Matt's Missives

Ah yes, the requisite bad poetry. Every once in a while I have this urge to embarass myself publicly. Sometimes it's a specific desire to put poems on the internet where everyone can see them. Such is my curse.

California Poppy

She wanders highways
fixing flats
and stopping cars, explaining
that the seasons still change;

that there is more to summer
than this black band of asphalt
and its rolling, roaring herds.

She talks about eating dirt
and drinking sunlight
and always wonders how it must feel,
always daydreams, about how we, too,
could drink sunlight--

if we only had the imagination.

Autumn Song

There was a song playing when we met,
a banjo twang of scrapes
and bruises
with the insistent chorus:
nothing is happening here.

But its fall melody
showered us with
burnt umber leaves
and questions of friends,

so we fell a descending scale.
Music of rain and late mornings
punctuated by laughter and sex
and honesty.

Before I realized it,
the leaves underfoot
and your voice in the morning air
were gone.

But I’m still pulling
notes from my head
and your red hair
from my clothes.

December, 2005

Posted by matt at 05:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

well, i've had a request for more poems--so here they are, fresh from a sailing trip and salmon run.

we slip off in the fog early
and it hides us all day
as we cross the open straight--
26 feet of clarity.

I'm reminded of a story:
a ship, trapped in some unknown ocean's mists
the crew's voices silenced
by the choking white.

Magic places live in the mist.

We pull into the bay,
tucked behind rock outcroppings
and uninhabited isles.

And as we drop anchor,
the fog rolls over us
like a sheet,
protecting us from the monsters beyond the bay.

Anything feels safe when the woodstove is stoked--
Even a hurricane at the back door of a home that can sink.

I

I see bodies on the banks of rivers
drifting in the current--
bloated, discoloured,
empty sockets, eyes plucked by gulls.

The feasting has begun.

II

And when I glimpse the one still living
struggling in the shallows
I can't help
I do nothing but watch
as he uses his final strength against the current,

but the water's too low

III

And it brings tears to my eyes,
his struggle to breathe,
something primal I have lost

and he dies under my gaze

IV

Just upstream they thrash a final frenzy
all this death
only given terrible meaning in my eyes:

their end only comes in the spawning grounds.

Posted by matt at 06:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

you ask "is this real? fantasy?"
but i can't answer

there's no clear, dividing line
between truth and illusion
just a meandering river
that seperates one bank from another:
it's we who set these in opposition.

you can see yourself as one person, play another
see no fiction, no fracture in them both.

when we wake our dreams stop
but they don't become less real;
light of day illuminates supposed illusions
just as dreams grow from waking life.

the only answer to your question
is yes.
and no.

sunburnt

i came out of the desert alive,
but wounded.

with lips like shattered glass,
harsh, sharp-edged from the wind,
now incapable of tenderness,

fingers cracked and bleeding
callused and hardened by burning dust
unable to feel softness anymore.

but every scar bears a lesson
and every hurt holds the promise of strength--
the desert reminds me that while broken hearts heal
a body unmarred by love remains tenderly ignorant of living.

beer, diluted with saltwater

sadness pervades this place--
it's subtle, invisible, but you can smell it
hiding in the smoky carpet.

you catch a whiff walking by
and it draws you in
the romance of pain.

once it gets you though
it's quicksand pulling you down real slow:
and the booze drowns you, not just your tears,
leaves you choking on the pain
you can't swallow and can't cough out.

just embrace it,
let it float you to the surface
till you reach the edge,
and find something to grab hold of.

Posted by matt at 08:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

my heart tells one story, repeatedly.
recited like a song,
whittled at: it's a work in progress.
repeated with every step
refined with every movement.
said out loud
sung just so i'll learn to listen
just so i'll hear what it's telling me.

Posted by matt at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Silent friend of many distances,
feel how your breath is still increasing space.
Among the beams of dark belfries let
yourself ring out. What feeds on you

will grow strong upon this nourishment.
Be conversant with transformation.
From what experience have you suffered most?
Is drinking bitter to you, turn to wine.

Be, in this immeasurable night,
magic power at your senses' crossroad,
be the meaning of their strange encounter.

And if the earthly has forgotten you,
say to the still earth: I flow.
To the rapid water speak: I am.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

I'm in Bangkok, leaving now. Tonight Singapore, tomorrow the Pacific Ocean. Some indecipherable time zone later, Ottawa. Game over.

Posted by matt at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Burn dimly in this darkening night
as a firefly, not a pheonix.
Light yourself with subtle, flickering beauty--
not to combust night's senses, scar its retina, choke its breath.
Don't let your glow freeze deer in headlights
Let it simply blink its existence,
let it simply say: I am.

Posted by matt at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

sometimes these words just get stuck in my throat
and I can only cough them out like a hairball

sometimes my fingers feel swollen and cut
and my words bleed onto the page, smeared and illegible

sometimes
a scream becomes a wheeze
a laugh becomes a sigh

and even though nothing comes out right, I can't stuff it back in
so it just hangs there for moment,
until it dribbles down and splatters on the floor

Posted by matt at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am not water
Sitting, waiting to be poured,
simply the vessel.

A full stomach and
Chrysanthemum blossoms in tea,
This is happiness.

Posted by matt at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)