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