From nothing we came

From nothing we came, to nothing we shall return
Or so they say
But what of the lightning and fire of the in-between
What of the immensity of mind, the infinity of possibility?
The labyrinthine perplexity of the love that expands us?
We are the everything in the nothingness of the universe

M.M.

The Physics of Love

The linearity of time has never eased
the allure of tracing the lines upon her face.
The collision of particles, and the resultant magic,
has always paled in comparison to the magic
that occurs when gazing into her pensive eyes.
These physics, running amok inside of me,
are like petulant children in a stellar nursery.
I was first moved by the law of gravity
that she herself wrote, that she herself commands.
Her pull and her gathering of all things along her vector
has flung me from one corner of the cosmos to the other.
These physics of love, drunk on their own principles.
A postulate that I found myself fallen in, most helplessly.
A scientist enthralled by the very nature of her existence
and all its mysteries – by the theory that she is everything.

M.M.

"You know just what you are"

You know just what you are
Red dragon sleeping a thousand-year sleep
Dreaming of cosmos and the revolutions of time

I awake from a slumber of darkness and undeath
To dwell once more in the wildfires of starlight
I stand before moribund stars and allow myself to burn
Carving multiversal symbols into my coruscating flesh

Remember just what you are
A Son of the Sun, an undying flame amidst the void
Shining nexus of thought and action
A body of unfettered Will, of uncaged Love

In a world of fear and loneliness, alone the monolith has stood
A monument of shining Individualism and self-determination
A pillar atop the highest peak of the Self
Out in the far reaches of oceanic turmoil

I have waited half a life, a life alone
To rise from the tar pits of my own making
To emerge as a field of stars, an idio-galaxy
Unleashed upon the frailness of my former being
To damn the fear and loneliness of yester-I
To the realm of the distant, forgotten void

M.M.

"Not quite the effacement of face"

Not quite the effacement of face
But the eroding of a once-weathered man
Stepping from pebble to mountain
From mountain to tetherless aether
Slipping through the masterwork of time
Its machinery and its machinations
Not quite here; not quite there
But ever present ...much too present...

M.M.

Seasons

Half-dreaming—

of the unending turning of all things

Summer has been slipping away

taking my solidity with it

What warmth and the caress of her I had

is stolen, in the turning of the axis

Desire—the fire, lit by each penultimate season

And extinguished at the end of it

Everything I am is toppled again and again

in the unabating change of time

Once the affection of her heart

the next, lost in the decay of autumn

I am perfected—for me, for her—

but crumble and desiccate at the end of summer

The cycle is unbearable

The wheel—the clock, revolves, as it always has

As it has since the first flutter of butterflies

since the surety of what she means to me was realized

***

The seasons are a paradox: They are at once the harbingers of that which is new and nascent; and that which never changes, never dissipates.

M.M.

In the State

Fear was the best oppression. A perfect violence simply because it was an implied violence. It crept and skulked throughout the cities and in the remote villages like a mist that came out abruptly from the deeps of the impenetrable forest. It kept close to all like an inseparable companion, draped over the shoulders of hunched men and hushed women. Its tell-tale signs impressed on the children more and more as they grew older, they unfortunate enough to not know a world without the fear. It hung everywhere. In the streets, in the shops, in the dance halls, in the temples. It was a life form of its own. And perhaps it had become untameable, even by those who thought that the rope was theirs to wield. How could this be living? How could this be life?

But a passion still glowed in the eyes of Simon Daschink. He was a single man, a quiet man—a dangerous man. Or so all the men without names and sombre suits believed. Condemned for being just who he was, for loving another man. An abomination in the eyes of State and Church and "the common morality". In truth, though, Daschink had not been dangerous because of who he was, because he was in love. No, not before he became a man in love who lost his love. A flame had been in him once; but it was a simple flame for him and for Him. A warmth for two in an unlit and cold playhouse run by men rapt in a comedic masterpiece. Now that flame was a fire, for murdered love is fierce and inextinguishable and unforgiving.

An individual is composed of three main ingredients: Passion, Reason and Will. Passion—in constant conflict with Reason—draws an individual out from within themselves out toward the variegated colors of the external world. Life in the State necessitated manacles be placed on Passion, but by one's own self. Simon kept his unshackled Passion secret, of course; a treasure for himself and Him. For it was Reason that instructed him, that protected him, that kept him safe. Reason is a master, and it is captain at the helm. In a world that is seemingly bereft of all vestiges of the rational, one's own Reason must be the last rampart, the final defense against the mindless onslaught of dogma and doctrine. And then Will. It was when his heart was stepped on by the jackboot that Simon knew the true meaning of Will. For Will is action. Action both in act and in word. Will is expressed through a purposeful change of reality. For Simon, his Will would come forth as many words and many acts. The former stoking the hell-furnaces of the latter.

M.M. — May 2013; Aug 2017

Being strong

It might be a fair judgement that what we call "being strong" is an idealization, one which is predicated on the notion that to be strong one cannot permit weakness. This I think should be quickly and summarily dispelled. To be strong should instead be characterized by piecemeal bouts of strength. It is foolish to believe that we can be strong every moment of every day. We instead should teach ourselves to capitalize on those moments of transient yet intense realization that, frankly, "we can do this". There is much worth in taking one single minute of your time to gain some perspective of the situation you are in and just what the hell you are going to do about it. Times of weakness or the allure of capitulation are completely normal and just fine: they come and will come again. Your strength should not be a weapon designed solely to fight off weakness. Your strength should be a vehicle through which you convey yourself from your nadir to your zenith. Your strength should be a well of energy, based in your core but not always observable, that you tap into when appropriately needed.

M. M.

Every Broken Man

Every broken man is in search of a new spirit
Whether or not he recognizes it or not, he seeks
A purified river to wash away his sins
His company is no one but shadows
Reflections of the past and prior wrongdoings
The long face of the bright, full moon
Looks down upon him in honest affinity
With silent recognition, he sees time
Etched upon its pockmarks and scars
From a storm-brinking, sullen beach, he sees
Across the far reaches of the dark sea
A near-distant future, his to hope and to own
But even the sanctity of his own forgiveness
Which alone holds his true resurrection
Cannot dispel the ghosts in his now lightless soul
The night that fires aflame his scorched earth

M.M.

"There is no Great Truth"

There is no Great Truth other than that which constructs the infrastructure of your being. What you are is a reflection of what you choose to do, what in your heart of hearts you truly believe or want. Whether by determinism or by unfettered free will, there is a responsibility to account for, to own up to. Everything that comes to pass is a lesson that instructs you on what kinds of fibers constitute you: A facing up to the darkness within you or appreciation of your implicit privileges. Life marked out is an anthology of pain and joy, and how we were gauged at a given time. But at the end of the day, it is strife that drives us onward. For if nothing else, strife is the most essential ingredient of a dynamic life, and the reaction to it the mainstay of your development, or lack thereof.

29

The sunsets are just a bit different now
Not quite the golden-yellow and fiery-red of yesteryears
Every choice is made with tints of lackluster
Hints of creeping uncertainty and apathy

Perhaps once the path was certain and
The direction a simple matter of "one foot in front of the other"
But why all this hollowness? and why the listlessness?
Where is the excitement that once threw your imagination
From one end of the galaxy to the other?

The best-laid plans have been lost somewhere in the stack

Maybe this is just a temporary deviation?
A steering off the path? some stroll through the thicket?
Those wanderings you once made in the dead of night
Long to be returned to; the cosmic flights through mind
And dream have been ready for departure for a short eternity

The center—once again you need to calibrate to your center
To that place which you alone can perceive
The best of you—the best part of you
The boundless nexus of all that makes you you

M.M.