Mind Voyage

My feet stand firmly on the ground
But my mind rides on rays of the sun
Stationary in time but waiting for more
For all my possible futures to come

I journey through the empty void
That separates one thought and another
A moment that lasts as long as a flicker

And as briefly as the touch of forever

I have waited so long for nothing at all

And for nothing to be my everything and all

A lifetime spanning one end to another end

To, at last, realize the needs of my sun's crescent

Sharpening the philosophic weapon that is my mind
Going back to the beginning and hurling myself forward
Deep into the blackest deep and unleashing it all skyward

And perhaps, one millennium, to burn, to shine, and to die

With peace and kindness, relinquished, all in one, and all mine

M.M.

Prose IX

Streaming from an imperceptible ceiling so high came down the most revealing white light. It illuminated the eerie vapor that pervaded the entire gargantuan atrium-like space, it as cavernous as its unseen ceiling was foreboding. The light defined little in the empty space save the center (or what seemed the center). There it formed a strangely, clearly delineated circle. Not even slightly amorphous as one would have thought, given the thick, diffuse vapor.

Though in fact, the light lit more than the center: It shone seemingly accusatorially on a shape-seeming man, naked and standing as if prepared for a fight he knew not from where it would come. Clenched fists by his sides, chest in a belligerent display, a visage of attentive intelligence and pride—he scanned the black all about him and waited for it to begin.

M.M.

 See, you gotta stay strong, for no one more than for yourself. You gotta believe that you are very much worth it. Worth the struggle and worth the strife. Because you see, the clutches of your pain draw the most strength from your own self-deprecation. Your prison is built by the insidious design of the lies that fester within you, that you unavoidably feed. So you must look to the innards of your self and fight for yourself. You are the first, last, and sometimes only, echelon of your own defense. Stay strong and stay faithful.

Aiming for the Horizon

I'm aiming for the horizon

For the cradle of dusk and dawn

Where both nothing and everything

Exist, in unison and in discord

I've decided to leave behind the trap

Of boxes, borders, and broken bones

All that I was beholden and usurped by

For something that is... awry and... at angles

I'm leaving behind the husk of my self—its shell

For it's so damn withered, weathered, and worn

Battered, beaten, and so bored, and burrowed

It's expended itself, now just an inkless pen

The horizon: far beyond all I've ever dreamed of

A sheen pinpoint beyond the vast mass of my own past

An unknown something, scintillating in its beauty

Finally a way out of my own darkness

M.M.

"Full-blooded and bold"

Full-blooded and bold
I have strife in me that fuels me
Stood upon the surface of the sun
And now I lust for the universe

Took me years to fall and years to rise
Lived off of self-doubt and dogma
A spirit with a yearning glow
And a mind building itself

There has been a darkness
Stretching from soul to sight
Darkness replete in me, filling me
Obsidian black, deathless night

I found meaning in love
I found salvation in love
I found myself when I found her
Life at long last

The sky I see, the man I want to be
Sustained by fire—lifted by might
The dreams I form, the reveries I breathe
Those living and those unborn

Twenty-eight years and time still a fear
My ambitions held in place by a single will
My heart held in hand by a single woman
And the terminal point a frightful unknown

The dreams and the desires
The storms and the fires
Visited every night, manifested every day
Fought for in every one of my living moments

M.M.

"Sometimes I forget that love exists"

Sometimes I forget that love exists

That it runs rings

round the heart

Down in the dark of the soul

I forgot that it is all

that makes us whole

Taking one step from nothing at all

To everything that we've ever wanted

and more

Just like the silence of the night

Calling us out like dying of light

Since we so adored the fight

And the heat

that it brought

Only to fall ecstatically like the rain

Gladly enduring the pain

and its ache

Ten thousand years

Or an eternal pour

I forget—and remember—that love

was everything we've ever wanted

and everything we wanted to die for

M.M.

Depression (Iteration 10)

The nightmares and the insomnia have come back

As have the devils and their deviled fantasies

After all this time they tell me once again exactly how I crack

How my own very Sun fails

How I terror right through my Self

So I travel through this world with a torch

That I hold onto, knowing it breathes

Everything I want and desire

Knowing how I feel and believe and love

And despite all of this

All of the waking and dreaming of

Desperation

It seems I still breathe, still breathe

Through the chest of death

Holding onto the torch of love

M.M.

Circle

I've voyaged upon cosmic lightbursts

and the shine of suns

Forgetting that my mind could hurl itself

all on its own

Relying on neuronal impulses

and the electricity in between

I forgot that a thought

could last a thought

or as long as the universe's sigh

Just as I fought thought in the dead of night

even though I was in zero gravity

knowing that all I knew

was nothing at all

Everything beautiful comes from a star

for a star out-multiplies

leaf and bone, stone and brain

Even though we, sons of suns, are nothing but

leaf and bone, stone and brain

And so I adore everything from a star

and all leaves and bones

and all stones and brains

I have come from nothing

knowing nothing

Just a quantum of matter
coming to know that

aught and all mean very little indeed

And that everything

I need

Is every part of every thing

M.M.

north song

buried my heart in the mountain north
earth and thunder, breath and bone
awoke in the light of the first day
earth and thunder, blood and stone

felt my body sing with the wind
cloud and moon, star and sky
my blood running in vein and stream
cloud and moon, raven's cry

found the warrior within me
heart and fire, sword and soul
fast asleep for far too long
heart and fire, breath and cold

forgot the desire within me

man and wolf, wild and free

I rose up from my very deep

man and wolf, the rage in me

M.M.

[Began in 2016; completed in 2021]

"Once I thought Death came to take me"

Inspired in part by Satyricon

Once I thought Death came to take me
When I peered far too long into the void
I thought the carriage had come, all ornate

Death approached—so gentlemanly, so ladylike
They asked one question and one alone:
I said: "If—only if… At the dying of the sun: only if..."

It was an odd and knowing look that Death gave
Like the one I gave back, as I walked along with them
In the forest, on the mountains, into the shadows

It was from the old part of my memory that Death
Came for me; came from the old, forgotten North of me
From my anxiety and my hesitancy and fear

Death came for me, knowing the worst of me
Not knowing who I really was–the shell of what
Should have been my life, or the semblance of it of me

That was a dream, a nightmare, the dread
Of me; all that I do not want to feel or be or accept
Because I know my Sun dawns every day for me

But even should Death take me—though they take me
The mark I will leave, now, hereupon me
Made by me—me— the very best that built for me 

Even though Death will take me
I’ve thrashed and dashed and mashed
Along the drear-draped path

And made as much
And as big of a burst as I could
Of me–and me—and the bits that will be left
Of me.

M.M.