Depression (Iteration 10)

The nightmares and the insomnia have come back

As have the devils and their deviled fantasies

After all this time they tell me once again exactly how I crack

How my own very Sun fails

How I terror right through my Self

So I travel through this world with a torch

That I hold onto, knowing it breathes

Everything I want and desire

Knowing how I feel and believe and love

And despite all of this

All of the waking and dreaming of

Desperation

It seems I still breathe, still breathe

Through the chest of death

Holding onto the torch of love

M.M.

Circle

I've voyaged upon cosmic lightbursts

and the shine of suns

Forgetting that my mind could hurl itself

all on its own

Relying on neuronal impulses

and the electricity in between

I forgot that a thought

could last a thought

or as long as the universe's sigh

Just as I fought thought in the dead of night

even though I was in zero gravity

knowing that all I knew

was nothing at all

Everything beautiful comes from a star

for a star out-multiplies

leaf and bone, stone and brain

Even though we, sons of suns, are nothing but

leaf and bone, stone and brain

And so I adore everything from a star

and all leaves and bones

and all stones and brains

I have come from nothing

knowing nothing

Just a quantum of matter
coming to know that

aught and all mean very little indeed

And that everything

I need

Is every part of every thing

M.M.

north song

buried my heart in the mountain north
earth and thunder, breath and bone
awoke in the light of the first day
earth and thunder, blood and stone

felt my body sing with the wind
cloud and moon, star and sky
my blood running in vein and stream
cloud and moon, raven's cry

found the warrior within me
heart and fire, sword and soul
fast asleep for far too long
heart and fire, breath and cold

forgot the desire within me

man and wolf, wild and free

I rose up from my very deep

man and wolf, the rage in me

M.M.

[Began in 2016; completed in 2021]

"Once I thought Death came to take me"

Inspired in part by Satyricon

Once I thought Death came to take me
When I peered far too long into the void
I thought the carriage had come, all ornate

Death approached—so gentlemanly, so ladylike
They asked one question and one alone:
I said: "If—only if… At the dying of the sun: only if..."

It was an odd and knowing look that Death gave
Like the one I gave back, as I walked along with them
In the forest, on the mountains, into the shadows

It was from the old part of my memory that Death
Came for me; came from the old, forgotten North of me
From my anxiety and my hesitancy and fear

Death came for me, knowing the worst of me
Not knowing who I really was–the shell of what
Should have been my life, or the semblance of it of me

That was a dream, a nightmare, the dread
Of me; all that I do not want to feel or be or accept
Because I know my Sun dawns every day for me

But even should Death take me—though they take me
The mark I will leave, now, hereupon me
Made by me—me— the very best that built for me 

Even though Death will take me
I’ve thrashed and dashed and mashed
Along the drear-draped path

And made as much
And as big of a burst as I could
Of me–and me—and the bits that will be left
Of me.

M.M.

Life is a Half-Turn Every Turn...

For all those days in the light
I had wandered and wondered,

It was all really just a lie.

I fell far too into the comfort of light

And felt myself far too much a wonder:

Everything I told myself was a lie.

In exalted self-hatred I erected myself.

A pillar of exquisite pallor of mind,

Or a deepening void, or something otherwise.

Every night has been a wicked spell

Whose cracks and lines I've peeled,

As I've fallen down the whirl of the well.

All I have ever wanted was to yell

And crawl out of the hole I've built.

Have I endured enough of hell?

That person I knew once felt so well

Is the person I've always felt

And I've known myself to be.

                                  – M.M.

"I never knew what to say"

I never knew what to say,

The way that I could just talk

To you and be me and laugh

And say whatever that came to

My mind. You have always been

The very best of what I’ve known

And liked and loved and believed.

I think you deserve the very best,

And will excel in what you do because

You’re the very best. And that’s not

Something I just say. It’s something

I stand by and honor and acclaim.

Because you always surprise me

And rise in me a smile. You’ve been

One of my favorite things. A corner

Of my soul and heart. And so you

Are Royalty to me: defensible, supreme,

And—just—so very beautiful to me.

I am going to miss you like the breeze

Of the coming spring season.

Thank you for everything. For

Everything you’ve given me.

Any little thing—or big. Because 

You are a queen and have always

Been. Because you are the

One of the best things I have ever

Known or wish to know. Or

Will ever want to come to know.

M.M.

The Black

I would jump into that blackness, I swear
And I could not tell whether it was best to or not…

It’s a circle of vultures, really; those fiends needing to feed
It’s a conversation of utter nihility and supreme eventuality—I think

If I gave you a dimple in the sand and told you to walk

Outward, where would you end up?

Very much in the same place, I would say

 Since we walk silk-footed and ill-ward and round-ward

We come back to nestle at home, to be warm

To that inner-inner thing that pulses unrelentingly

Our thing that seems to keep beating despite it all

That thing I suppose we need more than it does

Our heart: we never do realize its battering

That which takes the brunt of our everything

I have thrown just about anything to it

And, yet, it is still there and beating

I thought it would probably end earlier than this

But I suppose there is more yet to be done

M.M.

"What are we if not our memories and our past?"

What are we if not our memories and our past? Memory and past is the basis of culture. And the closest tie we have to memory and past is family. The family we are born of, the family we are blood of, the family we make ties of, by thread, by experience, and by travail and passage of time. My song has been sung before the dawn had voice. And yet your blood is not the sole worth. I have run a flood of tears to remember my family. And my life-water has told me to remember the blood that has run, and the blood that has been spilt, and that blood that will never run ever again. I am my father’s son. And I am not. I am my father’s blood. And I am not. My history is not one to be appropriated by your pretense or your politic. Give your song and give your family. Give your tears. If you can even bravely can. Because we are blood, and memory, and past, and bravery, and song, and we are family.

M.M.