Finish Line by Matt Lotharius

A long time ago

I heard an argent soul speak

It rang true with

no sound 

no rhythm 

no beat

I live in a chair far removed from crooked streets

Isolated

Books travel only as far as their pages turn

How strong can the heat be when your mind says to burn

That sturdy thrum that pendulm

Left to run wild

Left to run baseless

Away from other souls

My own growing faceless

Polished and smoothed by the trials sent

Illiterate to things I never read

Try to rush head long

into nothing

into forever

Into

Lives of those that never lived

Is that good enough?  Can I learn to forgive?

Can I come from the fire, that heat

Steeled from it’s suffering?

Or will I burn all that come near

Inspiring

 reviling,

 fear.

My own crucible

Steeped for too long I’ve had my fill

I wonder

By myself, are there others

By themselves do they surrunder

To the things I run from

Do they face them and come back stronger

Do some break then? There own spine sundered

I realized it’s hard to tell when you’re own life is cracking

Bitter pavement, cold tiles, curled lips smacking

Spears and jabs old wounds fester to long

Can I overcome them?

A question lingers

am I that strong

voices from the bones that I wear

proclaim there is no stopping here

all I can do then is move on.

Hope emits sparks

Sparks admit fire

Fire the color of passion

While that heat burns

While my feet learn

While my soul yearns

I run on.

Improv by Matt Lotharius

Icarus had wings of wax

he drowned in a sea foam

But behind our backs

we all have wings

made out of sinew and bone

You want music?

Then sing dammit

Even a crow has melody

You want motion

Then dance dammit

there’s no such thing as stationary

You want to win

Then play dammit

sharpen your skills till you’re on top

you want to live then LIVE dammit

you have no reason to stop

haters will hate and talk their talk

but you’re already up on stage

do what only you can do

only you can break your cage.

Spin by Matt Lotharius

It began long before you

It began long before us

it doesn’t stop

When you think about it

it doesn’t stop

When you don’t think about it

it doesn’t slow

As more people live

It doesn’t slow

as your  own life gives

it doesn’t yield

while it lifts you up

it doesn’t feel

as it grinds you up

what do we give to spin that wheel

the unending force of all that is real

turn and turn

our arms grip tight

turn and turn

hold on dear life

turn and turn

tears stream undone

turn and turn

new life’s begun.

A Meal of Brick and Cinder Blocks by Matt Lotharius

A meal of brick and cinder blocks

hands turn wheels

pull levers

Break stone into rocks

Move shovels and plunge stakes

grind fates

force hard gambles

tattered hands never realize truth

dreams turn slowly to shambles

Bones earn wages unpaid

Dreams turn brittle

in the shade of bank towers

hands grasping desperate handles

pull blades, draw knives, lock hammers,

scrape snow across glass, light pipes and scatter

The curtain drawn shut

 the mind weighed down by chains and locks

where can hope put roots on

brick and cinder blocks

trodden wearily but not down

feed your mind not the gun

not the pipe

not the hate

the way out is forward and it’s never too late.

Failure

Failure is the foundation of success

so fail hard 

so hard it hurts

so hurt it happens

so happen to stand

so stand too tall

so tall to see

so see it all

so all it begins

so begin on a step

so step on a start

so start with some help

so help someone else

or fail all alone

polishing failure

makes your brilliance glow

Poem Response to "Musee des Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden

Auden starts his poem off with an almost story like tone. It has a bit of nonchalance to it’s wording.  It speaks of how the masters (of painting I presume) were spot on about their subject matter.  Auden implies that many people go through their life time waiting for something spectacular to happen.  How children don’t really want something like that to happen.  How life keeps on pressing forward.  In the last block Auden refers’ to Breughel’s painting of Icarus.  Something fantastic happened, but in the end everyone was so busy with their own lives that they barely pay the event any mind. 

  I like this poem as a thought experiment.  It feels to me that Auden was making a comment on how people get so wrapped up in their own things that it hardly registers when something exciting comes along.  It makes me wonder how much that is true, even in this modern age.

Poem Response to "The Cuban Doctor" by Wallace Stevens

I’m amazed by the variety of poetry that Wallace Stevens has written.  While they all flirt with imagery in fun ways, I feel that this particular poem takes the imagery to its extreme.  The Cuban doctor reads like a stream of consciousness poem.  There is only imagery, the events written barely link to each other.  I feel that maybe he was drowsy when he was writing this and that he either saw these images or even began to dictate them in his mind and wrote them down when he woke up.