Wednesday, December 31, 2014

FLYING HIGH and IN THE DESERT


ANNOUNCEMENT: Just to give you a heads up, I now have a new, non-poetry blog called "The Burnzo Papers" where I share my unique perspective on the world's current events. Please check it out when you get a chance. Thank you for your support and Happy New Year!





FLY ME HIGH
by matt burns

Red-tailed hawk
Flying high
Please take me to your sky
Where I have a better eye

I'm blinded by being too low
The murkiness of this negative frequency
Takes me out of the know

Red-tailed hawk
Take me high
I am in this spell
I'm in hell



IN THE DESERT
by matt burns

I look around at what’s close to me
There’s sand as far as the eye can see

I am stuck in the desert here
Do I maintain hope
Or do I despair

There is no path in sight
To any new civilization
I must remain in this place
And be ok with the present situation

Friday, December 26, 2014

MALWARE


MALWARE
by matt burns

I’ve tried to reset
I’ve tried to cleanse
But it continues to cling to me

The intense rage comes and goes
The intense depression comes and goes
One minute I think I’m ok
But then I’m erratic again
Illogical
Irrational
My feelings
My emotions
My behaviors
Make no sense
Almost like they’re not even coming from me
But an external entity

That girl gave me malware
And no matter what I do
I can’t get rid of it

THE NEWS DOES SEEM TO SLEEP


THE NEWS DOES SEEM TO SLEEP
by matt burns

I've been trying to keep up with it all
Every day is something big and huge
It's all coming at me so fast
I finally catch up
And stay on top of it all
And I'm really proud of myself for it

Then Christmas comes
I scour the news sites
I scour
And I scour
But there's hardly anything
It's not only a slow news day
But there's hardly any news to speak of
I feel a void
I was apparently addicted to being on top of the news
There's nothing!

Curious it is
That there only seems to be big news in the world
When the news people are on the clock
And they're around to report it
And make it into BIG NEWS

When the news people are on a holiday
So isn't the news, it seems
Thus, maybe the news only exists
When the news people are around to fuel it
Build it up
Or maybe even manufacture it

If there's nobody around to report on that tree falling in the forest
Does it actually still make a noise?

Why don't we just take the news people away
That way the news can sleep every day
There will be no more crashing of trees in the world's forest
The world will have less noise
Quiet down
And peace will be restored

World peace can be realized
Simply by ridding the world of the news people

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST


THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST
by matt burns

2014 is almost at a close
I look back on the past year
Mostly about the failed relationship
I think coulda, shoulda, woulda
Coulda shoulda woulda
I spend all my time thinking
And rethinking
Trying to wrap my head around what went wrong
Trying to trace things back
All the way back to the seeds of the destruction
But I find no definitive seeds
Or when I think I'm just about to find one
I find more root
And the root twists around and around
In circles
Tangling
Webbing

When it comes to a toxic relationship
Finding out exactly what went wrong
May not even be possible
Yet I can't turn off the coulda shoulda woulda
The endless racing of the mind
Trying to figure out what went wrong
24 hours, 7 days a week
Haunted

2015 is only a couple weeks away
As it comes closer
I see a fork up ahead in the road
Two different paths reveal themselves to me
A path where I remain haunted
And a path where I transcend my haunted mind
The choice is up to me
But it's not going to be an easy one
The Ghost of Christmas Past is powerful
And will be difficult to rise above

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY


WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY
by matt burns

I sit up late
Drinking beer
And listening to RUSH
And I think about what really makes me happy
Because that’s what the spiritual therapist said to do
I’m supposed to arrive at this conclusion
But I’m having trouble

At first I think about strip clubs
I am genuinely always happy there
But I know the happiness is short-lived
The next day, I’m empty

And then I think about writing
I’ve been doing a ton of that
Tons and tons and tons
But no matter how much I do
I never really achieve any state of lasting happiness
Or even a sense of accomplishment, come to think of it

Maybe if I finally get rewarded for my writing
With recognition
And money
But I’ve never received a penny for my writing before
So I don’t know if that would make me happy
And whether the happiness would last much longer than at the strip club
So it’s all hypothetical
And exists in a potential future that may never manifest
I may NEVER get paid for my writing
So happiness needs to come from some place else

But I don’t know where
I really don’t

What I do know
Is that sitting here
Up late
Trying to think about what makes me happy
Racking my brain
Does not make me happy
In fact, I’m much more unhappy
Sitting here
Drinking
Stressing my brain
Thinking that I’m supposed to figure this out
And keep coming up dry

So I don’t know what makes me happy
And I think that’s fine for now
I do not know
What beautiful words
I…do…not…know

Eureka!
The devil hath taken on a new guise
That of a positive psychologist
A spiritual guru therapist
Telling me to go and meditate
And figure out what makes me happy
Knowing full well
That I will stress
And rack my brain
And be convinced my unhappiness is all my fault
And I'll hate myself for not identifying what makes me happy
And that clever devil will laugh knowing he made me worse off in the end

Tip of the hat to you, O DEVIL!
You hath tricked me again!
Nothing but reverence I give to you!
Once again
I am in awe of your tricky
Clever
Ways!

Yes, the irony
Sitting here stressing over what makes me happy
Thinking the answer must be so simple
But not getting anywhere with the answer
Has made me all the more unhappy
Brilliant, devil!

So what really makes me happy?
Not sitting here
Busting my brain
Thinking I should know what makes me happy

What makes me happy
Is knowing that I do not know
And it's ok not to know
That's what makes me happy

Be gone, devil!

Friday, December 12, 2014

MY DOG COMES IN MY ROOM


My dog exudes relaxation












MY DOG COMES IN MY ROOM
by matt burns

I’m sleeping
Well, not really
I woke up after about four hours
I try to go back to sleep
This has been happening a lot
I’ll wake up after an initial few hours
And can’t go back to bed
The alcohol that knocked me out initially
Has worn off
While stress and reality have surged back into the bloodstream

But then I hear the pitter-pattering of claws against the wooden floor
It’s my dog coming into the room
She mounts her bed
She scratches around a bit
I hear her circling
Calculating the most comfortable position
Then I hear her plop into a curled ball
With a dull groan
And then the relaxed exhale
Oh, that exhale!
So relaxing
So peaceful

Just her presence in my room
Her energy
Relaxes me totally
And I’m able to fall asleep again

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

CIRCLING THE RINK


CIRCLING THE RINK
by matt burns

Drifting around the rink
In circles
Not even lifting up my skates
Just gliding
And pumping
And drifting

Around
And around
And around
I go

I enter a meditative state
And I realize...

This is my life again
Drifting alone
In circles
In circles
And in circles

I look up ahead of me
I see a young couple
Probably high school age
Maybe early college
They're on a skating date
They're so cute
They're wobbling around
Awkward with the skates
They look so happy

In an alternative reality
That could have been us
But now she's married
It's only been a few months since we broke ties
But she's already married to another guy
She's entered a new chapter
While I'm circling around
Back to the old
Haunted by the past

I hear 'Uncle Matt!'
My nephew's skating behind me
He wants to race
So I race him
And he takes me out of my head
This is what I need!
I need to be out of my head!
But my nephew eventually gets tired
He takes a break
And I resume my circles
Around
And around
Around

What happened? 
I'll never wrap my head around it
All I know is that I'm back to being alone
Going around
And around 
In circles
Desperately looking for the new
But coming back around again
To the very 
Exact 
Same 
Old

Monday, December 8, 2014

THE SERGEANT BARKING IN MY FACE


THE SERGEANT BARKING IN MY FACE
by matt burns

Isis
Ebola
Bill Cosby
Ferguson
CIA torture report
What's after that?
Back to Isis again?
Isis is pissed and retaliates?

Every day something new
Can’t keep track of it all
Hard to follow
Hard to educate myself
As soon as I get a grip on one current event
Another one happens
And when I barely get a grip on that
There’s another one
And another
Like working the conveyor belt in an assembly line
If you’re not quick enough
You’ll fall behind
And everything will just
Whizz
On
By

The “news” today is a Drill Sergeant
Shouting in my face
One trending topic after another
Assaulting my senses
I feel disorientation
My head’s spinning
So much that
I'm paralyzed with overstimulation
And sensory overload 
To the point where I’m confused
Stunned
Numb
And more easily malleable
Easier to control

Like with a Marine in bootcamp
The point is to break me down
So that I easily take my orders

Because I've lost my grip on what the hell's going on in reality
I look for the government via the media to dictate it to me

I don't understand anything that's going on

I'm confused

Just tell me what I need to do

Saturday, December 6, 2014

THOUGHTS ON BEING A GOOD SAMARITAN


This whole year of 2014 I've essentially been a pathetic pushover and it's time I draw the line. Like the poem says, sometimes you just have to push these people away and let them reap the consequences of their own poor decisions. You can't be Mr. Nice-Guy all the time.




THOUGHTS ON BEING A GOOD SAMARITAN
by matt burns

It's December
'Tis the season of giving
But you must learn
The fine
Tight-rope
Walk
Of being a Good Samaritan

God's idea of a Good Samaritan
Is not a person
Who cleans
Up
After another person's
Constant
Dumb
Mistakes

Sometimes people in constant distress
Need to
Rot
In the gutter
So they can learn
And make
Better choices in life

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

PSYCHOKINESIS


PSYCHOKINESIS
by matt burns

Boiling fears
And loathings
Fester in our subconscious
And fester
And fester

Some people say
These repressed energies manifest themselves
Physically
In the outer
Three-dimensional world
And cause actual physical events

So when you watch the Reality TV with all the 
Jersey bro-dudes
And the Hollywood Hillbillies
And the Honey Boobies
Honey Boobies’ mom was dating a sex offender?!
Cancel the show!
And you read the blogs about the “celebutards”
And see Kim Kardashian’s big, greasy ass on a magazine cover
Then come all the scandals
Bill Cosby
America’s favorite dad
A rapist?!
Disillusioned we are
And enraged we all get!

Then we watch the news
And there’s
Isis
Ebola
Then comes Fergusonola
White cops shooting blacks
Black criminals looting 
Burning down stores
Beating down whites!
Then comes Staten Island
Another black strangled by a cop
No indictment
Civil war imminent?!
The media makes us take a side
Are you with the cops?
Or with the blacks?
Fear the cops!
Fear the blacks!
They pit us against each other
Go and protest!
Polarized we become
And divided we rot
We can’t unite and get anything done
Frustration
Rage!

And collectively…

The negative energy
In each and every one of us
Psychokinetically
Manifests itself
As more negative energy in the world
And more bad events happen
Bad weather – superstorms, quakes, tornados, floods!
Bad disease
More bad Kardashian photos
(Kourtney just posed preggo and naked)
Disgusting
So gross!

And the media reports on these events
And we get even more loathing 
And more fear
And the negative collective consciousness
Psychokinetically
Manifests more negative events in the world

It’s a perpetual cycle of negativity
A snowball effect
A guarantee
That there will be constant fear
And loathing
Absolute hell
For all eternity

There is a great, epic war out there
Not good vs. evil
But positivity vs. negativity
Negative energy wants to win
But will we let it?