Tag Archives: Poems

Poetry

The Breeze & The Black Door: Poems by Mack W. Mani [OUT NOW]

I’m pleased to announce the release of my debut collection of poetry, available now via Amazon. Most of these pieces have been published separately in literary magazines over the last ten years, and it’s my pleasure to present them alongside several previously unpublished poems. Complimentary digital copies are available upon request for the purposes of review (see below). Here’s a little more information on the collection:

A cold breeze on a hot summer day.

Hot breath on Halloween night.

Distant stars beckon and blink out of existence.

From within the dusty halls of an old mansion, the black door is calling, waiting to be opened…

In this debut collection from award-winning poet Mack W. Mani, haunted houses, nuclear reactors, dystopian cityscapes, and unincorporated territories are twisted and reflected into prophetic visions of the past, present, and future. By turns startling and profound, these poems find new connections and meanings in the genres of horror, myth, and science-fiction. Purchase a digital or paperback copy via Amazon, with other retail options forthcoming.

If you would like to read The Breeze & The Black Door for free, with no obligation other than providing an honest review, please reach out to the author via email at MWMani@gmail.com with your name and preferred format of document (epub, pdf, docx, etc). Reviews can then be left on the website of your choice, though Goodreads, Amazon, or your personal website are preferred. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the above address.

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Poetry

The Breeze & The Black Door

Have you ever lost someone to themselves? Watched slowly as they slipped away from you, despite everything you’d been through? My latest poem in Deadlands Issue #41 is about the ones we love and how they can change right before our eyes, day by day, until all that is left of them is a memory. Read the full poem here along with the rest of the issue for FREE. But here’s an excerpt to get you started:

I heard some movement at my front door
but it was just a storm.

Drank my beer over the sink
so I didn’t stain my shirt anymore.

Fixed the leak
and found a place on the floor.

Wife’s been leaving the back door unlocked.

Not every night,
but enough to raise the question.

She bought some paint and a brush home
from Benny’s Department Store.

Had me paint that old back door
as black as a raven.

So I stripped myself to the waist
to feel the Halloween breeze
and did as she pleased.

I heard her unlock it
last night in her sleep.

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Poetry

Champagne Remnants in The Non-Binary Review

I have a new sci-fi poem out now in The Non-Binary Review issue #40. The theme was epiphany and I had a great time writing this one. Read an excerpt below and get your copy here!

Champagne Remnants

Shipwrecked on Blackstone Delta
S.O.S.

Her hometown became a dream,
a glittery story filled with secrets,
caricatures and blue neon hues;
Twin Peaks by way of John Hughes.

Small town gods,
brief and beautiful
finite and divine:
mayors and mayor’s sons
garage bands and single moms
shiny linoleum dulling all summer long,
cigarette smoking schoolgirl dreams
descending every night to rocky shores
of methane swamps where it is said
2001 is a nursery rhyme.

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Poetry

Arcas & Callisto in Polu Texni Magazine

Polu Texni is a fantastic magazine that I was fortunate to be featured in a couple of times. This piece was inspired by the greek legend of Arcas & Callisto as well as the constellations that bare their names. Or should I say…bear?

they always told me,
You should have seen her back when she-
(before she had you)
the beautiful hairless nymphs
of Boucher and Titan
had nothing on her
cut marble eyes
Mariah Carey jeans
endless flowing midnight hair

Your mother was a looker kid,
you know that?

...

[Read the full poem for FREE over at Polu Texni Magazine: http://www.polutexni.com/?p=10850]
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Poetry

The Grave Robber’s Confession by Mack W. Mani

I’ve seen Will ‘o Wisps
and St. Elmo’s Fire,
mostly them in the Southlands
graveyards near bayous or swamps.

I once saw an entombed woman 
come back to life 
three days after her death,
I had just slipped the ring 
off her finger pale and bony,
when she gasped and rose with a cry.

One summer I lived 
in the catacombs beneath Paris
and for nigh on a month
never once saw the light of the sun,
only pale torchlight 
cast across fields of bones,
wooden chests rotted to their hinges.

I have walked the hall of ashes
and seen the rotting face 
of John the Baptist.

Once in Afghanistan, 
I even spied a ghoul
prowling the trenches near dawn 
picking the corpses 
of both sides equally.

These are my qualifications,
such as they are;
few know as much about death
and the places of the dead 
as grave robber, 
so believe me when I tell you,
there is nothing beyond the grave,
but me.

No voices 
or tunnel of light
just darkness, dust, 
and these two dirty hands,
trying to make a living.

Art:

[Wooden Grave by Marker Majel G. Claflin c. 1937]
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Poetry

Posthumous

I kept your book
in the garden
where you’d left it
and watched day by day,
as the elements took it over,
sun bleaching the cover
rain swelling its pages.

From the right angle,
I could just make out
your hand drawn notes,
splayed across a corner of text,
the dog-eared page where
you had stopped reading
that sunny afternoon.

In time,
it settled into the loam
and there beneath the roses
framed and shaded in
hemlock and holly,
the book began to take root.

Before long
it stood as tall
as a sunflower,
sentences folded
into leaves,
spine extending
as a stalk.

And at the peak,
new pages began to form
as petals, stamen, pistol
gently folded origami
words not written when
you read the book.

Abstract and wondrous
prose and poems
from beyond the grave,
death having evolved your speech.

Fragments of memoir,
experience and tragedy
the travelogue of a dream
a journey into the surreal.

…such gifts they make of life here…
…blinding sun fractals bent at odd angles…
…Galore and Gore and Grammar…
…the pretense of time, alive and unending…
…my love my love my love…
…do not seek me here, for I am in the earth…

The thing lasted
almost a year
before succumbing,
despite my best efforts,
to the eternal,
withering, bent, and grey
I found it dead
on New Year’s Day.

Still,
I have the transcripts
those I could discern,
interred under glass
in a brightly lit corner
where sometimes
I simply sit and watch
and pretend that I can still
hear you out the window
in the garden below,
living, breathing,
and turning the pages.

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