Hidden behind the tree till the 26th

Hidden behind the tree till the 26th

I can't give this gift till after Christmas.

It's that little thing I need to tell you.

The one that makes you cry-

or smile-

or angry-

But want to give you the gift of what there is now

or what there was before things changed again.

The image of a little boy

staring at that cake-

taste on eyes

and anticipation on lip.

Letting you hold onto the thoughts

of holding me in your arms

and imagining the possibilities

that come to every mother-father

as the wonder where this world will lead me.

Perhaps it's led me astray

led me to happiness

that I could find no other way

than the way you led

and challenge.

But look at me

and see that the little boy is there

in the coy smiles

and goofy smirks

and the attention getting pretend

that imagination has still left

and inspired.

The light of night

when we lay together

when I poke and talk

and explore.

I still wait in anticipation

the night of the 24th

and now the 25th-

for gifts both received

and now given.

-Matthew Koutzun

Family values

Family Values

We're hiding it again

and picking it back up

from where it started 15-

maybe 20 years

from where we're

now.

Trying for closure,

I'm opening up doors

that were shut

and nailed

and never sealed that well.

I'm building my room

but mostly the door these days.

Locking has worked well for half

a lifetime

only need to barricade it

half more.

I know what I'll keep it in it

from you

since I learned

from the best

how to keep it all in.

I really don't want this room

but I don't know how to live without it

you've assured me that.

With image and spite

and things half forgotten

though fully remembered

in the tempest.

And the wilding winds

whip and howl

and how my house is treating me well in the storm.

But you two have your two cities

when you should have burned your metropolis

and just laid it all down

when it was.

Because these years from now,

with these foundations you've built

hold nothing but more foundations

on the faults you have bore.

And I can't visit these rooms

or your hallways-

because unfortunately I have my own.

Because I want to shut out truth

and mistake

and fault

and hide those pesky things from you

that will deny me your love.

The walls around me

I see you there

through the window

looking in

through tinted glass.

-Matthew Koutzun

Where I'm lingering

Where I'm lingering

I'm censoring for future judgment
and I'm failing to reach artistic merit.
I've lost the confidence I once held
to do it all and not think twice.

I'm gonna break you spirit
and build you back again
to the towering heights
you were and are.

I'm gonna say all the dirty things
and bless you all with all the nasty fucks
and clean clit and dirty panties
and suck cock and flail flicking fingerings.

I want a future.
I want to fit.
I want people to accept.
But know it's hard when I can be so brash.

I want enterprise
and business
without judgement
or scrutiny.

Does this meaning hiding?
Does this mean covering up?
Does this mean bandaid-ed blemishes
and rosy sweet gumdrop cheeks?


I'm striking balance with matches
and burning thoughts inferno
or perhaps inferior
depends on how you read the text.

But I'm shaking and scared of how I'm perceived.
I've taken some blows .
Fixation on image and the structure I've made
of an image that one could care less about I'm finding.

Grandmas out there, I'm not going to impress.
But I do as long as I keep my mouth shut.
So I'm sorry fags, and dykes, and hermaphrodite(ies),
and sufferers, and fakers, and passionate poetics.

I'm hiding.

I'm scared the sky is falling.

And I'm trapped in the shell again.

And trapped I'm finding a way out.

Seeing this dark predicament I'm in.

Sheldon.

Silverstein.

Where the sidewalk ends-
no one saw your adult works,
which read like beauty
and touch more than hearts-
but our heads,
and our other other heads,
that lay south of our belts-
where all out hands linger.

-Matthew Koutzun

A little of both

A little of both

Oh hermaphrodite(y)
with extra skin where there shouldn't be.
You're a labour of God's love and acceptance.
Labourous
to be no discrimination.

But it's the only thing he's been given.

Oh hermaphrodite(y)
you've been given gifts.

The longing lover of equality
wants dick on face and cunt in mouth.

Weeping for you
I dream a day
when we all can be lucky.

To choose love.
And to grind into
whichever sticky parts we wish.

Oh Hermaphrodite(y)
god of both
and a little of each
bless us with your sight
and adorn us with your blindness
each a bit
and both.

-Matthew Koutzun

A Drawn Out Memory- Wrapped on Chain

A Drawn Out Memory- Wrapped on Chain

It's not fair you still wear it

around your neck

like some sentimental thing

given to you.

Make me angry

make me sentimental myself

wrap it around

and dangle it in my face.

What does he think of it

or have you even told?

Or is it locked away

just like I was like some romance novel

given to you twice

and a childhood memory

wrapped up

and given on a red holiday after the cross.

Are these your arms-

these photos?

Are you stretching to say something only seen

and known by you and me?

Do you come back often

to the past and keep it in reach just to keep sentiment there.

how romantic to deny yourself

when you're just denying me.

Is it torture

or device to coil and wrap.

Or maybe it's just a thing

Just a silly thing.

That only I'm wrapped up in.

Maybe things are just things

and I'm reading too much

thinking too much

like I always do

and did.

-Matthew Koutzun

Did I mention I mention I miss you?

That I wonder how things would have been

if I hadn't been forgotten on christmas.

If I hadn't raised a fuss.

Fussy me.

I can only smile because it's true.

And wear it.

Keep it on you if you like it

even if it's sentiment.

I won't mind.

And finally don't.

-Matthew Koutzun

Crossing out the Scribbles

Crossing out the Scribbles

Crossing out soul

again when I write

Feeling silly and ignorant

to evolution and the

right way of thinking

Feeling childish and immature

thinking heaven and hell

are true

Lost in fact in fiction

of other pre-delectations

of what education will teach

Meta and supernatural

I fins a path back through

star and aura only roll some eyes

But free will baby

with religious dependancies

I know it and divined it knows me.

-Matthew Koutzun

Dirt

Dirt

I've stopped bathing

and taking the time

to come clean

The dirt is clogging pores

and probably more

and I still don't seem to care

Growing boils and I toil

on the effort of the shower

the turning of the mystic knob

Steam rising- climbing

moist on lip and teeth

the ooze of it all- water murky

epson salt soap till lime

lemon alcohol

and coming clean

Draining I feel I'm waining

did not realize again

what pure air felt on skin

Cold and random also in tandem

as I stop again

for another year.

-Matthew Koutzun

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