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.

First Passions

First passions leave indelible marks
Second ones are even more bittersweet
Like an old memory turned evening fantasy
So much beauty infused into a single thing
A whole life generated from a nutrition of fire

Once, I saw in the unending sky, a name
Something akin to a song or an effortless kiss
It flowed in, like warm water over my skin
I drew in a breath, a deep breath—my very first
Just a name, written in the vaultless sky

What we grow to know during our measured lives
Belies the unfathomable hidden in our measureless minds
It is all just a wild ride, of happenstance and questioning
The lucky ones see the universes in others' eyes
The brave ones sail across the dark seas, heart in hands

And I would give it all for that feeling of awe
To take it with me once more on my wayward way
Anything just to live fully one more time
One last time before the final dream takes me

Remembrance

You've found yourself in the swirling storms of
a mechanized world, churning hellishly upon the
planes of forests swept away and paved over.
Eyes glazed over by lethargy and apathy;
body and heart left weary by a heinous society.
Once you were enwrapped by winds channeled
through deep valleys and the mists of primeval waters.
Every new day is no new day, but instead a
struggle of breath and bone against the synthetic.
You've forgotten the chemical dance of flame.
The imperceptible scales of cosmic time and space.
The molecular life seen in every leaf and in every
beat of a heart; nature's signature in all things.

M.M.

"In that room"

In that room, I saw a reflection of a man that I could become, that I wanted to be. A man stood upon the foundation of his self-constructed principles and the ashes of his bygone strife. A vision of a future that I had lost sight of not long ago. An accreted inner peace, born out of a lifetime of sleeplessness and restlessness, imbued the scene. What I viewed in the briefest of moments was a world won, a distance finally crossed. In that room, I caressed the bright plumage of hope and felt the cooling of a sun-lashed earth, the restful evening I have longed for finally come.

"What sonorous cry"

What sonorous cry heard in the dead of the night?
A wild running through the mind
Hapless and weak, as a child in the forest, lost
A tremendous weight held fast to the heart
A tremendous love left aimless and yet fervent
The cold keeps to the body, a respite from the heat
A fire that will not abate, that will not die
Though no desire to let it expire; there never was
The scale, balanced on a knife's edge
One choice: to live but to hurt
The other: to die but to rest
There never was a choice; not with her
It is all part and parcel of the path
A journey not meant for the restful
It is but thunder and aching
Always sleepless and ever-stirring
That which gives life and purpose and strength
The curse and the gift—this love
The upheaval is set and directed
What sleep is left is for the dead and the loveless

M. M.

Fallen

The Fallen God stood atop the peak, the imperial sun above His
broken diadem, above His shattered godhead, searing His wingless back.
A great lance in His hand, a brand of fire and apostasy, a terrible thing.
With a movement of blinding light and imperceptible speed, He raised
His weapon and thrust down the spear, down into the mountain upon
which He domineered, down into the Earth, through rock and crust,
through spirit and mind, piercing the veil between god and man and
matter. What wailing arose, reaching into the world, beyond the seas and
the lands. A cry first heard before sound was sound, when time was young.
The God awoke the Old Things, dispersed the lies and dogma.
What reigned before would reign no more. It would no longer be fear
that would be the principle directive, the false law compelling men to
lash themselves to the book or the cloth or the martyr.

M. M.

11 p.m.

You are a creature of delirious fever.
I fantasize about what your skin must feel like.
How you are, in your most natural of states.
I would map every groove and curvature.
And every hidden place of you.
A cartographer lost in a new world.

How I dream of you.
Always you are there, in the darkness.
A phantasm never laying to rest.
Flitting from thought to shadow, shadow to thought.
Oh, you are the wild thing in my mind.
The ravenous thing.
The sinful thing in me.

M. M.