IMDB Love

I remember you the way that I
Remember a bad movie that I saw
Back in the Eighties. 


Everything’s vanished
Except the best lines, one or two good scenes,
And the love theme that played under it all.


The actors tried their best, but when they got
Together, it looked like they were in two
Different movies.


And when it finally ended,
Everyone said, “Huh? That’s IT? What a gyp!”
And didn’t even stay to see the credits.


Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells

Songs for a Tuesday Morning Afternoon: If you were here, I'd only bleed you

When their first album came out, people referred to it as MUTTER or MUMBLE because the lyrics were so unintelligible that the songs sounded like a side project of the Cocteau Twins.  But their sound got--shall we say brasher?--over the years, an evolution you can clearly see between their IRS releases and their Warner releases.  The IRS REM has a small club sound that occasionally erupts into something that shakes the walls; the Warners REM has an arena sound that occasionally gets very quiet and intimate.

Side note: Rolling Stone voted Murmur Best Album in 1983, over Thriller and Synchronicity.  I'm guessing that you, like me, are trying to remember the last time you listened to Murmur all the way through, and knowing that it was a lot longer than the last time you heard a song from Thriller or Synchronicity . . . .

Shiny Happy People


Losing My Religion


(Don't go back to) Rockville

Videos from The Players Club Poetry Reading - 9/30/11

So

Songs for a Tuesday Morning - Utter Nonsense

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when parents listened in to what their teenage sons and daughters were singing along to on their Japanese-made transistor radios. Imagine their approval of The Beatles (they wanted to hold your hand). Imagine their fear of The Rolling Stones (they wanted to knock up your daughter). Imagine their utter inability to understand the lyrics, never mind the appeal, of the Rivingtons' two mid-level R&B hits that were swiped by The Trashmen and turned into the #4 1963 hit "Surfin' Bird." Imagine these fortyish souls saying to themselves, "What total verbal nonsense!" And then imagine how easy it must have been for these ex-youngsters to forget that in their day they were doing the Lindy Hop to "Mairzy Doats."

Papa Oom-Mow-Mow 


Mama Oom-Mow-Mow

Thought for the day

"Strong women don't have a problem with 
authority.  Strong women have a problem with 
stupidity."

  --MJ Wells

Lines from a late-night cellphone text

We do so many horrid things on earth
the moon can only look at us full on
one day a month

Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells but damned if I remember writing it

It's midnight, and I know you're not alone

It’s midnight, and I know you’re not alone.
   Someone is touching you, stroking your cheek.
You lean into his hand, and with a moan,
   You say three words I’ll never hear you speak.
And what his lips will give then is a kiss
   My lips have only dreamed of giving to you;
And what your eyes will say, he will not miss,
   For his eyes listen as they see right through you
While mine are here, looking at what will be
   And choking on it, like a broken pill:
A door that swings shut between you and me
   So it can open up to him at will,
     As you do now, when through that door you go
     To share a room that I will never know.

Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells

You can take us out of the city . . .

We all live one month’s rent beyond our means
   To order specials from the city’s menu.
When subways shut down, we’ll walk home to Queens.
   NYC’s not an address--it’s a venue.
We never stroll when we can dart or lunge;
   We move too fast to see our own reflection.
Our sidewalks soak up rainfall like a sponge
   And then make oceans at each intersection.
You’ll find the sound of traffic never stops;
   We locals all count taxis to relax.
Live here a month and you will earn the chops
   To play our streets like Parker played the sax.
      Prouder than Paris, confident as Rome:
      Manhattan’s what a special breed calls home.

Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells

Unrequited

Your sweet hands reach
Into the empty pocket of my heart
And leave a stone.


Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells

Fat Tuesday

I had dinner with my future last night.
“You’ve lost weight,” I said.
“You used to be as wide as a freeway
With exits leading everywhere.
Now you’re so thin,
If you wore black, stood sideways,
And stuck your tongue out,
People would think you were a zipper.”

“If I’m thin,” my future said,
“It’s because you’re not feeding me enough.”

Then he hailed a cab,
Drove off to a midnight rendezvous
With my dreams, and left me
To share a cup of coffee with my past.

Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells