Tuesday, December 20, 2016

If We Want Happiness


Whenever happiness stands still, it’s sad.
   Wherever sadness stands, it digs deep holes.
The pits are what make our low hungers glad.
   A ladder is what Love is to our souls.
Whenever Love is silent, Hatred screams;
   But it will whimper when Love whispers once.
Pity is not what weakens, but redeems.
   Envy is like a teacher who’s a dunce.
We are all lost inside what we have found
   To cling to: all the stuff, and not the thing.
The keys we use to free us keep us bound.
   We dream as if there’s no awakening.
      If Love’s our dish, then struggle is the bill.
      If we want happiness, we can’t stand still.


Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells


Friday, December 16, 2016

21st Century Life Lessons



We’re taught to think being confused is sinning
Instead of what it is—the starting line
Where every question about what we’re winning
Reveals the race’s sponsor and design.

We’re taught that we were born to be productive
So that we will not question why we work
Or who it profits, or how self-destructive
It is to cling to dreams and die a clerk.

We’re taught that we all have a chance to win
As long as we commit to play a game
That profiles every player by their skin
While preaching that inside we’re all the same.

And when we’re stained by all that’s foul, we’re taught
To lap it up and overlook the rot.



Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Love Is Christmas - The 2016 Xmas Music Compilation




The thing about Bowie is, he was always five years ahead of the curve. He did it before everybody. So you can forgive me for thinking that, since he decided to check out in January, we’re all doomed. (And then Alan Rickman heard that Liev Schreiber was going to be doing Liaisons Dangereuses, said “It is beyond my control” so it broke your heart, and exited stage left, a gentleman all the way.)

That doomed feeling is such a winter thing, isn’t it? Whether you celebrate a birth, gather around a tree, light a brace of candles, get put through the wringer by a bunch of sadistic ghosts, or stamp your staff with glee, it’s all about birth and renewal in a waste of death and the withered, it’s all about love as a candle in the darkness, love as warmth against the chill of pettiness, love as an oasis of hope in the smug and pompous desert of contempt.

That desert takes many forms. That coldness always comes from new directions. That winter always feels like it will never end. But it does. As everything does.

Except love.

It’s who we are. It’s how we do. If there's a star in the sky that guides us, that's its name. And if we follow it, one day we'll look around and see no stranger's face. 


Merry happy, everybody.


Matthew


The 2016 Xmas Compilation: Love Is Christmas


Part One: Love Is Who We Are

Clarence Puts It All In Perspective
Love Is ChristmasSara Bareilles
Joseph, Better You Than MeThe Killers
RiverAshley Monroe
Christmas Is All AroundSleeping At Last
Silent NightLisa Harrington
SilenceJack O’Rourke
Please Santa, Let’s GoVyvienne Long
Redribbon FoxesA Fine Frenzy
RudyBe Good Tanyas
Clothe Yourself For The WinterSofia Talvik
Santa Claus Is Coming To TownThe Harmony Grits
I Want A Boy For ChristmasThe Del Vetts
White ChristmasThe Ravens
I’ll Stay Home (New Year’s Eve)The Creators
Lonely This ChristmasLos Kingdom
MistletoeJustice Crew
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)John Holt
WonderlandHeidi Klum
Christmas Isn’t Christmas ‘Til You Get HereKylie Minogue


Part Two: Love Is How We Do

Text Me Merry ChristmasStraight No Chaser (featuring Kristen Bell)
To Christmas! (The Drinking Song)Straight No Chaser
A New Year’s CarolJoel Graham
Oh Santa (Bad World)Freedom Fry
Fairytale Of New YorkNo Use For A Name
Santa BabyThe Dollyrots
Angels We Have Heard On HighBad Religion
All I Want For Christmas Is YouThe Dollyrots
Santa Claus Is Coming To TownThe Reverend Horton Heat
Sweet ChristmasShonen Knife
Another Rock ‘n’ Roll ChristmasGary Glitter
Deck The Hall Boogie!Asleep At The Wheel
Egg Nog TwistThree Elfmen
Russian Sleigh SongThe Three Suns
Carol of The BellsThe Last Bison
The Christmas Massacre of Charlie BrownDJ John
St Nick The KnifeVoicedude
RudolphDetail
Black ChristmasPoly Styrene
Bonus Track





Monday, December 12, 2016

Life In 14 Lines - 18




I have a lot of faith, but not in me.
I blame myself for what I can’t prevent.
I feel desire, but never hopefully.
My tenant’s Love—she owes me years of rent.

I take a lot of pains and feel each one.
I know the score, but not what I can play.
Jokes are my bullets, loneliness my gun.
I know the island as a castaway.

I trust in promises more than I should.
I walk into the minefield like a native.
My soul is always greedy for the good
And selfless when it comes to the creative.

I treat Life like a gift, when it’s a loan,
And write all stories well except my own.



Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells


Wednesday, December 7, 2016

The Crosswalk




Walk sign turns red. A woman waits to cross.
   She pulls a tiny mirror out and primps.
She checks her eyeliner; applies lip gloss;
   Then looks right at me—and I get a glimpse
Of oceans no one's ever sailed. And all
   The unsailed deep in me that no one knows—
Because we meet the world as an atoll
   That hides a continent—sees her and glows
Like the Atlantic under a full moon.
   For one brief moment, that look stops me short
Like the loud bursting of some kid’s balloon
   Or the bang of a .38’s report.
      The solid earth cracks open, eggshell-thin.
      Do I jump off, or let myself fall in?

Some people open up like ancient caves.
   Some have thick plastic on their heirloom chairs.
Some have a cellar packed with hidden graves
   And some run classrooms full of questionnaires.
No matter what or how much the world sees,
   We all contain the inaccessible—
A country of uncategorized trees
   And cryptic creatures by the barrowful—
Unglimpsed, no matter how much we reveal
   About ourselves—no matter who we say
We are. What we portray, as if it’s real,
   Is like one planet in the Milky Way.
      That’s what I see—and seeing, recognize—
      The moment that I meet this woman’s eyes.

How can I fool myself into believing
   That I'll know you, I think, when under all
I splash through is a hidden ocean, heaving
   With tides unknown, held in by the sea wall
That is your public face? Even your eyes
   Only go down so far. And while there’s much
In them to satisfy and tantalize,
   There’s bone beneath that skin which I can’t touch.
It doesn’t matter if or how I’ve cared.
   What only matters is the ground you yield.
I only get to swim in what’s been shared.
   I only get to map what’s been revealed.
      And even if you yield it all, there’ll be
      A world—a life—that I will never see.

We have eons in us, but all we know
   Is moments. They sum up our history.
And if we're lucky, when they're shared, they grow
   Into new islands on a common sea.
No—not an island—it’s a mountaintop
   No one can measure without long deep dives.
We live between the darkness and the drop
   And when we die, the tip’s all that survives.
And now and then we meet at a crosswalk
   Between where we are now and where we’re going—
A pebble from an undiscovered rock;
   The splinter from a tree that’s always growing—
      And wonder—will we let this spark ignite?
      Or smile and part, when the walk sign turns white?



Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells