Poet's Folly

[Poem XXIII]

A lyric on my Art, written much like a monologue; an attempt (likely inadequate) to explain why I write. It would not be wrong to say that the content is undeniably personal and delivered quite forthrightly. Yet there pervades an inherent sense of high-flown irony: a poet's folly, the certitude of which he knows all too well and ignores just the same.


My supreme endeavour is to form the perfect sentence,
to compact infinity of thought—every thought—into a single phrase;
my design would see all beauty, agony and apathy subsumed into a verse.

I lust after the Sun, seeking to steal its undying warmth, its imperial splendour, its illimitable power—
I wish to place these on a page, a thing of littleness and impermanence,
there for all to read and ever to be read.
And to pluck the Moon from the sable sky-canvas,
to pour its romance and lambency into every impression of my pen—or whatever the delivery of my Impartations.

In the midst of Night I have contorted dreams, sculpted with scalpel their scene-sequences;
I have whispered things to myself that just as soon as they flourish flit away so bittersweetly.
In the chaotic wake of these fragments of entire lifetimes are my lines realised.

And horrors, grand grotesqueries: each new nightmare conceived with every step I take;
the chimeric Ideas that wrench themselves free from insubstantial chamber walls—
they are the Visions and the Voices, desiring worlds for their own.

Were my words to birth—birth as stars die—in the minds of others,
coming into that inexplicable existence that they yearn for,
it would quiet the continual intrusion of querulous imagery.

All of life is to me great poetry.

In every neglected sight there is a scrap of a poem waiting to be written;
in every furtive glance; in every meandering conversation: a tangential remark,
a disclosed truth that otherwise would never have been spoken aloud.
There is no epic greater than a man growing up, looking back and growing old;
no elegy more heart-rending than one of a death yet to occur—
the Ballad of One is the Ballad of All.
In me, these are already written:

My supreme endeavour is to form the perfect sentence—

M.M. — December MMXI; Ianuarius MMXII

Metaprose I - A face [Incomplete – Back catalogue]

To be read alongside "Karo-lina" by Aneta Kowalczyk (hellwoman).

A face.

The Woman's face—Her face. Properly: a portrait of The youthful, attractive Woman rendered in soft, appealing black and white monochrome.

Her head turned rightwards, ever so slightly tilted, over Her hunched-forward shoulder; perhaps She sits. There is a slight protuberance on the shoulder that causes a shadow to stain: Her clavicle.

She wears a necklace. Her jaw obscures the greater part of it; it may be of a beaded design: silver and black beads, to infer. The lowermost of Her neck—flesh—juts out: She sits; but certainly the right shoulder is forwardly.

There are creases emanating from the nook under Her arm: several thin lines near the top, one more—maybe two—barely thicker, arcs out to the upper-left from the middle.

She wears a tank top; an off-white?—a likely beige. The hems—shoulderwards, neckwards—double-stitched. Her top is wrinkled to a small degree as She sits, or poses hunching forward, or both.

Her hair is done up: a French twist, perhaps a semi-French bun, swept on the right side. The colour most likely is a brown—The Brunette.

M.M. — November-December MMIX

Forward Poetry Anthology

The Forward Poetry Regionals 2011: A World of Verse anthology, in which "Death Mask" is printed, arrived in the post today.

Pictures can be found here!

Poem VII - "I am not who I am" [Back catalogue]

I am not who I am.

Locked in 21-year corridors,
Left to peep through narrow keyholes
To espy fleeting moments of fantasy
And my Darkness.

Left and right the walls,
Night-black, polished onyx,
Flaunt portraits
Of horrific romances:

How lovely they all are.

But reach to touch them as I may
And they fade behind more locked doors
Of these twilit corridors.

I am not who I am.

M.M. — October MMIX; edited December MMXI

Poem VI - "Solely and supreme I held thee" [Back catalogue]

Solely and supreme I held thee
On sparkling, serene seas
Of yesteryears and forgotten lore;
The burnings of the heart and its roar—
But I have lost sight: my woeful pleas.

For what I have known of love
And the flights of splendid doves
Has been dashed by Time
And its reign; and the bitter clime
Of fate cast by the Above.

Now I tremble in sight of thy countenance,
And to give double mine own essence
Would be no great a price to pay if once again
Grace would resurrect and stay this pain.—
But alas! the pall is still and absolute the consequence.

M.M. — Februarius MMIX; edited December MMXI

Poem VIII - Esoteric Art [Back catalogue]

Words and thoughts: I shall bend and mould to my Will.
The cryptic and hidden: I shall prise wide and imbibe;

And deep inside I recognise and affirm the plurality of men I am and can be.
To set free and let wail the manifestations and fantasies that swell within me.

To kiss the snake and embrace the world,
Plunge into bliss and the million folds
Of love and time—into all things that are mine—

Whilst up above the stellar host will know no equal to their own light
Other than my radiating and emanating, illuminating orb burning so bright.

Without fear I am, with potent Will at my very core;
Without constraint my consciousness shall ever soar:
From inflamed Venus to belligerent Mars;
From aureoled Helios to Selene up in stars.

I wish to live unabashed and fully,
Be at once Dionysian and Apollonian—truly;
Unlashed, able to evolve and thrive,
To explore the labyrinth of my questioning mind—
And what infinite wonders may I there find?

Thus to cradle the Pillars of Creation
And witness the Universal cessation.

M.M. — October MMIX; amended Februarius MMX; edited, title revised December MMXI

Poem XII - "And so the world" [Back catalogue]

[Published in Forward Poetry's (formerly Forward Press) Poetry Rivals' Collection 2010 - Whispers Of The Mind on 30 November 2010.]


Influenced in no small part by T. S. Eliot.

And so the world continues its languid dissolution,
and the hum hum, drums and wails drown all out;
whilst creeping along his bleary path, head-wingèd,
comes Hypnos and in train his progeny—

What whimpers will I give when Thánatos comes for me?—

Creeps:

the scent of ancient forests where hoary wizards roam in wisdom—
In his hollow-hillock covered in moss and lichen lives the hermit:

I am the one-man screaming, arms in upward fury, lambasting the silent sky;
the spectator, miserable and magnificent, spying happiness from corners.

But what if that reflection of sunlight on that tin could bring me
back to those carefree days in places long gone?
Back to relive—to relieve!—reword words not said
but meant!—so dearly

...meant....

His back: so bent!

I tarry here; tire of this place.
What lies beyond where the stars pine
and
—'bove?
—below?
—before?
—behind?
my mind?

Would that I could...

could just....

Take a moment!,
ye hurried masses;
take but one single moment!
And—

Behold:
A vista:

An afternoon of a dying sun
dispersing its golden sea of remains—
Azure sky and a painter's clouds.
What a marvel to see
(to be able to just see!)
the neo-Gothic tower and spire
Posturing Proudly, timelessly,
defying their makers
and all manacled man alike.

What will break my adamantine shackles!
I wish to handle my hollow universe!
And dare!—yes, dare!
Ha-hah!
I will dare!
and!...

Palsy: fell-come, my dear friend:
Do you too feel the heavy weight on my chest?
My heart tender is severely constricted!
and restricted!
My how restrained and pained I feel!
Damn It!:
It is merciless!
Damn This!:
This lace!

But do I still not wander?:
in secret fantasies of love
and in secret fantasies of life?

In these precious
reverie-memories;
sham remembrances:

Garden lights—
outside a modern Danish summerhouse
—under variegated twilight.

Childhood innocence in a sheltered school-world
Oh and all the little things that are for me
All the small and touchable things
All the things with noises
And flashing lights
My things
Mine

A horroromance with
my Lady of evenfall-breed,
enswathed in sepulchral ruched satin;
and a dead-of-night tryst:
We together hurrying away
to oblivion
in an ebon landau
drawn by daemon equine—
all the while flitting with ease
between lucidity
and lunacy;
between the ethereal

and idioreal:

So I ride as passenger;
the country-dark night-chill
—erstwhile besieger:
I dismiss apathetically
its clamouring for the world—
and it
now forgotten.

So I ride;
onwards!
on byways;
onwards!
on highways;
onwards!
on my ways.

So I:

I, ensconced in a seat that stokes warmth—
Come, dream!; come, sleep!

I, observing the unlit country in awe—
Come, mind!; come, psyche!

I, immersed In the Nightside Eclipse—
Come, memory!; come, reverie!

(Two glinting eyes: unshut;
two pricked ears: censorless;
but a smirk
and silence kept.)

M.M. — Februarius-Aprilis MMX

Sonnet I - "For is my heart a vessel daring sea?" [Back catalogue]

Posted some years ago; presented here with cosmetic changes.

For is my heart a vessel daring sea?
Dare tempest, thunderstorm, and trident's quake?
Alack! yet mine is sheltered by no lee,
But rather shipwrecked, beached—denial's wake!
My lute, a-tuned so fervidly, doth dote
On thee; thou, crown'd for prime seraphic grace.
I strive toward thy heart despite thy moat,
Toward that thorny rose done up in lace.
And those who confidently try compare
To Beauty's host, but folly they will find.
As sure doth night aways with any glare,
In like course souls of ours will duly bind.
So onward, seaman! Love for none will wait!
Forever onward—nothing left to fate!

M.M. — October MMVI; final line revised December MMXI

Song II - A Love Song Macabre [Back catalogue]

Oh deathly Cassandra, come
For you I have shunned the sun

Rise from your fathomless dream
So we may haunt the lands unseen

To wander twilight arcades
And nocturnal promenades

Take my hand and I will show
Secrets only devils know

Oh my cold Cassandra, come
For their hollow love lies undone

How your obsidian tresses stir me
Razor-spiked like kraken sea

I could gaze forever into your eyes
Serpentine, lambent like fireflies

All at once you stupefy me
Daze and deaden so easily

Oh impish Cassandra, come
Hearken to words once unsung

I have armed 'gainst frivolous light
Flaunt now your eclipsing might

Unleash 'pon my entranced heart
Shadows of your blackened Art:

The evernight of your worldview
The diffidence you eschew

M.M. — Martius-Maius MMX; edited December MMXI

Words for a Picture VI

To be read alongside 127 by Mecuro B. Cotto (MecuroBCotto).

[Excerpt from an unfinished work:]

Why            is it
            when        the
      mirror                     shatters
and            I
                        try
            to    rearrange
      the                        shards
      does the reflection remain the same?

M.M. — December MMXI