"A songbird came to me"

A songbird came to me
It sang a song that set me free
From heights of trees
To distant seas
From windswept dunes
To glades under-moon
The song that set me free

I listened well
Till midnight belled
But still I held
And I held well
I listend to that song
Dismissed the gongs
Till deep dreaming fell

A song I once heard
From the voice of a bird
Sweet music without words
That caused my heart to stir
That I now write and I rhyme
About the time
When sang softly that songbird

Ex Tempore LVI
M.M. — 29-Jul-2013

Journey

Even from the enclosure of my room
I can smell the brine of the tempestuous seas,
I can feel the burning sands of unconquerable deserts
and the winters of frozen forgotten ice kingdoms.
Even from my bed I am transported as far my mind can lead.
I have but my dreams, and how I do dream;
the limit is only as far as I dare take myself.

When death smiles its coldening grin at me one day
I want to be able to say, to myself:
I journeyed far, I saw the ends of the earth;
every wicked and wonderful thing—I saw all these things.
The best and worst of what men and women are
I experienced to the fullest, and embraced it all.

I—I journeyed far and I journeyed wide;
I saw it all
and I saw myself.

Experimental IV
M.M. —  26-Jul-2013

To Love and To Lose

I have loved and I have lost
No more or less than most
But my life has been long enough
To understand the cost

Beginnings begun and endings ended
Every one a lesson I've apprehended
These threads of my patchwork tell me
From where I've come, but not where I'm headed

Parcels of my heart are left here and there
Taken in circumstances harsh or fair
All of them are a part of me
And their weights mine to ever bear

To lose is a truly difficult thing
All once secure is stretched too thin
There is nowhere to go and nothing to grasp
All is soon lost – all what once had been

Poem XXXVII
M.M. — 18-Jul-2013

Fragmented

A mind parted into fragments is not unlike a mind not so—but is. Shattered mirror still reflects but each shard loses a part of its essence, highlighted in the distance of the cracks, of the depths, of the chasms, of an abyss. Some days lucidity shines bright, fills the cracks; other times blackest sludge of darkest night seeps through and obscures the sun. No daylight in the late nights when kept awake by silent cacophony: damned self-confessions at the bedside. A whirlwind in the confines of a not-walled room with too many doors. The music is too loud; try to get off the carousel if you can. Just pick a road, perhaps, and see where it leads, as long it leads away from tottered and teetered grounding.

Ex Tempore LV
M.M. — 04-Jul-2013