Ex Tempore II

Spurred by Borknagar's "My Domain".

Sat at the top of the grassy hill
when night had descended

Sat at the top
when time and motion suspended

Panning wide: sprinkled stars twinkled, and the Way streamed across and flourished
Nourished by a loss that seemed to stay, crinkling a marred and wrinkled guide: spanning

his mind from spiral arm to spiral arm, to
when Kepler first distended

Then,
when upwards, yet outwards, I ascended

 M.M. — Martius MMX

Prose VI

She is sleeping—collapsed on her front, pillow-nestled head turned rightward at me; her naked back, with every beautiful breath in and out, rhythmically rising and falling....

A voyaging barque braves the midnight sea, prow dashing perilous waves with resolve. Below deck, loaded hammocks, filled bunks and filled berths, and occupied cabins stir. Above, the busy watch half-mindedly attend to this and that in the forbidding dark. One gapes in horror and disbelief at the Lady in White as she mouths something soundlessly and mournfully before throwing herself over the gunwale....

And her flaxen hair—tamed Medusan locks, winding like rivulets hidden deep within magical, forgotten forests—is made lustrous by the morning sun shining through the open casement window. In comes a breeze with a scent of the not-so-distant sea, mingling with the remaining intoxication of her fragrance....

The oaken hall is decked with fire and lit by its primal light. Here itinerant rogues and knights-errant come and go, some leaving their mark on this festive world of carnival mirth, others passing on with little more than silence as their word. Bards from the murkiest recesses of far-off lands recount tales tall and true. And the gypsy women dancing and gyrating like that warming fire; bodies painted in turquoise and jade, in glyphs and tribal tattoos....

With my keen, wandering eyes I run along the smoothness and corporeality of her skin. Her frame engenders a curious wonderment: its contour; its essence as the shell encasing an enigma, containing nebular machinery. The serenity settled on her quieted face—a lively conduit heretofore—belies the structure and interlacement within wrought by æons. My hand shifts momentarily; fingers eager to stroke her heavy drapery lids, to lift the infinite veil....

Here in this glen I have come to die. Amongst rock and root, and the verdancy, I will wait for my skin to wither and cake with ageless time. The moon will regale me with eternity in her nightly flourish; the sun will caress and bestow glimpses of my origin and terminal repose. The sage earth will tell me the secrets I long ago forgot whilst I watch my blood seep out of my cumbersome body, draining into the ground: a draught as summative recompense. And finally, when I am but bone and sinew, near the banks of a river that streams my ebbing life I shall lie atop a bed of moss, the warm air blanketing me. No more than this; all to let slip....

She stirs—an ever so simple thing, of hers alone.... I rouse her, and rekindle the dream.

M.M. — Aprilis, September MMX; Februarius-Martius MMXI

Metapoem II - Eight Dream Sequences of a September

The cityscape before me stood graven and desolate at sundown;
then: a blinding flash and concrete turned full of stars and alien jet black.

I turned away and looked through the window blinds
and under twilight I saw Her there, as I had known Her, ever as before.

At the shoulder I turned her around and she, beaming, smiled up at me.
I held her close, clasped her hand, and we were as one as we danced supplely.

A black shadowy form—anthropomorphic—rushed towards me, jabbing me in swift succession.
The façade of familiarity or kinship in the first instant soon faded and terror permeated all through me.

Awake I seemed yet I could not move—could not move!
Screaming in silence, I put all the force I could focus into just twitching my foot.

"[—do you think I am a whore? [—]"
"A whore? No, you are not a whore—] A whore is pure self-indulgence—]"

He came as if from nowhere and caught us unawares, assailing first him then me.
I pierced his throat sidelong—hesitant thrusts at first—and his eyes turned saurian, green.

Three loud raps and I arose frightful in a sodden daze;
but no one was there at the door to hold accountable, to welcome me back.

M.M. — September MMX

Poetry Rivals' Collection 2010 - Whispers of the Mind

Last September I mentioned that "Poem XII - And so the world" was going to be published by Forward Poetry (formerly Forward Press) in late November.

I've finally(!) received a copy of Poetry Rivals' Collection 2010 - Whispers of the Mind, shown below. (I have to admit, though, the typo in the poem's title is somewhat annoying.)

Click on images for higher resolution

Ex Tempore I

and from the heart's last pattering
came a fluttering
and a sputtering
from the mouth that was but a stuttering

there in the dark
gasped a flicker, rioted a spark
where laboured screeches of the horned lark
grew faint—desperate to leave its mark

quivering for but a while
love and hate misstepped in file
and were swallowed whole, wholly reviled
by men, who thought them too mild

just as dawning suns stood
tall they were shortly trampled under foot
by romping sons—just because they could
but did they ever wonder that they knew they would?

I had been there as well, the growing mould
on my skin telling it all, but it had already rolled
up; and then I was left alone and cold
my pulse struggled a word, but slowed

M.M. — Ianuarius et Februarius MMXI

Poem XVIII - Where are you?

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

Poem XVII - Glasgow Winter Nights

They have never met before,

    these two lovers who pass each other on the snow-carpeted street.

    There is nothing between them save
    the briefest and most meaningful exchange of glances.

A young man stumbles on the slippery pavement,
  regains his balance
    and moves on.
      (A waft of cider in his wake.)

The colour of this night—its romance, its essence—is wanting;
    the insipid, bright incandescence of street-light
    dims the world.

Alone—      stood still—      wondered—      first apprehended
                                                                                             silence.

~

Beneath feet
                       frost glitters
      
                and stars are tread upon.

~

Christmas lights flourish through heat-fogged windows,

                                                      and the cheer
                                                  warm within
—better days finding their way back home,

                            if but for a night.

Looking there—hidden well, beside all the lights—

                        one window
                            is dark.

It does not pretend
  joy,
    goodwill,
      compassion,

        or a truce in view of the occasion.

Within it is dark, and ghosts accompany
those who have just come in
        from the cold;
                   a coldness that is
                   an affinity for these
                   wraiths akin.

~
  
For a moment the ornaments steal me away—

    for a moment—

from the mob I weave through;

                                                       moments
                           that I have come to cherish;
                                                       moments
wherein I have lived a thousand lives and one,

                        in one.

But the lights, hung this way and that, usher my return

                                        and I continue
                                             on my way,

                                     as I have always
                                                     done.

M.M. — November-December MMX

I lie on my bed...

I lie on my bed, still—unburdened from the cares of motion and the external world—staring at the wall, the ceiling—at nothing and everything.

Pervading the room, the enclosure of my cavernous mind: music; its beat an affinity seeking union—one of its proposals a deep earthly throbbing, and another repeating like the hurling into the distance and its eventual auspicious return. My thoughts intermingle with the sounds, the rhythm; at once detaching themselves from their host and extending their tendrils further into that hidden crossover point that perplexes.

How inconspicuous is breath: to sup from the unseen and sustain this motionless soma of mine. And my heart: its pumping working away in the eloquence orchestrated by nature. I place my hand upon my breast but fail to attest to the symphony..."the symphony of nature".

How did they begin: the heartbeat, the thoughts, the music? Were these to be reverted to the moment of their genesis what would be there? God? A god? Something more fantastic? Or perhaps, in actuality, something beyond our infantile ken?

There and then,

at the primæval stillness,

motion preceded

and motion succeeded.

Metapoem I - Stars in the Water

 

 

I saw

stars in the water



I saw them

shimmering

elusively



I immersed my hands

till they were

wrist-deep

and all were



one



I felt

starfire



I submerged

my face


swooned


and birthed from

suffusing heat complete



I withdrew

and wondered at

my living flesh

  

M.M. — November MMX

Poem XVI - Death Mask

A portrait perfectly moribund,
long had she left the sun;
the fever now sets her face,
her flame has lost its pace.

Sweat bedews her wan skin,
tears telling of future that has been.
As fingers gnaw at a noxious bed,
nothing more will ever be said.

She hears murmurs by the bedside
from those who had mollified and lied:
their hollow words becoming more indistinct,
the dimming of lights growing succinct.

The matters that raked or reminisced
are remnant flurries, and both missed.
Her weakening grasp to her blares,
resounding loud in the thickening air.

There had been a girl with such a laugh,
whose voice is now wine in a leaking carafe.
And a soft, scented hand will not caress,
will not run fingers through youthful tress.

And a boy: there had been a boy, and love;
she had once loved (dare she think thereof?).
But his smile heightens what is already sown—
this is the most she has ever felt so alone.

Convivial in melancholy's gainful time,
doom is wielding its hand, committing its crime;
cascading like the pain in her muted cries,
like the fear etching itself about her eyes.

Black draperies accent the intent with such candour,
though the panting of thought is so much grander.
The nothings in the room impress unavoidably:
the stark last things that she will ever see.

At last the gaunt gentleman has returned
with his look of apathy—and concern.
Or is it the lady of the impending storm
regarding between the flitting forms?

And what is that behind the door,
skulking now along the floor?
She is tightly grasped in its scheme;
it has burrowed deep in her bitter dream.

It comes close—creeping, creaking—
as she turns her head, speaking:
"I think it is time for us to go.
What is next? I wish to know."

When morning came, and dawn sung,
she was gone with a breath—the deed, done.
Nothing was left but the cold, vacant shell;
nothing but the mask Death had moulded so well.

M.M. — September-November MMX