Tag Archives: Matthew Louis Roth Poetry

The handcuffs of courteous behavior… Friday, October 25, 2014 / Salford, UK #SchwervonPoetry

IMG_4216.JPG
Good friend on a green couch
Tell me about your first time
Let’s talk about how we’ve soiled
Our lives
Let’s discuss the processes
Or laundry
The delicate cycles
The virtues of hand washing
And a good hot iron

The handcuffs of courteous behavior
The burden of fruitlessness
The freedom of the priesthood

Repetition, repetition, repetition
Pound world
Pound world
Pound world

If I remind you of someone
Who hurt you
that could hurt
I know
But
If I remind you of someone
Who loved you
That could hurt you even more

I don’t need colored lights
To know which way the wind blows

I need warmth
I need sweetness
It’s need a mouth full of earth
It’s not something you just
Cram in or
Spit out.
It’s all around
It’s inside.

A mouth that swallows a Mountian
A horse that always knows
The way home

(This poem was originally recited at First Chop Brewing Arm on October 25, 2014 in Salford, UK)

Leave a rainbow in the bog… Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014 / Sheffield, UK #SchwervonPoetry

Sheffield
We make a break for it
Say our goodbyes quickly
And then it’s off
into the mustard sky night

Sometimes
I am a chicken head
waiting to separate from it’s body
So much less to worry about
All the wasted hours
Walking from place to place
The sore muscles
The stretching

Our heroes for the night
are a pack of boy musicians
They save us from the war
Of office politics
And High Blood Pressure

Sometimes
I am a building ledge talker downer
I Basque in  the simplicity
Things always go one of two ways
I spend my nights flip flopping
On the purpose of my existence

I am a luxury
I am a necessity
I give purpose
I have purpose

I am marsh land
Flooded with things
Slipping into the cold dark mud
An ageless place for
Things without eyes
To be
Or not to be
No questions asked

Just leave notch on the bedpost
And Before you go
leave a rainbow in the bog
For the next sad shitter

(This poem was originally recited at The Rocking Chair on October 21, 2014 in Sheffield, UK)

Call me pack horse…Sunday Oct. 19, 2014 / Nottingham, UK #SchwervonPoetry

Untitled
Call me pack horse
Call me living dream
Call me quiet strange lady
Sitting a cross from me on the train
Call me a liar.
She wasn’t strange at all
Actually quite nice.
But she did refer to herself as short.

Giant cranes swing their
Giant steely beaks
Through the air
Slicing through a Shepard pie sky
Dousing the clouds in a thick
Warm industrial gravy

I hear tale of an old model ship
That hasen’t been dusted
For a many many years
For fear that the chosen janitor
Be struck down dead
just like the last several in the past

Love is a test that you never fail
Stop trying to memorize
Start fighting bees

Pumping things up to win
Lambs on the prairie drinking cider
Waving at a bullet as it passes by
Is there a doorman at the gates of hell
Checking OD’s ?
Measuring the with of you sores

No shortage of green pastures around here
No shortage of rain
The rain comes and then it goes
Just like the sun

 (This poem was originally recited at Spanky Van Dykes on October 19, 2014 in Nottingham, UK)