DRAMA HAS BECOME THE NORM

Here is a poem meant to provoke some thought about today's relationships and why there may be so much drama in these relationships. I may not have articulated myself that well in the poem, but check it out if you like...

DRAMA HAS BECOME THE NORM

by matt burns

It’s strange to look at older people

And their relationships

And there’s usually NO

Or very little

Drama

Like my parents, for example:

Their relationship is pretty tame

Laid back

I’m amazed

But then I look at relationships

From the younger generations

And see 

LOTS 

Of

Drama

What’s the difference?

Maybe it’s REALITY TV

Over the past fifteen years

Reality TV has created a new norm in life

DRAMA

Because without drama

Reality TV has no entertainment value

But the overall message becomes:

Reality is about DRAMA

Drama is reality

Constant drama is reality

Creating drama out of every little thing is normal

Because people watch Reality TV

And they emulate what they see

And they say THAT’S what reality’s supposed to be like

My reality is supposed to have drama!

So these young couples come together

And their relationship becomes a Reality TV series

At least in their heads

And every little thing gets blown out of proportion

You didn’t hold the door for me

Cut to interview in front of green screen

“So Steve didn’t hold the door for me yesterday and I’m FUMED!”

Reality TV

Has made drama the basis of life

But needless drama is not necessarily life

It’s just entertainment

Meant to draw viewers

And boost ratings

The drama demon has wriggled its way into our realities

And if things keep going this way

Needless drama will overshadow everything important

And we will all be distracted by the drama

Our attention drawn away from what really matters

Drama has become the norm

TWO POEMS SPAWNED BY A DEATH

My dog died a couple of days ago and the feelings I experienced afterwards gave birth to these two poems...

A GOOD CRY

by matt burns

I’m 32-years-old

My dog died yesterday

I was pretty sad about his death

But I was even more concerned about how my other dog would react

I remembered the movie Bambi

Where the baby deer has to deal with the mother’s death

It was so sad

All this is what made me cry more than I’ve ever cried

Probably since I was about eight-years-old I’d never cried so hard

I’m pretty sure I haven’t shed much of a tear in years

I was pretty sure my tear ducts had dried out completely

Maybe my eyes have burned a bit, misted at times

But today I absolutely balled my eyes out

Over

And over

Again

In the end, it kind of felt cathartic

Like I needed it

Like it was a big build-up of sadness

And years of depression

Purged from my soul

One great, big detox

All I needed was the death of my dog

To push me over the edge

And wash all the melancholy out

I think it’s good to have a big, hard-core cry

Now and again

Even if you’re a man

Be a man

And cry

Cry like a man

DEATH IS LIFE

by matt burns

No matter how much you prepare for it

It comes

Obviously

It’s inevitable

And I’m not talking your own death

I’m talking the death of others

First, you’re shocked and feel nothing

Then it slowly seeps in

And seeps in even further

And further

And your stomach gets so twisted

And you feel sick

You can hardly walk

You don’t want to exist, think or feel

Every song you listen to is sad

Even if it’s bright and sunny out, it’s sad weather

Your job doesn’t matter

Career doesn’t matter

Money doesn’t matter

The only thing that matters is LOVE

For that person 

Or animal

But now they’re gone

Forever

Even if you believe in heaven

Or an afterlife

Death still absolutely destroys you

You want to stay in a room the rest of your life

Make no friends

Marry no wife

Give birth to no kids

Accumulate no pets

Because if you’re completely alone

You never have to experience the hurt again

But being alone isn’t right

It isn’t healthy

Being saddened by a death means you’ve lived

Avoiding the sadness from a death means you lived very little

Because relationships is life

Isolation is death

Indeed, it’s a paradox

DEATH IS LIFE

ADAM SANDLER HAS A NEW MOVIE

ADAM SANDLER HAS A NEW MOVIE

by matt burns

I feel like

Whenever Adam Sandler makes a new movie

He’s really just unzipping his fly

And taking a big piss on all of America

But what really mystifies me

Is how America drops to her knees

Not only accepts his piss

And rolls her head from left to right

Refreshed by the feel of the golden shower on her face

But she even opens her mouth

And laps all the piss up

Drinks it 

And swallows it

FOUR POEMS ABOUT PALM TREES

A photo I took while driving on Hollywood Boulevard.

Here are four poems sparked by memories of when I was in Los Angeles a few years back...

I KISSED THE PALM TREE AND THE PALM TREE SAID FUCK OFF

by matt burns

I busted out of the American Airlines terminal at LAX

I saw the first palm tree I’d ever seen

I ran up to it, hugged and kissed it

Maybe it was just a Pacific Ocean breeze whistling by my ear

But I could have sworn that I heard the tree say FUCK OFF

SPIRITS BEHIND THE PALM TREES

by matt burns

I remember walking down Hollywood Boulevard

Rolling my suitcase over the pink and charcoal marble

The Hollywood stars passing beneath my feet

And I had a weird feeling…

I could feel

And in my mind’s eye I could see…

Spirits kind of poking their heads around the corners of buildings

And hiding out behind the palm trees

And they seemed to all be curious about me

Like they were checking me out

They were shy and timid

A little wounded

Some were even maybe traumatized

I think they knew I could feel them

And almost even see them

Hunter S. Thompson once said that Hollywood is like one giant graveyard

It’s true

I think there are several spirits just hanging out on the Boulevard

Stuck in some kind of middle plane

Lost and confused, kind of lingering around

Afraid to move on

While others maybe don’t want to move on

Unable to imagine a heaven better than Hollywood

Why leave the ‘place to be’?

They had heaven on earth

Why move on to any other alleged heaven?

And other spirits may just be residual energy

Like a skipping record

Repeating the same pattern

Looking for the brass ring of fame and fortune

It’s gotta be around here somewhere

Gotta be around here…

Hollywood is one place in the world

Where even if there aren’t many people around

You are very much NOT alone

You are in the presence of many

And you are being watched

WATCHING THE PALM TREE FROM THE BALCONY

by matt burns

I remember the first night in Hollywood

I was staying with a friend on North Cherokee

We got pretty drunk

We drank at the apartment

Then we drank in a small dog park

And then we went to a small bar on Highland

After last call we went over to the Chinese Theater

The cement forecourt was completely empty

It was quiet

And it was peaceful

Just me

My friend, his girlfriend

And the spirits

I hopped from one set of footprints

To the next

Fred Astaire

Clark Gable

Groucho Marx…

I went back to the apartment

I had a pretty good buzz

My friend went to bed

I sat outside on the stucco balcony

I saw the only palm tree visible

I stayed there on the balcony

And just stared at the palm tree moving in the breeze

All my life I had waited to see a palm tree

And I didn’t want to stop looking at it

I was there

In Hollywood

Finally

At the place to be

The sky started to mist

And the palm kept moving with the breeze

I didn’t want morning to come

It was just me and the palm tree

Together at last

Yes

I was in the place to be

The place to be was no longer in the future

The place to be

Was

The

Present

OLD PEOPLE HAVE DREAMS, TOO

by matt burns

It’s weird when you see an old lady in a small Hollywood neighborhood

She’s raking her yard or taking out the garbage

The old lady juxtaposed with the palm trees is strange

Like she’s an old woman playing in a playground

Seems out of place

But you have to remember

For some people,

Dreams never die

And they hold onto their dream

Until they’re very old

And until they die

And they want to stay close to the palm trees throughout

I really admire

And love

These people

Because most people allow their dream to die

By age

40

Or maybe earlier

If you can hold onto that dream

And stay close to the palm trees

Well through your 80s or even 90s

Even if you don’t achieve it

Then you’re my hero

PUBLISHED IN POETIC DIVERSITY

One of my older poems has been published in "Poetic Diversity", a literary zine based out of Los Angeles. HERE is the link to the page and I also reposted the poem below. Thanks for checking my poems out!

WALK OF SHAME

by matt burns

The path is all too familiar.

Every landmark

Pumps shame

Into my blood.

It’s a conditioned response.

Like Pavlov’s dogs.

If somebody showed me a photo

Of any of those places

I would feel the shame.

It ruined the Charles River for me

Or at least that part of the Charles.

Or maybe just

That

Specific

Bridge.

First, it’s the mechanic’s garage.

Some sort of rack with tires on it.

The sounds of drilling

Tire pressure sssssssstttttssss.

Ratchets.

Each sound pumps more shame

Into the veins.

Then the bridge is next.

The Charles’ water’s flowing

The ducks floating

Birds chirping

All happy to start a new day.

I envy their enthusiasm.

And the innocence.

Nothing to regret from the previous night.

The traffic whizzes by me

And I’m still wearing my clothes

From last night.

All wrinkled.

My hair matted and parted

In all the wrong ways.

Alfalfa

Bed-head.

Crumbs of eye crust.

The drivers may be able to see

The blemishes.

Or maybe I’m far enough away

To still look normal.

But I feel and look like a zombie.

Dehydrated.

Head so fuzzy

Not present

Not even on earth

My brain cells all currently dysfunctional

My skull feels hollow.

The booze burned up

All the intelligence.

Like somebody had poured

Acid into my ear.

After the bridge comes a weird

Industrial-type-road.

Blue-collar workers

Pulling up to their places of employment

In pick-up trucks

Extra-large Dunkins coffees in hand.

Fresh

Energized

Ready to work.

And then there’s me.

The zombie suffering the consequences

Of a thirsty-Thursday night.

They glance over

And see that something’s off.

The attire isn’t right…it’s for nighttime

Not day

And it’s wrinkled.

Clearly suspicious.

Thank God they can’t smell me.

There would be odorous acid burps.

Sour vagina.

Stale deodorant.

Stale Natural Ice.

Finally I arrive at my car

Start the engine

And drive off.

Zombie driver

So dangerous

Hung over

But sober

So totally legal…

Legal, yes…

But everything is so very wrong

Not just me behind the wheel of the car

But me behind the wheel of life.

THREE POEMS ABOUT WRITING AND BEING DELUSIONAL

THE JOY OF BEING A NOVELIST

by matt burns

It really sucks when you put

A good solid thousand hours into something

A good year of your life

Which is a lot

And you work so hard

And hard

And hard

And you get sort of near the end

But then you snap out of the slumber

Break the delusion

Somehow get yanked out of subjectivity

And you see a problem

A big problem

A problem that is like a bomb

That goes off

From the base levels

And the tower that is the novel starts falling level by level

Pancaking on itself

And you’re saying how could I have been so blind to the fact

That this shit just doesn’t work

Why did I have to go so far down the road

Only to snap out of it

And realize

The cause was lost

The novel was doomed

And you wasted all that energy

And time

Time you could’ve been making money

You could’ve been so much richer

Even if you worked at McDonalds’!

This is the joy of being a novelist 

I’M DELUSIONAL (and it scares me)

by matt burns

You read an old short story

Or watch an old short film

Or some video you shot of a band

Maybe five or six years ago

You see it now

And it’s really not that great

But you remember

That at the time

Right after you made it

You thought it was the best thing in the world

Solid gold

More pure than the Pope’s shit

You were so delusional

It’s ridiculous

And it makes you laugh

But you can’t help but think

About NOW

And the shit you think is good now

And how delusional you are

You just don’t realize it yet

I’m delusional now

I must be

I can’t see through it

But I must be

And it scares me!

Life, I guess, is about peeling away the layers of delusion

But the question is

Do you ever get to any point of pure clarity

Or are we forever delusional

And are there even varying degrees of delusion

Or is there just an onion of delusion

With infinite layers to peel?

WRITING HAS RUINED MY LIFE

by matt burns

I’ve been thinking about my life

How to change it for the better

I have no major drug or alcohol problems

But I realize

That I do have another addiction

Writing

Writing is my bad addiction

Writing is my vice

Because like with every other addiction

I can’t just do a little here and there

I have to take it to the extreme

And when I take it to the extreme

My life becomes consumed by it

It takes up all my time

It takes up all my energy

And I end up having no money

And less relationships 

And without money and relationships

I have less confidence

And esteem

The writing takes hold of me like any drug

And it owns me

What I really need to do to change my life

In a radical way

Is quit writing

That’s the only way things will change

I’ll have more time

To make more money

And I’ll be less miserable

Everything will change

If I’m sick of the same-old, same-old

That’s the only way to initiate big change

Quit writing

It’s that simple

But I’m pretty sure I can’t quit it

And thus I’m doomed to be trapped in this hell

For the rest of my life

IT'S OK TO BE MISERABLE

DON’T FIGHT THE MISERY

by matt burns

I know that I’m supposed to love myself

And I’m supposed to think positive

And I’m supposed to be happy

But there are days

When I’m really quite miserable

Maybe not even for a specific reason

Maybe I’m hung over

Or maybe I ate some Hot Pockets 

Or some other microwaveable crap with additives

And artificial flavorings 

That tend to make me cranky…

Who knows why I’m miserable today

But for some reason I am

And I think I’m not alone

I think a lot of you out there are miserable some days

Well, sirs and ma’ams,

I can’t tell you how much better I feel

When I just admit that I’m miserable

And I decide to be OK with being miserable

And not fight it

Just say

I am miserable and it is what it is

Most of my pain

Most of my anxiety

Is born out of me fighting the misery

I’m ashamed that I’m miserable

I’m ashamed that I’m being negative

I’m ashamed that I’m not thinking positively

Because, fuck, we’re all supposed to be positive!

We’re all supposed to love ourselves

And be happy all the fucking time

That Pharrell Williams guy says BE HAPPY

Do what Pharrell says!

But I’m not happy all the fucking time

And I’m not going to fight it

Because fighting it makes me more miserable

And borderline insane

I am miserable

And I’m OK with it

It’s OK to be this way

Be miserable

It’s fine