Words for a Picture IV

To be read alongside 67954 by aleksandra88.

Although the paragon of carnality and great conqueror,
and even now seemingly held highest in all her splendour;
still she waited for bliss in just a kiss,
or for the Sun to fall on her just the same.

M.M. — November MMXI

Poem XXI - "When Beauty came"

When Beauty came
she precipitated the sack of city and soul.
When she descended from her throne
she stepped upon our paper-hearts.

When Beauty came from the sea
he flooded us in his titillating nausea;
the sight of him threw us into delirium
and a ravening bloodlust overcame reason.

Man devoured man, and woman too.
In a great display of ecstasy
our world turned murderous fantasy,
and ravaged lay the love we slew.

When Beauty came to me
I dared to caress her alabaster face,
only to be caught in his fatal embrace;
and down I did fall to the hard earth.

When Beauty came,
none were left the same.
We would have given our all
but Beauty only came to steal our souls.

M.M. — Februarius MMX; Aprilis, September, November MMXI

Words for a Picture III

To be read alongside 654573433 by aleksandra88.

[Excerpt from an unfinished work:]

For many a faded autumn did this stately Penelope wait,
    though pining in heart, wasting in body, dimming in mind.
Was it not She who attended, till insipid day grew late,
    that point that consorted with the sea, both so unkind?

M.M. — November MMXI

Words for a Picture II

To be read alongside Solar Passage by Greg Martin (sirgerg).

The face of the god.

M.M. — September MMXI

Poem XX - Gothic

In the midst of night, out on the moor,
shadows were stirring at my coming.

There, caught in the restless mourning wind,
the moon illumined all with its leering lidless eye.
With trepidation engendered and a weakness coming over me,

                        I set forth further into the dark.

Along my way I met, coldly, fiends of my past and present,
their hands lunging towards my neck; they were numberless,
        a ruthless swarm merciless in their onslaught.

But only one would I truly see:
              her cloaked spectre in the moonlit gloom, flitting within the mist.

Once upon a fadeless time I had her;
                                    she was rapt by the lavish love in which we lived.

    But our eldritch flame burnt too fiercely and we lost ourselves in the giddying decadence,
                                                 lost to time and its tendrils that took everything
                                                 slowly away.

Here in the wasteland
               nothing seemed truer, more honest and forthright,
than the bereavement I felt—
        than the dreariness pervading the heath and my soul.

M.M. — November MMX; Februarius, Maius–Iunius, September MMXI

Ex Tempore V / Aubade III

Lines written in an effusion aboard an early-morning train travelling from Glasgow to Carlisle on 15th September; "fulfilled and refined" after the experience.

I see a great fire!, there, to the east.
An amber-red glow with a latent immensity is slowly ascending.
The kingdom of deep, dark night is but a remnant,
its trace nearly subsumed in the fire and growing azure of the sky.

But now, before me: the mists rise over the pastures and rolling hills, and about the cold, silent trees.
Streams and creeks themselves seem to rise with the mist.
How thick it is, the incandescent lights of man shining so weakly within it.
—They come not even close to matching the fire's likeness!

In the distance: the kindling fire grows ever mightier!
And the clouds: they hail the coming of the imperial thing;
they are filled with an orange and red and—colour indescribable!, the very colour of Creation!

Is this Beauty?
Is that great fire and ancient thing also in me?

Here in this carriage do I feel the morning-chill outside that must eventually die?—in the greatest of births!
—the most fiery and most awful of advents!

The dull gold stretches now,
flung across the appearing firmament by the streaming clouds.
Surely this light is the herald of wonder—of all life—
recalling the earliest of days—earliest time—
when its rays struck the young earth and all those things that crawled or swam, which are long gone.
Those things rose in consequence of this fire that is now all-consuming and inexorable....

And at last!—the blinding rays break through the mist and clouds
and in triumph they parade!, displaying themselves so admirably.
The sky, the earth, the denizens below: they are now truly awakened.

At last! the Orb of eternal power, that I dare grasp and fit in my hand, begins its reign.
The Fire! the Light!—fierce, bright, beautiful!

Majesty Sun!, You are risen!

M.M. — September MMXI; edited September-October MMXI

Song IV

Inspired by the style of A. A. Nemtheanga of Primordial.

Know that I have always chosen well
Neither glory of Heaven nor savage fury of Hell
I have made my home on every welcoming shore
Broken bread with holy men
And lain with the most loving whore

Tell me what love can teach that hate cannot
Tell me that the wonder in life is absent in death

You see me as the serpent-fiend
Sporting his forked tongue of malignity
You say that my words taste of such acridity
But I see a decaying world so lost
The man-child blindly wanders, so lost

So give me the day
And I shall show you the darkest night
Give me my peace
And watch my war flaunt its terrible might

Though I know not where it is I will be lead
Come step on this broken path that I tread
Watch with me the setting of an ageless sun
The rising of the moon, under which I run

I hail the majestic unknown
And I will go, I will go
I will go even knowing that I must go alone

M.M. — Augustus-September MMXI

Words for a Picture I

To be read alongside 57921 by aleksandra88.

Her elegant clasping that feigns an intention barely impedes the emanation of her fantasy:
Her thoughts are uncaged; her reverie seeps through, into the world.

M.M. — September MMXI

"Death Mask" to be published

I received word today that "Death Mask" (Poem XVI; reprinted below) has been accepted for publication. Once again it will be within a Forward Poetry anthology: Forward Poetry Regionals 2011 - A World Of Verse. This follows my submission of the work in early July to the publishing company's 2011 Regionals Collections competition.

This competition is the same in which "Epyllion I" was submitted and subsequently published last year.

The publication date is 30 November 2011.


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

Ex Tempore IV - Upon entering into dream from waking state

Extracted under the auspices of Mikael Fyrek's "There Was a Sudden Silence", "We Will Never Be Here Again", "Bathing in a River of Discordant Music", "All That Ever Shall Come to Pass" and "Between Nothingness and Eternity" whilst gazing at twilight through the window of an unlit bedroom.


Where now to wander?
Where now does this go?
Nowhere and everywhere; here and beyond.
Where else if not here?
and yet now here again,
       in this place—
                     the sweeping-over delight,
like a chill,
                           of my recurring returns.

M.M. — Iulius MMXI