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Matthew Roe Sep 2018
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
Your honour.
Play the evidence”

The sound of a projector whirrs
As wind in a snail shell.
TAKE ONE.
REPLAY.

“The defendant knew the man,
Had talked to him on train stations,
But kept it as hidden as a brief encounter.
He knew this man liked that band,
Not liked, loved,
And the defendant had a whole playlist to recommend and a whole compilation of
Critical readings on Post-Britpop to articulate.
However!
the defendant being
Slow and mollusc minded.
He kept his oyster shut.
SLOW THE FILM!...”

The whirring whizzes to ticking,
As nagging as potentially productive hours.

“Slowing the footage,
we can see
That his mouth even hesitantly gaped for a second.
Not one of his greatest hits was it?”

Ha,
I think,
No need to punish me.
I do that deed upon myself.
My pen scribbling, clicking,
Ticking,
Whirring,
In my head at night,
With conversations I never had.
When you overhear a conversation that you could join in or spot someone you could get along with, but nervousness stops you from talking to them or joining in. From when I spotted someone from my college at a train station, I knew that like me he was interested in music, but I never spoke to him.
I wasn't into Radiohead like he was, but I would still enjoy talking about them.
(Anyone reading this like Bowie?)
Matthew Roe Sep 2018
The evening clouds,
are grey from increasing shadow.
The jagged mists, according to my minds eye, take the forms of dragons,
Encroaching upon me
Until they shatter into ash, their own burning might having destroyed them.
The skulled faces stretch out as if in one last grimace.
The second sooty mass forms into hooks, as the monsters’ lower half tries try reconnect with its collapsing upper.
Rose and tangerine flames waft,
Vanishing into oncoming blackness,
Like spirits hiding into caves, to be reborn as the souls of new mythic reptiles.
Just a quick daydream/aesthetic poem.
Cloud shapes are great.
My reading of 'Damascus' has been uploaded to the youtube channel, 'The MJ Roe Show'.
  Sep 2018 Matthew Roe
Eryck
It's a wide open art,
from the start.
Rules are for schools.
Dont fret em,
forget em.
So
Relax with a syntax,
clown around,
with a pronoun.
Squeeze the ******,
of a dangling participle.

Free flying like geese,
creative words release,
make it up if you please.
Example--the plural of mice is meese.

Flowery language isn't the exclusive domain of the professional writer, it's for everyone!
To continue then,
about the writers pen.
No write or wrong,
nothings too short or long.
Mangled,
bungled,
butchered,
bumbled, don't matter.
We don't need a librarian to admire what we have done.

Words aren't hard,
fling them unbarred.
It's not arithmetic,
or teaching a cat a trick.
Crunch them uniting,
mix them combining.
Fling them,
meld them,
Verb them,
sell them.
We don't need a New York Times best seller to enjoy the art of writing.

Uncrate it,
create it.
Use it,
and abuse it.
Don't bar us
from a thesaurus
Or a dictionary.
The spiel
is to write real
tell the tale
seal the deal.
WORD HATERS live in the town called Fictionary.
Fun with words
Matthew Roe Sep 2018
The waves are dredged along. Under the constant gaze
of the shimmering top floor moon.
Down to each second to each hour.
But, you are the angel fish, floating
free
beneath the cover of these tides.
Your shoals guide, the humble anglers
home
a silver blonde amongst the bigwigs,
The local red army, clothed in Cex shirts,
not needing an October symphony,
but now I sing your praises.
The bag you gave, though I had no 5 pence to spare,
lightened my load as much as any camel
along the silk road.
My journey is eased,
by your projected hope that my railcard,
will be renewed in future,
for your faith gives promises the
weight
of Gold.
You allow me to watch the guided heroes in explosive flames,
despite my smuggling
of Jelly babies under a hoodie.
For the shimmer in
Your
eyes, I will leave no litter,
for those with the blonde glittered scales,
From cold night, let the sun rule,
And the sea shall shimmer too.
For those who provide humanity in times of business and bureaucracy, like the woman at the train station who gave me 1/3 off my ticket even though my railcard had ran out, knowing I would renew it at a later point.
'October symphony'=In Communist Russia, composers used to have to write a symphony to praise the 1917 revolution each October.
Also: I shall now be uploading poetry readings to my YT channel, 'The MJ Roe Show', I have already done one for 'I'm a Fascist'.
Matthew Roe Sep 2018
This is it.

Your big moment.
Taking time at these crossroads.
Your decision determining destiny.
A moment all your own, never to be replicated.
skittering circuits buzz, obedient to your commands.
Hours lay ahead of you, stuffed and bulging with the static you will consume.
Channel 2 or channel 4?

This is it.

Your catastrophic downfall.
An outcry was made, now the civility is shattered.
the acquaintances you once held as companions,
may now cut icy glares as the senate did to Caesar.
alarms ring, as you feel reduced in their eyes.
You got the wrong change at the cafe,
so you ask for a fiver.

later on,
your banquet awaits, golden and sunbaked.
stewed for months, in rich and creamy crop of the land.
taking your throne, in the cool shaded flank in your garden of eden.
A cup of soup and a bag of crisps.

these grand odysseys still raise up those same emotional epics,
as moments in youth locked in the past.
like lying on a blanket at the very edge of one of the seven sisters.
alas, you are still perched upon oblivion,
cup of tea in hand.
Although written before it, this one is closely connected to my other poem, 'the kind one', thematically. The bit about the couple on the cliff edge is something I actually saw when visiting Beachy Head earlier this year.
Matthew Roe Aug 2018
I wish you detox from drunken heights,
I’m jesus for today until my current shift ends
and the next one begins, after many nights,
in the garden centre of fallen south coast eden.

Shine shine shine
Light of mine
For now everything’s just fine

People’s faces glitter as I go by,
memories of sinless youth,
for my hands blind with nostalgia,
that my being resurrects.
The child Lazarus scurries past my side,
to his home with his future in his hands,
in my hands, cupped wide.

Shine shine shine
Light of mine
For now everything’s just fine

I can love the unfortunate,
for my fortune is golden.
Delivered in letters
from North, West, East.
My trinity circle who join me at my supper,
breaking the garlic bread and sipping the borello,
to top crab ravioli baptised in the stream of sauce.

Shine shine shine
Light of mine
For now everything’s just fine

The gates of heaven are open,
unblocked by the deaths of Keats, Shelley and Williams,
their souls not blocking the exit with an Underground Queue.
I give my blessings to
Livingstone and Charles Gordon
The one native he changed and the others’ sacrifice at Khartoum
Gained me my crown to modestly flaunt.

Shine shine shine
Light of mine
For now everything’s just fine

I float down the hall, to His Mighty Voice,
as my gold becomes a donation on the alter,
to gain the choral hymns of Mercury gilded rock gods
that will brighten my days
for now,
oh glorious moments.
Amen.
For all those who were also successful on results day.
Please comment your interpretations, i'm always waiting to hear them.
Matthew Roe Aug 2018
On our terms, through our eyes,
For us to realise
The gorilla on camera,
Signalling and signing the scripted message, knows not what she speaks,
But anticipates the treats.
We see not the eyes, if the tongue is not in our ears.
As a result, they let loose their
scythes
on the wide-eyed plants in Oz before the 1960s.
They believed the pottery were their own lost property,
Until they realised the kilns were the same in Bechuanaland.
Someday, such museum specimens, can be translated.
Allowing our selfish eyes,
To X-ray through such veils.

I would never wish it on anyone,
But I ache to see through your eyes
The person who smiles
In the age of the internet’s pythonesque wonderland,
Seeing the joke of the world, but remaining in hysterics.
In the corner of the class,
I get hints of this friends other side,
An impossible voyage for all foreigners there.

To see tinted in such pain
Just to try and understand,
To somehow
help.
Please comment what you think this poem means, I'm always curious about how others interpret my works.

PS-
Koko=an infamous gorilla who can supposedly communicate through sign language.

I personally wasn't too keen on this one, I had initial momentum but then I felt like it was forcing it. It was only when the creative spark came back and I added the last stanza 3 weeks later that I thought it was good.
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