A wide ranging collection of both soft spoken and hard hitting poems full of ecstatic insights, societal skewerings, and romantic revelations as Matthew seeks meaning and mischief across the Pacific Northwest. Written directly after his recovery from a lengthy chronic pain condition, The Gospel is the book Matthew wrote when he found himself in love and back atop mountains.
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Creative Writing 101
I forget I know anything about writing poetry
I forget I have written 500 poems
I forget there is a box beneath my bed
with twenty dusty journals in it
I forget the binders in my desk
where I have stockpiled poems
like ICBM’s
I forget my transcript has a line on it which reads
“Creative Writing”
I forget I know the definitions of terms like
heroic couplet and nonrestrictive clause
I forget there is an open mic
I forget there is a darkened room
where I have read 50 times
I forget that there are 50 people in it
with the candlelight of expectation in their eyes
I forget the compliments I have received
I forget that I would like to receive more
I forget the title of the book I’m writing in my head
I forget the vision of seeing it on some Barnes and Noble shelf
I pour my breaths into a glass with ice in it
and sip them slowly like vermouth
I study the whiteness of the walls
until the minutes halt their drip
I ask the poem if it thinks it knows
who I am
and it replies
I am not a birth certificate
nor the name written in the blank
I am not a bottle of formaldehyde
in which to place the heart
I am not the scalpel
nor the surgeon’s well-trained hands
I am not a magistrate
nor the stone of his decrees
I am the pavilion through which the breeze
might freely blow
I am the hardwood floor
on which the wedding parties dance
I am the mesh through which the sun
can peek its skull
I am the lattice up which the climbing vine ascends
I am the dissipation of the cloud
into tiny drops of rain
I write down the last shape
I think it takes
Put out an empty glass
wait to see what it collects