Dave Matthes's Blog - Posts Tagged "cynicism"

Did some scrounging and found these silly little lyrical ditties I wrote back around 2006ish...some of these will be polished up and used in the book I'm currently writing: In This House We Lived and We Died ...



I. HER

"The sun sets on another day,
yet this day is different than previous days passed.
Eyes once sheltered are now aware of the mind's true surroundings,
Nothing can change what is now that the definition of what is real is true.
Running nonstop ceases in the darkness,
curled fists relax against the wind.
Truly this is bliss, truly this is what was meant to be.
Her eyes are like a mountainscape of eternity,
the pink sun casting its gaze upon the land.
Could this be true, that after trudging through the fire,
I have found what all hearts yearn for?
Only time can tell."


II. UNSATISFIED

"Why is it that when we seek life we knock on death's door...?
Why is it that when we strive for peace it requires blood...?
Why is hypocrisy more important than truth...?
Deemed resolute we fall to our knees under pain of humility,
we cut deeper to cleanse our souls of purgury,
as ghosts we are seen clearer than the living.
Is it such a sin to forget this life and to seek out another?
If we find the door is it an act of suicide...?
Or is it an act of self-improvement?


III. IMPERATIVE

"If it were about you it would be easier,
your self-doubt is just an overused gimmick,
I've seen it all before.
But it's not about you, it's about me...
and the irreparrable damage that has been done,
only a fire hotter than the one before can put out the flames,
despite my mask, what burns couldn't be colder,
and your life can only be saved if our hands never hold again."



IV. ANOTHER KIND OF BLISS

"Oh this drunken bliss takes me to cloud nine...
Will I stumble and fall down among the imhumane...?
These twisted questions eternally hold my mind like iron twine...
Have we all forgotten our true quest...?
Or have we all become hopelessly blind.....?"


V. SUNSET

"A black clover falls from the heavens....
a rude nature awakens from within....
love is not all that can be found,
but deep hatred from the calmness down wind.
Truth cannot hold so many answers as the questions that are asked,
For the one question that should be asked that has only one answer...
we will surely never know."


VI. JUST A SUGGESTION

"A train of blood cuts through the soulless shroud,
The moonlight unveils its true color.
From the trees an owl approves,
From a distance the heart mourns.
On the shoulders of desperation,
is draped a gesture of peace.
The night indefinitely considered; a moon crowned in devious grins obliges.
Not all paths are righteous, but all causes ascertain truth."


VII. FINALLY

"Turning over loose soil never felt so good,
burrying the memories under a blanket of truth.
What was thought to have been real,
was not even a dream...but a melting nightmare.
There comes relief in knowing,
that what never was can never be and never has been.
The stars are alligned and the moon is black,
Today is tomorrow and yesterday is written anew."


VIII. TO INFINITY

"Like an orange sunrise after a night devoid of sincerity,
I see now that the thorns of a rose bush only add to its beauty.
The lone star that shines amidst the black sky proves its worth,
in a mind where love is burried beneath unbreakable stone.
Pale is the stone cast,
wide is the lake interrupted by ripples,
and the stone sinks only to join the innumerable others,
who have been utterly cast out by the same hand.
The darkness of the depths is but temporary,
as time will draw the tide away,
and all who have sunk will rise to the surface again."


IX. ULTIMATUM

"Gods and Devils fly past like flaming bullets set loose,
the arch of time is ever misconstrued by their will.
Their war will forever rage through the eyes of happy men,
therefore it is not higher we must reach,
but inward we must delve.
For the one thing that will forever remain is that
life is the amputation of serenity from our most subconscious desires."


X. GHOSTS

"You're touch can only be measured by the intensity of an earthquake,
exploding like a field of self-destructing roses.
Illustrated by the silhouette of your eyes,
help me to understand why they weap.
We find that in the words we speak,
we only differ in time spent apart.
Help me to understand why we meet only now,
help me to forget the desolation of the path i have trodden,
and i will help you remember what it feels like to wander with someone side by side."

XI. THE HEART

"Fear draws masterpieces,
coveting the aspirations of self-proclaimed heroes.
Fear awakens courage,
paving the way for those who dream of white shores and bloodless exchanges.
Fear is sold and stolen and blessed by those blind with fury, whether by conscious design or celestial influence.
Commodious as it may be, if God exists, if there is any truth to spiritual breath, it resides in the shadow of insolence;
the resilient form of fear.
And to deny fear is to deny self, and to deny self is to deny truth.
But is truth not just as trivial as fear?
Who, by rights then, decides which triumphs?
And likewise, who decides what saves the day?"

XII. THE KILLING FIELDS

"Walking through the fall of the coldest snow,
knowing full well the death that waits patiently beyond the veil;
fate is certain, but the darkness loathes those who stare back into its eyes without fear.
Therein lays the victory: whether by choice or by fleeting memories our souls will dissipate,
but by electing mockery and acceptance we live on for eternity, forever haunting the heartless…
long after the demonic angels have feasted upon our existence."

XIII. ROMANCE

"Whatever happened things like hope and trust and courage?
Have they dissipated into the unfathomable depths of oblivion…or merely relocated or redefined?
Surely with a long enough stretch of time change is inevitable…but is it justly so?
Is it we that have changed or is it the practical joke of those watching?
Where is the light in the darkness leading us? To what end do all our paths lead?
Is the veil really even there? By what mediation are we fixed upon where we cannot return to the source…or at the very least acknowledge there once was one?
Can’t we find the answer? Can there be life without death?
Where did all this come from…from what seed did this estranged and withered root emerge…and who cast that seed?
Did they know that day, that they’d indeed planted fate?
Did they know then of their invention?

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast



I’m not really sure what to make of Hemingway anymore. His work, at least what I’ve come to swallow, is very hit or miss. Take most everyone’s favorite book to burn, The Old Man and the Sea. I wanted to fucking suicide myself when my English teacher, Mrs. Beans (don’t even get me started on the caliber of torture we put her through on the basis of her name alone) handed each of us a copy of this book. Really; I’d heard enough horror stories about it that by the time I was told part of my grade depended on sifting through the proverbial hogwash of a writer with more self-entitled literary endowment than myself, I was ready to take the risk of actually failing the class just to satisfy my then somewhat pubescent rebellious lust. Much later in life, however, I was able to read it again and marveled at its simplicity, yet very true complex study of more than just what the title offers.

However, I’ve yet to really truly find a reason to respect Hemingway’s work; it’s just not my flavor, and personally I don’t see what the big deal is about him. This might sound self-defeating, as I myself am flirting with a glass full of Jameson as I write this very sentence. And as all us writers know, a liquid-enhanced ego is not always as tasteful as we presume it to be.

The aforementioned quote, albeit a bit wordy and round-about, stung me just the right way. And while I absolutely loathe everything there is that exists Springtime-related, mainly due to my biased hatred of my allergies, these musings throttled my loins especially:

“…if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits.”

This does not apply to just springtime alone, or whatever it was Hemingway had been thinking about at the time of spewing this passage. People seem to limit themselves like clockwork; whether it be out of a falsified sense of security or by habit or by curse…people will forever be tormented by the unavoidable mental flytrap of thinking they have to stick by limiting themselves if they are to survive. The saddest part being most of those people acknowledge the presence of their limits, but have never actually considered the alternative lifestyle that bases itself quite poetically on the philosophy of limiting those limits. Having such a narrow mindset, they might as well kill themselves now and get it over with. We all die in the end anyway, so if you aren’t going to take advantage of life’s testicles, then why not?



I hate springtime; the allergies, the bees, the hornets, the pansies, the weeding, the neighborhood brats that seem to have a serious lack of parenting about their asses; hell, even the sky takes on a shade of blue I’d rather not be acquainted with. Easter; the celebration of Zombie Jesus. Baseball. The Philadelphia Sillies and their worse-than-dirt “fans”. The HEAT….oh the HEAT. I’m an Autumn Man, full of Fall, I even bask in the occasional snowfall in nothing but m’panties…but spring…NO. Just NO.

The only thing I can say about spring, to sheepishly tie everything together into one massive knot of bullshit for this episode of Dave Matthes’ Brain on Whiskey and Love, and other Drugs, is that springtime always seems to bring about a sense of renewal. Those tragedies we may or may not have had to endure during the dead of winter, making us feel weighed down to the earth and thus limiting our strength to go on…springtime, even the smell of the very air, seems to remind me that everything is going to be okay…

…assuming I can get through spring of course.

Ernest, whatever your drug of choice was during the nights you shat out the literary feast that became A Moveable Feast, forget about the seasons…focus on the sinister super glue keeping our limits attached to our hearts; but then again…



Write on, my literary lovelies, write on <3

Love, hope, and quasi-meaningful death,
-Dave Matthes