In a quiet corner of St. Louis, Raphael Maurice is working. Surrounded by hundreds of books, a smoldering ashtray and cold cups of coffee, he writes and writes from early dawn, composing poems and songs inspired by his intense 31 years of life.

Maurice belongs to local rock group Miles of Wire. He shines on guitar and vocals. Their sound is reminiscent of Midwest angst and bands like Wilco, Replacements and Whiskey Town. With two albums to their name-All There Is and Can You Feel It? (rated #5 in the St. Louis Post Dispatch “Best of St. Louis Music” in 2006)-the band lets go where their influences hold back. In songs like “Murder Me,” and “Still Standing” Maurice screams his way through songs about drugs and disorder, while injecting a heavy dose of heart.

“I don’t think I’ve followed influence enough. I was just very sick when I wrote that music. It gave it some tenderness but also hindered what I could do as a guitar player,” said Maurice.

Growing up in Washington, Mo., Maurice realized that the microcosm of small town life affected his artistic side, influencing his recent move into the city. Like most Washington diasporas, he has high hopes for his time St. Louis.

“It’s like when Paul Simon says New York City is too dirty [in Annie Hall], and Woody Allen replies ‘I’m into dirt,” he said.

With Miles of Wire on an indefinite hiatus, Maurice has been keeping very busy, constantly recording demos from his makeshift bedroom-studio. His D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) approach keeps the music very honest and lo-fi.

His newest EP, Paper Moon, personifies the humble nature of Maurice’s knowledge. Based on a typewriter given to him by a friend, Maurice constructs a mature and stylistically smooth soundtrack to the slow streets of his birth and to lovelorn adventure.

“I’ll love again Sue/Gonna type you a letter on the bright side of the paper moon,” he sings over a melancholic guitar line.

Currently, Maurice is working with new up-and-coming artist Nick Risler, whose arrangements are the key to the new project. Risler belongs to the local Radical Sons, who have recently been signed to Secretly Canadian’s subsidiary, St. Ives.

Even with all the action in music, Maurice still finds time for his first love-knowledge. On top of enjoying philosophy, Maurice translates poetry. Currently he has been working on sections of the Odyssey (in original Greek), in which Odysseus is sleeping, in order to apply it to a book of poetry he is writing about insomnia.

He plans to attend Saint Louis University next fall in order to finally finish his undergraduate degree.

It has been a long a difficult road for Maurice in the past decade. While attending college at the University of Missouri, he had a breakdown and drove to St. Louis while having hallucinations and hearing voices.

“It was like a split in the mind,” he said of the experience. “I felt like I was about to jump out of my skin.”

Later on Maurice was diagnosed with high-functioning schizophrenia. He was admitted to a ward for a short amount of time.

As he was walking into the hospital, all he could say to his mother was, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

The disorder plagued Maurice for several years until he was able to better manage it.

After his release, talking and communicating felt unimportant to him. Songwriting became his baseboard to rebound and to express himself.

“I have a lot of catching up to do,” he said about being inactive in conversation.

Maurice has a number of ideas about what makes music important.

“If I can’t have success in my own art, then it’s important that we have listeners and readers,” he said. “It’s this implicit entitlement of people that read a lot, to write.but if it’s in the lap of the gods and it doesn’t go.it just doesn’t go.”

For Maurice, art is in the hands of the people. But the art he creates is definitely one of a kind.

Maurice’s music can be heard online www.myspace.com/milesofwire and www.myspace.com/raphaelmaurice.