A sublime man.
There was once a man
Brad Nowell his name
Long beach he grew
Great music he played
bud and eric
on the drums and bass
Everywhere they jammed
their tunes destroyed the place
But as all men have a vice
Brad had times twice
Pesky writers block impedes
He had a well known fix indeed
At first, if he couldn’t think
He’d sit down with a drink
One gin lead to four
and by the end of the day he needed more
So to the needles he took
his family and friends
shook
“Just a music experiment” He said
“You really think I’ll wind up dead?”
For two years, the music genius flowed
“Be careful with the opiates” he was told
But sobriety just isn’t that fun
when you’ve got songs to write
and shows to be done
Shortly after his newlywed wife had born
A baby boy too young to mourn
the death of his father, too far in
Should have stuck with the bud and gin
So here he lies
the late and great
A gift to the world too quickly dies
a self constructed, self assured fate.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Poem 4
Dramatic Monologue Matt Steel
There he stands, hands in chains
A dangerous criminal, or so the judge claims
Metal links, metal sinks, paper cups for cafeteria drinks
Not his wife’s cooking, no his daughter’s crafts
Not there to see his son’s draft
“Go long dad, catch!” he would say
So they’d just sit and throw the ball around all day
They grow up quick, that’s how the old saying goes
In a cell feeling sick
at the thought of the life he chose
Everyday he sees the faces of his family and friends in the back of his eyes
As the days go on, apathy quickly dawns
as he knows in the end everyone dies
stuck in a box, day in and day out
But why? Something vile and evil no doubt
Rapist, insane? Killer, disturbed?
A good man, a foreman, just sold the herb.
A friend,
now foe
let the corrupt police know
his name
his phone
so they would let him go
back in to the streets
a second degree murderer, now free
You must think “This is absurd, a murderer?! This can’t be!”
In the eyes of the stupid, murder just ‘aint as vile as fifty pounds, you see
They say he’ll be free,
with good behaviour indeed
in a high security hell
violence is a need
So there he stands, not ignorant, he knows
twenty fife to life’s just not a joke
Why wait until sixty, surely end it quick
A shoelace and a bunkbed should do the trick
One more soul not helped, not told
Left to “live”, rot, and grow old
To die and be removed from that sick, gray little room
be replaced with another husband, father, son
to be left to his life of gloom.
There he stands, hands in chains
A dangerous criminal, or so the judge claims
Metal links, metal sinks, paper cups for cafeteria drinks
Not his wife’s cooking, no his daughter’s crafts
Not there to see his son’s draft
“Go long dad, catch!” he would say
So they’d just sit and throw the ball around all day
They grow up quick, that’s how the old saying goes
In a cell feeling sick
at the thought of the life he chose
Everyday he sees the faces of his family and friends in the back of his eyes
As the days go on, apathy quickly dawns
as he knows in the end everyone dies
stuck in a box, day in and day out
But why? Something vile and evil no doubt
Rapist, insane? Killer, disturbed?
A good man, a foreman, just sold the herb.
A friend,
now foe
let the corrupt police know
his name
his phone
so they would let him go
back in to the streets
a second degree murderer, now free
You must think “This is absurd, a murderer?! This can’t be!”
In the eyes of the stupid, murder just ‘aint as vile as fifty pounds, you see
They say he’ll be free,
with good behaviour indeed
in a high security hell
violence is a need
So there he stands, not ignorant, he knows
twenty fife to life’s just not a joke
Why wait until sixty, surely end it quick
A shoelace and a bunkbed should do the trick
One more soul not helped, not told
Left to “live”, rot, and grow old
To die and be removed from that sick, gray little room
be replaced with another husband, father, son
to be left to his life of gloom.
Journal 10
Journal 10 - What is Poetry?
My entire collection of experience with poetry comes directly from school english classes. I’m sure I’ve ran through some in reading novels or just through cruising through my eighteen years, but it’s never really been a conscience effort of my own to get into or learn more about any kind of poetry. For the most part it frustrates me when people shut a whole category of something out simply because they don’t like it or because they have difficulty with it, but as there are exceptions to everything there are hypocrisies to delve in to. Poetry holds a special place in my heart as a boycott and a frustration. I look at it, and I’d like to think I understand most of it, but it just doesn’t matter to me. I’ve tried and tried with different poetry icons and I just can’t make myself give a damn about poetry. With thought out assurance I can claim with almighty arrogance that when most people look at poetry and claim brilliance or poetic art, they’re goofs. How many times in class I’ve witnessed people trying to dissect the words in a poem only to end up with some generic, half baked tripe about some deeper meaning behind something, usually starting with “Well, when I read X, I think it’s a metaphor for Y, at least in my mind anyway”, or something of the like. Poetry to me is taking nothing and making it in to more nothing and labelling it as a something.
The study of poetry to me is wasted time that could be used for studying something of “value” (When I say this, I don’t mean to extend the notion that poetry is without any value, simply that it lacks apparent value to me). I know there are plenty of people out there with a far greater understanding of poetry than me, but the idea of spending curriculum space on anything more than a brief run through for poetry is jokes. Yeah, it may open up some newfound poets to the genre, but how “useful” it is to teach our children poetry instead of say, painting or welding.? Carpenters 1, poets, 0.
My entire collection of experience with poetry comes directly from school english classes. I’m sure I’ve ran through some in reading novels or just through cruising through my eighteen years, but it’s never really been a conscience effort of my own to get into or learn more about any kind of poetry. For the most part it frustrates me when people shut a whole category of something out simply because they don’t like it or because they have difficulty with it, but as there are exceptions to everything there are hypocrisies to delve in to. Poetry holds a special place in my heart as a boycott and a frustration. I look at it, and I’d like to think I understand most of it, but it just doesn’t matter to me. I’ve tried and tried with different poetry icons and I just can’t make myself give a damn about poetry. With thought out assurance I can claim with almighty arrogance that when most people look at poetry and claim brilliance or poetic art, they’re goofs. How many times in class I’ve witnessed people trying to dissect the words in a poem only to end up with some generic, half baked tripe about some deeper meaning behind something, usually starting with “Well, when I read X, I think it’s a metaphor for Y, at least in my mind anyway”, or something of the like. Poetry to me is taking nothing and making it in to more nothing and labelling it as a something.
The study of poetry to me is wasted time that could be used for studying something of “value” (When I say this, I don’t mean to extend the notion that poetry is without any value, simply that it lacks apparent value to me). I know there are plenty of people out there with a far greater understanding of poetry than me, but the idea of spending curriculum space on anything more than a brief run through for poetry is jokes. Yeah, it may open up some newfound poets to the genre, but how “useful” it is to teach our children poetry instead of say, painting or welding.? Carpenters 1, poets, 0.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Journal 9
Journal 9 - “Lockdown” Matt Steel
To be entirely honest I don’t pay attention to any issues in any media unless I’ve heard significant word of mouth. Many issues in any form of media are either overinflated, skewed, or dramatised for the desired result. Murders, rapes, 9/11, SARS, Swine flu, people love to hear about all that shit. People just absolutely love to finish a nine to five and return to a trashy living room, sit down, and think “Oh wow, isn’t it terrible that those six thousand people were raped and killed while their houses were torched to the ground. Sure glad it wasn’t me!”. I mean, what’s the point of living an empty, uneventful, 25 thousand a year life when you can’t turn on channel-who-cares and have an all american pity party? I don’t agree with the notion of our world being a different place simply because a couple kids snapped. We’ve always had guns and we’ve always had angry, confused teenagers to abuse them. In school I’d say I feel very safe. As safe as one could reasonably be in a public area. I’m not on bad terms with anyone that goes to this school, I’m not the kind of person to abuse some kid, and I’m not worried about anyone injuring me in a fight, let alone one starting. I guess I could catch a shell from some psychotic shooter but the chances of that happening are so slim that if it happened then hey, at least it’d be a good way to go.
I don’t have a legitimate way for our society to become more peaceful and if anyone in a grade 12 class claimed they did they’d be stoned. The first things that come to mind are the simple, fix everything solutions like “Teach our children to be more peaceful” or “increase violent crime penalties” or “reduce the availability of firearms” but honestly I’ve got few means to administer said solution to our society nor a way to prove any of them right. Hell, I think we should be able to carry firearms regardless, taking away a lumberjack’s saw only keeps the trees standing until he finds his axe.
This “lockdown” business is absolutely ludicrous and makes me fume at just the thought. Let me get this straight, there’s a violent threat of some sort so we are -
Locked in our rooms protected by 3cm of borosilicate, curtains, and a wooden door fastened to the wall with screws, window included.
Not aloud to leave
Not aloud to use our cellphones/internet
Must sit in pre-determined “safe zones”.
This is laughable. Being locked in a room with such flimsy security measures against a -violent- threat doesn’t even need it’s stupidity explained. Our RIGHTS to FREEDOM are withdrawn when we are threatened with repercussions such as expulsion. The reasoning behind the cellphone business has been justified because “The threats may have access to cellphone detection devices including GPS abuse”. Oh, the bloodthirsty murderer armed with technology allowing him to pick up a random cellphone GPS location and track it not to a general area such as the school, but to a specific location. The sociopath with government level technology will be stopped of course by two inches of wood hanging off it’s hinges with a couple steel screws. Jokes.
To be entirely honest I don’t pay attention to any issues in any media unless I’ve heard significant word of mouth. Many issues in any form of media are either overinflated, skewed, or dramatised for the desired result. Murders, rapes, 9/11, SARS, Swine flu, people love to hear about all that shit. People just absolutely love to finish a nine to five and return to a trashy living room, sit down, and think “Oh wow, isn’t it terrible that those six thousand people were raped and killed while their houses were torched to the ground. Sure glad it wasn’t me!”. I mean, what’s the point of living an empty, uneventful, 25 thousand a year life when you can’t turn on channel-who-cares and have an all american pity party? I don’t agree with the notion of our world being a different place simply because a couple kids snapped. We’ve always had guns and we’ve always had angry, confused teenagers to abuse them. In school I’d say I feel very safe. As safe as one could reasonably be in a public area. I’m not on bad terms with anyone that goes to this school, I’m not the kind of person to abuse some kid, and I’m not worried about anyone injuring me in a fight, let alone one starting. I guess I could catch a shell from some psychotic shooter but the chances of that happening are so slim that if it happened then hey, at least it’d be a good way to go.
I don’t have a legitimate way for our society to become more peaceful and if anyone in a grade 12 class claimed they did they’d be stoned. The first things that come to mind are the simple, fix everything solutions like “Teach our children to be more peaceful” or “increase violent crime penalties” or “reduce the availability of firearms” but honestly I’ve got few means to administer said solution to our society nor a way to prove any of them right. Hell, I think we should be able to carry firearms regardless, taking away a lumberjack’s saw only keeps the trees standing until he finds his axe.
This “lockdown” business is absolutely ludicrous and makes me fume at just the thought. Let me get this straight, there’s a violent threat of some sort so we are -
Locked in our rooms protected by 3cm of borosilicate, curtains, and a wooden door fastened to the wall with screws, window included.
Not aloud to leave
Not aloud to use our cellphones/internet
Must sit in pre-determined “safe zones”.
This is laughable. Being locked in a room with such flimsy security measures against a -violent- threat doesn’t even need it’s stupidity explained. Our RIGHTS to FREEDOM are withdrawn when we are threatened with repercussions such as expulsion. The reasoning behind the cellphone business has been justified because “The threats may have access to cellphone detection devices including GPS abuse”. Oh, the bloodthirsty murderer armed with technology allowing him to pick up a random cellphone GPS location and track it not to a general area such as the school, but to a specific location. The sociopath with government level technology will be stopped of course by two inches of wood hanging off it’s hinges with a couple steel screws. Jokes.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Journal 12 - Freewrite
It’s Friday, November 6’th 2009. It’s the past of the present and it’s also far too late in the evening to be writing a journal but here I sit, and the present is all that’s on my brain, or anyone’s brain at that. I look around my room and I can recall everything, the dust covered jet black moniter, the shine of light reflecting from the hardwood floor. The way I look, the way I think and the way I feel. I can remember thirty seconds ago, ten minutes even. The feel of my shuffling, tired feet up the soft carpet-covered stairs. But the past, last week, last weeks last week, that’s when it starts to slip.
I’ve spent eighteen years, probably a third of my life on this planet and from that eighteen years if I actually sat down and thought about how much I could remember, took all my memories about everything and threw it into a non-stop film, it’d probably be about three or four hours. All the days spent concerned with all of the trivial insignificancies of the past’s present we call “problems” result in the people we are today. Not to say I’m some all wise being of worldly experience, the things I think are problems right now are probably going to be things of laughter down the road, but the recent past has provided me with a strange change in how I feel about the things going on around me and the excess behind them. Tomorrow’s got a strange new appearance and it’s leaving me anxious.
I’ve spent eighteen years, probably a third of my life on this planet and from that eighteen years if I actually sat down and thought about how much I could remember, took all my memories about everything and threw it into a non-stop film, it’d probably be about three or four hours. All the days spent concerned with all of the trivial insignificancies of the past’s present we call “problems” result in the people we are today. Not to say I’m some all wise being of worldly experience, the things I think are problems right now are probably going to be things of laughter down the road, but the recent past has provided me with a strange change in how I feel about the things going on around me and the excess behind them. Tomorrow’s got a strange new appearance and it’s leaving me anxious.
Poem 3
Lyric poem- Cars, Matt Steel.
In our cars we ride
Quicker than our foots stride
More gas, more gas,
We’re strapped for time!
Smiling wide for the ride
For the weather is gray and hot outside
Gliding home, where we reside
To sleep
To rest
So tomorrow we repeat
And slowly kill the rest
Smiling wide for the ride
In our cars we ride
Quicker than our foots stride
More gas, more gas,
We’re strapped for time!
Smiling wide for the ride
For the weather is gray and hot outside
Gliding home, where we reside
To sleep
To rest
So tomorrow we repeat
And slowly kill the rest
Smiling wide for the ride
Poem 2- Sonnet
A forced Sonnet, Matt Steel.
The sun outside has gone inside today
So here I sit in this dark dingy room
With little candlelight and not a ray
Of bright renewal for this lonely gloom
Day after day I sit, sit and just wait
For tomorrow may provide a bright light
And here I pray for a sunnier date
When strength can be drawn from and used to fight
Eyes still sealed tight while the curtains are moved
By something strange, warm and friendly, no doubt.
Quiet, silent, for it’s point to be proved
So strong, so loud, I must wake up to shout
“Oh night, why have you left, why have you gone?
You were my reason to not mow the lawn!”
The sun outside has gone inside today
So here I sit in this dark dingy room
With little candlelight and not a ray
Of bright renewal for this lonely gloom
Day after day I sit, sit and just wait
For tomorrow may provide a bright light
And here I pray for a sunnier date
When strength can be drawn from and used to fight
Eyes still sealed tight while the curtains are moved
By something strange, warm and friendly, no doubt.
Quiet, silent, for it’s point to be proved
So strong, so loud, I must wake up to shout
“Oh night, why have you left, why have you gone?
You were my reason to not mow the lawn!”
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Journal 8
Matt Steel
Journal 8 - Free Write: Zombie Apocalypse
Through all the movies and video games and folklore, at one point everyone has had the thought; What if it really happened? What if mankind was legitimately facing extinction due to an infection that renders the victim vicious, mindless, and hungry? It seems silly, of course, but the notion of a widespread infection isn’t something altogether foreign to us as a people. The scepticism in this scenario is having people who have already -died- come back to life, teeth bared and blood-covered hands swinging.
The bit that all those great zombie movies miss is it actually being able to happen. I’m fully convinced that a "zombie" infection is not only possible but at some point down the road, assured. For example, look at rabies. Rabies has a couple traits that on their own are quite normal, but paired together result in something altogether more deadly. The fallowing is a brief list of rabies symptoms - Anxiety, insomnia, confusion, agitation, abnormal behavior, paranoia, terror, production of large amounts of saliva, and "hallucinations progressing to delirium". There are two different things worth noting here. The first is a variety of negative, aggressive mental traits and a mouth filled with infectious bodily fluids. The mode of viral transportation is as frightening as it is efficient.
Diseases and infections are constantly changing and adapting just like any other form of life, new symptoms and conditions develop all the time, so what’s stopping our current form of rabies adapting to keep the host alive longer? If the infection didn’t turn people in to brain eating monsters immediately after being bitten, a week of delusional paranoia with no sleep on an already insane mind could easily lead to the beastly freaks we call "zombies".
We live and treat our lives not as the gifts they are but as assumed rights, how prepared are we for an apocalyptical event? If we started hearing moans right now as we tap, tap, tap on our plastic keyboards drinking our twelve-servings-of-fruit-in-one-bottle syrup, if the windows started smashing and a rabies-infected south America started rushing over our borders, through our schools and up our stairs, would we be prepared for it? People keep themselves in piss poor physical shape, people smoke cigarettes and sleep three hours a night to accommodate their homework addictions. People can’t sprint a hundred metres without huffing and puffing by the eighty mark, because when you’ve got a car to drive to the store and a video game and a cigarette to keep you occupied, who care’s about what ifs? I’ve got what I think to be a clever escape plan formulated in my brain including every variable from friends to family to guns to long term raids reconstruction, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t overlooked some other silly, fiendish cult monster looking to take over the world. Zombies are no problem, but if Cthulu or aliens start slapping us around I’m on the same probe boat as everyone else.
Journal 8 - Free Write: Zombie Apocalypse
Through all the movies and video games and folklore, at one point everyone has had the thought; What if it really happened? What if mankind was legitimately facing extinction due to an infection that renders the victim vicious, mindless, and hungry? It seems silly, of course, but the notion of a widespread infection isn’t something altogether foreign to us as a people. The scepticism in this scenario is having people who have already -died- come back to life, teeth bared and blood-covered hands swinging.
The bit that all those great zombie movies miss is it actually being able to happen. I’m fully convinced that a "zombie" infection is not only possible but at some point down the road, assured. For example, look at rabies. Rabies has a couple traits that on their own are quite normal, but paired together result in something altogether more deadly. The fallowing is a brief list of rabies symptoms - Anxiety, insomnia, confusion, agitation, abnormal behavior, paranoia, terror, production of large amounts of saliva, and "hallucinations progressing to delirium". There are two different things worth noting here. The first is a variety of negative, aggressive mental traits and a mouth filled with infectious bodily fluids. The mode of viral transportation is as frightening as it is efficient.
Diseases and infections are constantly changing and adapting just like any other form of life, new symptoms and conditions develop all the time, so what’s stopping our current form of rabies adapting to keep the host alive longer? If the infection didn’t turn people in to brain eating monsters immediately after being bitten, a week of delusional paranoia with no sleep on an already insane mind could easily lead to the beastly freaks we call "zombies".
We live and treat our lives not as the gifts they are but as assumed rights, how prepared are we for an apocalyptical event? If we started hearing moans right now as we tap, tap, tap on our plastic keyboards drinking our twelve-servings-of-fruit-in-one-bottle syrup, if the windows started smashing and a rabies-infected south America started rushing over our borders, through our schools and up our stairs, would we be prepared for it? People keep themselves in piss poor physical shape, people smoke cigarettes and sleep three hours a night to accommodate their homework addictions. People can’t sprint a hundred metres without huffing and puffing by the eighty mark, because when you’ve got a car to drive to the store and a video game and a cigarette to keep you occupied, who care’s about what ifs? I’ve got what I think to be a clever escape plan formulated in my brain including every variable from friends to family to guns to long term raids reconstruction, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t overlooked some other silly, fiendish cult monster looking to take over the world. Zombies are no problem, but if Cthulu or aliens start slapping us around I’m on the same probe boat as everyone else.
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