The Black Book

By Mark DK Berry

Poetry Collection 1997 - 2003. These were all written while living in West London between 1997 and 2003.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark DK Berry
• Release date: May 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215703960

Mark DK Berry

Mark DK Berry's written works include fiction, non-fiction, poetry books, and audiobooks. He also writes and produces music. For further information visit www.MarkDKBerry.com

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The Black Book

Poetry Collection

1997 - 2003

Mark DK Berry

Introduction

This is a set of three poetry collections originally titled The Black Book, Gold Book, and Red Book, all written between 1997 and 2003. I have put them in an order here, but the order is only for convenience, not necessarily the order I wrote them in. I rarely titled my poems, and I only title them here for ease of reference. If the grammar is chaotic or missing, that was probably how I wrote it.

I was a prolific poetry writer between 1983 and 2003, to the point of it being a mania, or maybe it was what kept me sane. There was always a candle, a notebook, and a pen beside my bed, and I loved to burn the midnight oil. Around 1997, I first began writing poetry pieces that did not rhyme, and I progressed from lyrical poetry to short prose pieces, and that shift shows up here. After 2003, I saw the first signs of the incessant need to write slowing down, and by 2007, I had stopped writing poetry completely. This was a natural progression, not something I consciously chose. After that, came longer pieces and ideas for stories that I hoped might eventually become books. I didn’t find the focus to complete my first published book until 2018.

These were all written while living in West London between 1997 and 2003. I was in my thirties and had just left a failed relationship in Portsmouth to return to London and move into a shared house in Uxbridge. I then moved from Uxbridge to West Drayton, to Ruislip, to West Ruislip, to Northolt, and finally to South Harrow in 2003. I stayed in the Harrow area until I left England in 2007. I still had aspirations of becoming a rock star, but I was realising those days were numbered and was trying to figure out how to put that side of myself to rest.

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Accounts

What is it that holds me back?

Five years or more I have dutifully cleaned, culled, cutback and dusted,

yet still I am as far away as the day that I started.

It is not fear; my fear is all but under control.

It is not sanity; I leap from my mind without hesitation and return unharmed.

It is not old age, though it creeps upon me like a ten-tonne roller, slowly but surely.

Is there something I have overlooked?

Is there something I cannot see?

Is there something, or somebody, that effects me so?

At the cost of my freedom

I should be bound by such harnesses!

What is it that holds me back from the knowledge that I sought so long?

Is it the hunger for power, the desire, the need?

Is it this?

I don’t know, but I don’t like to think so.

My past; maybe something in my life, a memory, that I cannot quite let go.

A longing, a sadness, so deep I can barely touch.

I don’t want to let go.

I cling on obsessed and desperate.

What is this that makes tears well up in my eyes?

What burden sits upon me that I cannot see?

Have I not read and re-read all my books;

all my history, my loves, my hates, my times, my debts, and my tragedies?

What lingers in my emotions so dangerous and nuclear?

Memories of a love that was, will not fade away

False accusations, unchangeable situations, bad feelings…

Accounts still open: many

Accounts closed: none

Back for good

Pick me up for honour, where is the reward that I know I deserve?

I’ve still got my gun, and it’s smoking in my hands.

It’s been so long, but I knew I would return.

The dragon is dead, I took his soul,

he wont trouble us again now our life is whole.

He burns in the strings of this old guitar,

I won’t let it go again, won’t let it drift too far.

I always wanted you, it was only ever you.

You came to me in a dream when all was lost, and I made love to you.

And when it came to be that I would change, just like I surely should,

you’d still be here after all these years, still be here, when I came back for good.

Bad things we did

I remember now without remorse or fear.

We were like vampires swooping down to suck and squeeze the life out of his mind.

We left him a vegetable, left him dumb and soulless.

We were victims of a power that we did not even know how to understand;

the dragon coursed through our veins.

Forgive me.

Years gone by, and only now do I begin to understand what it is that we might be.

But you are gone, burned up in the madness of the fire that you could not keep at bay.

And now the time has come for me to surrender myself to a natural slavery.

I am dead. Life has no meaning or satisfaction for such a deep and unfulfilled soul.

I need to learn secrets, master the power that has flirted with my senses for so long.

I am alone, free, and prepared to go to the limits of life and death in search of wonder, excitement, and the possibility of immortality.

Becoming cold

Don’t speak to me, I know.

Don’t tell me how it goes.

Because for fallen angels there is no help, oh no.

Trouble breeds, when you’re down on your knees.

And as soon as you start to bleed,

your warm heart will start to become cold.

Beckon the life out of your sleep

Beckon the life out of your sleep.

Some minds are complicated, some are simple,

so long moving dislocated, blown by the winds.

Why not tie-down, beckon the light out of your sleep.

How far away are you, have I really been naïve?

Have I fallen asleep?

Not through comfort, but through knowledge of defeat.

Unavoidable death of life, how does that make you feel?

You have beauty, but with all the cruelty in the world

how can you protect the diamonds from the jackals?

Have you the power to breath life into your imagination?

Thoughts, images, all flicker through your mind.

The walls have been installed around you

even before the first day that you can remember.

If they could open up and let you through,

imagine how wide, how vast, how much greater you could become.

There is a strangeness here, bigger than you could ever have imagined.

You may laugh, you may claim boredom, as the clock takes away your time.

What is the purpose of our society, our circles, our friends?

To make us blind?

Truly there are signs to every path and journey in our life.

These words have a weight