Dave Matthes's Blog - Posts Tagged "death"

The Passive Aggressors, sequel to The Slut Always Rides Shotgun has been completed in terms of editing. The first print edition should become available for sale as soon as I receive and approve the final test print.

The Passive Aggressors can now be downloaded in ebook form on Goodreads and should be for sale in print form sometime within the next two weeks!

Well shit. The final test print would arrive in the mail TODAY of all days. Anyway...that's one less thing off my chest...The Passive Aggressors is now officially for sale at this link. Enjoy.


http://www.lulu.com/shop/david-matthe...

Interested in buying one of my books? Click this link and give me all your money...NOW.

The Dave Matthes Book Store

A PDF Edition of the EBOOK is up for download or to be read on the Goodreads website, for those who have been asking.

Quick Link here: The Passive Aggressors click "Read Book", and have at it.

Current Literary Project in the works:
"In This House, We Lived, and We Died"

-A spiritual journey of an old man masked in doubt and material blindness turns into his last waltz, as he returns to his hometown to find it deserted and bare in a last attempt to piece together the shattered remains of his all but dissipated memory.

Dedicated to and inspired by every single one of the dozens of old, lonely men I've met at bars, parks, and everywhere else, whom I've shared hours of conversation with.

It will basically be a combination of themes and elements as well as written styles gathered from stories like "A Christmas Carol", "What Dreams May Come", "The Divine Comedy", "The Road", as well as many others.

Cover Design:
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...

For more info and more updates:
https://www.facebook.com/Theslutalway...

(This will not be the final edit; it is only meant to relay the style in which the book will be written, and where the "story" takes place. The line of bold text is to be taken as spoken dialog. In the final edit of the book, each character's dialog will have an individual type of font and style given to their spoken words to reflect the personality of the character.)

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There had to be something in that defilement, some clue or divulgement to be reckoned with. This life couldn’t be all a strange, aimless, mystery full of lavish lust; there had to be something more, something more obvious to deshroud.

When I was a child, I would sometimes come to a vault at the top of a mound with fields and herb widespread all around in all directions. This vault was of course metaphorical and no more material than it was transparent; after all, who in their sanest of dispositions would ever place a vault on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere for everyone and anyone to find?

There was nothing actually IN this vault, so nothing could be taken out. It was simply...there, as a contingency. A “just in case” sort of thing. An exclamation point to the ceaseless paraphrase of my life.

I only went to this mound because something truly troublesome had lashed out at me, whether that something was material or not, physical or within. It was a place I could meld with; my mind, my heart, my soul, my spirit; digging my fingernails into the earth’s cool, calm soil; digging deep and rooting myself to a standstill. Absolute solidarity. Absolute absolution. It was here I didn’t have to worry about the mundane policies of life and society and the “rules” or “laws” forth-written. I was young, but even so young these things were known to me.

Only once was that solitude ever broken.

I was sitting at the top, about to go home for the night. The sun with its orange face, a ripple tearing through its chin dividing time from solstice, had begun its final descent. The encircling canopy below had darkened; its top black as tar. Here and there, far and near, there appeared swirling, staggering smoke trails leading up and out of the trees and into the heavens. I could just barely begin to smell the incineration of leaves...

The trees parted, and I saw a gaping jaw line masked in smoke and flame, and soon it became apparent that these other stacks of smoke climbing up and out of the trees, filtering through the canopy, were merely other people’s plights and terrors and superstitions, burning away at the seams. Mine was much more however, as the tread marks on the pavement faded into the clear, I knew that something far more obtrusive and much more terrifying had indeed made its way to my doorstep.

Everywhere you look there are time travelers...or at least they were at some point. They say actions speak louder than words, but it’s in our intentions where our greatest or our most terrifying art forms materialize.

I wanted to get out of this place, the pressure from all directions, the catacombs of emotion and denial all intertwining into one unavoidable guillotine just seconds away from severing mind from body. This mound, this hill, this abashed encoding abrasive and revolutionary in its intentions, corroding my palms, wearing down to my very bones so that I could not move nor dream of moving. Who would dare approve of such a reminder, such torment? Who would condone this ideology for others to suffer?

I stood at the top of this mound, longer than any such childhood memory would grant me, and found that the sun was neither rising nor falling. The trees were neither dark nor ambient. The wind was neither chilled nor promiscuous. Nothing moved. Nothing shuddered. The vault however, lying at my toes, embraced a far more haunting tune; evoking the lyrical pounding of my heart in a cunning and disquieting duet that echoed throughout the valley. For a moment, I was disgusted at the thought of something as inanimate as a vault stealing my heart’s words, but then again who really owns their heart to begin with? Is such a thing ours even from the start? From birth? Or do we make scattered and assorted payments and reparations towards it throughout our existence until the day we die in which we become its true owners?

Your handprints on the window,
Are closer than your fears.
There’s someone on the other side,
Playing with your tears...

Her voice again. From somewhere in the trees. I’d have to traverse the side of this hill and leave my vault behind if I was to pursue. And now that the thought of leaving such a place, even after growing to loathe it, became something less than axiomatic. I’m not sure I want to leave. This place, where everything including time stands still...why can’t I stay?

Below is a sample from my upcoming novel, "In This House, We Lived, and We Died", a story about an old man leaving his life to find the riddled and muddled remains of his memory lost to time. It's plot/story/themes are similar to and were inspired in part by A Christmas Carol, The Divine Comedy, What Dreams May Come, etc. As with the other sample, this text is not final and more than likely will be edited/added to/ subtracted from by the time the book is finished.


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“You’re insane.”
My words escaped slowly, synonymous with the fluid motion of a river's drive around rocks; with the same aromatic onset I placed the barrel against my temple. I knew this was what he meant all along and there had been indeed a searing suspicion from my end that the gun wouldn’t fire if aimed at him. This place was under his control...his rules...this was HIS game. And he was right...if I did want to find a way out, I’d have to listen to him.

Only now...I couldn't even leave the table. But why was I so resilient to resist this place’s invention? Why and equally as important, HOW did I become so accepting? I’d only begun to speculate as to why I was here at all and now, like a fool I was willingly putting a gun to my head with one hand while allowing this old motherfucker to set nail and hammer to my other hand. Am I me? Am I sure this desire to raise this gun to my temple is mine to avow?

The coldness was like that of a fathomless ocean, deep and quixotic, its true darkness invisible to all senses. Transparency was lust’s way of deceiving me, forcing me to digest the stalwart and mutable breath of fate; how was I to know this bullet was mine to swallow? There were too many variables to decode, a cast pair of dice whose faces have been altered to accommodate the agenda of June. Was she doing all this? She had always been a cunning linguist, dancing about in an endless duet with my conscious de la spectacular. But then again...she had left me long ago; there was little hope she’d ever return even if but for the sake of my own dismemberment, be it spiritual or literal or both. Perhaps the answer would forever elude me.

Pragmatic. Distilled. Purified. Kinetic. Juxtapositionary. LOVE. All things found beneath the toenails of a giant.

Pull the trigger.

Pull the trigger, he said.

I’d almost forgotten where the gun had ended up. And without further delay, I bit my lip and squeezed.

And at once, the veil of the darkest room in the darkest tower in the darkest of places was pulled back, exchanged for the bursting glares of an indignant sun and haphazard blindness. The splinters of the wooden floor boards were removed abruptly, and in their place the smooth, warming sensation of perfectly fine sands found their calling between my toes. My already shattered mental buoyancy was now completely skewered.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Roatfv...

I was in a desert. Somewhere off the map. The sky a true turquoise, the horizon infinitely locked in a slumber of tranquility and unfaith. And on the farthest dune, where the top of the crest embraced the weatherless sky, there stood a figure, a woman, dark against the blue, her tattered dress taken by the wind at her feet. Her face was hidden and it was impossible to ascertain the true nature of her stance. The only clue to behold being a chant atop the breeze, something mature and flagrant. Deliberate and unashamed. Perhaps this was her theme, her voice, her desires immutable and numbing. This was not my place, this was hers and-

CLICK.

It is not your time. How fortunate.

“How surreal,” I corrected him.

I was back with the old man. Cold and unforgiveable. The wooden shards of desperation welcoming my feet’s return. The hollow shells of burdens moist and dripping with hate and dread accompanying my every breath. And the gun, this mocking token of freedom, was still in my grasp.

Where then, when then, would I find the end of this terrible discourse? Why was my hand still nailed to this table...this tapestry of infamy? And who was that woman so far away, so long off to the touch, her musical voice the only orchestral searchlight to the abyss of my heart? Would I not find the stitches soon, I would soon bleed out whether from my hand or from my unquenchable well of empty answers.....



---In This House, We Lived, and We Died

This is more or less a response to the innumerable armies of sheltered minds questioning my motives as a writer...questions that may or may not need answering simply because I'm tired of explaining myself ceaselessly in as few words as "I don't give a fat fuckin' fuck about getting paid for my writing".



I've written little ditties and short stories most of my life since taking a little summer camp course at my elementary school between Kindergarten and First Grade. Granted, they were terrible and repetitive and as directionless as a snowflake. But eventually after seeing how changeless my stories had become, I decided to devote my pending "talent" to being as different and original as possible, whether it be through dialog, story, themes, or even as simple as prose. To this day I do my best to continue that tradition.



That being said...being self-published as I am, does not promise a paycheck or even a surplus of earnings. Every copy of one of my books I sell, I acquire two maybe three to four dollars, which isn't much. I've done some research on this, and have been told by many, that in order to really make it big in the author-world, or to "get rich" so to speak, is to conform to a system of standards in which the very System itself controls. In other words, you sell yourself into becoming a "Genre Writer", to solely appeal to a particular brand of audience. Take this further and perhaps more dramatically, you cease to be a writer and your work no longer becomes your own. I refuse to end up like this.

Being self-published, I am able to write what I want, and KEEP what I want. I don't have to worry about impressing anyone, or selling my intelligence, etc. I write for myself in my way without the fear of having the change ANYTHING based on a contract. The first names that come to mind: Stephen King, Chuck P, as popular as they are, only write to a certain audience, generally. From what I've read, most of their work is a steady reworking of one book to another...they recycle. This is NOT writing. This is "conforming", and an embarrassment to the world of invention. They are NOT artists and their type of person will remain a warning sign to me on my shit-stricken road of life. I'm not even going to elaborate on the drenched, toilet paper pages "writers" like Stephanie Meyer and E. L. James have shat out. Real artists and favorists of intelligent creativity already know what I'm talking about.



Being a writer, to me, is all about the individual. It has nothing to do with the audience. Whoever happens to come across my work and "get it" or understand it, good on them. But that has never been and never will (unless I go senile one day, which with my family genes is very, very likely) be my intention. This all may sound like a rant, but you can usually tell the level of intelligence a person harbors by the amount of conformity they allow themselves to be plagued by. For instance, society seems partial to roboticizing everyone who's willing or not, and all those who refuse said "standards" are immediately cast as strange or delinquent. Now, that's not to say that because fucking a cow is frowned upon by the general population that I'm going to rebel and get up off my fat black ass and go snog the nearest cow. But there is a certain level that we owe ourselves as "civilized folk" to fall into. With writing, this I cannot do at all. Conformity is the line that divides being an artist and simply wandering about as an advocate of the writing "profession".



To write is to have a voice, and we all have one. Painters, Arborists, sculptors, lyricists...they all have a voice. But the more we subjugate our talents and abilities to the throws of money and contracts and standards and rules and boundaries simply for the money, the less we exist as true artists. I write not for fame or recognition or for a paycheck, but to immortalize the endless bullshit that seems to inflict itself upon my life with the single hope being that IF someone reads it, they will at least gather something immaterial and substantial enough to remember for their own selves.

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?