I've been in a strange place lately. Trying to get over past relationships by covering them up with new ones has proven to be a very self-destructive tactic and I find one of the best ways to release them is to revisit poetry. This poem is dedicated to a singer who I recently discovered and find her music is extremely soothing. I've become a little obsessed with her truth be told, but I'm hoping that she chooses to take that as a compliment!

Ave Maria - Matti McLean

Ave Maria

Sing me a song

And soothe my soul with this bottle of wine

Though I am restless

And indecisive as the wind

I feel my heartbeat like a razor blade

I've covered my scars with relationships

That lasted as well as the wind

I've held onto the issues

And discarded the cures

I hold the urchin in my hand

And feel the spines

As venom envelopes my mind

Your voice helps heal my soul

I hold together pieces but the soul still beats

I try to connect with myself

and don't recognize my face

I turn my ears skywards

but don't hear the comforting words of the sky

so I listen to the voice

of Ave Maria

Love Like a Rabble

The first draft of a poem I wrote for poetry class. One of my first experimental pieces turned out to by one of my favorites. I'll find the full version and attach it later. I think it might be interesting to see exactly what changed in a poem so chaotic.

Love Like a Rabble – Matti McLean

Love like a hurricane whips past the world as it turns and it spins without ending, before the sunrise that sets on the land that was dark but will brighten the day of the vampires that play in the shadows of the moon and the branches that grow from the ground that was burnt and will die when the daylight returns from its sleep at the end of the world where the sun and the sky will be one in the night that was day before everything happened when the man took the apple and he ate from the snake that once said that it suffered without end from the fact that it's face never left the ground that was lush and the grass that was grey before dying and growing green to the clouds that were white as the snow that was falling from heaven that burnt up the ashes that flew through the air from the fires that burned in the ocean that churned like a cauldron as it bubbled from heat as the witch burned the bible that created the gas that would choke out the earth as it died in a puddle of global warming from the suicide of fighter planes that crashed in the ocean aiming at the ships that were firing their weapons in a harbour of pearls that were created from grains of sand in the mouths of the oysters of parliament who signed their documents with the blood of the trees and declared themselves superior from the dark-skinned brother who fought with their riots and rap music and jeans that hung low so that you could see their boxers made from the cotton the white man picked from the gardens with trees of knowledge that declared themselves worthy of a god who wasn't listening to the rabble that erupted from the voices of thousands who cared about themselves and the fact that he said the worlds that created the bang that happened when the world began but ended when the church declared itself king of the monkeys and queen of the painters who painted the pictures of nothing but skies filled with stars that were black as the canvas that was used on the sails of ships that the pirates sailed through arches of bones and the mussels that clung to the support under the waves of the rum that was drank by the virgins who climbed up the mountains and bypassed the forests that grew without knowledge of the bulldozers that would come and collect up the people and place them in factories and mark them with stars as the red rain spewed from the chambers where the gas of perfection choked out the Jewish and echoed the screams of a thousands Egyptians when they woke up to find that their tables were empty because someone had left the door open and their kitty cats went out into the dessert and dug up the nation that was hiding for centuries before anyone could push it back into the abyss of despair which was threatening to overtake the capitalists inside of the whale that was spit up and broken by beavers who could chew through concrete and the wires that connected the homes to each other in a way that allowed them to mate with themselves to the pictures of vixens on television that would coo for their money that would come from the soiled hands of thousands of men who would drink up their beers and admire their guts that were bloated from lack of broccoli and food that the other nations demanded for the starving people who were eatting their gold fish and placing their money in ponds where the people swam and sank to the bottom of the Titanic which would sail the seas of indifference when ice would accumulate on the rudders and burn through the pride that sunk a city of people who persisted that there was nothing wrog with caviar and ate with the others who thought that the fur that they wore came from the men who they slept with in orgies of slugs on beds made from roses and barbed wire that would strangle the legs of Nike who soared through the skies behind Icarus and Elijah's flaming horses that burnt out the ozone and left us with a hole to the heavens that lets the sun shine in to the tune of ice tea being stirred while our bubble rap economy continues moving forward like a steam train made of warthogs who look in the mirror and ask themselves why they can't be pretty like the zebras that hunted the lions in the office building where predators fight aliens while Arnold takes off his shirt and yells for the slap chop to come and pierce his aeorta which was the answer to the question on Jeopardy that asked them to answer for their leaders about what they should do about the wars in Korea and the problem with bed bugs who are making their homes in the hair of the homeless who sleep in the corners of buildings that fell when the earthquakes erupted in streets full of vendors who sell off their street meat that was crafted from the bones of the victims of the attacks of the thunder god who fell from the heavens and struck at the natives who would pray for redemption to the church that was built upon twin towers and the mosque around the corner that was bombed by a terrorist who claimed himself to be gods favourite Buddhist ever to die in the name of love.

Toronto Blues

So living in Toronto has been interesting. It's been a heart of healing, of torture and struggle, and a period in my life that will go down as being one of the most difficult I have ever faced. But it's been good. Things are progressing, and progress is good.

And Untitled Or Another
by Matti McLean

Last night was that night.
The night you reach out to clutch at the strands of the shroud of turin
Seeking healing from a heart that’s broken.
A one-sided, beer fueled confession of half-truths
and full hurts
That gnaws the insides of our emotional breadths.
I mourn the loss as a beggar
Clutching at the foggy headed memory of two men
Who once did love each other,
and now smile through them.
A heart beats
but is not silenced by the sounds of an acoustic guitar
That plays Landslide and Maria Mena
And other songs of epitome beauty.
Perhaps the world is spinning
Because we’re moving forwards.
We propel the world with unrequited forgotten love.

Not my best poetry, but I really enjoyed some of the lines so I felt I needed to share it.

Shatter - the prose

This piece might not have much to do with writing and its function but shows at least some range I hope. This prose was written as an early experimental piece from my class, and turned out as a semi decent poem. It's flirtation with obliterated form is something I kept revisiting throughout the school year, so hopefully you'll see more of it.

Shatter – Matti McLean - Experimentation

The line between poetry and prose had finally evaporated. He hadn't intended it to happen, but it had. In front of him, on the page that he'd just written upon were a series of words, and they had just rhymed. He didn't know what to do, but he kept writing regardless. The pencil continued across the page, but for several moments of writing with un-exquisite diction, unintentional turns of phrase and excessive comma uses, he decided something must be done to this poetry situation. He was writing an exam dammit. This was no place for scholarly poetry.

Overneath counts as a word right? I mean, that's totally a real word. If he challenges this I'll take him to the dean. To court. To the president if I have to. I wish Canada had a president.

Where was I?

He scribbled down a few more lines before hovering around the two lines of accidental poetry.

Is it okay to be ironic in an exam? I mean he knows I'm using “Booger-Horse” ironically, right? I mean it's not like he really cares, right? He has a sense of humour. He must. Why else would he wear turtlenecks?

Scribble, scribble, scribble... The pages blur by as he writes sentence after sentence. He doesn't even know what he's writing anymore, but that doesn't stop it all from flowing out on the page. He lost his point two paragraphs ago, and is now commenting on, something, else... ?

Two minds diverge into one. Confusion enters his brain as the red bull and corn pops he had this morning churn uncomfortably in his stomach. He feels a sickening lurch in his stomach as if an invisible ghost hand has crashed through his sternum with a sledgehammer.

The sickening thought strikes him.

I'm going to be sick. I'm going to sicken myself all over this exam. And then I'll have to do it again.

No. Once is more than enough.

He raises his hand and waits for his professor to stop over at his desk. With a panicked look on his face, and a look of bored tedium reflected on his professors, he opens his mouth as a tsunami of college breakfast emerges from the depths of his gullet all over the bored face of his professor.

He goes white with embarrassment and red from fear. His hands shake as the professor takes off his glasses and wipes one of the frames. With a frown on his face he takes the test and points to the bathroom.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

The professor lets out a scream as he starts to melt. His skin pops and sizzles like bacon until the only thing remaining is a pair of glasses. He screams like a witch melting. No one else seems to notice. He sits there confused. Suddenly he's naked and everyone else in the room is a vampire. None of them sparkle. He wets himself.

A bell. He pulls his head off of the bubble sheet which has plastered itself to his drooling face. He'd been asleep. He laughs slightly as the other students in the room go up to the front and drop off their tests. It had all been a dream. His professor was vomit free, comparatively, and no one seemed out of place.

He looks at the test and realizes it's empty. He had slept through the entire exam. The professor looks at him disapprovingly as everyone else leaves. He makes a terrifying realization that he was going to fail the test. With a panicked look he writes down “overneath” and hands the paper in. On his way out he sinks into a fit of depression. No more scholarship. No money for school. A future of stacking boxes at Walmart and going home to his cats. He didn't even like cats.

A horrible wet feeling slides across his thighs as he makes the terrible observation that not everything was a dream.

He dies a little inside, but no one notices him slip outside and cry.

A fish...

I figured the best way to start off my blog about writing would be to share with you my favorite poem from my poetry class at Nipissing. This poem was something I literally got inspiration for in the middle of the night and had to reach over my partner to grab my book to write it down. People debate whether its genius or retarded, but it's been shared in Ontario, Pennsylvania and New York.
I hope you enjoy it.

A FISH
a poem by Matti McLean

A fish does not a good prostitute make
For their fins are as rough as their scales
If you're looking for sexy submarinal flings
The best thing to do is f*ck whales