Emotional Second Amendment

Each sunrise hands my heart a loaded gun.

   Each sunset counts the bullets that are left.

I lose the day if I shoot even one.

   I have to hold my fire, or I’m effed.

But that hot trigger strokes each angry kink

   In my self-centered soul. It calls me “Stud!”

It tells me I should rage instead of think

   And meet imaginary slights with blood.

Lashing out is so easy, isn’t it?

   Biting like dogs; clawing like feral cats.

But if I would be human, I must pit

   Restraint against revenge, lay down my gats,

      And heal the hurt my hatred is born of,

      And take a bullet in the name of love.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Love's Inner Enemies

The moment that I put my faith in you

Is when my wounded heart begins to doubt you.

The moment I know what I feel is true,

My vanity starts telling lies about you.

I don’t leave well enough alone in love.

I probe it like a wound to find the bullet.

I question what I should be trusting of.

Whatever’s labeled DO NOT TOUCH, I pull it.

There is a terrorist in me who lives

To blow up innocence, crown Fear as king,

And make my heart pull back before it gives

Till it expects and causes suffering.

He wins, unless I’m brave enough to bleed,

Not for what fails me, but makes me succeed.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Last Night I Dreamed I Was an EMT

Last night I dreamed I was an EMT.

I took your call—you said our love was dead.

It hurt to see its corpse in front of me.

“Please bring it back to life right now!” you said.

So I start up my heart up and feel it beat

And feed it to our love to live upon.

I say: “Quick—quick—give me your heart, my sweet.”

You say: “I can’t right now.” And then you’re gone.

You cry: “I’ll find the time! Just not today!

I swear that when I’m free, I’ll make a date!”

And like an idiot, I say: “Okay!

I’ll be here!” And I wait. And wait. And wait.

While my heart loses blood, minute by minute;

And our love dies, because your heart’s not in it.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Friendship and Love

Love is electric; friendship is a breeze.

   Love is exclusive; friendship is inviting.

Love lives for pleasure; friendship lives to please.

   Friendship is peace; love is a torment biting.

Love is the rapids, weak rafts overturning;

   Friendship, a still pool with no shallow end.

Love is a rose with every petal burning;

   Friendship, a garden full of herbs that mend.

Friendship may lead to love, but can be lost

   When it’s not shared, and die in hurt and doubt.

And lovers can be friends, but at the cost

   Of passion, like a flame that fizzles out.

      Ah, but when burning love and cool affection

      Can marry happily, life is perfection.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

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

If I Love You

If I love you, that means you give me hope.

If I love you, good deeds are bribery.

If I love you, I’ll sulk when I don’t mope.

If I love you, then you need therapy.

If I love you, my flaws can’t live without you.

If I love you, then your heart has a sentry.

Love is the novel that I write about you

So I can swear that it’s a documentary.

I’ll tell you you’re the sun to my cold earth,

I’ll make you fill a cup that has no bottom,

I’ll give your moods control over my worth,

I’ll kill your spring with my dead leaves of autumn,

And hate you for what you don’t do or say.

So if you love me, please—please—run away.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Love Is

Love is a treasure dive without the bends

   That robs a cave where green-eyed monsters lurk.

Love is like Friday night—it never ends

   And never thinks about next Monday’s work.

Love is a game where moves are all unplanned

   And rules never exist until you make them.

Love is a do-it-yourself Disneyland—

   You have to build the rides before you take them.

Love is a toll road that will not take change.

   Love dies a little without self-destruction.

Love is a singer with a three-note range

   Who only sounds good after post-production—

      A heart you’ll misplace till it goes astray

      And only find when you give it away.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Love Is

Love is a wish that blesses when it curses.

Love is a dish that’s half-sublime, half-trite.

Love is a play that endlessly rehearses,

Then gets rewritten every single night.

Love is the raw suspense of the pursuit,

The biting thorn chased by the soothing feather.

Love is my shipwreck and my parachute.

I want to be included, not together.

I’m drawn to what is hopeless, vain or doomed.

I crave what sense and sanity forbid.

The loves that didn’t happen have consumed

My hungry soul more than the ones that did.

For love’s exciting—maddening—taboo—

Inconstant—steadfast—kind—like me. Like you.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

I Need You Like

           “I need him like the axe needs the turkey.”

                                --The Lady Eve

I need you like the doormat needs the boot.

I need you like the dry mop needs the spill.

I need you like the foodstain needs the suit.

I need you like the bullet needs the kill.

I need you like a cataract needs eyes.

I need you like the sickness needs the host.

I need you like the firing squad needs spies.

I need you like the braggart needs the boast.

I need you like the right hook needs the chin.

I need you like self-pity needs rejection.

I need you like forgiveness needs the sin.

I need you like false gods need genuflection.

I need you like the drunk needs alcohol

Which means I really don’t need you at all.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Peter Pan

He made his move and what was there to say.

You only heard his lies each time he talked.

You had moved on, but not quite moved away.

The door was almost closed, and in he walked.

He said: “I’m sorry—it was my mistake.”

You thought: Guys don’t mistake-sleep with another.

He said: “Tell me how to help heal this break.”

You thought: Bad boys always come home to mother.

And mothers always take their wastrels back.

He’s Peter Pan, you’re Wendy, and it blows.

He gives you magic, and you give him slack,

Which keeps him immature. And so it goes

Until he leaves to live with lost boys and

Some little bitch from Never-Never Land.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Go Be

Go be the sun that lights the darkest sky.

Go be the faith that nothing can betray.

Go be the pattern others measure by.

Go be the one and only every day.

Go slay the dragons that would hoard your treasure.

Go grin at hurdles and take home the gold.

Go stray down every path that leads to pleasure.

Go skin your knees like you were ten years old.

Go ski the Everest of your destiny;

Set free your inner slave, give her a crown.

Go cup your hands and drink audacity.

Go up your game. Never let yourself down.

Go tree a future that you’re worthy of

And be the soul that I will always love.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Gettysburg

Sometimes my heart feels like a phantom limb.

Pain stabs it, even though it isn't there.

And something weeps that used to sing a hymn.

And something bleeds that can't afford to care.

And there I am, reliving it again:

The ugly battle and the pointless fight,

The wounds we took at our own Devil's Den

When Love bled out till it was cold and white.

That finished me for war. And yet the need,

Behind the loss that haunts me, has revealed

An emptiness in me I cannot feed

Unless I stand upon that battlefield,

Loving and hating the unfeeling knife

That had to amputate you from my life.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Special Garden: Two Valentine's Day Sonnets

                 What Makes You So Special?

What makes you so special? What makes a heart

So big it bursts with joy? What makes a soul

So strong that it can laugh at every dart

Life hurls at it? What makes you whole

If not your separate pieces, each of which

Is like a diamond on the necklace of

Your public self—bright jewels that enrich

Your every move and word? What else but love

Lies behind all you give, and deserves just

As much, if not more, in return? You show

Strangers what caring means, your friends what trust

Can do, and all your lovers that to know

You is like knowing heaven star by star.

What makes you special? Everything you are.

                 The Garden of Your Soul

The garden of your soul is green and cool.

It’s landscaped so the ones you trust can see

Its flower beds of love, the nursery

Where all your wishes blossom, and the pool

Of tranquil peace where you can float at ease.

An ever-greenhouse to support and please you,

It’s why the sere world feels a fragrant breeze

And thinks of roses every time it sees you.

And when you’re in the weeds, and every petal

Cries out for your attention and your care,

Water them one by one, and never settle

For anything that withers you—but dare

To own each blossom like it was your child—

And keep that garden soothing, safe and wild.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Silence

Silence says more than speech. A minute’s pause

   Can hold a Bible’s worth of love and wrath

And say both yes and no at once, because—

   Thought stillness always moves—we choose its path.

Silence means more than speech. Words pin things down

   Till they explain away the mystified,

While silence grins like a demented clown

   At definitions, till they run and hide.

Silence hurts more than speech. The longer it

   Goes on, the more it wounds, like a long knife

Driven up from your belly bit by bit

   Until it finds your heart and takes your life,

      Sickens your faith till it's a worthless cheat,

      And poisons love until it's rotten meat.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

My Love

His love is all possession and control.

   My love is help and generosity.

His kisses touch your skin and not your soul.

   Mine start with soul and seek transcendency.

His love sees how you look, mine who you are.

   His love is deep, but shallow next to mine.

His love is warm, but mine’s a blazing star.

   Mine sees an equal, his a concubine.

His love may stand tall now, but it will slouch

   Till derring-don’t replaces derring-do.

His love will wind up sitting on the couch

   And stare at quarterbacks instead of you.

      Mine is a love that bleeds, but never mourns,

      Because I even love you for your thorns.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

Sonnet Based On A Line By Paul Claudel

O la joie d'être pleinement aimé ! 

ô le désir de s'ouvrir par le milieu comme un livre !

            —Paul Claudel

Open me in the middle like a book.

   No matter what the page, you’ll find your name.

Run your long fingers down where I once took

   A pen and drew a heart of ink and flame:

The one that burns in me and always writes

   In blood of you whenever it feels love

For all your inarticulate delights—

   Which I devour and never weary of.

It’s all and only lines and pretty phrases.

   Part fact, part fiction; but each word is true.

I like to think it comforts and amazes.

   It only lacks one positive review.

      For I’m what nothing on this earth can age:

      A book of love without a final page.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

Love And Death

      A man fights for far more than the mere hope of winning.

                 -- Cyrano de Bergerac

I think of all the ways my love has died:

Strangled by silence, cured like a disease,

Taken for granted, tortured, petrified,

Shot in the head while praying on its knees.

Love dies like people do—you cannot save

A single one from needing special care

If it lives long enough, for there’s a grave

For everything that lives, from dull to rare.

Entropy rules this world from end to start;

Its one law is “What shines today must fade.”

But there’s an angry rebel in my heart

Who feels that this law must be disobeyed—

And though it’s doomed and hopeless, he will try

To find and share a love that will not die.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

A Professor Of Logic Analyzes Romantic Rejection

My head knows what I dreamed of can’t occur.

My heart is certain it could still be real.

What does it say about my character

When false hope is the strongest hope I feel?

I ache with loss for what I never had.

I miss the meal I never got to eat.

How dumb is that, to make myself feel bad

And suffer, thanks to both kinds of conceit?

And yet it weighs me down, this weightless loss—

This past unlived; this future never shared—

And I hang from a self-created cross

I could step down from right now. If I dared.

My untouched heart throbs like I just got shivved there.

I’m dwelling on it—but we never lived there.

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

All I Can Ask

I cannot say that I would make you mine—

   That’s ownership. You don’t do that to hearts.

If you bottle them up like local wine,

   They will ferment to sour and bitter parts.

I cannot worship all you are and do—

   You’re not a god. You’re human to the bone.

But there is such divinity in you

   That your smile can draw honey from a stone.

All I can ask is whether you can see

   Yourself with someone loyal, kind and giving—

And even if that person isn’t me,

   Find a heart full of that and you’ll be living

      With love that’s holier than the divine

      And happiness that ages like fine wine.

 

 

Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells