn of day, and of man,
at the breaking of the sky,
a dreamtime blue had begun its shattering.

The punctuation of man-light
that lit the way
punctured true-light.

Yet despite this, beyond the light
and the shadowed trees
the darkness and the silence were still there,
watching me.
 
Man does not know the silence that is awake when he sleeps.

And in the end
it would be the fire behind the sky that would rise

—man would not rise.

M.M. — Augustus MMXII

Passenger Seat

[Lyrics I / Song V]

Lyrics for a song written by Kristen Koller.

[Chorus:]
On this darkened road it's only you and me
And I still fail to see
Just where we go

I look outside to see ourselves stuck in time
And you just drive on by
What we were

Along the way we lost
Our words even though we thought
We would never fall apart

I've sat and played my part
But now I realise that
You've driven right from the start

So finally it comes to me that I must confess
That I have felt like this
For so long

Were I to hit the brakes and turn away
Just what would you say
To me?

Though I know that you
Would simply drive right through
Every stop we've come to

But maybe I'm the fool who
Never saw through you
Who never knew what to do

[Chorus:]
On this darkened road it's only you and me
And I still fail to see
Just where we go

I look outside to see ourselves stuck in time
And you just drive on by
What we were

[Chorus:]
On this darkened road it's only you and me
And I still fail to see
Just where we go

I look outside to see ourselves stuck in time
And you just drive on by
What we were

M.M. — Iulius MMXII

"Ode to Night" to be published by Forward Press

"Ode to Night" has been chosen for publication in the anthology Poetry Rivals' Collection 2012 - Captured Moments. Its inclusion puts it in contention for selection for the Poetry Rivals poetry slam competition later next year.

The collection is due out in October.

This piece has already been published by The Poetry Box when it won first prize in The Poetry Box International Horror & Dark Poetry Silver Cup Trophy Competition 2012.

An Event

[Poem XXIX]

Subatomic particles collide and the event is cosmological.
I first see her walking through the door and the event is ontogenetic.

        In both, the consequence of the event is
        the celestial motion of philosophical churnings.

    ---

Your life can be defined as a sequence of discrete events,
or it can be defined as one continuous event.

                    I don't know which I prefer.

The editor's scissors are sharp and his skill is said to be unparalleled,
but
entirety of this entity is inherently unique:

        The celestial motion of philosophical churnings.


                                           —Here are essays of philosophic artistry!

M.M. — Iulius MMXII

An Artist Answers His Muse

[Ex Tempore XXI]

Beauty....
Beauty is a moment—
however fleeting or seemingly enduring—
in which you are thrust into an unknown,
an unknown with an instantly recognisable feel,
where you marvel and need and love.

My art will remain ever unfulfilled, and
your beauty will continue,
because every new moment with you is
a moment where I am stolen away to
a new reverie or idea:

Your eyes: the entire history of 24 years;
your smile: what becomes of moribund suns;
your movement: the infinite rhythms of nature;

you: indefiniteness.

M.M. — Iulius MMXII

"Fallen Star" to be published

"Fallen Star" will be featured in the July edition of The Poetry Box Horror & Dark Poetry Magazine Monthly. This follows my being awarded first prize in The Poetry Box's Silver Cup Trophy Competition for "Ode to Night".

Copies of the magazine can be purchased here. The July edition is set for release at the end of the month.


Fallen Star

[Poem XIX]

 Ja komet król - a duch się we mnie wichrzy
jak pył pustyni w zwiewną piramidę -
ja piorun burz - a od grobowca cichszy
mogił swych kryję trupiość i ochydę.


Left to wither on this sea
Coloured a fatal mercury
Cast down from high above
What have they done to me?

I dared a glimpse far too long
Dreamt too well to that song
The face and voice of the Sun
So scorned by wingèd throng

Now my back is raw and burnt
Sovereignty imparted: a lesson learnt
From spire to ire I have fallen
And naught but ignominy have I earned

Where evernight holds I now dwell
Where resounds the fell death knell
In cavern and pit, by lake and river
My abode and realm, my eternal Hell

I once stood upon peaks and lofty heights
Whence I gained my defiant sight
Espied love of self and untempered potential
But now I wonder at but rock and stalagmite

Though better to rule here than serve in Heaven
Under the auspices of a tempestuous leaven
Brooding madly on new designs and signs
As six aspires becoming greater than seven

I am the first great deviant
The admonished miscreant
Fated to strive against my lot
Ever unsettled this rebel malcontent

My light-blinded peers now me revile
They who flung me into bleak exile
And, then, when I turned back for a final glance
I saw my stolen glory, fronted by their smiles

But their triumph is premature
Their victory far from sure
From the deep I shall ascend
Right and might to meet my cure

Forth I extend my brand and arm
A gift for them worse than harm
They shall see before they reel
The enticing sway of my charm

Up I will soar with vengeance in train
Upon a mare of night with fiery mane
Leading the bellicose apostate host
My kith and kin will see the welkin stained

But when I once again see the Sun
When God is slain and my war is won
When I exalt my stars above His throne
Will then, at last, my pent tears run?

M.M. — November MMIX; Ianuarius-Martius, Maius MMXI

"Where are you?" to be published

Another poem has been chosen for publication by Forward Poetry. Set to be published in September, "Where are you?" will be included in the anthology Aspects of Love: A Collection of Poetry.

This particular piece was completed and self-published on this blog on Valentine's Day 2011.


"Where are you?"
  
[Poem XVIII] 

Where are you?
What, at this moment, do you do?
Do you think of me?
Do you think of me as I do of you?
Are your dreams also filled with the same things you wish were true?
How does the sky above appear to you?
Does it speak to you of love, or make you cry?
Perhaps it seeks to make you sigh?
It takes me away, that much I can say,
To places where I can wonder, as I often do of your face:
Moments that can tear me asunder.
And the fear, through the years, has not been quite absent;
But always present, even if at times out of mind, is regret,
My closest friend who lets me never forget;
Who, true-blue, will make all this a tale without end,
Subsisting gratuitously—or maybe graciously?
Is it I who insists on this? Do I wish it to continue?
Because it has been you?
Will always be you?
I would much like that I knew for certain,
That the haze raised, this heavy curtain before me.

M.M. — September MMX; Februarius MMXI

"Dark night fell"

[Ex Tempore XX]

Dark night fell on the earth,
bringing with it the birth of lights,
the lights that gleam like untold secrets
held close to the enfolding bosom.

The scene develops slowly,
and always in the same way;
the only thing holy to me,
developing as if encroaching with scene-silent peace,
each little piece of it worth cherishing—
for light, after all, burns brightest in night.

M.M. — Maius MMXII

"Stepping swiftly down"

[Ex Tempore XIX]

Stepping swiftly down the silvered stair
came the Lady of the Moon with starry hair,
driving down like the onset of dream
into the world and a dissolving scene.

Winding like water every which way,
coursing to the Man wound in her rays;
a train of truth trailed her as a comet's tail
as she alighted on the earth, tender and pale.

The Man, mute and meek, motioned to meet her,
to greet her, his heart now moved by a thunder.
He saw her as the star he had once sought,
and entranced by this star he was soon caught.

Caught by the thunder, in her rays,
in the scene, and lost in the stars in her hair;
such that he soon ascended the stair with her
and the tail dissolved forever, as a dream.

M.M. — Maius MMXII

"Time took its two cents"

[Ex Tempore XVIII]

Time took its two cents for the toll
as dusk and dawn drew on as one;
but still I beseeched the Sun to supplant mortality,
and wrest Death from the chest
of this loving and longing lingerer
of the eternal urn of the Earth.

M.M. — Maius MMXII

A Party-Scene / Love–Light Dynamics

[Ex Tempore XVII]

Flicker of candlelight
does not stir the world-attentive bodies, just their shadows,
and its movement is thus lost in the din;

but the warmest two,
secluded openly in the warmest corner of the room,
shift each other's world
at a flicker of candlelight.

M.M. — Maius MMXII

"How the heft of the sun"

[Ex Tempore XVI]

In decameter (i.e., ten syllables per line).

How the heft of the sun weighed down on her,
and the height of the world a heady crown,
and a helm: mind weary and expended
yet heart held high against all worthlessness. 

M.M. — Maius MMXII

The Knife, Part I

[Poem XXVIIIa]

     An ode.
     To violence and all murderous acts!

A quick flash of light in the night and
life is taken,
claimed by the night (or
reclaimed by a thing that we think
only exists where light is absent—but
more likely just prefers
the dark):
This is how much life is worth to
the knife.

Din shatters the silence of the night;
shattering one life, leaving others
shattered.
The final testament only:
raised voices,
heat in the head, heat in the body,
act less thought,
a flash, light,
a knife.

What is it like? to
handle a knife with the intent—that intent.
A purpose that nestles in
so quickly and
so naturally—as if
it has always been there but just needed
nothing more than a nudge to
waken from
latency, or rather, to be
freed from the restriction of
morality—that, according to
the knife, has never really been human anyway.

How does one
do away with the hesitation and
accept the intent?
And what is the
thrust in like?
The first resistance of paper-like
skin, then the resistance of
outer flesh?
muscle and bone?
then finally, perhaps, ending in a
beating heart.
Which cycled the
blood—that is now a nuisance-liquid (to
the knife and the intent), staining hand but
satisfying
the knife.

M.M. — Aprilis MMXII

Emily's Evensong

[Dramatic Fragment II]

Enter Emily, half-mindedly walking towards a forlorn bench facing the nearly set sun; she sits.

EMILY:                                                                 (A moment for thought, then:)
And again you come, my sweetest dusk
Again you come, always, as you must
Though never alone—no, never alone
With you comes a chill of the bone
And the ember-warmth of a forgotten home

A great dimming of the wondrous sky
Moving the world, and me, to lie                          (Rests her arms on top of the back of
Bringing on a time for silence                               the bench; head propped, legs tucked)
To brood on a lingering absence
And to old night-secrets: my solemn abidance

Of me you know all
Know the spectres, my demons
Know them all

But what could I give in return
For all this given me to learn?
The staying of my aching heart                             (Placing her hand on her chest)
The many pains all here marked
The pains that are most alive here in the dark

My cherished dusk, my cherished night                  (Rising from the bench; ambling)
I will go down—go down like the light
Give myself unto shadow and shade
Lay my body in a midnight glade
Fulfilling the promise that I long ago made

      [TWILIGHT NOW FULLY GRIPS THE SCENE]

Of me you know all                                               (Singing increasingly softly)
Know the spectres, my demons
Know them all
But put them to rest now
Put them to rest so that I may sleep

Emily ceases; she looks at the muted glow of the horizon with subtle longing as she saunters away. Exit Emily.

M.M. — ?, Iunius–Iulius, November MMXI; Aprilis MMXII

Four Lines for my Passions/Inspiration/Love

[Poem XXVII]

Hot the fires of a maelstrom Hell;
kraken sea in me churning ceaselessly.
Hot the fires; the icy heights, the sweltering
depths: an innate storm raging freely.

M.M. — Aprilis MMXII

The Ambition in Me

[Ex Tempore XV]

Written whilst travelling by train from Manchester to Bangor.

All these modern little houses neatly packed together in bundles,
made ready for Mr & Mrs and the two-and-a-half.

Passing into and through these towns:
the bland colours of the buildings match the greyness of the overhanging and listless sky.

Much unlike the manor house seen along the way,
that has stood
and still stands.

Or rusting metal of refineries and old-man diesel locomotives, both still huffing and roughing away.

Helsby, also so neat, is at least dressed by a hand that aspires.

And pastures green, with a lively splash of yellow;
and the blossoming trees that bend down,
kissing the rippling river.

Further on, westwards,
treading forwards,
the sky begins to clear;
the sun—
hidden away still by persisting and apathetic cloud—
pronounces its presence, its worth,
even without any ostentation.

Then finally: the vast, unending sea:
unfettered, fearless and far-reaching in its scope.

Admiring of it all,
encased and carried within my restless body,
my glowing heart
pulsates in hidden passion.

M.M. — Aprilis MMXII

"Ode to Night" first prize in The Poetry Box competition

I entered a few poems into The Poetry Box International Horror & Dark Poetry Silver Cup Trophy Competition 2012 some time ago. I am very pleased to be able to announce that from these "Ode to Night" (below) has been awarded first prize!

In addition to receiving a certificate and trophy, the poem will be featured in the first edition of The Poetry Box Horror & Dark Poetry Magazine, to be published 30th April.

I have also been asked to meet the judge, LK Barley Robinson (founder of The Poetry Box), in person, for photos of the prize-giving and filming of my recitation of "Ode to Night". Considering the expense and distance, however, it is unlikely I will be able to do so.


Ode to Night

[Poem XXII]

For the night I write these lines,
a homage to the cold and to the dark;
the night,
wherein I have found solace and secret,
and a stillness that soothes a raking inner-voice.

In the distance
of the vast nightscape:
there resides mystery and a thousandfold ending to a single life.
In the distance rolls the deep movement of sound,
the gradual approach of a rumbling and turbulent
darkling dream—

...forlorn on a beach, touched by the chill before a coming storm
gathering itself in the heavy leaden sky...

Here I have watched many times the silent dance of shadows:
nebulous reflections of joys and failings from the past,
phantasmagoric sequences of future on black canvas.
I have conversed with them long, been overwhelmed by them,
have become a wraith and been taken aloft with them.
No more have they told me and taught me
than all of what I already know
—yet do not wish to know:
In night, truth is denizen.

Deeply ensconced
I have clasped strange thoughts and ideas seemingly not my own;
I have been taken to places so far, yet which lie but a reverie away.

Bereft of light and its lively life
I have come to apprehend
the life in light,
as that that lives disconcertingly in the grotesque incandescence of streetlight;
and that in the stars up above:
Those darling diamonds,
colossal spheres of undying fire
that span infinity
of space and of mind
—and yet how simply they stud the great vault of night.

Fear,
have I not come face to gaunt and grisly face
with you?
Love,
have I not endlessly been assailed by you,
and riven?
Here, where the ugly and the beautiful discard their masks.

Oh, here...
here are wondrous world-scenes:
though I have known them only in word and through the cadence of song,
here, in the night, they are raised
to fullest vigour,
brought to the fore at a heady pace;
they are glimpses that escape from fantasy, the progeny of dream.

By the night these words are uplifted,
held and enwrapt,
then cast into the evening wind;
thrust to the stony faces of glaring derelict edifices
and to the dreary dead woodland
hidden in the corner of my mind.

To the night I remain ever commended;
in the night, ever lost.

M.M. — Aprilis–Junius, Augustus–September, November MMXI

The ghosts I saw by the Menai Strait

[Ex Tempore XIV]

An idea that conjured itself whilst on an evening run that took me by the Menai Strait on 18 March 2012.

As I was passing by, I saw with unbelieving eye
the ghosts of children dancing in the field,
dancing under coming night, right by the Menai.
They glowed and flitted in the evening-blue
that lit the silent sky and this walker passing by,
who stood and witnessed these spectres
writhe and leap and turn from side to side,
from one end of the field to the other,
with nary a cry of laughter or anything besides.
I proposed to myself to approach these children,
phantoms of the night, of a time long gone by,
but worried they would fear my coming and
hie away back to the graves where they must lie.
So instead I decided to marvel at this thing
I now saw; and I smiled, for I had not turned
away in horror as men are wont to do when
they face sights like this, a sight of sprites
who no longer knew the real horrors of the world.
But at length I was espied and the children ceased
their frolicking and for a moment looked at me.
With great effort I tried a word, a salutation, a "hi",
but came up with nothing and simply gaped at them.
Though I could not see any light in their eyes
I could tell with little doubt they were not afraid of me,
and that they knew I, likewise, was not fearful of them.
All at once they turned and began to recede into the dark,
into the night, leaving as silently as the sky up high.
And there I was, left alone, left to remain and reflect on
what I had seen—was it real or but a vision in my mind?

M.M. — Martius MMXII

"Ex Tempore VII" runner-up in Thynks Publications competition

"Ex Tempore VII" (below) has been chosen as a runner-up in Thynks Publications Limited's Inspirational Poems competition. I was quite pleased when I was told, not only because I submitted it as an entry on a whim but because I wrote it in one night (hence its "ex tempore" title).

This poem, along with prizewinners and other runners-up of the competition, will be published in a small book sometime in 2013.


Ex Tempore VII

For G.

For the music I cannot draw
For the pictures I cannot write
For the sounds I wish I saw
There are those that I might

For the places of which I dream
For the tastes I hope to breathe
For the things I really mean
May rhyme and reason never leave

For the love I long ago lost
For that which did not come
For the paths that did not cross
There is still little and some

For the goals still unreached
For the struggles not yet won
For the walls that sometimes breach
Tomorrow will see a new sun

For the many occasions I reminisce
For what are now but memories
For all the days that I miss
There is still much for me to see

For age that creeps and creeps
For the time that slips away
For mountains now too steep
There will be stories to recount and lay

For the mistakes that I made
For the regret that burns
For the words I mislaid
I can and will always learn

For the fear that restrains
For when around me there are none
For the times ruled by pain
It is I who will overcome

For all this and more
For what will come and what came before
There is me, there is you
And this is all we ever need know

M.M. — November MMXI

White blossoms seen on Glanrafon Hill

[Ex Tempore XIII]

Flaunting gleefully like crowned child-majesties
against the backdrop of a sky-adoring sun;
these white blossoms, nature's emissaries,
announce to me that spring has finally come.

M.M. — Februarius MMXII

Effusion

Extraction began in a near-hypnagogic stupor at midnight whilst listening to Borknagar's Quintessence.

"Upon the ruins of the future
I climbed to behold
A distance so pale
An existence so cold"

If I were to show you the things that flutter in my heart and in my mind, I venture that whole worlds would then be created—birthed from simple lines of meandering thought. These things, these worlds: some of them could fit like evanescent trinkets in the palm of your wilful hand. Others could span the breadth of your own mind, or the universe that we share (illimitability characterising both). Pierce the gossamer film of my psychic enclosure and my consciousness would stream out with the kinetic force of far-faring comets.

There is an intractable longing in me, a bittersweetness that burrows in me every which way. Though the lids of my eyes feel unbearably heavy at this moment, they have weighed immeasurably for so long: I dare seek and see—both with my eyes and eyeless eye—the impossibilities of cosmic voyages, future-fantasies and idio-dramas that play out differently in every new dream. I cannot express how much I desire to live them.

And the burden remains my own.

"Evening descends"

[Ex Tempore XII]

Evening descends on the bustling earth;
extending darkness mutes clamouring colour.
Our worlds dim and defer for once to silence;
pace is gratefully held for a while.

M.M. — Februarius MMXII

Emilie Autumn - "How to Break a Heart"

How to break a heart
It is not difficult
Anyone can do it
So could you, if you tried
Just find a light
And switch it off
As easy as blinking
That's what I was taught
When I was too young to ask
By ladies in white nightgowns
In dripping weeds and black ribbons
A girl's best friend is a small handgun
The question was useless
For I could say yes
But you've got to ask my army
And they are not inclined to grant favours just now

Grotesquerie

[Metapoem III / Experimental II]

Variations on a theme; experimentation on technique.

I can
             feel Him
       in my mind
I can hear Him scratch at the doors
                     picking at the walls
               Don't
let the lights go out! never the silence!
Why              is it
             when      I
      shatter                     the
mirror          and
                         try
             to    rearrange
      the                                    shards
      does the reflection remain the same?
"Perhaps if I just sever our left hand we
    You know we won't ever stop; we like this"
"won't have to worry about doing it again?
    too much. Now stop your nonsense and pay"
"Because, we've only done it a few times...
    attention: there's another one for us."
As I lie in bed in my room, I notice them: edges—where wall meets wall, meeting ceiling.
"Hmm... no, that won't do; the edges are much too crass, and too boring!" Better that they
were more rounded, concave. "—There! Much better." The window shutters as well
leave much to be desired; cascading as a waterfall is more their wont. The ceiling again:
"Surely that's beginning to crack", and crack it does. First slowly, then quickening—"fissures,
at last!". The fragments of this enclosure fall away, are discarded as insignificant bits of
rubbish to the nothingness. Opens the void, and I stream, tip of my mind first, into a—
Desert moonshine
        —scorch me!—scorch me!—scorch me!—
Moon shines in the desert
        —bless me!—bless me!—bless me!—
Shine deserts the moon
        —save me!—save me!—save me!—
I watched    crippled boy, hobbling                street,
             and       to the hardened ground—
And   did       care.
  raped a woman just the          night;
I hurt                    way imaginable—
And I did not        .
I killed a man with my 
Because he looked at             wrong      —
       I                   .
  stole    girl         her bedroom;
I tortured and                 her with a finesse—
And         not care.

M.M. — December MMXI; Februarius MMXII

Phantasmagoria

[Poem XXVI]

Come to me, sweet Sleep,
Hand-in-hand with thy brother dearest Dream.
Wings aflutter as I steal up the keep,
The stair stepped seeping at the seams.

Take me from my brick bed,
Rending the fibres of the clinging coil;
Transfigure loathsome lead
Into capricious mercury till my breast boils.

Thus unto haunted hollows,
Where Beauty waits as silken sylph;
There to faithfully follow
Her face, bedecked with gilded glyphs.

Come to me, benighted Belladonna,
With deathly, livid lips.
By thy misty waist thy fell fauna;
My life soon to slip.

Guided by the mighty moon
I will saunter through the forest full,
Which is lit by rampant runes,
Where fantasies rage and rule.

Journeys through time
Upon star-capped seas,
Experiencing sights sublime
That are mine solely to see.

My name will drop into the Deep
And will be forgotten forever.
Thus I will take a last lasting leap,
Unlashing my tautened tether.

When I drift into dream
I am welcomed well
By these themes:
Sleep's most surreal spell.

M.M. — November MMIX; Februarius, Maius, September, November MMX; Februarius MMXII

Poem IV - "Of the present frivolous regard of love" [Back catalogue]

Of the present frivolous regard of love
I seek to extol and rhapsodise here in no way:
I leave that trifle to those who are deaf to
The clarions of the true, blissful empyrean anthem.
And O! how that elevated of melodies has been
Chorused again and again, and always, in me.
It is the lilt of cherubim descended and embodied;
Yet twofold, and is the tenor of tyrannous torment,
That chides more than brings agony—if the paltry
Difference can e'en be distinguished in this respect!
And affliction of this song of songs feeds from naught
But my own timorousness, the most inferior of things.
What am I to do in the face of such warranted onslaught?
Shun the anthem, shut my ears? Or share in the song?

M.M. — December MMVII

Words for a Picture VII

To be read alongside "open your eyes" by Ewa Brzozowska (bubble-gum-heart).

The hold weakens
as the lights of the hard-defined world begin to blur and dim;
till the nebulous line is crossed without awareness,
a crossing millennial in distance
and quantum in duration.

M.M. — Februarius MMXII

A Bee

[Poem XXV]

             I.

Woe to she that meets
the tip of my sword;
woe to he that greets
his bane in my horde.
Dare not provoke
or bear the stoked
brunt of an irate swarm
that bequeaths a
relentless harm.

              II.

Beware! beware!
My wrath, my stare!
Though I be small in size
and the sight of me
scoffed at so carelessly,
my resolve is rare,
and my voice will deafen
when loudly it blares.
And when I strike—
and I strike with might!—
my enemies will know,
before the height
of their misery
and that of my rage,
that what I promised
and meant was true:
I bring a thing that
has been since the
dawn of the first age,
before men knew
what they know—
or could even know
at all. This thing
I bring, in my sting,
shall be yours, even
if but for a while;
a thing that reason
cannot dispel
nor attempt to repel.
So beware! beware!
I bring you a hell,
to remind you of
just what you are.

M.M. — Februarius MMXII

Two pieces (II)

[See foreword for "Pieces (I)"]

"Eyes, The Truth-Tellers"*

(Of a girl glimpsed on Buchanan Street, Glasgow)

Her eyes were unworldly—a blue almost luminescent—

piercing as the bite of a frigid winter morning.

"Man, The Master"ª

By one willed movement of my hand I swept the dust off the tabletop:

I changed the universe, and foresaw the end of existence.

M.M. — *Written some years ago; ªDecember MMXI; Ianuarius MMXII

Any New Day

[Poem XXIV]

A dirge.

The tink–tink–tinkle of the piano keys: the softest song of
sorrow that dolefully sounds each note of this unwavering
line, a bottom-dwelling progression—the nadir that cannot
be overcome, as the exultant sun overcomes every new day. But
each rising... I would not know what the fire below the horizon,
the first gleaming ray or the final triumph really were. Perhaps the
gloaming's loss, its inevitable defeat—perhaps these know more
of me (and yet, no more would I know even of them). My hands
once were children that played with the wind at the times when
the world was to me most alive and lively. When they combed
through the locks of another they used to guide the hero on
odysseys so fantastic, and helped me understand comfort and
contentment when comfort and contentment were mine. Now
they slog through mire and push past thornbush. Nowhere's the
destination on a road to nowhere. A coldness walks with me,
a heaviness holding on, a weariness upon my brow—and yet I
walk alone. I see a withered man standing before me, covered
in a greying ash that accentuates cavernous eyes; cinders fall
away at a brush of his worn face, but as hard as he tries he
cannot simply wipe himself clean, cleanse himself anew. Over
time I have fashioned myself a mask: it too can be the strong
one—feign strength; it too can smile—front a smile. But left on
my own, confined to the prison in my mind, and all I can think
is that tomorrow is yet another day— 

M.M. — December MMXI; Februarius MMXII

On words

(See also "Poet's Folly")

Written extemporaneously at 1 a.m. on 2 February 2012.

To me, words are like water: fluid and free-flowing. Place your partially cupped hand in a basin and water will run through your fingers—run away from you—with such ease; try to contain what you scoop out and you are left with but a paltry amount of what you original wished to extract. And like this words flow freely in my mind. Trying to capture and lay them down into a more enduring existence—to tame them, as it were—is sure foolishness, or at least, a naïve endeavour.

Words are the intricate veins that comprise the arabesque that is my Reality. They are at once undefinable and redefinable, arbitrary and protean. My words are the medium through which my experiences can be imparted—to others and even to myself. One word is enough to damn or exult a man—and one word is not. A person's entire lexicon could describe the feeling of listening to a most moving piece of music—and an entire lexicon could not.

My Word takes me to places and brings places to me, places that are vast in meaning and yet escape meaning all together. It is into my Word that I compact what I know and wish to know. I create, demolish and transmute by my Word. Were my Word and I juxtaposed, the difference between the two could not be conceived, for it is inconceivable: I am my Word and my Word is I.

Poet's Folly

[Poem XXIII]

A lyric on my Art, written much like a monologue; an attempt (likely inadequate) to explain why I write. It would not be wrong to say that the content is undeniably personal and delivered quite forthrightly. Yet there pervades an inherent sense of high-flown irony: a poet's folly, the certitude of which he knows all too well and ignores just the same.


My supreme endeavour is to form the perfect sentence,
to compact infinity of thought—every thought—into a single phrase;
my design would see all beauty, agony and apathy subsumed into a verse.

I lust after the Sun, seeking to steal its undying warmth, its imperial splendour, its illimitable power—
I wish to place these on a page, a thing of littleness and impermanence,
there for all to read and ever to be read.
And to pluck the Moon from the sable sky-canvas,
to pour its romance and lambency into every impression of my pen—or whatever the delivery of my Impartations.

In the midst of Night I have contorted dreams, sculpted with scalpel their scene-sequences;
I have whispered things to myself that just as soon as they flourish flit away so bittersweetly.
In the chaotic wake of these fragments of entire lifetimes are my lines realised.

And horrors, grand grotesqueries: each new nightmare conceived with every step I take;
the chimeric Ideas that wrench themselves free from insubstantial chamber walls—
they are the Visions and the Voices, desiring worlds for their own.

Were my words to birth—birth as stars die—in the minds of others,
coming into that inexplicable existence that they yearn for,
it would quiet the continual intrusion of querulous imagery.

All of life is to me great poetry.

In every neglected sight there is a scrap of a poem waiting to be written;
in every furtive glance; in every meandering conversation: a tangential remark,
a disclosed truth that otherwise would never have been spoken aloud.
There is no epic greater than a man growing up, looking back and growing old;
no elegy more heart-rending than one of a death yet to occur—
the Ballad of One is the Ballad of All.
In me, these are already written:

My supreme endeavour is to form the perfect sentence—

M.M. — December MMXI; Ianuarius MMXII

Metaprose I - A face [Incomplete – Back catalogue]

To be read alongside "Karo-lina" by Aneta Kowalczyk (hellwoman).

A face.

The Woman's face—Her face. Properly: a portrait of The youthful, attractive Woman rendered in soft, appealing black and white monochrome.

Her head turned rightwards, ever so slightly tilted, over Her hunched-forward shoulder; perhaps She sits. There is a slight protuberance on the shoulder that causes a shadow to stain: Her clavicle.

She wears a necklace. Her jaw obscures the greater part of it; it may be of a beaded design: silver and black beads, to infer. The lowermost of Her neck—flesh—juts out: She sits; but certainly the right shoulder is forwardly.

There are creases emanating from the nook under Her arm: several thin lines near the top, one more—maybe two—barely thicker, arcs out to the upper-left from the middle.

She wears a tank top; an off-white?—a likely beige. The hems—shoulderwards, neckwards—double-stitched. Her top is wrinkled to a small degree as She sits, or poses hunching forward, or both.

Her hair is done up: a French twist, perhaps a semi-French bun, swept on the right side. The colour most likely is a brown—The Brunette.

M.M. — November-December MMIX

Forward Poetry Anthology

The Forward Poetry Regionals 2011: A World of Verse anthology, in which "Death Mask" is printed, arrived in the post today.

Pictures can be found here!