Talking to Death

This is to Death:

"You bastard, you fiend!

You've laid all your shadow

Over the core of my heart

Death:—

The proximal lacerations of your swings

Still sting and radiate outward and inward

The way you cling and fasten yourself

To any light lit so luminously in the dark

Disgusts me

Death:—

Even you must die

Even you must destroy yourself"

– M.M.

Love (Iteration 2)

To love

And be loved

Is all of my Law

– M.M.

Love (Iteration 1)

Oh, how Love can be so exquisite

So divine and so otherworldly

And yet... so nebulous...

When she walked into the room, I thought:

"How graceful she is, how accented by the light"

I walked toward her and thought to myself

What to say, what I should say to her

And nothing came to me

I thought of nothing that would stir her mind

– M.M.

Depression (Iteration 12)

It is all in the dreams, my dreams

It is all in the nightmares, my nightmares

It is when you wake, when I wake

It is when you live, when I live

It is your life, my life

It is your life, my life

– M.M.

"The World can wait"

Based on a real dream I had a few nights days ago

"The World can wait..."

Is what I thought after I saw her there

After we held hands

And when we talked till the Sun rose

I cared little for everything else

All else, beyond that place we were

As we held hands

We spoke to others at some point

But they I all now forget

I forget everything except

When we held hands and

I kept believing this—

This that I said, that:

"The World can wait"

– M.M.

"We fought the good fight"

We fought the good fight
Fought the uncaring world; we against all

And still the world said, "No."

In our hearts we believed we were right

Right and steadfast against all

And still the world said, "No."

We had no weapons, none of bite

It was right and justice that became our call

And still the world said, "No."

It will be time and time's might

That will show that life and life alone is all

And if the world says once more, "No."

We will say far more—far more—than simply: "No."

— M.M.

Extemporaneous Soliloquy of A Hungover Man

Largely written one head-pounding morning in the shower.

My friend. I see in your face the familiar lines of pain and agony. I know these lines because they have been on my face too, many a time before. For far too long. But take heart, my friend. You are a vessel sailing perilous seas. And still, you must man the helm. Stand steadfast at your ship's prow. And laugh. Laugh in the face of the oncoming and treacherous waves. For there is a morbid comedy in the slaughter. And what is more brazen than to usurp that comedy as your own? You. You, my friend, have a friend in me. The strength that I know lives in myself, lives in you too. Everyone has it. It is simply a matter of channeling and harnessing that fortitude. And remember: It is you against the world. And the world is yours!

        — M.M.

A Fallen Son of Mine Own Self

O, tempestuous-hearted Son
Fallen down upon the rocky shore

Beat back from Heaven with burnt back

As Poseidon's waters lap at you

You fell from a mount that you so desired

Having careered too far and too fast t'ward the stars

Never knowing that light and life had incendiary breath

And would fire their fire upon you at will and smite you down

Once upon a time, you were the Son of the Sun

Wielding a starlit sword, a brand of prideful individualism

And could leap from pulsar to black hole at will

Ignoring the lashes or notions of society or knowledge

It was a glory barely known by the unilluminated

A revelation of utter freedom and complete release

You careered like a comet and knew no limits

O, tempest-son, you were more than most

Now you... now we... are here—upon the Earth

Fallen Sons of the Sun—burnt, seared, mere cinders—

Enwrapt in our own sorrow and our own loathing...

...And yet molding our eventual rise, our rightful Rebellion!

– M.M.

Fields

Extemporaneously written at Midnight

I entered, one day, a cemetery in a place unknown

And meandered to the cusp of its yard

I saw there a magnificent statue

The Angel of Death, Azrael, cradling a child

Enwrapt with this child was

The infinity of grace and Heaven 

I then walked further and further

And entered the garden of Death itself

But it was no garden at all

It was Death's well-tended field of our mortality

I am sure that those before

Who have trod here

Have mistaken the pestilence for peace

The rot for resurrection

It was then that I no longer believed

That Death was really a release from life

But instead the sowing of our lives for Death's field of want and wont

— M.M.

To the women in my life:

This missive is a bit different

A bit different because

My words impress on this paper a little softer

A little softer, but only as soft as diamonds

But are expansive; imbued with power

I began this knowing little of what my words meant

Till I did; till I knew

That how much I knew of women

Was so little

And is still very little

But to have come to know the women in my life

I've come to know—that all I know is:—

How much I admire you

How much you have taught me

Teaching me: To be a better man

And not just better, but more cognizant

Cognizant of the hideousness of our world

And to make my mind be less bent and less warped

And teaching me: The world's hideousness enveloping it

The rot of the world that must be un-enveloped:

All of its damnèd core, flesh, and hell

This is to the women in my life

Who, as soft as diamonds

Have pierced the mind of my own very old world

— M.M.