Mungoetry

Well, here we are. I guess it had to happen someday. Having posted for the past 10 pages in the Official Poetry Thread, I desire a little more feedback and a place for my poetry (or prose) to have a place. In here I'll be posting pretty much anything I write, have written, my favorite pieces and my worst mistakes.
I'll pay homage to my Official origins and take a few of my poems from there before starting with my present and new work.
Any feedback is really, really, really appreciated because I really care what everyone here has to say. Cheers, and on with poetry!
 
*UPDATE TO SPICE UP THE OP:*
Seraph's cry:
 
Daytime city streets;
Angels hide in plain sight.
The sun shines,
springs back,
and smog roils overhead.
A long accepted reminder
of the world he used to love.

As this sepulchral remnant 
of celestial beauty
sheds his wings
and walks among the wicked,
his thoughts are turned heavenward.

Heaven's host brought low
by complacency and greed.
The frantic search for freedom
has soaked their wings in ink.
Their world corroded beneath them
as droplets of ink dissolved the sky.
Their bodies broke and spirits died
and then the seraphim did cry.

Their time has gone,
they pace, forlorn, 
and through city streets they walk.
One sad memory oozes;
forsaken to the next.
Bands of miscreants with shredded wings
take turns nodding,
take turns shaking.

Gabriel's sore throat will tell you,
Life was not always so hard for them .
Their days have grown long and cold,
Their feathers plucked and children told:
This world so strange
Inspires change
But our minds are old,
Our souls too cold for this place.
You, my son, my daughter...
Must face our fears and fly.
Let tears fall in the dust,
From a seraphim sky.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Falling free
Standing on the roadside, end of the line. Sky above my head cracks with anger, reverberating through my skull as I'm taken away. Darkness envelops my sight so peacefully, no menace, just sweet caress of nothingness. Stolen away into the void I remember nothing. From my base emotions I construct my picture.

Sensation rolling across me, cold and stinging, bringing me back to life. Realizing that I have gone nowhere fills me with hope. I'm tired of switching places. I turn to thank the blessed spirits of anchorage and find naught but my shadow. Brought back to my world with nothing but cloud's dispersal. The weight too much it falls through our skies. Knowing what it means to be free, yet feeling there is very little more to fall. Liquid mercy pools at my feet, conscripted into an army of community and hope. Assembling itself into the emptiness, filling up the spaces nothing heartless dare take.

Liquid mercy soaks through my clothes showing me what it means to be burned through transparency. Nothing good can come from this, but I've had too much of that anyway. Spine trembling from the assault, this body collapses under the burden of love. Love so sharp it cuts the brain, without so much as an entry wound, only sheets of liquid mercy enveloping my frozen skin.

Comatose states are second nature to this man, yet fluidity inspires new ethereal landscapes. Brought back to the void, not one of my own devising. Here I sit and here I dream of sailors lost upon the sea. Broken and splintered the hulls of their dreams, empty symbolism for every day they have spent alone. The rain was there that day, unable to stop these broken men from dreaming broken dreams. 

Sitting here upon the water I fall beneath the waves, unastonished, why should I be? Experiencing eons of erosion and weathering, my body breaks into the sea. Becoming one with liquid mercy, falling from the sky again. Sliding through the lightest air the finality of it all overtakes me, heavier and heavier the laws of our mortality imposed upon me. A single drop of rain, just a part of it all, falling fast and falling free. This could just be the end.

Splash upon the ground. Spray into the sky. Settle down again. Lost all sight of individuality we cost along this mini sea. Soaking into the ground, darkness envelops. 

Coming to once more it seems it was all a dream. Left with naught but my memory. Liquid mercy has forsaken me. 
 
 
 
In the moment:
Ideas borne of the past,
Hinder who I need to become.
It all feels so 'pick and choose'
When we forget... That it's all we have.

No matter what you say,
Only I can salve my pain.
I may have help, a guide along the way...
But it's something to be done,
By myself, at the end of the day.

To let go of the past,
Looking towards the future holds no merit.
It simply is what I am,
So letting go... I relinquish my hold,
Things will lie, where people let go.

It is, it isn't, only how I feel,
It's beautiful, shining inside of my brow.
Knowing brings me warmth,
And that's what keeps us afloat. 
 
 
Puzzled:
It's been a long time that I've waited.
Days to weeks, stretching over my mind's eye.
I haven't found what it is that I want...
But I have all of the pieces.

It's been a long time that I've wondered.
Ideas and emotions, some cyclical others abounding and free.
It seems that my puzzle is all corners,
Sliced asymmetrically.

Lying flat... The day floats by,
My passivity meaning nothing to whomever looks upon me.
The daily man, weekly woman, living piece by piece.
They lost their puzzle box years ago.

They see no need for the bigger picture,
With health and home lain down in front.
It feels so long that I have wondered...
For the people I have known. 
 
 
 
 
 
This is something I wrote today. Be warned, it's out there.
 
 
Addiction road, winding descent:
A melancholy mind grabbing a pencil,
trying to find his soul's utensil.
It's synapses fire and a twitch of the wrist;
you're off.
Drop a rhyme in your spare time,
pick it up and spare me the grime.
Don't leave me to pick up the pieces,
when you're left all alone,
crucified like your jesus.
 
Don't leave me here, dying in a gutter.
Take along as your creativity stutters.
Walk along side me as we clean up the clutter.
Take me along as your feet skim the earth,
talk with me as you begin to mutter.
 
I'll be your friend if you continue to elevate,
and you will leave me as soon as you learn to hate.
Crunch, shuffle, one foot, three-legged, deprecate!
Come down, fall down, let me help you up my mate.
A whistle in your ear, it's just the wind between the trees.
Calm down my dear, let me appease.
Never falter, grab your notebook, stop your trembling, be at ease.
 
The kettle drum inside your chest,
lay down for the day and try to rest.
Your fear is real and it has reason.
Every footfall along this path is another step towards grievance,
towards treason.

 

Hard travels:
\nBone deep, the weariness refuses to subside.
A penetrating vibration, your skeleton the source,
Originating from the heart, it's inside.
Hard-worn sandals, the straps fraying, soon to break.
A long and winding road looms out in front of them.
Dark and twilit at all hours,
Desperate undergrowth pushes through cracks in the pavement.
Devoid of all life, all warmth, besides that the traveler brings.
Trying to stay alive and striving to see another spring.
The air is cold, the last trace of summer fading fast,
All gone now besides this one who walks alone,
All gone now besides the last.
\nMaking camp the wolves howl and hair stands at attention.
Coiled to lash out, just as willing to run.
Fickle, feeble, the old mind is tired.
Still they set the fire, setting fear to the beast's feet.
Never letting themselves fall prey, even when the end is most desired.
The sun comes up, leaving the path dark and twilit, at all hours.
No light left besides that of the one who devours.
\nThe crunch of skin on gravel and a man stumbles into an oasis.
A paradise of reprieve, and the culmination of his journey.
Being so enraptured has spoiled his mind with madness.
They turn back, realizing it was all too good to be true.
All of this twilit wondering, all for naught.
All of this twilit wondering, complete insanity.

 

A Short Surrealist's short story:
 
"Puddles of Sanity" by Mungo M.
 
 

[SIZE=14pt]Puddles of Sanity[/SIZE]​

 
[SIZE=14pt]          Thunder. What happened to the rain-clouds? It won't matter if they find you. What happened to your shoes? A ready answer slips away and it dives into the sea of reality, ever so elusive.  Kettle Drums.  “So it is my heart… What happened to my heart?” is his part of his mantra as he plows through the trees that seek to cut him down. What happened to the daylight?  â€œThey must have stolen it from me…” and he readily believed it. After slicing his body with branches he is frozen, shivering, his words dripping like icicles from his lips.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]          “Who's there?!” he screams and the only answer  is the constant sound of chattering teeth. His skin crawls when it feels the poison in his veins, sweet release, I am not man.  No time for that now, no time left to wonder who follows him through the trees.  He knows they want to make him remember. He knows he wants no part in that. “No… No you are the lost ones… I am the shepherd, take the sheep instead.” He says to his friends… Where have all of his friends gone? Where do all these questions come from?! Enraged by himself he shatters his glass hands on the tree that whispers. “Shut! Shutdown… Shut up!” he is crying now, “Why won't you leave me alone? You have taken love from me, given me lips for words to fall from… Have you not had your sick fun?”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt] Crumpled by despair, the forest shrinks into darkness.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]          A needle through the eye! The perfect remedy for fatigue. An excellent reminder of why he heads headlong into the twilit forest. “Should I fall, I fall of my own…” Sanity? Design? Desire?  â€œlacking.”.  His mumbled words come back to him in fragments through the trees. Feet screaming in pain, sliced and emaciated his body joins them. Bone-deep, the weariness bites with frozen gums, crunching and gnashing until he is but a sack full of bone meal, the barest semblance of his brand of humanity. He is finally alive. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]          “Free at last… The sun is shining and now we melt.” Pooling at his feet is his mind, the slurry erasing the remnant of his past. He doesn't have to fight anymore. “Take the sheep…”, inaudible,  but the final drop into his puddle. The final piece of this man's puzzle.[/SIZE]

 

Shallow systems and the truth about myself:
 
I think we're all addicted,
or lost to the ways of the world.
I think we're all living a lie,
for our neighbors, for our friends.
It seems we're conscripted from infancy,
dropped into a system with shallow currency.
Always so afraid to speak our minds,
but it's fine and okay to do so online.
Kept in fear of not having the next great thing,
distracted from morality when our cell phones ring.
I think we're all addicted,
to searching, to hurting.
It seems we're all dependent,
on conflicting with each other.
 
Who doesn't want to be right?
To find the way forward, to shine another light?
We're all trying to make sure we've got the right answer,
so full of ourselves that we grow like a cancer.
Strangling our love for one another,
losing sight of our friends, our brothers.
Why can't we be more than this?
We can, we should, but it's rather hit and miss.
 
I'm just as addicted to these curses, just as human...
As those I pity.
It's all so horribly doomed, this attempt we're making,
at living side by side.
Because we never see ourselves hanging...
From words and nooses that trap us in place.
 
Byproducts of a synaptic generation graduate from our schools,
and try to change the world and dispel the mystery.
But still it lingers, the poison, the ignorance.
 
We're trying to understand the moment!
 
Our drive to find where we come from,
has blinded us to the beauty of the moment.
Has taken us away from what we can learn now...
I just hope someone finds a cure...

 

Sweet dreams, angel.
Slip away into the night
and in evil things revel.
Lay down your burden, let go of the fight.

As a flightless bird you soar through the air.
A liquid part of boundless freedom,
removed from all who care.
Closer still to the dark, still waters.
Closer still to a crushing embrace.

As a wingless seraph the wind fills your ears.
A starlit night reflected below.
All-encompassing darkness,
tempered with angel's eyes.

Dream of starry nights
and foggy lights.
Murky waters and pools of obsidian.
Personal hells and unheard cries.
Frozen tears with no colors,
and the angel's demise.

 

The Sound of Decay:


A porcelain skinned and imperfect goddess. She tells you that it's time to go, and you go on at last. She was the first, she can't be the last. A dark and confusing memory of love past. Her shadow's dress wears satin sin and lace, and it swings while she walks. It swings to the sound of her footsteps falling away; liberation and sorrow unified by decay.
A melody plays and you remember the taste of chocolate and sentiment. So bittersweet, so confused, so many tears that have fallen and you don't know why. Her skin so bright and smooth, a living doll of living stone. With a heart that never tells her mouth what to say. With a conflicted mind that loves to waste the day. With a dress of dark fabric and hair pulled to one side, you're the only one who wishes that you'd have died.

So she walks away, far away, a ripple across these still waters. Leaving room for another day where another imperfect goddess can find a way. A way to entice and befriend, to alienate and defend. A subtle counterbalance of love and hate.

My porcelain skinned and imperfect goddess... It's finally time to walk away.

 

Apathy and the self-imposed:

Grinning Cheshire faces whisper from above,
their silhouettes pressed into the ceiling.
Je rêve de... Ne rêve pas.
Discordant singing falls from above,
plastering the bed around him with suppression.
No more room to think, always room to fall.

The night falls dark, and still yet you lie.
Surrounded by apathy and slavering faces.
Maws that open only to close,
and open,
and close.
These depressing faces and constant
scenery changes chain his mind
and suffocate the soul.
These cadences sung by a mouth,
grossly fed, to the hosts of hell.

With eyes fixed stoically and sadly on the ceiling,
he takes another hit.

 

Tonality:
 
A steady beat;
hands moving with practiced ease
and fluidity.
Sounds rising and falling
as birds in flight;
naturally exalting 
and harrowing.
Constant oscillation from
note to note
leaves me breathless in awe;
and as the melody sweeps me away...
I am truly alive.

 

Untitled:
 
Accustomed to an act
grown alien and perverse
in the eyes of the all
assuming.
It seems, to you,
a fact of life.
As commonplace
as the wind outside your window
that begs you out into the night.

 

Tempest's Manifesto:
 
Turning to face the storm,
arms wide, welcoming it
like a long forgotten brother
seized by an ill temper.
 
It taunts and teases;
the wind, its hands,
caresses and batters
your once fine face.
 
All while dirt and powdered stone
whip through the air and
across your skin;
flaying you with long forgotten
remnants of all you ground to dust.
 
This tempest dissipates slowly;
clinging to life with desperate fervor.
This centurion host commanded
by Eurus himeslf
razed the countryside;
brought plague and famine upon
these long disgruntled lands.
 
Unfed and unwelcome by the natives,
Eurus' soldiers scatter and die.
Yet his dark and dying exhalations
herald new dawns without their glory;
a placid wind and the end of your story.

 

*Epigraph* 
I do not mean this poem to offend anyone; for it is not aimed at any specific religion.
It is simply the depiction of my distaste for unhappy people that 
try to convince me that their way is right, and that there is only one way to fulfillment...
But there must be millions of different ways they will all cumulatively suggest.
I believe one must look beyond the easy answers
and try to understand that sometimes absolute certainty
is absolute foolishness.
*Epigraph*
 
 
Metamorphosis and realization:
 
Priests and rabbis with synaptic disabilities;
they are suspended in thoughts unchanging.
They coast through life on the hearts and minds
of a devoted clergy.
They haunt our dreams and private prayers
with the ever looming consequence
of condemnation everlasting.
 
Yet when these tales, so depicted upon dreamscape clouds,
are dispelled by the ever guiding hand of our curious gods,
our desires to live life unbound by fear, we begin
to see just how little
we really know.
 
Must our first impulse and action be to scramble for the easy answers?
Perhaps first entertaining, pondering, and debating these proverbs
before
we submit ourselves to the whims of any spiritual conscription
could save us from
wasting our time.
 
What if we could look beyond the skeletons in parishioner's robes
that shuffle along the gothic hallways of our long and sleepless nights, 
and see the corner they want to back you into? Your fear of death,
of letting the dead truly lie,
hem you in on every side.
 
Perhaps, if we can break out from these frightful personal prisons,
one can learn to sing songs of love, life, and the living
without relying on another's hand to guide them.
If only we sought the amiable path of self-acceptance
and coexistence
that leaves us free from self-loathing and
these surreal caricatures of eternity.
 
Those phantasmagorical scenes that adorn the winding corridors
that I walk on sleepless nights. 
When I set off in total silence to gain audience with myself.
When did it begin to feel like I had to shout to be heard 
in my own mind? For my thoughts were discordant at best 
when fear was tending my thoughts.
 
It took me too many years to understand what my true self had always known,
because the lessons of priests and rabbis;
all of them pretenders to the throne;
warred for my attention.
I believe they died
the same way they lived.
 
Sleeping.
 
 
 
 
 
 
                      --- Mungo Man, 3/18/2014, copyright.