-Matthew Ryan

Untitled 6/17/11

i operate the weight machine
at the gym
i watch the veins
come out of my arms

i am magnificent

i look at myself in the mirror
i lift my shirt
and see my ripped up abs
i smile real big

then the arms of the machine come to life
and i’m tackled to the ground
and all of my clothes get torn off
and the machine has sex with me
woah
a nice thick handlebar into my asshole

i breathe hard into the mirror
as it’s happening – i draw with my finger into the fog
HELP

ah
ah
ah
stop

and take pictures
then i post them on instagram
caption: help i’m being raped

then i’m being dragged out of the gym
by a group of meatheads
i’m told i am banned for life
and the police are coming
they say i’m in a lot of trouble

what the freaking heck!? i was the victim!!!
your machines are rapists!!!
they say it was the other way around
they got it all on camera

i’m being set up!!!
i escape their grips and outrun them
they are slow because their muscles are so large
i get in my car

two of them get into a car and try to follow
but i’ve seen Drive with Ryan Gosling like 10 times
i lose them easily

all my clothes were left at the gym in tatters
and i don’t have any in my car
just a couple mcdonald’s bags
and some tape
i make it work

i pull up to my apartment
as i’m walking up the steps
some kids across the street scream “freeeeaaaaaaak”

but nobody fucking disrespects me
and gets away with it

REEEEEEEE!!! i scream and charge

but my mcdonald’s bags fly off
and my dick and balls are flopping around
the kids shriek and flee
ahhhh my nuts
i gotta hold them so they stop banging against my legs

CHICKENS!!! i scream after them

i feel good
i won the fight!
real good
i sprint back home

my key isn’t working again
so i break in through a window again

my girlfriend’s on the couch, she gets up
runs and screams down the hallway
‘HE’S BACK, THE CREEP IS BACK!’

‘NO ROSE, IT’S ME!’ i scream after her
‘IT’S ME, JACK’

a door opens
i freeze
a man holding a shotgun
walks toward me
and blasts

***

From: It’s Getting Harder and Harder To Tell the Two of You Apart

 

The Other Side of Nowhere New York

She spent her time between
Long Island and Paradise and
he divided his between New York
and Never Never Land, their primary
functions in life: clubbing, texting,
doping and screwing, often all at
the same time, like performers in
a new kind of Wild Wild West Show
on the Lower East Side of a depleted
ozone layer in their brains curdling like
milk left in the sun so long the smell
was just this side of Johnny Rotten three
days dead and unattended, a rankness
that went unnoticed by everyone that
they came in contact with, all suffering,
as they were, from the same kind of disease
of inattention and excess, all claiming
to know the real story of what happened
with Syd and Nancy, how the body double
died and the happy couple escaped upstate
to do time in the foothills of the Adirondacks
and the Twilight Zone.

An Extinction Poem,
Written After Waking
Early One Morning

Buried beneath
dinosaur wishbones
and the rubble
of empires,
grains of sand
move through an
ancient hourglass,
as the sky
turns blood red,
fruit flies fuck on
the ceiling
of a sultry
motel room,
watching
humans
breed beneath
them
while muttering –
great that’s all 
the world needs 
another human,
realising that
those words
will be lost in time,
as will these words
and all our words.

Have a nice day – 
I’m going back 
to sleep.

Screaming Orgasm

For a double sawbuck she’ll be
a good listener, someone pleasant
to have a cocktail with in dark, barely
lit lounge, might even pretend to care
what is being said and maybe offer a
kiss goodnight.

For half a yard, she’ll pretend
the Ladies is a tomb in winter with
a door that can be latched. Perform
guarantee-to-make-you-smile
services no matter how insistent
pleas to open up are.

For a hundred, your car or mine, is
on offer. Fold down seat action a
Go: choose your parking lot, secluded
spot.

For half a grand, you can have it all:
the whole Chinese menu from Column
A all the way to Column Z, plus
breakfast in bed or out of, and hot coffee
too.

Says she took acting lessons from a
life master, Christy Canyon, who
taught her everything a girl needs
to know to get ahead in The Life.

Has aspiration’s to play Vegas on her
back. After that, the sky’s the limit.

Shed

Peeking into my soul
from Oblivion—
I didn’t mind the peeking so much
as the mask

Identity theft at its finest
Fooled me for a while
maybe because
I was desperate to be fooled
Ain’t it funny how poets
got that primal need
to cram as many roles as possible
into one lifetime
to see the show from each and every seat
in the theater
We are born restless and on fire

So  now,
as you’re looking in the window,
dying to wear my skin—
wear away darling
It’s lying there just for you

And I’m long gone

either way I’ll be talking about my poems

I was the kind of youth
Who aspired to live a life
As a man of maxims.

I read too much Oscar Wilde
At a formative age
In fact
The day after I lost my virginity
I watched a production of A Woman of No Importance
And I remember quipping
For years afterwards
That it was the second event
That gave me more pleasure.

The bon mot I dropped
The most
Was one I found terribly droll:
Cocaine, I’d say, is the same as sex:
I only want it
When I’ve recently had some.

And though the years have passed
And I am no longer a partyboy
I am aware
As I age
That sexual hunger
Is more present
Than I’d hoped.

It does not go away with neglect,
But I do not struggle,
When in full mental health
To find someone
Who will touch me.

Dating is cheaper than cocaine
But sometimes the conversations it results in
Are just as tedious.

Either way,
I’ll be talking about my poems.

heaven & hell

she was a
broken
soul

lamentable to her
destiny
offered

her shadow seen
listless in
solid
dream

now spellbound
& wild in the
reeling rush

of heaven
& hell

Jalapeno Kiss’ Love Poem

jalapeno kiss
that’s what she’s called
even if she’s a japanese
rockabilly

nipples like bullets
point the way to the sunset

choppy areolas
like the waves of the ocean
when the cold sea wind blows

black hair flows
through the air
like snakes and griffin wings

a tattoo on the skin of life
drawn by a lustful
samurai

the master of bushido himself
would puke at the sight
of her eyes

she was licking a gherkin
her katana dripping red
on the white washi sheet
upon her bed.

she loved to write in kanji
the head of her last lover
punctuating the end of her haiku

the mantis satiated
she now uses her pickle
to write a love poem
on her clitoris