‘Rebel Angels’ was published in 1997 by Mad Celt Publishing Co. It is the work of Mark Kinnaird, Paul Ferguson and Ben Armstrong. This anthology of poetry centres itself around the central theme of Milton’s quote:

“Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a Heaven.”

from ‘Paradise Lost’. The poems are divided into three categories: ‘Creation’, ‘Grace’ and ‘Fall’. ‘That is when it all began (bang)’ comes from the latter.

that is when it all began
(bang)

bang
tomorrow awakes cold and wet inside of me
equal in its emptiness to yesterday
i see a blending
an equilibrium of memories
now is nonexistent
either resting in the future or behind
times is all of one moment locked in by landmarks
that i share with the person next to me
who may not really be there
only filling a need in my subconscious

written words become literature
not my own
a time existed without them
like me who exists in a certain time
even einstein cannot fully explain
we all innately know that something exists beyond us
i hope my daughter has arrived
campbell said the physical ascension of christ
is governed by the laws of physics
so much for a philosophy
that cannot break that barrier of metaphysics
and can i only hope i prepare for that journey
that i cannot believe in
i will not except that christ was here
and i was not even thought of

and where do we go from here with atomic weapons
that have no bosses
yet bosses only steal
the creativity of the human mind
and are amply rewarded for jobs well done
and i relinquished my place in the world
i refuse to believe in a god
who sacrifices his son
when i want my daughter back so desperately
and my son still cries for his sister
and i am a bad father who lets his child die
like a fish in a bowl full of tears
the salt kills everything if given time

i wonder but who in hell am i anyway
but the guy who lost hope
and left for oklahoma in the middle of the night
about twelve years ago
and married my wife a year later
and for me that is when it all began
and once again
bang

~ msk

‘Rebel Angels’ was published in 1997 by Mad Celt Publishing Co. It is the work of Mark Kinnaird, Paul Ferguson and Ben Armstrong. This anthology of poetry centres itself around the central theme of Milton’s quote:

from ‘Paradise Lost’. The poems are divided into three categories: ‘Creation’, ‘Grace’ and ‘Fall’. Monolith comes from the latter.

monolith

I.
alone and yet with you
we share an inner familiarity
like some nordic legend or celtic song
i walk crowded streets bumping into others
that have no real adhesive to anything
no religion brings us together like brothers or sisters
who share blood but not water
looking heavenward seeking some unity
of god with hope heavy hearts
and my mother had children with another husband
nothing lasts forever
years since i shared my life with her
and my father never said sorry for transgressions
i moved away from home in both senses of the word
and had children of my own
yet i stand alone as a tree on northern plains
some last indian prayed for me
dying alone after his kind
and who weeps for him on empty mountaintop
and heaven below
where do i go from here with no gravity in my heart
soon the doors will all close

and leave me alone with myself
like my father who killed love in the early seventies
and never found it in the eighties
dutifully repeating my grandfather’s teachings
of the forties when the war came and he died
before i was born so he is little if nothing to me
compared with the woman who lives in the post office
and puts the mail in the box
so I can communicate to the rest of the world
beyond the mail slot
and that mail lady has no husband any longer
he left to go his own way
with the woman at the corner store
who dressed in a tight well fitted dress
made for summer
those who fish use their own bait
i have become lost to you and everyone else
because i have lost the vision
that keeps the flame alive
once it burned so brightly in the night and day
where have you gone my daughter
do you see the light or is it dark in your box
speak to me in my dreams
sing for your mother
you moved so far away and left me alone

II.
a where do i go from here
all alone and scared of the real world
and people that see the beauty in the dollar
and kill for stacks of hearts
that have nothing in common
see the eye atop the pyramid
your heart sinks so low into the ocean
where it came from
and the mountains fall into the sky
generations change at midnight with no fanfare
vietnam falls before my eighteenth birthday
once again separated from others
i have killed in a moment of rage
i will crawl back into the ocean
to live again and sprout gills
and chase the lures of women in tight summer dresses
before i see you again
until then i sit alone on a mountaintop
that is continentally drifting into the sky
away and away
I see the end and keep it to myself
because the wall is too thick
yet only a foot high
the day died into night once again

stars were hidden by clouds
that were wrapped around my ring finger
doors close at midnight and eight in the morning
when the world unhibernates
and the stock exchange roars or bellows
yet I sit with cigarette in hand
removing seven minutes from my life
please take it from november sixteenth
at about ten-fourteen in the evening
the sun had set months before
the night was cold and the wind
my god the wind
killed me that night in a labor room
at the hospital on the west side of town
not a westside story
but a story everyone has forgotten
a cast of thousands
trimmed to a solitary figure
in a cemetery walking among the upright stones
last touched by craftsman
that’s me alone in the empty field
one stone of my own carving
scratched for eternity with a solitary word
esse
that is all
rain washed the dust away momentarily

when you looked away
your eye has a cataract
yet mine works with a wink
to my ocean of fears
and do get wet with me
walk away if you must
and leave me alone like a drunk in an alleyway
who has wet himself
we are not oceans
we are trees
but only for mere moments
so keep away with your saw
for i am the last
alone in a field with a desert creeping at night
wanting to consume me at last

III.
leaves fall at night and clutter lives
do you see that i have fallen
even with the cataracts god sees me fall
into the sky at night
and leave the sun to rise alone
we can make it the monolith for contingent days
the night belongs to the trees

granted trees grow in the light
nighttime is for breathing free
release me or come away
one and one make one
death is the resin of life
sticky like summer southern nights
alone with me we can see the day
from new perspectives
eliot left
cummings fell to pieces
pound became a beast
and I am unborn with no voice or eyes
my mother left before i was born
i am your shadow at night
with a bouquet of flowers
can i come to the front door
better yet i wait in the shed
your mind is empty to the sins in your life
they are there and so am I
i see you mount and unhappily dismount
and move back to your night hidden world
with propriety
i stand alone and see it all
your daughter tells me secrets
horrible little secrets of your world
i quietly listen and see

as you faintly scream to me in your tongues
i am acquainted with languages
there is nothing as common as a forked tongue
don’t call to me and don’t follow
i am not worth the trouble and you the same
we cant tell each other of love
because love is absent
it has no definition

IV.
my father was a rock
my mother was a stone
i am a dinosaur
and we are independent of community
parallel universes can never be one
we are pebbles of sand
spread across a universe
each and all a monolith

~ msk

i was going through some old discs and i found one with pictures of bryant’s first deployment to iraq. mostly pictures of guys looking (trying) real tough with their respective weapons. i found this one that defines who my son is, at least in my mind. was it fate that he became a marine, or was it just chance? i might say that it was fate, the marine motto really defines who i think his core being is, semper fidelis. while we see our children grow up we collect all the candid snapshots during their lives. this picture is who i see him as in totality. take the time to define the picture, look at everything and come up with the sum.

in november he will come home and his part in this generation’s “national nightmare” will be over. i love my son, but i hate this fucking war, it has taken his innocence, but we are one of the lucky families, he IS coming home and not as earthly remains. well see if this fucking nightmare haunts him for years to come; i pray not, i also pray for all the victims of my nation’s mess.

so look at the picture and see a flash of the child i remember fishing with on the crosspike, the joker that stripped to his underwear, put on a mask and chased girls on halloween while his friends taped it all, see the kid that was so impressed by the iwo jima monument in washington that he became a u.s. marine, but most of all see the guy who did what he thought he needed to do.

muskogee 1982

left kentucky at midnight and drove

all night long just to run away from home

and i drove with an abandon

reckless and barely noticing what passed my window

streaking through west

memphis where those boys 

were killed by some guy 

who had nothing better to do

and finally “oklahoma is ok”

and i believed it because i needed to

i missed the azalea festival in muskogee 

i had no idea what an azalea looked like

but some waitress told me 

as we sipped beer on the edge of the dance floor 

i still remember how my hands felt on her hips

i still wonder what she saw in me when I saw not much

and when i kissed her i felt like i had grown up all at once

honky tonk music fell at our feet

as we tried to understand

where we were going with our lives

and we needed to not make a dent in each other

to touch and part with just memories

i know she must look on me like a snapshot

of a time when her life was simpler

and that was all we ever wanted

ill try, but no promises made on this end.