Sum of the Whole

How do I measure a person?
—a well full of stars
—separate, discrete, individual
—matter made by mind, mind made by matter
—a symphony of electrochemical reactions
—a whole unto its own; a sum; parts
—like me and unlike me
—composed materially and yet defined immaterially
—that which is

Ex Tempore LXV
M.M. — 30-Sep-2013

My Truest Friend, My Truest Enemy

Lately, I have been thinking about how the "I" that is me can be viewed as a coupled yet separate entity, a sort of omnipresent observer-actor This "self-not-my-self" is that little voice in your head that you talk to, who watches your life as you live it, who is like a parental figure supporting or chastising you. My development as an individual is tightly linked to this "other self" and who he himself is. An important characteristic is his role as my truest friend and my truest enemy. In one swift wave of the hand I can tear myself down to rubble, become unforgiving judge, jury and executioner. But then oppositely, and yet equally, I am my own die-hard supporter; I am the rock upon which I stand when the waves come in to batter and bruise. Through all the triumphs and defeats, it is me who will always be there, for the better and for the worse. I both love and hate (in the purest sense of the words) this "self-not-my-self"; but what's more important is that it is who I am and who I will always be. I could not be myself if I were not...my self. I have been with myself at the beginning, I will be with myself at the end. This, I have come to understand, forms a core part of my individualist philosophy.

Self-Doubt

Self-doubt is a slow-acting poison, harming the outer layers of the mind in gradation till it reaches the core of confidence. There it latches itself, infusing its noxious blackness and counter-reacting with every attempt of firm resolution. The more self-doubt is left to mix, the more the infusion grows thicker. Detoxification lies in both the adoption of the volitional obstinacy that the poison is only potent so long as one allows it to have power and a complete and as equally gradual flushing out of a system of confidence that can be rebuilt into something that is robust through and through.

An Address to Death

Death,
tomorrow you may have my bones and my blood.
When my last dawn shines you may take my breath.
I will not resist; I will not repel.
Death,
when tomorrow comes I will hand you my heart and its beat;
tomorrow I give you all of my drained volition.

But today
I live,
and my life is mine.
Turn the ferryman away;
postpone the reaping for another day.
I am not for the grave, not for the worm.
Love of life and life is mine.

Ex Tempore LXIV
M.M. — 10-Sep-2013

Starfields

Night-time atop this outskirt hill and I gaze down upon the slumbering city.

Where there should be an array of dotted electric-lights I see none;
where there should be an insipid display of incandescence—I see none of this.

What I see instead is a field of stars, most motionless, some milling about in activity.
Some stars are bright and proud, others still and timid, as if struck dead.
Hundreds and thousands of them, maybe millions,
there twinkling in the dark and under cover of a selfsame sky.

And everywhere I have been it has been the same:
these Starfields revealed in unbeguiling night.
I have seen enough of these fields to know they are everywhere over the world.

I continue to observe from this hilltop,
watching and waiting for dimming and brightening.
And sometimes I notice that when one or a few stars dim or brigthen,
those adjacent to them do the same;
sometimes subtlety, sometimes like a wildfire or a blackout.

I continue to observe and I wonder.

--

I can see the light in you, the light that was lit aeons ago
—and it burns, it burns as if this were its last triumphal deed.
The strength of its burning is of no importance, only that it burns.
It is the centre of all things, all things in you—it is yours and yours alone.

But what I see is meaningless to you:

can you see your own starlight?

Ex Tempore LXIII
M.M. — 09-Sep-2013

The Future

The future for me, I have realised, is not a clear-cut singular vision in my head. The way I imagine it is that I am stood still in one spot and before me is a vast panorama extending as wide as the horizon on a plain with minimal features. This panorama is made up of a variety of possible futures, each living scene being played out as I would hope it to. And each is seamlessly blended at its edges with the adjacent scene, much like a strip of film is stitched together that segues naturally. The way this is set out is greatly comforting to me because it means nothing is set in indelible stone and much is possible; it is just a matter of realising the future or futures I want.

"Sailing on a sea"

Sailing on a sea
Of moonlight
Silver-bright
She and me

Escaped the grave
My corpse-bride
In the eventide
My body aflame

'Twixt life and death
Cheating time
Our love sublime
Eternal as our breath

Destined for undying lands
My love and I
Forsake the deeps and sky
Hand-clasped-hand

"Together we'll begin again"
To her I say
While caressing her face
And we sail on to oblivion

Poem XXXVIII
M.M. — 06-Sep-2013 

The Thing

It lies dreaming, deep within the core.
Curled into a compact mass of indescribable nightmare.
Mandibles gnawing and maws able to engulf the day.
Glassy, icy reptilian flesh covered in a noisome slime.
And from claw to tip of tail it is an obsidian black.
Birthed out of the void between thought and matter.
An awful thing with dreams far worse than itself.
Consumer, devourer, annihilator of body and mind.
Its life expressed in the abysmal reverberance it makes.
Destroyer, unmaker; chaos and oblivion its prime conation.
It stirs with unmentionable horror, this creature of unlight.
Slithering into and out of existence and wrecking as it goes.
Deep in the darkest dark of the core, it dreams so terribly.

Ex Tempore LXII
M.M. — 04-Sep-2013

Kinetic as Cataracts

He was pounded and grounded into mental slavery.
She was told from birth-day zero what she could and could do and be.
On all of them the burning skies descended and burnt nothing but their very hearts.
We take it because we have always been taking it—no justification whatsoever.
Give us the manacles and we shall shackle ourselves;
give us the blade and we will bleed ourselves till dust flows through us.

But what great power are metaphor and symbol.
They can lead to inexorable action, kinetic as a cataract.
Finally disown your ghosts, my friends;
their reverberant dissonance has reduced the cages of their making to brittle rust.
Fight for yours and your own, friends,
because what future you have is for you alone to fulfil.

Ex Tempore LXI
M.M. — 02-Sep-2013

Amongst the Stars

Partly inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End

I dreamed a dream one night,
I dreamed of the stars and all that lay beyond.

I careered through space and time
and witnessed the birth and death of suns and planets.

Such wondrous, impossible things I saw in the unmeasured distances.
Out there I understood that beginnings and ends made no sense—
they were one and the same: Eternity.

Looking back—or what seemed to me to be backwards—
I saw the faintest of lights,
a blueish light fighting to be seen in the nothingness.

It was life itself; there was beauty in its infancy and potential.
It was a home, a destination that already had been reached.

It all ended as soon as it began, this dream,
and I was left with a sense of wonder and wondering:

Is the future for the race amongst the stars?
or in this blueish light fighting for its own existence?

Ex Tempore LX
M.M. — 02-Sep-2013