The November Editor's Pick Poet is
Mathias Jansson
Please feel free to email Mathias at: mathiasjansson72@gmail.com
THE PRISON
a square meter
of darkness
is my prison
in the tower of hell
the rusty grate
creaks under my feet
and from the endless
bottom below
I can hear
my oldest fears
climbing
screaming
reaching
for my soul
I can beg
I can pledge
but there will be no
mercy on my soul
since this prison
this hell
is not real
its inside me
SECRETS I WOKE
In the shadows of dark I can hear
The priest mumbling and praying
Slowly he comes near
Leaning down to me and saying:
Old man you are blind
What have your eyes seen?
Old man the call you insane
Where have your mind been?
Father seventy-seven years have gone since I spoke
But I still feel fears
About the secrets I woke
When will my endless night end?
When will light come into sight again?
Have patience, my son
Ashes to ashes
Bone to bone
And stone to stone
Let you story be told
So you once again can be reborn.
Father, I was just a boy
Seven years old
Lost in the woods
Wandering in a thick mist
Shivering and cold
when suddenly I could see clear
I was standing in a circle of a square
Voices was whispering
Words of no man heard
Suddenly I felt fear
someone was near!
someone was there!
I come from an ancient time
I could see a shadow climb
into the sphere of man
an endless void of emptiness
I could hear my self cry
and in the morning
I woke up blind
with a restless soul
haunting my mind
Father, seventy-seven years have gone since I spoke
But I still feel fears
About the secrets I woke
When will my endless night end?
When will light come into sight again?
My son, do not feel fear
Your secret will be safe
Because I was the One you meet there
LOVE AND HATE
deep in the forbidden forest
in an abandoned well
a bottomhole
of a stinking hell
in a wishing well
where all wishes
lays floating dead
in the darkest depth
deep down in the rotten mud
I found a necrophagous eel
wrapped around my hand
spitting out words
like arrows of black tar
that blackened you soul
and ripped you heart apart
beloved
now you know too
how cruel love
can be
Mathias Jansson (b.1972) is s Swedish art critic and poet. He writes both in English and Swedish. He has been published in Swedish poetry magazines and the Australian Retort Magazine.