Monday, June 30, 2014

LET IT RAIN OVER ME

I don't go to strip clubs often, but I've been to one a few times over the years. Here are two poems inspired by experiences I've had while at a strip club...




LET IT RAIN OVER ME
by matt burns

It’s my fourth time being at this club
But I’ve never experienced anything like this
It’s probably about midnight
I have a really good buzz going
And I mustered up the confidence
To sit down
Right by the main stage
Bottle of Budweiser in hand

I take out my one, crinkly dollar bill
And hold it in my hand
I wave it around a bit
I still don’t know what the proper procedure is
Maybe the dancer will come over to me
But, if not, that’s cool, too
I don’t really care for her too much
Her body is nice
But her face looks a little plastic
She must have gotten old
Panicked
And had some surgery done

More men come down and sit around the main stage
I realize they’re all black
And I’m the only white dude
I know I’m out of place
But the booze makes me not care

More men
All black
And more men
All black
Sit and others surround the stage standing
I don’t even know where they came from
It was kind of dead a while ago
But all these black men came out of nowhere
Like they just pulled up in a caravan of nice cars
Rushed the place
And they look really clean and neat, very well-dressed
They have tons of money
They keep throwing down ones

Two songs in and the girl is fully naked
She does very good tricks on the stripper pole
There’s some sinister-sounding rap song blasting
Something about waking up in a new Bugatti
And then some other song about a Trophy Wife
A black man appears to my left
He steps forward
He takes out a stack of ones
He starts dealing them out on the stage like they’re cards
A waterfall of bills covers the stripper’s ass in green
The other men sitting around the stage throw more ones her way
Then other men come up from behind me
They throw a huge stack of ones high into the air
And the bills rain onto the stage
Another man steps forward and throws his stack of twenty
Then there’s a man who runs by and throws the ones like a grenade
It’s raining bills all over the place
Dollar bill confetti

I’m so impressed
It’s truly beautiful
It’s not depressing
You would think it would be depressing, these men throwing bills at a naked chick
But it’s not
I find it to be beautiful art
The music blasting
Powerful bass pounding
And pounding
Pa-pa
Pounding
And then with the nice buzz
Sitting under the rain of money
It’s an experience like none other

It was like some gang just rolled in for about ten minutes
Maybe they were from Boston
Or possibly Brockton
And they bombed the stage with a bunch of dollar bills
And then got the hell out of there
Like that was their thing they liked to do
Go to the club
Stay for one performance
Dump stacks of ones
And then bounce

If this was a gang
I want to be part of this gang
It is so cool
So much style
So beautiful
So
Sa-so
Impressive

If it’s drug money
I want to deal drugs
And be in a gang
And have a bunch of money
That I literally throw around
Like I have so much I don’t care
I want to be these beautiful, well-dressed black men
And create their beautiful visual art
It's the devil's art
But who said the devil's art couldn't be beautiful in its own way?
I want to be part of their ritual
Throwing this money like they just don’t care
Tonight I don’t want to be white
I want to be black and in their gang



THE STRIPPER CAN’T SAY WHERE SHE’S FROM
by matt burns

The stripper comes to talk to us
She makes us feel loved
I know that’s how she gets her tips
But I still feel good
Talking to her
It’s such a nice break
From a regular bar
Where YOU have to approach the girl
Strike up the conversation
You have to put in the effort
But, here, everything’s reversed

We explain that we were just at another bar
And we won trivia
So we decided to celebrate
And go to the strip club

She giggles
She asks which bar
We tell her
She says she knows it
She asks if we live near there
We tell her, yes, pretty close
I ask her if she lives near it

But she says she can’t tell us

At first I’m taken aback
But then I understand
I tell her I get it
“As far as we’re concerned
You live in La-la-land”
She winks and says yes

The stripper is nothing but a persona
An unreal woman part of an unreality
Providing a service
The stripper is not human
As far as we should be concerned
She’s just an amusement ride
They want no ties to this reality
They want to pretend they’re not there
They limit the eye contact
There’s a glaze over their eyes
A slight disconnect
Their body is present
But everything other than the body
Is somewhere else

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

RESCUING OLIVER FROM HEAVEN


RESCUING OLIVER FROM HEAVEN
by matt burns

The boy was sad that his dog Oliver died
He asked his mom where dogs go when they die
His mom told him Oliver was in heaven now
The boy decided he would go and rescue his dog in heaven
The boy asked how he could get there
The mom said by going to Church every Sunday and listening to the priests
The boy went to Church and listened to the priests
After Mass, the boy asked the priest where heaven was
The priest told him high in the sky somewhere
The boy went to his neighbor the pilot and asked if he could fly him to heaven
The pilot laughed and said heaven was inside of him and pointed to his heart
The boy went to the doctor and asked him if he could perform surgery
Open him up
Find heaven
So he could find his dog
The doctor laughed 
The kingdom of heaven is inside you, it’s just a figure of speech, he said
So how do I get to heaven, the boy asked
The doctor didn’t know what to say because he didn’t believe
Ask your mom he said
And the boy was back at square one

The boy was sad that Oliver was far off in some place
And nobody even knew where this place was

THE MALL IN THE MIDDLE OF A TUESDAY


THE MALL IN THE MIDDLE OF A TUESDAY
by matt burns

Sometimes I like to randomly go to a big mall
In the middle of a day
And also preferably in the middle of the week
Like a Tuesday
I’m not sure why
I actually find it peaceful
It’s a little fantasyland
Yes, very consumer-based
And materialistic
But it’s still better than a normal Tuesday reality
Everything looks nice
And smells nice
And sounds nice
It’s all set up to appeal to the senses
So that people buy a lot of stuff
But if you can resist the urge to buy stuff you don’t really need
Everything is just nice to take in
And you save your money

I especially like the smells
The heavy perfumes
And colognes that punch you in the face
Popcorn
Pretzels
Cookies
And then the food court
Japanese cuisine
Italian pizza
Fried chicken
Steak and peppers…

Music plays over the speakers and the TV’s
It’s the top 40
Pop culture is everywhere
But that’s fine
It’s OK
I don’t know why I like all this
But I do
I’m not supposed to like it
I’m supposed to be one of those intellectual types
I’m supposed to feel uncomfortable in such an environment
And turn my nose up at the consumer culture
Those mindless shopping zombies!
But I like the people well enough
And I really like the mall
It’s so cool with the air conditioner
And it’s hot and summery outside
A whole different world
In a long, glass bubble

But I admit I can only handle it for so long
Maybe an hour maximum
And then I have to get the hell out of there

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

BANG YOUR HEAD AGAINST YOUR OWN STONE


Jonah Hill is the newest celebrity to be persecuted for saying something politically incorrect. Who will be next? Hopefully nobody, now that this poem has been published...





BANG YOUR HEAD AGAINST YOUR OWN STONE
by matt burns

The celebrity says the bad word
It insults a group of minorities
Bloggers are abuzz about it
I read all the blogs on the Internet
I actually get all caught up in it, like a spell
I throw my stones at the celebrity, just like everybody else
You horrible person, you!
How could you?!
Shame on you!
Shame!
But then I snap out of it pretty quickly
And I realize I’ve uttered the same word he uttered
On several occasions
Especially when I’ve been angry
And the celebrity was also angry when he said it
So how are we any different?

I realize I shouldn’t have thrown any stones
Only he who is without sin should throw the stones
And we are all with sin

In Hollywood
There is a witch-hunt for the politically-incorrect celebrity
“Who’s going to be the next one to say something offensive?”
It’s a big hunt
A big hunt for the offensive one
So bloggers can write blogs about it
And get a ton of hits
And charge more for advertisements
They aren’t even offended by any of it
They just pretend to be
And convince others that THEY should be offended
They enjoy masturbating to the sight of a celebrity with his guard down
It translates into dollars
It’s money to them

And the proper protocol for the celebrity is to go into damage-control mode
Apologize and say it was disgusting behavior
But if I were a celebrity I would just say 
Fuck off
I was angry
And when you’re angry you say shit you don’t mean
If you’re without sin, throw some fucking stones at me
But otherwise stop pointing fingers my way
And saying ‘shame on you’
Because this is nothing but exploitation
Shaming a man who’s angry and saying shit he doesn’t mean
When you all say shit you don’t mean when you’re angry
It’s human nature
You’re just not in the spotlight when it happens
Hardly anybody notices when you run your mouth
Maybe one or two people notice
But it doesn’t get blogged about
And it doesn’t become a trending topic on Facebook

Exploiting a man who is angry 
And running his mouth
A natural act that we all do…
That’s the worse sin
So do me a favor
And bang your head against your own stone

EATING THE LOBSTER


EATING THE LOBSTER
by matt burns

It’s my first time eating lobster
It turns out the fantasy was better than the reality
It’s a lot of work
And it’s also pretty savage

Here’s this lobster
He was alive just before going into the pot
And then maybe twenty, thirty minutes later…
Here he is
Boiled and red
Everything is still intact
Especially his eyes
Which seem to stare at me, eerily
And I’m sure his soul’s still lingering nearby
Looking down on me
And calculating how much negative karma 
He’s going to bring my way

I have no idea what I’m doing
Do you just start biting into the thing?
My uncle shows me how to do it
You take the walnut-cracker device
And you crack at the claws and the bottom torso
You crack and crack
You peel off the shells

My aunt comes around with a hammer
“These lobsters have harder shells than normal!” she announces
She puts a claw on the floor of the deck
And hammers at it until the shell breaks

I give the whole process a try
Juices squirt everywhere
Guts and juice splatter all over my plastic bib
I cut my hands as I peel the hard shelling
My mouth waters as I crack and peel
I get the itch
I catch the lobster fever
I savagely rip apart the crustacean and find the meat
Then I drown the meat in butter

You start out slow
A little shy
Neat and clean
But you end with so much salivation
So much savagery
Search and destroy
Find that edible meat
Drown it in butter
And eat

This isn’t just about the eating
It’s about the process
People don’t just love the meat
They love the hunt
They love the destruction
Love the salivation
Love the savagery

That’s what eating lobster’s all about