When I Don't Wash

When I Don't Wash

Stains

and crinkles

and wrinkles

on the sheets

where we meet

and how I don't

take the time

to wash them.

Soft

and pushed

and pulled

to the ground

not a sound

and when I do

take the time

to fold them.

Beige

and black

and blue

on the pillows

heads on willows

and why I don't

take the time

to clean them.

Laying

and lying

and lounging

to the breathing

not just heaving

and when I do

take the time

to recall them.

-Matthew Koutzun

Staring Into It

Staring Into It

Looking hard into the sun

my eye is turning into a blue negative.

Dark circles that make me unable to see

and protecting me from my answers in the sky.

I am passing and looking to it

to find something there that Plato said was

outside the cave.

I'm thinking I'm catching glimpses

of hidden things

in retina's dark.

Placing shades and filters

makes it easier

but I still can't see it's brilliance

and burning power.

I want to see it myself

and not on paper.

I want to experience the burn

and not be scathed.

I'm looking till blindness sets in

but I'm trying at least.

-Matthew Koutzun

Cute Metaphors for not Listening

Cute Metaphors for not Listening

Annoying you again as we sit on the couch.

You demanding attention

and I absorbed, wiper it aside.

And now you're busy and dutiful

and I coud be the same

yet here I am beside you- doing just the same.

And gridlocked and traffic'd

on time we can't agree on.

Red lighted and stop signed

on getting along.

But go our ways

and give us our time

and departed

and arrived

we'll find us our time.

To be together

when the playing is done

and we'll roll up the windows

so our fog will conceal us.

And we'll pretend we're in Titanic

and the police might come stare.

And share in the popcorn

of our show of no care.

And we'll get to our moment

when we sit on the couch

and we'll get annoyed till the next time

that we get stopped in this house.

-Matthew Koutzun

Starting Up Starling

Starting Up Starling

Staring up starling

from the burnt out hero

across cascade cavalcades

and run-a-muck change.

And flailing fingers

and crashing chords

and drummed jungle beats

to call one home.

And mighty mountains

that pull up roots

and divide such things apart.

Taken and halved

and shared among many

the inconsistencies begin to start.

Starting again starling

from battles lost not won.

Starting up starling.

Heat just burning born from sun.

Streak across night sky.

Streak although just born.

Streak and burn out slowly.

Because travel you'll go is much more.

-Matthew Koutzun

Writing These Days

Writing These Days

It's hard to write these now,

so far from the time when they used to be necessity.

So hard that someone might read

or be insulted by these words.

So hard in that expressions can be used or taken

and used constructed to deconstruct what I've made now around me.

Pillars of salt and sand

of looking back

and reminding myself

that the bad is good.

And that writing comes with healing

of vague honesty and cryptic feelings.

-Matthew Koutzun

Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad

This is tempting,

this is just on my tongue

and it just this little thing that maybe I should do.

I don't have to do it

and it's not good for me

but what's one more for the road or the highway?

Like a dread inside me

knowing but not abiding

sprinting forward like a fumbling cavalcade.

Running feverish

and dancing dervish

desperate and wild clinging to habit and want.

Just a stroke

or a toke,

or a poke,

look

took

peek

sneak

leak

bite

smite

light

or blight

and afterward release

sitting limp in peace

and exhaling I really want to stop again.

-Matthew Koutzun

Untitled- Unformated

Untitled- Unformated

I heard the train go whistling past
and found it was the plane roaring above.
And the footsteps through the house,
the creaking of it settling in.

And the dust that danced through light beams
as they filtered through the blinds
and the dark in each, every corner
that collides and multiplies.

And I heard the fan play music
as is fluted over glass
the hollow breeze make shelter
in the rusted oven gate.

Laying,
heat upon me
sitting in the only shaft of light.
It slowly burns me.
The traced shadow on my legs trace it's scalding embrace.

I made a cake today
and I swear I put too much water in it.
And I had to bake it out.
The edges look burnt
but still feel tender.
I made the icing softer
by liquefying it
and it wouldn't spread
only ooze
and it tore the top of the cake off
and I bits of batter peek right through.

Oh silence
you're hear with mine.

I don't know what happened today to make it worse
and I'm just sitting here in hear
and listening to everything around me
even the paused television movie
that whirs it's way playing and playing
it's sounds although the audio track is muted.

And today started so well
and then my head felt so compact
and my face- the skin was so tight
like everything was about to pop from it

And I can't stop thinking about what to say
or how to say it
AND i THINK
this is my anxiety
popping and snapping can crackling
as I eat sugared cereal
wanting to save room for tonight.

Oh tonight,
I'm thinking about the drive
and I'm thinking about my own
and driving forward and onward past mountains
is where everything from this moment
lies.

Oh lies.
oh lies
lies lies lies lies.

And lyrical lies

and dancing in them and
feeling
feelding shame
brought on my years of though and years of dogma
before it.

And what I'm I to feld now.

Feld feld feld
and take the whole forest down
leaves scatter and left
and banana leaves to trip on and slide downwards
legs upward and spread.

And listening to the fan again,
and looking at the time.

I must go.


I must pull the cake from the fridge.
Maybe it'll stay in the car.
I won't.
But perhaps I'll leave my mistakes there.

-Matthew Koutzun

Your Shadow Looks Nothing Like You

Your Shadow Looks Nothing Like You

Stretched and
filled
and held together with light
your shadow looks nothing like you.

Villainous nose
and extended brow
it does nothing to mimic the truth.

Like a moth
to a light
and the monstrous beast on the wall
your shadow betrays who you are.

The sun in you hair
and the gleam in your eye
hold you far better in the morning.

So I'll wait till noon
when your shadows diminished,
and I'll wait till night
when we can play inside each one.

-Matthew Koutzun

How we Measure

How we Measure

Oh,
it's all new again.
Though it's only a few kilometers away.

I've been moving further and further
and each time I go back
I retrace the steps that move me each time.

It's purely coincidental
that each time I've left some institution
and moved to the next
it's been further from the one I went to
and home.

But now without walls
and without form
I'm trying to measure.

I'm building with blocks
and moving when needed
and chapters, and pages are passed.

I didn't know how to mark these passages
or how to notice growth
but time and time again
I move from each institution using intuition
and am finding I'm the only institution in time.

-Matthew Koutzun

How We Stay Kindled

How We Stay Kindled

Staring at your back
I'm here
and wondering how it started
lying next to you bewildered.

What is it that makes us continue
when perhaps a spark is lost?

And you turning over
giving a squinted
and a tired smile
as you drift back away
to some bright place

I see how it works
falling again and again
unnoticed
but felt.

-Matthew Koutzun

Slip

Slip

Slip on the ice
and down the slope
and grab on nails biting
into soil and snow
as you claw to reach the top again.

Slip of the tongue
is what got you here
and what scares you most
is you can't go back.

-Matthew Koutzun

Why Are You Still Up?

Why Are You Still Up?

Why are there still seagulls screaming
at 4:23 in the morning?

-Matthew Koutzun

Five of Spades and Meeting You Tonight.

Five of Spades and Meeting You Tonight

Once I left, I wandered home.

Dizzy and itchy eyed
(from playing with the cat I shouldn't have
instead of the cat I should have)
I, awe struck by the night,
was struck by spade and shovel on the ground-
five to be exact-
laying face down on the sidewalk;
risqué blue cover: face up.

I palmed it and kept it as my memento.

Who cares if it means bad luck to some fortune teller.

I'll make my own meanings as I please.

-Matthew Koutzun

Still Fresh in the Night

Still Fresh in the Night

Walking home at 2:55
it's all still fresh in the night.
Walking the streets half lit
still have the shine from the sunlight
lit by numerous, multiple bulbs.

Spotlighting trees
highlighting and contrasting
branch and leaf from the night.
Each sprig like a mint leaf
curling and blooming from bud.

Delicate green
and softened by post lamp orange
everything is chilled in the night.
Preserved and sealed
in damp moonlight.

-Matthew Koutzun

I Never Said It'd Be Easy Living With A Contradiction

I Never Said It'd Be Easy Living With A Contradiction

I'm your rebel baby,
your lost cause son-of-a-bitch,
a rewind passage
and backward progression in one.

I'm forward passiveness
gimme-gimme generous
giving hedonist
and plagiarist of creation.

Oh baby, come forward,
and I'll age you back to youth,
another trip around the sun
and you'll be wiser and younger for it.

Wasting youth on the old
never will taste as good
as it does in the sun
on the beach in December.

So be my innocent convict-
my honoured son of God-
a fast-forward brick wall
and my future crumbing in none.

-Matthew Koutzun