Your Stories
Bring me your stories, and I will be your keeper of tales.
From your towers damselled in distressed,
Let me scribble not theirs, but your escaped lores and fables.
Away from everywhere, in the midst of this empty, plastic domain,
Paint me your passionate parables impressed on your purpose
For I will stain and dye your untamed spectacles on chronicled lines.
Share with me those long walks in autumn,
Where the golden trees hang like mythic shadows.
Or perhaps where you dropped those last pieces of leaves
In those metropolitan cities, where language is wordless.
Allow me to capture those welling tears of that unblinking martyr.
Tell me His Kingdom, as in Heaven has come. Tell me that God is dead and done.
For I will seek what you abandoned to hide,
And bring your double identity to light.
Let me linger in your abandoned howls from midsummer, from beginning to October end,
As this weary patience dangles on the fringe of explosions, without escape!
For in all the crumblings of the tellings and findings of what you thought you knew,
I will scratch your adventures of living proof for a world and heaven complete,
But all I ask, is that you please continue…
The Cat Does Not Care for Reason
The cat is to blame
For all shattered plates
And good vibes.
But that is alright,
I would take his good with his bad.
The cat wails at the new moon,
And hauls to me his winged food.
He hops on the trembling tree lines,
He flees at the sign of a lime.
He softly coos and fur-licks
His bobtail thick.
With nothing but instinct,
The cat decides what is done,
And that which should be finished.
A gentle sleeper-taker in my shoe cramp,
The cat swipes away
My finger on his tummy,
As if the index should be damned.
To be so callous in life,
Bringing me dead mice
In poise of high indifference,
I guess is nice,
Or disgustedly beautiful.
For World
This is for you World.
For instead of
Hollow, heartless carcass,
This is what I would
Like for you
To preserve,
From me.
I made best
When you looked at me.
You,
Molded in image like God,
I, molded in image of spirit tossed.
For I cried sirens of soul
On paper with pen for you,
Some you lauded, some you spurned.
Just Let the Writer’s Block Happen
Like so many cities packed in the “Hello World,”
Of a globetrotting book bag,
There are simply too many words to unpack,
And these are thoughts of men
From swirling, untamed, but beautiful lands
That present home simply will not understand.
So I will pour out life,
As if I was a procreator,
At another time, or another day.
For I presently harness space
In lands lush of frustrate, lands of procrastinate.
Upon the World’s Stage
Life is a Comedy.
An unconscious odyssey
Where God smiles proudly
To Geppetto’s honesty
And Mr. Wonka’s grand factory.
In the grandest seat,
He’s enthralled upon each coming scene
As the bells ring to an angel’s wing
On a 16×9 widescreen
As the gaffes and jokers cannot be unseen.
Life is a Tragedy.
Fredo and Antony break philosophy
Harmingly hurting honestly
Where God can’t help but cry immensely.
Written profusely on corrupted pages
The words so illegible betray
A lone audience member to ask for a translate
For the twisted vocab masquerades
A world so decadent.
A world so fake.
***
“Your Stories” and “Upon the World’s Stage” were previously published in The Coraddi, the student-run literary magazine for the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Matthew Johnson’s poetry has appeared in The Coraddi, The Carolinian, Obsidian Magazine, The News Verse News, and The Yellow Chair Review. He also has writing set to appear and Ink in Thirds. He is pictured above in the blue hat.
SICK LIT MAGAZINE 
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