Monday, October 30, 2017
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Friday, October 20, 2017
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Monday, October 16, 2017
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Monday, October 9, 2017
The World
The world says that I have to pay attention
To what it says must occupy my mind.
I have to be a cog in its convention
Of relevance, or else I’m unrefined.
The world says that it is the arbiter
Of what I should be seeing—doing—wearing—
For my own good. And so I must concur.
If not, then I deserve to be despairing.
The world says that what it says matters more
Than anything I say—and its approval
Is all I need to get me past Fame’s door.
Without it, bouncers see to my removal.
The world says I must give each waking thought
To what it calls important—or I’m not.
They say the world will come to you if you
Just keep doing the work, but that’s a lie.
It only comes when brought by someone who
Sees something in it that he wants to buy.
They say the world will always notice talent,
But talent is defined as flattery.
Sing the world’s praises; it will call you gallant
And stay blind to your mediocrity.
They say the world will recognize great art,
But that’s the greatest fiction of them all.
Works that have brilliance, vision, style and heart
Are chaff if not sold at the shopping mall.
They say the world decrees where worth begins—
And every time we buy that, the world wins.
The world wins when it says "I am the one
Who brands you with the tattoo of success.
You cannot shine unless it is my sun.
Without my label, all is worthlessness."
The world wins when we say that we define
Our own success, since that means we’re conceding
We’ve failed at the world’s game, and get to dine
On our own praises, which is special pleading.
The world wins every time we factor in
The world to an equation. It’s a term
Whose value changes what we’ve done or been
Into an either or: winner or worm.
The world wins when we seek out its affection—
And wins big when we give it our rejection.
Rejecting the world means that we still care
Enough about it to defend our work
Against its disapproval—its unfair
Ignorance—its supercilious smirk.
Rejecting the world means we tried to win it
Over to us, and then cried “Sour grapes!”
Because it wouldn’t give us half a minute,
We bitch it out for days with gripes and japes.
Rejection feeds the world’s great vanity,
For hatred’s just a hotter kind of loving.
Beneath its heat, it says you want to be
Embraced and welcomed by the one you’re shoving.
It doesn’t want her gone—it wants her sweet.
Which makes rejection yearning in defeat.
The world can’t lose because the game is rigged
To either make it win or make you fail.
It poisons every toast you’ve ever swigged.
(I swear to God, it’s like the world is male.)
The world can’t lose because it is the court
And judge and jury where worth’s law is passed—
That puts your name on Time’s final report
And then rules whether you will fade or last.
The world can’t lose unless you just don’t give
A shit what it thinks. Takes a special soul
To care so little for applause, and live
Without what others cling to, and be whole.
The world can’t lose unless, for all you love it,
You vow always to be in it—not of it.
The world is everything, for those who look
For someone else to tell them all the answers.
“Here’s the great movie!” “There’s the must-read book!”
“That company may move, but they’re no dancers.”
The world is everything a vampire is—
It needs your blood to live; it fills your head
With hungry dreams and condescension’s fizz;
Then leaves you soulless, brainwashed, and undead.
The world is everything you’ve ever wanted—
State-sanctioned virtue, tolerated vice,
The lure of fame whose absence leaves you haunted—
And all you have to do is pay its price:
Be the world’s champion, not its accuser—
And then call anyone who is, a loser.
The world is just, or so it likes to think,
And fair the way society is fair:
It serves the Ins a complimentary drink
While telling all the Outs “I just don’t care.”
The world is just too proud to be disgraced
Whenever someone says it might be biased.
It claims it’s just coincidence its taste
Runs to the straightest, whitest, and the guyest.
The world is just another inner voice
That tells us all the things we cannot do—
Praises us when we choose to give up choice
And swears it’s champagne when we swig its brew.
The world is just a low voice from on high
That will praise nothing it can’t profit by.
The world is nothing more than a collection
Of self-sustaining myths. It’s like a church.
Give it your worship; it gives you protection.
Deny it; it will leave you in the lurch.
The world is nothing but an elevator—
Once you’re in, upper floors are all you’ll see.
It guards the penthouse like it’s Joy’s dictator,
Crying: “You must find happiness through me!”
The world is nothing less than a machine
I have no control over, so why should
I think its ignorance of me is mean
Or meant? Or that its praise of me is good?
Why look for vision in what cannot see
And always puts the vain in vainglory?
“The world is ours!” successful people cry.
But they don’t ever own it—it owns them.
Its praise—and not their gifts—put them on high,
And what it raises up, it can condemn.
The world is yours to do with as it pleases,
But only when you choose to give it power.
And when it does deliver on its teases
And kisses you, the aftertaste is sour.
The world is mine, when I can say to it
“You don’t own me!” and mean it—every word—
Do what I will, not what it will permit—
And be untroubled, not a fountain stirred,
Each time the world thinks of new ways to fool me
Into believing that its standards rule me.
Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Sunday, October 1, 2017
A Month of Couplets - September 2017
From The Daily Couplet:
9/1/17
The new is tar in which my thoughts will sink.
Boring routines will give me space to think.
9/2/17
Walk out of any room where there's no love
And write a tale that you're the hero of.
9/3/17
If I loved myself half as much as I
Love the unworthy, oh, how high I'd fly!
9/4/17
Safety is knowing what you'll do for weeks.
Adventure never sees beyond your cheeks.
9/5/17
The door I fear to open guards a room
Of terrible rewards, not pain and doom.
9/6/17
I love the new, but it's the same old game:
When strangeness beckons, I reach for the same.
9/7/17
In all of history, no one's been you.
Don't waste that doing what the rest can do.
9/8/17
You always know who misses you the most:
The great reach out; the rest fade like a ghost.
9/9/17
Want to make haters feel incompetent?
Treat all their insults like a compliment.
9/10/17
Anger congests us till we fume and sputter.
Forgiveness cleans out all that nasty clutter.
9/11/17
Those born to a belief may be dogmatic
But converts live their creed like a fanatic.
9/12/17
Escape in fiction gets looked down on by
The jailers who say all art must be high.
9/13/17
Fear whispers--my soul sinks beneath the floor.
But just a breath of hope can make it soar.
9/14/17
The more we feed the hate of push and shove,
The less we listen to the voice of love.
9/15/17
(After Blaise Pascal)
All mankind's woes are meat on this one bone:
We can't sit quiet in a room alone.
9/16/17
Compassion weaves when heartless cuts the cord.
When hate is king, love is the rebel's sword.
9/17/17
It's only when I'm all alone and free
That I feel like I'm in bad company.
9/18/17
When my corrupted drives are all cleaned out,
There's still the back-up server of self-doubt.
9/19/17
The things that hurt us most we'll call a treasure
And let them kill us--if they give us pleasure.
9/20/17
It's Life when every answer to our cries
Is just another question in disguise.
9/21/17
It's all about what solitude can teach us
And those who care enough to try to reach us.
9/22/17
Shame is a cannibal--it always eats
Itself, till you're weighed down by your defeats.
9/23/17
Speak tolerance to hate--he never hears it
Because it's loving, and because he fears it.
9/24/17
Power responds to rebels with complaints
By killing them—then making them its saints.
By killing them—then making them its saints.
9/25/17
Never tell narcissists that you adore them--
Because it's what they want to hear, you'll bore them.
9/26/17
The high road will become your status quo
When you ditch those who make you take the low.
9/27/17
Fools take for granted their deep friends' ovation
And fish the shallows for appreciation.
9/28/17
The hardest things in life to let go of
Are those that cling to my lack of self-love.
9/29/17
Obey this sign and lift depression's fog:
DO NOT FEED THE NEGATIVITY DOG.
9/30/17
The world says I must give each waking thought
To what it calls "important"--or I'm not.
Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells
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