Matt Kane

THE SUN TODAY

admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:55:49 +0000

The sun today
like yellow cellophane.
We each sit, sipping hot
coffee and digesting
our digital lives.
We each sit, performing
passionless jobs; Knuckles
at the ready before blank
glowing cubes.
The sun today, for some,
will be all that was good;
The others, I suppose,
never woke up
and they probably never will.
Poetry is dull. Long live bullshit.
Long live the business man.
Long live his ego.
Long live the self hatred of every man
whose pockets never dug deep enough
to spare him ten minutes in the morning
for just himself and just himself
to adjust himself to his daily fact.
Long live the sun today,
like yellow cellophane,
and those who spared
the moment to notice.
Self pity at the ready,
my coffee cup is empty (again)
and it is time to go do the work
which is pointless because I possess the soul
that they yearn to buy, extending patio decks
and sun roof everything.
I hate them all, but they feed me,
so I guess I’ll spend another day
giving up on the dream,
so that they can sleep better in their lives,
knowing the add-to-cart button
was moved 2 pixels higher. Shit.
Fuck my life with an electric bayonet.
Is this what I am living for?
I’ll just keep the blinds
turned open, hoping for a more sunny metaphor.

I pray for rain

admin — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:10:08 +0000

I pray for rain.
I pray for the excuse
that keeps me
from going out there,
where the job waits
and the hundreds of
swarming fingers
flinch
at my skin,
I wear like a loosely tied
bathrobe.
But the sun today shines
and the bright gray turns
to dim blue.
I have to go out there.
My coffee cup is dry.
My own fingers, itchy to draw,
will have to wait.
The forecast is sunny
for that which I do not want.
And as the employment rate
dips, I should complain?

PEOPLE WITHOUT PASSION

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:47:31 +0000

People without passion
are like odorless farts.
They make plenty of noise,
but in the end, nobody cares
that they hung around.

for Angelina

admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:44:17 +0000

haters will hate,
crickets will chirp,
and your smile, like the sun,
will rise and endure
beyond their control.

OUTSIDE SUN

admin — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:05:29 +0000

Outside, the sun was wispy as spiderwebs,
weeping beneath the weight of one
thousand crows marching the horizon
like tar and feathered skeleton soldiers.
Outside, that sun—
like so many gray skinned silhouettes
of human beings, standing and waiting
with no action and no hurry;
Just leaning its worries on the wind;
Just the melancholy satisfaction
of knowing itself, here and now;
“Just tomorrow, perhaps,” it seems to say.
“Tomorrow, perhaps, will be my day.
If not, okay. If not,” it seems to say.

I move out and away
from the shadow box window,
climb back into her bed and fall asleep,
dreaming of the sequins
pasty tightrope walkers always wear
(whenever dreaming is concerned).
She, beside me, whispers nothing
and the sun, back in its box,
quiet as tear soaked sand.
Fingernails clasped;
It is perfect and
I begin to forget.

Outside, that sun;
Wispy as spiderwebs;
Gray skinned silhouettes
standing about, sipping
salt from the seas,
spitting sequins on she;
“Oh,” my acrobat.
“Oh,” my lady.
“Oh,” the absurdity of your skin
running so ripe ‘round me.
“Oh,” history—
how I admire your scenery
passing me.

Outside the sun;
Outside, that sun.
Outside, outside;
That outside sun.

Consensus of the living

admin — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:07:29 +0000

Success is survival—
and only attainable
for limited amounts
of time, which is final
and finally immeasurable.

Immortality belongs only
to the living.
Dead don’t count—
and if they did, the living
would surely put
an end to them.

CHANGE

admin — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:38:38 +0000

They say that in the average life
of a person from our generation,
each of us will have passed
through our pockets:
3 Indian Head Pennies,
2 Mercury Dimes,
1 Buffalo Nickel,
and a lifetime of opportunity;
If only we slowed down long enough
to pay attention to our change.

A WEAK WINTER

admin — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:16:02 +0000

The sun is out this morning. My blinds are pulled open. Sitting here, shirt off, I remember I’d forgotten how good it feels. All I need now is a twirping bluebird and maybe the hum of a lawn mower; I’ll be transported back to my childhood bedroom in Illinois. Playing with wood blocks, admiring how sunbeams cut through dust. The house I grew up in was always very dusty. Five humans and a dog; Constantly shedding hair, skin, fingernails, and other maladies of the living. But when the sun was out, it made all the dust a three ring circus, cart wheeling through the air, as I clap my hands in the spotlight. Back then, it didn’t take much to amuse me. Sitting here, shirt off in the sun, it still doesn’t take very much; Just a good sunbeam. Just a good cup of coffee, now. Just a good morning; Remembering the bluebird.

ONE NIGHT IN THE TAR PITS

admin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:58:02 +0000

One night in the tar pits;
A dream I was stuck in.
And the baby walrus washed ashore.
People ran away from the rising tide
and I stumbled in, off the curb;
Sank in the mud, down,
down, down— lifting my arms;
The baby walrus was dead.
The baby seal was also dead,
covered in dusty white
flowers and feathers.
There was not much
inside that black bubbling water
that hadn’t died or wasn’t dying.
It was all so long ago that the people were
right, running from the shore—
up the broken bricks, praying for laughter—
for wasted breathes, grinning like moonlight.
One night in the tar pits; I woke up,
still stuck in my dream(s).
“Oh fuck,” I said.
And the baby walrus was still
dead. And the baby seal, still
preaching to the sun
like bleached bones
sailing over my waking grave.
Coffee, coffee, and more
coffee saved me that day;
This day, the next—
and each day after
that I do not escape my dreams,
anchored like a cypress tree,
growing for a thousand years.
“Oh fuck,” I say. And I go on dreaming,
while my burrow in the tree trunk
goes on burning. Sssssssssssssssss—
(the sound it makes) sssssssssssss.

FLOUR AND WATER

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:10:11 +0000

In the golden morning,
even in the gray,
I am the grain
before it is ground.

Here, beside my shadow,
I am.
And even when I am not,
my shadow is still
just as real
as it is here, beside me.

Before I am plucked,
picked, pocketed,
or otherwise requisite
by the necessities
of slap-happy-stupid
human beings.

“My children.”
“My 401K.”
“My insurance.”
“My house.”
“My bills.”
“My bank accounts.”

My, my, my;
They all buy into
the same dream;
The same clogs
that turn their wheel.

In the golden morning,
even in the gray,
I am the grain
before it is ground.

And as wheels spin—
and the stone turns,
I will be screaming.
I will be shrieking.
I will not stop
screeching
until I am planted
back beneath the ground.

Here, beside my shadow,
I am still
the grain before it is
ground.