WANDERING BOSTON

Bates Hall at the Boston Public Library.

WANDERING BOSTON

by matt burns

I walk the streets

I take the subway

I go to the public library

I roam Boylston

Newbury Street

Searching for that great poem to manifest itself

On the Green Line

I notice everybody’s buried into their smartphones

There’s got to be a poem there

But I got nothing new that hasn’t been said before

In the library

The bathroom is straight out of a horror movie

Shit, piss, blood, all over the urinals

There must be a poem there

But I don’t have anything except what I just said

I sit in the middle of Bates Hall

There are long

Wooden

Rectangular

Tables

With muted green lamps

Bookshelves line the walls

Domed ceilings

Murals

Beautiful architecture from many years ago

I thought this room would give birth to inspiration

It’s got that look to it

Like an early twentieth century writer wrote a novel in here

But all it’s given me is an erection

Because there are tons of beautiful girls in this room

I can’t even concentrate on poetry in here

I guess this is a poem

About a desperate search for a new poem

I thought with all the stuff going on in the city

I’d come up with multiple poems

But no dice

Maybe I should have just stayed at home

Because now I have to pee

And the closest bathroom is the horror show down the stairs

Also, I think my car’s getting ticketed as I speak

Staying at home

And writing about staring at my bedroom wall

Analyzing the squashed mosquito and its guts

Probably would have yielded a better poem

Than what I’m coming up with right now

Traveling

Urban activity

Tons of different people

Diversity

Culture

It doesn’t necessarily give birth

To much inspiration

The traveling poet roaming around an exciting place

It’s a Romantic concept

But the reality is that

It gives birth to bullshit

Stay at home

Stare at the wall

Analyze the bug juice

You don’t have to be worldly

To come up with good poems

Come to think of it

I think I’ve already written a poem

With this exact theme

Thus nothing new has even been written

Case in point

I should have stayed at home

DEATH EITHER WAY

This poem is dedicated to four deceased writers: Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway...

DEATH EITHER WAY

by matt burns

I find myself

Facing this catch 22

With liquor

And my free-thinking capacities

Here we go

The less I drink

The more pain I feel being alive

But the more I drink

The less pain I feel, this is true

But the more brain cells I kill

Which also

Kind of

Withers away

Slowly 

At my life force

My brain cells

My clear thinking

And my free 

Thinking

Do away with the booze

And I’m very alive

My brain’s intact

I can think clearly

But I hurt so bad

Keep drinking

And I hurt less

But my brain withers

My thinking is foggy

And when I have less of a brain

I’m less of a human

That’s what stinks about this

Whole

Human consciousness thing...

Being fully alive in the world today hurts

So we drink

But drinking makes us less alive

So it’s all about finding a balance, I guess

Which is impossible

For the alcoholic trying to numb the pain

There is no such thing

As balance

WATCHING SKY9 POLICE CHASES

WATCHING SKY9 POLICE CHASES

by matt burns

I'm sitting here at my computer

I drank a lot of beer tonight

It’s about 3:30am

I'm watching videos on YouTube

Los Angeles police-chase videos

Helicopter Sky9 something or other

I find the chases so exciting

I'm trying to figure out what's worse

The criminals speeding down freeways at 120-per

Or the news people that are drooling

Masturbating

And

Almost

Hoping

That somebody gets hit and killed

They say that they fear 'the worst'

But I can hear it in their voice

They want the worst

However

I have to admit

So don't I

It must be in my blood

It must be in my primal nature

I get off on the worst

At least part of me does

That’s why I can’t stop watching

SEASON 2, EPISODE 7: JIM RUNS THE MARATHON

SEASON 2, EPISODE 7: JIM RUNS THE MARATHON

by matt burns

I’m watching the Reality TV show

It’s about a family of celebrities who all run a restaurant

Their big brother Jim is running the Boston Marathon for charity

This is special to them because it’s one year after the bombings

They’re very proud of Jim

He trained hard

And he wants to do it for the city of Boston

He wants to show he has no fear

He’s going to run and not live in fear

The terrorists can kiss his ass

He’s not afraid

Jim runs the marathon

And he completes it in good time

And his family makes a medal for him

The medal says that they’re so proud

And this is basically what the episode is about:

Jim runs the marathon, trains hard for it

Completes it

And the family is very proud of him

They give him a medal

Pat him on the back

I sit there watching the episode of Reality TV

And I’m getting kind of drunk with beer

And I realize it’s the same old story

I see them in basically every show on TV

Especially Reality TV

The producers are desperate for show ideas

So they have the “character” go perform some empty act of charity

Or some empty act of bravery or heroism

Never mind if it means any damn thing

It looks good on TV

So go with it

I don’t know what running a marathon even says

It’s a great personal accomplishment

But that’s it

Go do it

And be proud of yourself for doing it

But don’t announce it on TV

With loud trumpets

Like what Jesus told us not to do in the Gospels

Matthew 6:2

To paraphrase

When you do a charity, don’t blast a trumpet announcing it

Because then you’re not doing it for the sake of doing it

You’re doing it to get your cock sucked by others

So many questions remain surrounding the bombings

So many weird and strange anomalies

But nobody asks the questions regarding what happened

They just run the marathon

And say look how great I am, I’m not afraid!

And everybody sucks each other’s cocks 

And pats each other’s backs

And there’s six hours of TV coverage devoted to sucking Boston’s big cock

But nobody takes any time to think

Nobody takes any time to ponder

Nobody takes any time to ask what happened

People just remain mindless zombies

Swallowing a narrative that they’re told happened

And assume what they’re told is true

And persecute people before proven guilty

Even though nobody saw what happened with their own eyes

And then they carry out empty acts of charity

Empty heroism

And empty bravery

Because that’s what the media tells them to do

That’s what Reality TV tells them to do

That’s what Jim Celebrity tells them to do

In short

That’s what the next page of life’s script tells them to do

I can honestly say tonight

That I’m embarrassed by Boston

And maybe I’m just drunk

And maybe I’ll get my ass kicked by the lynch mob

But Boston should BE STRONG and – not run marathons – but ask questions

Think

And not be weak and participate in the empty

Meaningless

Acts of charity

Bravery

And heroism

That don’t make a difference

But keep us numb

Dumb

And under a somnambulant spell

Will we ever know the truth behind the bombings?

Probably not

But that's not the tragedy here

The tragedy is our failure to think for ourselves

An we believe everything we're told

And we persecute people without witnessing what they did

That's our failure

This has nothing to do with terrorism

We must break the spell

And just think

Ask

And be a free fucking human being

Apart from the lynch mob

Thinking is the best charity one can offer

Also

I am not a conspiracy theorist

I am a human being

Somehow the former term

Got mixed up

And it stigmatized

The latter term

When did being a human being

Become a bad thing?

THE WORLD MAY BE OK

THE WORLD MAY BE OK

by matt burns

Sometimes you wonder about the world

And there’s just thing after thing

After thing after thing

That makes you say we’re all screwed

The world seems so doomed

But when I walk down the street near my house, with my dog

I don’t see much doom and gloom

It all looks OK to me

My entire dark outlook on the world

Has come from TV and the news

It’s the news that paints such a dark depiction

If it was hundreds of years ago

I guess the world could be the same it is today

But there wouldn’t be any news

So I would walk down the street

See the trees blooming in the breeze

And the blue skies with puffy white clouds

And all would be well

The world would be just fine

And that would be the only world I knew

The only difference today

Is the news

Maybe the news is a form of psychological warfare

It exists to make us think the world is doomed

And we fear and loathe

And we get depressed

And we despair

And we get debilitated or even paralyzed

And we don’t do all that much

Because what’s the point?

And then we’re easier to control

And we’re easier to be turned into consumers

More easily turned into human resources

“Yeah, the world’s doomed

So just watch your reality TV

And talent shows

And football games 

Rot your brain

Because if you actually do something

It’s not going to be worth anything anyway”

I guess the wars are out there somewhere

And I guess so aren’t the murders and rapes

And the child molesters

And the thieves

The corrupt politicians

And the bad storms

And all the other indications of the

End

Of

Times

But when I walk down the street 

All is just fine

And that’s my reality

The reality portrayed in the news is constructed

Weaving separate threads of negativity together

To create one quilt of negative reality

But that reality is really just a construction

Not an actual reality

If you remove yourself from the news

And take a walk down your street

Really, the world is kind of OK

JUDGE NOT, THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED

GOOD JUDGING, BAD JUDGING

by matt burns

Everybody judges

It’s part of the survival instinct

When we were more primal

We needed to use those instincts

To discern between safety and danger

If you see a man wearing dark clothes

And a hood

With purple hair

Covered in tattoos

You avoid that man

Your instincts say he could be dangerous

This is judging

But good judging

It’s survival skills

Inherent in human nature

Bad judging

Is when you finally meet that man

The man in dark clothing

Covered in tattoos

Purple hair

And you talk to him

And realize he’s nice

And starts sending good vibes

But you still get away from him

Because you don’t want to be seen with him

And your friends would say ‘why are you with that man?’

And your fantasies didn’t ever envision you with that kind of man

A man with an appearance antithetical to your dream man

So you get away from the man

This is bad judging

Bad judging

Is denying your gut

That gut that picks up the good vibes

Yet you ignore the good vibes

Because your ego tells you to walk away

You don’t associate with men of such appearance

Your gut is plugged into God

And if your gut’s telling you everything is good

God is telling you everything is good

So if you deny your gut, you deny God

And that is the sin

That is the sin of judging

It is all about the gut

All judging that is good judging

Comes from the gut

Because a man could have a wonderful appearance

But your gut could be saying something is wrong with him

If you listen to the gut, you listen to God

Appearances are the devil’s game

If you listen to the appearance, you listen to the devil

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