Evil Man

The faces of all those I killed
Appear in the briny waters so still
From the mists I can hear their wails
Shrieking and forceful as the gales
I try to block the ceaseless sonic flood
And notice on my hands the blood
Undrying like the undying around me
As crimson red as this fitful sea
My now-ended life knew crime
Crime that will echo through time
But time catches up with you
And what a price I pay for what I accrued
Somehow I realise: this is my damnation
Suffering eternal—most fitting retribution
And with every death knell of a bell
I sail closer to the shores of Hell

Ex Tempore LIX
M.M. — 28-Aug-2013

Improvisation

Fallen star, falling sun - held together by force of will from sources a million million years old.
I come careering wayward along my own way, a path carved and curved as I go - slow or wholly as light.
Amongst the faithless, we are the fateless. Each our own and our own is where we make our homes.
Eight minutes to the sun and back is a lifetime we could negate or embrace. And are we not starlight after all?
Footfalls upon the earth and we fall away from the outward voids and the cold, where we shall end.
Flesh and bone. Wood and stone. Air and sea. Time to see. I wend my way and suspend the tedium in days.
I would halve myself and give half my heart - or the whole -  to you, if you would ascend with me to hell and descend to heaven.
Beginning where I end, I am the son of the sun and my being stardust.
Fallen star, falling sun - held together by force and will and a million million years.

Ex Tempore LVIII
M.M. — 15-Aug-2013

The Art of Dying

How we die is just as important as how we live. The course of life should be a wondrous journey, but it is a journey that has a terminus and this should be recognised. Death is something I do not think we talk as openly about as we should. It is an integral part of nature and is with and around us always. And I mean not to say that we should dwell on the finality of our existence; quite the opposite: All that we concern ourselves with regarding our day-to-day living will be the whole of what we look back on when the end eventually comes. Living should be the first and foremost focus of life; that goes without saying. But when the matters of living are no longer relevant, the matters of dying take precedence. And when it comes to the matters of dying, above all else I wish to die well. I understand this now that I am older. I will admit that when I was a child, death frightened me...to death, but now that I have accepted and understand the nature of things I make it my aim to die well and to die on my own terms (as much as circumstances would allow). I wish to leave no unfinished business behind. When I go, I want to go with no baggage. This is the Art of Dying.

Life and Death

I learned all I needed to know
About the meaning of life and death
In the falling of the last snow
When my father exhaled his last breath

Every lesson I could have been taught
About the ends and the starts
I was given when one day I fought
With all the misgivings in my heart

I stopped being afraid of death
When I was still young
When I learned to love every breath
And love every new sun

Things come and cease to be
As surely as the pace of time
And when time comes for me
I will not fear the dividing line

So every minute of every hour of every day
I should cherish as much as I can live
And live as fully and well, come whatever may
And give to my life till I no longer live

Ex Tempore LVII
M.M. — 03-Aug-2013

"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

Time Runs Out

The world has all the time
All the time in the world
But there's no time left
In this broken hourglass
Sand so dear is cast like cheap dust to the wind

A wailing guitar in the background
Lamenting as only an artist can lament
With vodka's wisdom parsing the situation
Everything let loose is compacted and compounded for maximum effect

We make plans and we lay plans
With time kept in mind
But time has its own mind, and it is capricious
The best laid plains of mice and men, indeed

There's a crack in the heart's of these
And all that was once certain to them is pouring out
They struggle to stopper the loss
But it all just seeps through tightly pressed fingers

All the time in the world
But time's run out

Ex Tempore LIV
M.M. — 29-Jun-2013

"I followed Her"

I followed Her to the coastline one night
Down to the rocks and cliffs one autumn's night
Skyclad and guided by the shadowed full moon

Under a fever-dream's spell I followed a vision
She moved like mist come lately from the sea
Flitting in and out of sight and my mind

Beckoned to the waves and the unknown deeps
I slowly forsook the coils of hardened worlds
And reached out blindly for dream and fantasy

A woman with moonlit silver hair had come for me
Smelling of brine and possessing a beauty much too unreal
I whispered—"Death"—and was all at once no more

Ex Tempore LIII
M.M. — 18-Jun-2013