"In the early hours of the day"

In the early hours of the day, on a brisk autumn morning,
I sat on the steps leading up to the monument.
I sat and wondered at the world.
The minuteness of everything was so poignant.
A rustling of leaves, the whistling in the wind.
A father and daughter came into my view,
and at them too I wondered and pondered.
The little girl was so full of life and innocence,
the father visibly content and young as well.
What was their world like, I thought to myself?
Different from mine? The same? Something in between?
A microcosm of their own they had certainly.
I sat and watched and contemplated
on the unknown nuances of their unknown lives.
The breeze picked up a little as I sat there thinking,
reminding me that change is the only real constant in life.
How many changes had there been in my own short life?
How many of them I wished had never happened?
I did not know, but at this I wondered.
The day before, now a memory, was in itself
a moment in time distinct from all others.
Self-contained and self-defined.
A past and fleeting moment in time.
And today and tomorrow just the same.
Time, the king of all things.
Destroyer and creator.
There is nothing, really, to life but time and change.
Or so I figured, there on the steps, on a Sunday morning,
as I watched the world and it watched me.

M.M. — 18-Mar-2016

"There was a brief opening in the soul"

There was a brief opening in the soul
Lubricated by a little liquor
In I dove (or out I flew)
Up in the night's sky a canvas
One like a mirror, of reflection
The origin of all we know is ourselves
This then I came to know
Simply wayward comets careering
Trying to collide, but usually missing
I grant to you passage through an opening
But am just pierced, or passed through
Perhaps I am moved a little, but never enough
It is all but a repeated act, a dance
Today perhaps something or someone new
But tomorrow it will be just as before

M.M. — 17-Mar-2016

"And there, upon her face"

And there, upon her face, rested the aura of peace.
The calmness of a still lake out in a winter's morning.
Not a word nor an expression—just peace there laid.
I was so easily caught in it. Fell in her as a falling feather.

M.M. — 14-Mar-2016

"You see, I am too much of myself"

You see, I am too much of myself. I am too within myself.
It has been my constant undoing, a cage in and of itself.
It is quite easy to see why: A spirit trapped in confines
is a spirit with nowhere to go, nowhere to grow.
As much as I am built like this—and I've liked it just fine—
it no longer is enough, no longer keeps me up.
There are parts missing, you see, there are parts of me
that I have needed for some time now, important things.
It is clear to me that more needs to be brought into me,
from the outside, from others, from without that which is me.
And there is much space to be filled, much left incomplete.

M.M. — 08-Mar-2016

The Traitor

If today you would cast my name away
And let me diminish at the end of day
Remember that it was I who stood as stone
Who brandished his arm and all his bones
In the face of men who held heinous sway

You remember now they who wish you slaves
Who think of you as rats and knaves
Who would have you on your knees and backs
And then you will know why I chose the rack
Why I now here end in life in defiant staves

My sisters of the forgotten black-streets
And my brothers who die in the heat
I acclaim ye all as my fellows and my kin
Who would share in my criminal sin
I will hail you when the Ferryman I greet

And to cowards and servile puppet-men
Curses to you and your death-dealing pens
You who have sent thousands to the tomb
As you sit in filth, fortune and stolen rooms
I will call to you from the grave once again

Come then, Hangman—the noose if you please
The rope my breath to take and my life to seize
No remorse, nary a regret and to hell with mercy
I am at the end the first free man you shall see
And the last you shall ever see on his knees

M.M. — 07-Mar-2016

Depression (Iteration 2)

Were I to give you my name it would be
Hopelessness.

Were I to give you my word it would be
Weariness.

Were I to give you my thought it would be
Anxiousness.

Were I to give you my mind it would be
Emptiness.

Were I to give you my heart it would be
Weightlessness.

Were I to give you all of me it would be
Darkness.

M.M. — 06-Mar-2016

"She was in my dream again"

She was in my dream again.
I saw her as I knew her once—
a caress upon my cheek,
a lightness come over my heart.

It was all like some memory
that never happened.
A fantasy filled with desire
and an ageless aching longing.

I wanted her as I once did—
my body pressed against hers,
myself in her and she enfolding me.
Motion and heat and carnality.

But just as it was back then
it ended before it even began.
I would have pushed aside the world to be hers.
But she is a dream.
She will always be just a dream.

M. M. — 04-Mar-2016

Ownership in the Love Ultimate

Since submitting my PhD thesis this past Thursday—an accomplishment that I will not be ready to fully take in until I defend it—I have been ruminating on the things that I own, my possessions, the things that are of me, that are mine. The PhD is the quintessential piece of evidence that I have been blessed with an intellect, with a sharp and rational mind. It is this that has made me into the young man of science and letters that I am today. That is unquestionable. My intellect, and the faculties it consists of, are mine. And I am not modest enough to deny that they distinguish me from a fair proportion of people. But, are they the most important things that I possess?

I am not a rich person, or a poor one. I want for nothing and I want nothing—nothing physical I mean, nothing that I can buy. I am quite content with my financial status and will be happy with it as I earn more income in the future (which will happen as a natural consequence of my progressing in my professional career as a scientist and nothing more). So, my things of financial worth, they are not the most important things I have because I don't value them that highly.

But when I think of the people in my life.... The story then changes. What do people (my friends and family I specifically mean here) give me? They give me companionship, friendship, understanding, hope and love. They give me love. I have love. No, I have certain kinds of love, and they are all important to me. But, the most important?

No, not these various kinds of love, but all-encompassing love. The love ultimate. I mean the love of one other (in my case, anyway). The love that I have been searching for since I finally began to understand what it was and that I needed it. You see, everything I own and have gives me tone and nuance. Love, however, gives me meaning. Love, to me, is the most important thing. The only thing I think I really want in my life. The thing that will save me from a life of just tone and nuance. Love is what will free me. Free me from myself—because I am too much of myself. You see, everything and everyone in life constitute things and persons that you interact with, that you have exchanges with. You share these things or you share yourself with others. That, however, is not the case with love, the love I mean. With the love I mean, the love ultimate, you have an ownership that is not just your own: it is an ownership of two parties, you and the one you love. This is very different from all else I've been talking about because love, by definition, cannot be unless it is a thing owned by two others. Therefore, the most important thing for me is not what I have or what I possess. The most important thing is what I and another would possess, would have. Love is not a thing of single possession. It is shared... no–it is co-owned. And that to me is what I desire most, what I want most, what I need most.

M. M. — 28-Feb-2016

Depression (Iteration 1)

I am just built like this, I guess, and
that little fucking voice of mine in
my head is just a consequence of
certain atoms assembling into place,
certain DNA and certain cells
deciding to act up as they wish. Which
would be fine were it not for the
shadows...the shadows...the shadows.
I dwell inside myself, and the walls
are not painted. There are things
scurrying around, somewhere, in the
pitch black. I talk to them quite a lot.
It makes me weary, though. Intensely
so. But at least they talk back. I think
it would be worse if they didn't. Well,
maybe not. But at least the scurrying
things want me. Maybe they love me too?
That wouldn't be so bad, I think.

M. M. — 23-Feb-2016

"What little thing"

What little thing of yours is it that you fight for? That you lie for? What meagre treasure that you clasp so tightly do you shield from the wolves of the world? Is it a woman, a man, a child? Do you bear arms and blow the clarions of war for another? Just some person? Perhaps it is some small thing that you call love for which you build bastions of steel and light across the lands, the seas and the heavens? What paltry thing is it I ask you? That you would cut out your own heart for? That you would end life for? That you are so afraid to acknowledge? You would bring all the world to its termination for this thing, wouldn't you? What then? What is it that holds sway like this? Does it fit in your hands and yet you cannot hold it? What? Tell me? Please.... Please tell me.