All That's Wrong With The World

The burping rich ignore the starving waif.

Terror kills random targets craftily.

Our rights are sacrificed to keep us safe.

You wake up next to him instead of me.

The lost and wounded worship the fictitious.

Self-righteous vengeance is their Decalogue.

Their anger will be used by the ambitious.

You treat him like a prince—me, like a dog.

You told me that you loved me and you lied.

The First Amendment hasn’t got a prayer.

Democracy’s committing suicide.

I’d kill you, but it isn’t worth the chair.

Our country’s falling to a right-wing coup.

This life is pointless if I can’t have you.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Love Is

Love is our yearning to create the thing

We love out of what speaks to us alone

In someone else—and make its beauty sing—

Like statues are created out of stone.

Love is like gravity, distorting space

And time, till there’s just nearness and the now,

A universe in someone else’s face,

And faith to fuel the jet of fancy’s vow.

Love is a chrysalis that will give birth

To something new with wings, that will not stay

Wherever is it paid less than it’s worth,

Or owed more than it gives, but fly away.

Love is like war—we’re haunted by each past one,

And always end up re-fighting the last one.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

The One I Love

The one I love fills up my journal pages.

   It makes me sing to hear her say my name.

I have been chasing after her for ages.

   Each time we get close, it’s always the same:

She tells me I’m the one she’s thinking of;

   She tells me that she cares—that she adores me;

And waits until I offer her my love,

   Then takes somebody else home, and it floors me.

It kills me. Kills me. It plants something dead

   Inside my heart—a hole; a growth; a cancer—

That poisons every pure hope in my head

   Into dead-end despair that has no answer

      Except what will forever make me grieve:

      The one I love’s the one I have to leave.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

13 Reasons Why

(My Plays Don't Get Produced)

I am sequoia-ancient (three times twenty).

I build my plots on consequence and choices.

Most plays are one-note horns—mine, horns of plenty.

I think Art is the rebel who rejoices.

I always make the finish worth the chase.

I write to challenge, not make you relax.

I don’t suck up to your subscriber base

By patting them on their self-righteous backs.

My premises are clever and unique ones.

My dialogue is smart and more than noise.

I write strong women ‘cause there are no weak ones.

I write men as they are—arrested boys.

I always choose the truth over the fact.

I know how to construct a second act.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Prayer

Oh God, give me the heartlessness to feel

Nothing when those I love betray or hurt me.

Give me the dullness to accept the real

And faith to have my back when all desert me.

Oh God, give me the blindness that lets me

Saunter unharmed and open-eyed through danger.

Make me feel guilt when I refuse to see

The innocent who hides in every stranger.

Oh God, let me live up to what must die

In me to make a cradle for your love—

And when my soul lets out a baby’s cry

Of hunger, feed it what it’s frightened of

So I can bravely pluck out hatred’s weed

From my heart’s garden, and be caring’s seed.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

A Month Of Couplets

From The Daily Couplet:

4/29/17

“Here’s the one heart that you’re unworthy of,”

Life says—and that’s the one that gets my love.

4/30/17

Dead love won’t live again if I unearth it

So why, God, do I always think it’s worth it?

5/1/17

          Trump On His First 100 Days

“My enemies list what I haven’t done!

They’re just attacking me because I won!”

5/2/17

               Trump On The War

          Of Northern Aggression

“My mind’s no slave to orthodox fake-thought

When I ask why the Civil War was fought.”

5/3/17

              Trump On Democracy

“The law’s to blame when I look like a fool.

The Constitution is why I can’t rule.”

5/4/17

             Trump On The Media

“Reporters should be locked up in the clink!

Fake news won’t tell me that my shit don’t stink!”

5/5/17

       How The Republicans Stole Christmas

“Good will to men is left-wing, so we’ll Grinch it—

Then take each thing the black guy did and lynch it.”

5/6/17

The ones who try to find the time misuse it.

Only the ones who make the time won’t lose it.

5/7/17

Poison—knives—bullets—bombs—a subway shove—

Can’t kill like silence from someone you love.

5/8/17

When the rich cull the sick and poor, they’ll smirk

And say “It’s just Democracy at work.”

5/9/17

The more I clean out self-delusion’s shelf,

The more I will become known to myself.

5/10/17

One constant in all countries and all times:

The crook will knock off those who know his crimes.

5/11/17

                REPUBLICANS, n.

They’ll steal and lie for power’s fix like junkies,

And suck up to their Führer like good flunkies.

5/12/17

“My party first!” declares the Fascist Right.

“Unlike my country, it’s rich, male and white!”

5/13/17

Hearts that are doomed to make love to illusions

Come alive with the hot blood of delusions.

5/14/17

A small life works to prosper and to please;

A great life lives to make great memories.

5/15/17

                 Trump On Elections

“We’ll show the world a true democracy!

The only votes that count are votes for me!”

5/16/17

Honor and sympathy are what determine

Whether you’re good at heart or a good German.

5/17/17

Republicans who fawn and kiss the ass

Of tyranny should NEVER get a pass.

5/18/17

                   Dictatorship 101

Capitalism: buy the shit we sell you.

Transparency: believe each lie we tell you.

5/19/17

The motto of our democratic age:

The common man is wiser than the sage.

5/20/17

Fame’s lottery is crooked to the core—

The winners are the chumps who won before.

5/21/17

Life is a book. Its final word is “death.”

Life is a song. It opens with a breath.

5/22/17

The heartless will insist they have the feels

To make the gullible bark like trained seals.

5/23/17

The more my demons see the light of day,

The quicker they will shrink and fade away.

5/24/17

The good go down too soon, the evil thrive,

And Henry Kissinger is still alive. 

5/25/17

Whether they shun, ignore, dismiss, or drop you,

It's only failure when you let it stop you.

5/26/17

If I don't trust the critics when they haze me

Then why should I believe them when they praise me?

5/27/17

I'd rather live in solitary gloom

Than feel alone with someone in the room.

5/28/17

As precious as love is, nothing's more dear

Than friends who tell me what I need to hear.

5/29/17

Superiority comes from inside:

World leaders walk; royalty gets to ride.

5/30/17

       The All-Purpose Donald Trump Tweet

“The dumb mistakes I’ve made? The crimes I’ve done?

Fake news! Get over it! She lost! I won!”

5/31/17

The voters: outrage, demonstrations, pickets.

Republicans: the chirp of spineless crickets.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells