Social networking has its pros and cons.  We’re all aware of this.  You know what I really love about the internet though?  This.  I can follow someone who lives in Qatar on Twitter.  They can follow me back.  We can have a message exchange like this:

MalikPeterson: Thank’s for the follow! Click the link here http://goo.gl/4OI6 if you are interested in checking out some of my poetry. Hope you enjoy!
Steph_Augello: Nice poems! I can post some of them on my blog, & link it to your site— http://poetymology.tumblr.com I think that’d be cool. Let me know!
MalikPeterson: Thanks…yeah that would be ok!

As a result, a post like this one can be born.  So, here’s a little more about Malik Peterson, direct from his personal site:

My name is Malik Peterson and I am an American writer living in Qatar.

I have been writing casually since the 7th grade, where I began to write short stories. Later on I got into poetry after reading Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Raven”. I guess you could say I was sort of mesmerized by the way he put his words together in rhyme, and how he carried out the story.

I’ve always aspired to try my hand at a “raven” of my own but haven’t yet gotten around to it. Though he is my biggest poetic influence, I have been careful not to become a “Poe copy”. I have recently embarked on a more serious approach to writing, while attempting to develop my own style and set myself apart from others.

…and here is some of his poetry:

The Misconceived Symphony of Synergy

Why must I die…for you to live?
Do you remember all the joy that you used to give?
Maybe I’ve gone crazy.
Maybe I’m dead wrong
Maybe I cut myself…
and I bled this song.

Why must I die?

Why must you create the hate…
that ingratiates the state of this evasive fate?
I’m perplexed in this pervasive place.
Am I a perpetual patron…
or a paper weight?

Do I buy now just to take away…
or sit and do nothing…just a vacant stay.
Do I fly high like paper planes…
or dwell nightly ‘pon memory
and hatred’s lane?

Am I proactively exchanging lanes…
or merely standing pat to await the reins?
Am I acting…to vacate…these chains…
or simply lying flat…
content to wait
for change?

Why must I die…for you to live?
Do you remember all the joy that you used to give?
Maybe I’ve gone crazy.
Maybe I’m dead wrong
Maybe I cut myself…
and I bled this song.

Why must I die?

If the absence of evidence isn’t the evidence of absence…
then how do I explain how my lack of presence…happens?
While my body’s in a black pit…
my mind’s intergalactic…

My receptors receive static…
while I’m trapped in the attic…
the whiskers of a catfish…
tickle my synapses.

I’m disconnected from the masses…
they are all captives…
believing they are active…
…I’m beleaguered by these tactics.

I leave these worldly themes…
to the fiends and the fascists…
and retire to my space station…
overlooking Atlantis.

Overcooking the atlas…
my world is blazing…
the fact that I’ve been gone this long…
is just…
amazing.

Why must I die…for you to live?
Do you remember all the joy that you used to give?
Maybe I’ve gone crazy.
Maybe I’m dead wrong.
Maybe I cut myself…
and I bled this song.

Why must I die?

Disassociation of the entities…
a crisis of the inner kind…
or one of the identity?

If I motion to deny them both…

how much energy
is left for the inner me?

The power and the synergy…
the showers of the imagery…
the hours of efficiency…
the blueprints and the finishing…

which led to this epiphany…

without a sound body and mind…

there can be no symphony

The Melancholy Of The Heartless Ones

If I feel then I am weak.
If I don’t then I am strong.
I’m not lonely…
I’m just scared to be alone.

If I feel then I am weak.
If I don’t then I am strong.
I’m not lonely…
I’m just scared to be alone.

If I let on…that I wasn’t soulless…
That I was seeking solace in the midst of the solstice…
and longing to be hosted by a genuine hostess…
who would pamper my heart with ingenuous motives…

I would’ve never approached this…

Melancholy of the heartless ones…
Melancholy of the heartless ones…

If you never knew I was a heartless one…
constantly in search of artless fun…
keeping appearances…an Arctic Hun…
there would still be holes in my soul…but…

barring none.

I’d keep moving forward…
instead of marching…run…
in to the open arms of a sparkling sun…
emotional confetti…the harp has sung…

and no signs that the dark has won…

but what about the…

Melancholy of the heartless ones…
Melancholy of the heartless ones…

But maybe you took my heart for fun…
a smile and a wave…so artful done…
so wild you behaved…a part of none…
so vile a knave…I hark…you shun.

So while I sing the praise of the darkness come…

Maybe you should join…

the melancholy…of the heartless ones.