Welcome to Blackbird Poetry Pack #3
July 1995 - July 1996



Dear Readers and Poets,

At long last have I achieved a remarkable milestone in my poetic career!
I recently completed my 100th poem to date, which is entitled "Awaiting
the Meadow Mistress". Another milestone on the way is a brand new,
fresh pack release called Blackbird Poetry Pack #3, which is to include
15 poems, as well as an extra special 30 intro poems by me. This also
marks the end of a long journey for me, my dear friends. I have been
contemplating quitting poetry for quite some time now as lately I've
discovered I'm the only productive member and despite all attempts
to avail myself of procrastination within MARTYR, my attempts have
failed. Also, the fact that I haven't been able to compose anything
half decent has kept me worried. I resolved that certain changes within
the group had to be made and therefore I made them seeing as I had
little choice. My health has been failing me since the last poetry
release and I really needed to limit my use of resources within the
group if I wanted to stay out of medical care. So, I politely excused
the aforementioned unproductive members from the group and decided
to proceed with my plans for group expansion. I have always been fascinated
by the demoscene on the Internet which is a collaboration of graphical
art, coding, and music. This collage of art inspired me to form my
own demogroup, which is merely the result of MARTYR's expansion. We
are still doing poetry, however I have decided to remove the support
of the French language as it is nearly impossible to find members that
write French poetry on the Internet outside of Quebec. Besides, my
French poetry isn't good enough to carry the group's poetry.

Recently, MARTYR has acquired some new members such as Morlock (different
person from the poet) who is an outstanding graphical artist. Subliminal
was a feast for our musical talent, followed by MikPos formerly of
Nebula. Justice and I are still the poets of the group, and so we shall
remain.

Blackbird Poetry Pack #3 is all about feelings, thoughts, philosophies,
values... it exists in my world, firmly locked away in my mind. I expose
it to you, kind reader, so that you may experience what I have been,
what I am, and what I am to become...

This will be my last individual pack release, for after this time
I will be releasing my poems individually to the public on our FTP
server. These individual poems will also be displayed in our e-zine
monthly. For now, I am chosing to slow down on my writing and concentrate
on improving MARTYR before delving into any subplots of poetry. My
life has been chaos since I founded MARTYR and I hope the madness never
stops, but as my health has been on the line, I will be taking it easy
and resting more so that I can devote more astute attention to my collegial
studies, my job, my social atmosphere, friends & family, and most of
all to my soulmate Missy. Everyone has certainly been patient for me
to reach the pinnacle of my potential and I am convinced that this
is indeed it for me. MARTYR has been a refreshing experience and I
fully intend to ride the creative wave until the very end (if necessary).
It has unleashed forces within me that I never imagined could have
existed in my possession for all this time. I have explored and enjoyed
the richness of being in my poetry. I must have come a long way since
my early beginnings in Dark Neo-Gothicism to Neo-Renaissance. Of course,
I am more of a freestyle vigilante when it comes to my writing, so
I have received much criticism in regard to my talent due to the blatant
fact that I rarely conform to the "rules of poetry". To me, there are
no specific rules to writing poetry. It is a series of disjointed sentences
centralizing a thought, feeling, idea, or whatever else could possibly
come to mind. 

At any rate, I would still love to hear any and all comments and criticisms
toward my works, past and present. Thank you all for making my dreams come
alive!! Be sure to check out justice's poetry (when she releases it!) and
also be sure to sample the music of Subliminal and MikPos, our new music
members of MARTYR. As well, admire the simple chaotic beauty in Morlock's
graphical art pieces. I think you will find that MARTYR isn't always about
poetry, but about art. And on that note, "just martyr me"... :-)

Sincerely,

Blackbird <blackbrd@axess.com>
[ MARTYR - Organizer/Poet/Internet ]

P.S. As there are *WAY* too many poems to describe in this last poetry pack,
I will not be writing an introduction for each work. Besides, many of these
works date back to the beginning of MARTYR! Bearing that in mind, wish us
well on MARTYR's 1st year anniversary... (and I leave the poetry to you,
gentle reader, to uncover its vast mysteries...)

I WISH TO THANK THE FOLLOWING FOR THEIR SUPPORT ...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Melyssa McCowan : for being my one and only true to life and love inspiration
Frost / DCB : for helping me sort out my emotions and letting me help him
Depth : for being the all-around c00l guy that we all know he is! :-)
Zapper / F10 : for making the music that inspires my writing... thanks!
NOISE Music : for writing the interesting and unusual tunes I love to hear
justice / MARTYR : thanks for the guidance and your helpful suggestions...
Morlock / MARTYR : you proved to me that beauty lies in chaos... :-)
MikPos / MARTYR : for composing "Stages of Grief..." (IT)... I loved it! :-)
Subliminal / MARTYR : poetic and musical inspiration from "Melancholy" (IT)

Bleeding Shadow & Luca : for shaping my French poetry and for being the
                         awesome guys that you are! :-)

--> all trackers, coders, graphists, poets, artists, writers, etc... <--

